Wednesday, November 17, 2010

words from the president

From the president's press conference today...

"Good evening. As we speak, we find our nation facing a new challenge. Tonight, I’ve returned from a trip to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta GA to speak with you about the battle we’re waging against a new threat that is assaulting our citizens.

Two days ago, planes from Sao Paulo Brazil left to arrive at locations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, London, Paris and a number of other locations here and abroad. 3 of these planes, carrying more than 300 passengers and crew crashed before landing. Other planes, finally making their destinations brought with them a biological agent that had not previously been discovered. The CDC, upon determination of the seriousness of the situation immediately called for the grounding of flights to and from that region and contacted the international community to warn them of the risks.

As many of you know, as of 8:00 AM yesterday morning I have declared a national emergency. Following the recommendations of our public health officials, we have closed our borders and continue the grounding of domestic and international flights.

I continue to be in close contact with the director of the CDC who has now activated the 20 port of entry quarantine stations as well as creating temporary centers at each major air and sea port. The CDC has taken extreme measures to ensure the spread of the infection does not spread outside of infected areas. The state Governors have also been made aware of the situation and are preparing to activate the national guard in heavily affected areas to assist with the CDC's quarantine efforts.

Thanks to the effort our government agencies have undertaken to prepare for this sort of situation we were able to move quickly and place in motion the procedures that would isolate the disease from spreading. I have nothing but praise for the brave men and women who are working tirelessly to protect the citizens of this great United States.

For those of you who's family and friends have been affected by this directly, my heart and prayers go out to you. We'll continue to provide regular updates to the American people as we receive more information, and everyone should rest assured that this government is prepared to do whatever it takes to control the impact of this threat."

Fuck...

Images coming out from an in-flight incident.

The news is now sending out some mobile phone images from one of the flights, I guess people were going crazy, one of the images showed a wall splashed with blood.

The drive to work was crap again, the 405 is still closed.

There were reports of shooting at LAX. The CDC hasn't released anything else since yesterday but now they've stopped ships outside of the ports as well as the planes.

I guess the president has a press conference later on, I'll have to check it out.

I don't think anyone has gotten any work done since this started, it appears to be all we are talking about. Two people at work have family stuck in quarantine in LAX and are worried because they haven't heard anything yet.

I still haven't heard from Tom.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Stuff going south

I found out this morning that they routed Tom's plane to Ontario but he got stuck in quarantine. I've tried his phone but haven't gotten an answer.

The CDC has had the state activate the National Guard who have now set a perimeter around the major airports. On the way to work today the 405 was closed where it passes John Wayne airport and it took me like an hour to drive a mile.

The CDC's official stance is this is a Catagory A agent that came in on a flight from Central America. There hasn't been a lot of extra information but the fact that the quarantine perimeter is growing is disconcerting. I looked it up, the last time large scale quarantine was set up like this was during the Spanish Flu in 1918.

In addition there are now reports that are coming in from the London and Paris of similar situations.


The no flight thing is still going too, and it is kinda crazy living near John Wayne airport without seeing any flights.

Hopefully we'll find out more tomorrow... this is freaky though with the airports closed like this.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Freaking out

So, Tom's plane was rerouted but according to the news they've now closed LAX and a number of other airports just like they did on 9/11.


Here is a picture from Miami airport where they've shut down and evacuated the airport.

The CDC has been contacted about some sort of infection and the news has been on-scene covering it. Only dribs and drabs have come from overseas but rumor has it that something similar is going on in London and Paris.

I don't know what's going on but it's pretty crazy. We talked about it at work a lot, I don't think I actually got much done. I'll check the news again tomorrow morning when I get up to see if anything has changed.

Fire at LAX

There is a fire at one of the terminals, the news is going nuts. A reporter earlier was talking about some sort of riot. I guess there is some talk about a combined terrorist effort since there are a couple of airports reporting the same thing now.

Strange news this AM

I was watching the news this morning, traffic was worse than usual and there was some odd news coming out of LAX regarding a quarantine for a virus. I'll have to keep an eye out, I know that Tom was flying back soon so maybe his flight will get diverted.