This may seem like a ridiculous suggestion, but those who can. . .members of rescue teams, National Guard personnel, local officials--should obtain
flood water samples now,
while you can. A glass container is best, however plastic water bottles (Ozarka, for example) will work. Here's why samples should be taken and analyzed at a professional laboratory: in the coming months we will hear EPA and CDC spokespersons tell everyone that there were few toxic materials in the water, and that there is nothing to worry about.
That may or may not be true, but an independent analysis can assure that the information we receive about the toxins in NOLA water is accurate. A number of interesting chemicals are manufactured and stored in and around New Orleans, and some, like phenol, are soluble in water. These may cause long-term damage to individuals who had come into contact with them. Any federal damage analysis by the feds should include long-term health risks to the population of NOLA, but if no samples are taken by the government, then no one will know anything about the chem exposures.
For those who would rather leave all that to the EPA, I would like to remind them that after all the dust from 9/11 settled onto New York, less than a hundred dust samples were taken and analyzed, and some were even thrown away by the EPA laboratory. Such actions rendered any statistical analysis meaningless.
Additionally, despite the presence of mercury, in the dust, and despite the fact that some of the material was a caustic as Drano, the EPA has(to my knowledge)never published the calculated air concentrations of materials in the dust clouds that exposed thousands to toxic materials. In other words, the people of New York City have never been told what they breathed on those days, what the concentrations were, and how they compared to the EPA's own standards for airborne toxins.
So don't be surprised if the EPA has yet to take a sample of New Orleans flood water, and in fact, may never do so.
So, those that can, do yourself a favor and do it for them.