Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco said today she expects the National Guard to “shoot and kill” looters in New Orleans, according to a WWL-TV report.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco declared war on looters as 300 National Guard troops landed in New Orleans fresh from duty in Iraq. “These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will,” she said. — WWL-TV

In addition, citizens have armed themselves to stop looters from plundering their homes and businesses. Jacob Sullum at Reason points to a “surprisingly sympathetic” piece about it in the New York Times. “I say ‘surprisingly’ both because of the paper’s usual aversion to firearms and because I remember how the local press in L.A. (especially the L.A. Times) treated armed self-defense as if it were a violation of law and order during the 1992 riots,” he said.

In New Orleans, an estimated 25,000 refugees remain in the Superdome and the Convention Center. No supplies, not even water, have yet made it to the Convention Center, where people are slowly dying of thirst. City officials have not yet figured out how to evacuate people from the Convention Center or even delivered any water there.

If you are still in New Orleans, and want to get out alive, do not count on rescue from the Convention Center. At this time I recommend the following: Stay in large groups. Follow the Crescent City Connection to US 90 then to I-310/I-10 west. Do not drink floodwaters, even if boiled. They are contaminated by oil, gas and industrial chemicals in most places. Do not drink alcohol if you can avoid it. This will dry you out further and could kill you.

If conditions change and rescue from the Convention Center seems likely, I’ll post an update.

Update: Water is starting to get through to the Convention Center by military helicopter, but no one has been evacuated from there as yet, and not nearly enough water to go around is available. If you are not there already, do not go there.

Update 2: The National Guard has finally arrived this morning with food to distribute at the Convention Center.

The BBC has posted firsthand accounts of the deplorable conditions in the Superdome.

Meanwhile in Houston, the Astrodome has closed after accepting only 11,000 evacuees. Everyone else is being redirected to San Antonio, Dallas and elsewhere in Texas.

New Orleans mayor Ray Gavin says he is “pissed” at the federal government’s ineptitude in handling the disaster recovery efforts.

President Bush, facing blistering criticism for his administration’s response to the hurricane, said this morning “the results are not acceptable” and pledged to bolster relief efforts with a personal trip to the Gulf Coast.

“We’ll get on top of this situation,” Bush said, “and we’re going to help the people that need help.”

The president is scheduled to tour the Gulf Coast later today. — Miami Herald

Military authorities seized chartered buses set to take stranded tourists out of New Orleans, and police then ordered the tourists to go to the Convention Center, where there is no food, no water, no supplies, and no rescue.

New Orleans police officers are quitting left and right, saying they’ve lost everything and it’s not worth it to continue to risk getting shot by idiotic looters and gangs.

Fats Domino, who I reported to you was missing yesterday, had been rescued. His daughter, Karen Domino White, reported that the New Orleans Times-Picayune published a picture of him being rescued from his 9th Ward home, apparently not realizing it was Domino. However, his whereabouts are still unknown at this time.

Speaking of the Times-Picayune, they have begun distributing the newspaper again today. Using the facilities of the Courier in Houma, the paper printed and distributed 50,000 copies. It continues to publish the entire paper electronically at its nola.com Web site.

Gas prices are shooting up. Two days ago, regular unleaded here in eastern Iowa was $2.499. Today it’s $3.099. Large numbers of reports of price gouging have been coming in at a federal government hotline. The prices of many goods, such as water, milk and food, have risen dramatically in and around the affected areas due to higher demand.

This is just incredible. The more I see of this, the more shocked I am. The last time I was in New Orleans, I was staying in one of the residential areas that’s completely underwater. I can still easily see myself in areas which now are completely underwater, and areas which have been completely looted. I’ll probably compose something of a real response over the weekend.