🚀 go-pugleaf

And Bush's admonition: "Be patient"... I am tired, I have to take
more vacation time.


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [NYTr] Despair, death pervade New Orleans
Date: 1 Sep 2005 13:55:02 -0500
From: nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com


Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
[Desperate conditions in the death-trap Superdome as people there begin to
die.  Thousands are now known to have been killed. The only people who have
made it out of the disaster zone to the safety of Houston were those who
took it upon themselves to commandeer a schoolbus and flee. (See next
article.) Incredibly, the hapless planners at FEMA and "Homeland Security"
seem to have no idea of how to get people out of the city. The horror, and
the scandal, grows with every hour.-NY Transfer]

CNN - Sep 1, 2005
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/01/katrina.impact/index.html

Despair, death pervade New Orleans

Some boat rescue operations suspended

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Thousands of people forced from their homes
by Hurricane Katrina have crammed into the New Orleans convention center,
where they've had no food, no water and no word on when help would come.

And people are dying.

CNN's Chris Lawrence described "many, many" bodies, inside and outside the
facility on New Orleans' Riverwalk

"There are multiple people dying at the convention center," he said. "There
was an old woman, dead in a wheelchair with a blanket draped over her,
pushed up against a wall.  Horrible, horrible conditions.

"We saw a man who went into a seizure, literally dying right in front of
us."

People were "being forced to lived like animals," Lawrence said --
surrounded by piles of trash and feces.

He said while he has seen police SWAT teams drive by in armored vehicles, no
one has stopped to talk with the refugees.

"People are asking, 'Where are the buses? Where is the plan? Where is the
help?" he said.

More people were arriving at the center, walking south along Canal Street.
The route north to the Superdome is blocked by chest-deep water.

The convention center was used as a secondary shelter when the Louisiana
Superdome was overwhelmed.

As reports indicated a mounting death toll in New Orleans, U.S. Sen. Mary
Landrieu said that "we understand there are thousands of dead people" in
Louisiana, according to media reports.

Meanwhile, boat rescues in some areas of flooded out New Orleans have been
curtailed because of violence, officials said Thursday.

"There are isolated incidents where security has become an issue for our
rescue efforts but only isolated incidents. FEMA is not suspending
operations," said Natalie Rule of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in
Washington.

The Coast Guard also said it is avoiding areas where there are reports of
gunfire.

"We're having to hold off going in until we're assured that the areas are
safe to transit," said USCG Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey Carter. "We're following the
lead of FEMA on that."

He added, "We're not shut down. There's a wide area where we're still doing
rescues.  There's still plenty of people out there." Evacuation points
swamped with people

A Louisiana National Guard official told CNN Thursday morning that between
50,000 and 60,000 people had converged at evacuation points near the
Superdome hoping to get on one of the buses out of town.

"It's no longer just evacuees from the Superdome, as citizens who were holed
up in high-rise office buildings and hotels saw buses moving into the dome,
they realized this is an evacuation point," Lt. Col. Pete Schneider of the
Louisiana National Guard said.

He said there were reports that several small trash fires were burning
around the building and firefighters were having a hard time reaching the
area. (Watch report on violence delaying evacuation -- 1:51)

Houston has offered to house about 25,000 people in the Astrodome. San
Antonio, Texas, has agreed to take another 25,000 people, officials said
Thursday. Schneider said that officials were looking for additional
locations.

Widespread looting and random gunfire have been reported across the city.
Police told CNN that groups of armed men roamed the streets overnight.

Officers told CNN they lacked manpower and steady communications to properly
-- do their jobs and that they needed help to prevent the widespread looting
-- and violence
now prevalent in the city.

A police officer working in downtown New Orleans said police were siphoning
gas from abandoned vehicles in an effort to keep their squad cars running,
CNN's Chris Lawrence reported.

The officer said police are "on their own" for food and water, scrounging up
what they can from anybody who is generous enough to give them some -- and
that they have no communication whatsoever. Police also told CNN they were
removing ammunition from looted gunshops in an effort to get it off the
streets.

The head of Acadian Ambulance Service, Richard Zuschlag, said Wednesday that
a generator was stolen from his command center and an ambulance was tipped
over as his workers tried to evacuate hospitals. (Full story)

President Bush, in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," said that
their should be "zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an
emergency such as this."

He promised a rapid federal response to the disaster.

Pentagon officials said Wednesday the governors of Louisiana and Mississippi
have ordered the mobilization of an additional 10,000 National Guard troops
to provide security and help with hurricane relief. (See video on Pentagon
response -- 2:14) Mississippi death toll rising

The breadth of the brutality of Hurricane Katrina became clearer as more
death toll figures began to filter in from Mississippi's coastal region.

Authorities said at least 185 people died in Monday's Category 4 storm.

In Hancock County alone, Sheriff Eddie Jennings put the death toll at 85,
with 60 people dead in Pearlington, 22 in Waveland, two in Bay St. Louis and
one body that had washed up on the beach.

In neighboring Harrison County, which is home to Gulfport and Biloxi,
authorities reported 100 bodies had been found, an emergency official in the
state capital, Jackson, told CNN. Power out; gas prices rising

Electricity was out for more than 2.3 million people in Mississippi,
Louisiana, Alabama and Florida.

Meanwhile, Katrina's effect on oil supplies and gas prices spread
nationwide, prompting the White House to tap the U.S. Strategic Petroleum
Reserve.

News of disruptions in the gas supply sparked runs on stations and a sharp
spike in prices, with some drivers in Atlanta, Georgia, facing prices above
$5 a gallon. (Economic impact)

The operators of two key pipelines that carry fuel out of the region
announced Thursday that they were resuming limited operations.

In New Orleans, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was using helicopters to
drop 15,000-pound sandbags into breaches in the city's levee system -- the
first step in trying to control the flooding that submerged most of the
city. (See video on levee repairs -- 3:53)

The flow of water into New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain finally abated,
Corps officials said. But engineers won't begin trying to pump out the water
until the breaches are plugged.

Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved. Associated Press contributed to
this report.

       
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