Journal ces's Journal: The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. 10
Mayor: Katrina May Have Killed Thousands
By BRETT MARTEL
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS --
The mayor said Wednesday that Hurricane Katrina probably killed thousands of people in New Orleans.
"We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water," and other people dead in attics, Mayor Ray Nagin said. Asked how many, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."
The frightening estimate came as Army engineers struggled to plug New Orleans' breached levees with giant sandbags and concrete barriers, while authorities drew up plans to clear out the tens of thousands of people left in New Orleans and all but abandon the flooded-out city.
There will be a "total evacuation of the city. We have to. The city will not be functional for two or three months," Nagin said.
Most of those refugees _ 15,000 to 20,000 people _ were in the Superdome, which had become hot and stuffy, with broken toilets and nowhere for anyone to bathe. "It can no longer operate as a shelter of last resort," the mayor said.
Nagin estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people remained in New Orleans. He said 14,000 to 15,000 a day could be evacuated.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, began mounting one of the largest search-and-rescue operations in U.S. history, sending four Navy ships to the Gulf Coast with drinking water and other emergency supplies, along with the hospital ship USNS Comfort, search helicopters and elite SEAL water-rescue teams. American Red Cross workers from across the country converged on the devastated region in the agency's biggest-ever relief operation.
The death toll from Hurricane Katrina has reached at least 110 in Mississippi alone. But Louisiana has put aside the counting of the dead to concentrate on rescuing the living, many of whom were still trapped on rooftops and in attics.
A full day after the Big Easy thought it had escaped Katrina's full fury, two levees broke and spilled water into the streets Tuesday, swamping an estimated 80 percent of the bowl-shaped, below-sea-level city, inundating miles and miles of homes and rendering much of New Orleans uninhabitable for weeks or months.
"We are looking at 12 to 16 weeks before people can come in," Nagin said on ABC's "Good Morning America, "and the other issue that's concerning me is we have dead bodies in the water. At some point in time the dead bodies are going to start to create a serious disease issue."
With the streets awash and looters brazenly cleaning out stores, authorities planned to move at least 25,000 of the New Orlean's storm refugees to the Houston Astrodome, 350 miles away, over two days in a vast convoy of some 475 buses.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the situation was desperate and there was no choice but to clear out.
"The logistical problems are impossible and we have to evacuate people in shelters," the governor said. "It's becoming untenable. There's no power. It's getting more difficult to get food and water supplies in, just basic essentials."
Around midday, officials with the state and the Army Corps of Engineers said the water levels between the city and Lake Pontchartrain had equalized, and water had stopped rising in New Orleans, and even appeared to be falling, at least in some places. But the danger was far from over.
The Army Corps of Engineers said it planned to use heavy-duty Chinook helicopters to drop 20,000-pound sandbags Wednesday into the 500-foot gap in the failed floodwall. But the agency said it was having trouble getting the sandbags and dozens of 15-foot highway barriers to the site because the city's waterways were blocked by loose barges, boats and large debris.
Officials said they were also looking at a more audacious plan: finding a barge to plug the 500-foot hole.
"The challenge is an engineering nightmare," the governor said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
As New Orleans descended deeper into chaos, hundreds of people wandered aimlessly up and down Interstate 10, pushing shopping carts, laundry racks, anything they could find to carry their belongings. Dozens of fishermen from up to 200 miles away floated in on caravans of boats to pull residents out of flooded neighborhoods.
On some of the few roads that were still passable, people waved at passing cars with empty water jugs, begging for relief. Hundreds of people appeared to have spent the night on a crippled highway.
In one east New orleans neighborhood, refugees were being loaded onto the backs of moving vans like cattle, and in one case emergency workers with a sledgehammer and an ax broke open the back of a mail truck and used it to ferry sick and elderly residents.
Police officers were asking residents to give up any guns they had before they boarded buses and trucks because police desperately needed the firepower: Some officers who had been stranded on the roof of a motel said they were being shot at overnight.
My question... (Score:2)
The Superdome was free shelter (although the GALL of those people to complain about the air conditioners, the bathrooms, and the MRE's is appalling to me. You're still alive, and pretty safe. Thank God for what you have, not what you think you're entitled to.)
There was plenty of advance notice - you had every opportunity to leave. Now, you're possibly dead, po
Re:My question... (Score:1)
Granted suffering is better than dead, but that doesn't mean suffering is okay. A large, crowded area without working facilities such as bathrooms, is catastrophe waiting to happen and would be viewed as such if it weren't for the MUCH larger catastr
Re:My question... (Score:2)
For C - these people I truly feel for - they were trying to do the right thing. The ones I'm angry at are the type like the guy who cursed out Shepard Smith on the air when asked what he was still doing there.
This is a horrible tragedy, in damage and loss of life, and in the suffering involved. And it didn't have to be this way - not this bad. But unfortunately some people *chose* to stay - an
Re:My question... (Score:1)
This is a horrible tragedy
Amen to that
Re:My question... (Score:2)
Not everyone has a car. Staying wasn't a choice that many people made.
Re:My question... (Score:2)
People with a net annual income of $11,000 can't afford vacations out of state. If they did know a hurricane was coming -- well, hurricanes have come and gone before. They had always survived a little wind and rain, and they could survive it again. Parts of New Orleans are between one and two human heights below sea level, but that's not obvious from just the l
Unfortunately (Score:2)
How Bush's policies doomed New Orleans (Score:1)
Turns out there was.
The 2006 Budget slashes funding for the US Army Corps of Engineers, NO Districts, by $71.2 million dollars. Addditionally, a study to determine ways to protect the area from a Category 5 hurricane was cancelled.
http:// [findarticles.com]
Re:How Bush's policies doomed New Orleans (Score:1)
I'm sick and TIRED of complete gits blaming every stupid little thing on Bush. Grow the heck UP and realize that Congress is as much to blame as anyone else in Government-- even more so.
Yeah, CONgress is majority Republican, but not by much. The Democrats, if they felt strongly about budget items, could have threatened a filibuster or something, in an attempt to get some of the Republicans on their side. They DIDN'T. All any
Idiots.... (Score:2)
Man. I am torn. How can I show compassion for the losses and suffering, while at the same time not endorsing anything that resembles re-building that now submerged city?
Police officers were asking residents to give up any guns they had before they boarded buses and trucks because police desperately needed the firepower: Some officers who had been stranded on the roof of a motel said they were b