 |
|
|
 News from Around the Americas | August 2005 
Looters Take to Streets; Conditions Deteriorate
 WDSU News
| | The Big Easy is breathing a bit easier right now. Katrina spared New Orleans a direct hit, but its effects were still being felt there and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast. |
New Orleans - Looters in New Orleans are taking advantage of the destruction from Hurricane Katrina.
At a Walgreens drug store in the French Quarter Tuesday morning, people were running out with grocery baskets and coolers full of soft drinks, chips and diapers.
When police finally showed up, a young boy stood at the door and shouted a warning - and the crowd scattered.
A tourist from Philadelphia compared the scene to "downtown Baghdad."
Nearby, looters ripped open the steel gates from the front of stores on Canal Street.
They filled industrial-sized garbage cans with clothing and jewelry and floated them down the street on bits of plywood and insulation.
WDSU-TV reported that martial law was declared in some parts of New Orleans Tuesday morning.
The declaration is imposed to restore order in times of war and emergency.
Search for Survivors
Rescuers in boats and helicopters furiously searched Tuesday for survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
The top homeland security official in New Orleans said bodies have been spotted drifting in the floodwaters.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the devastation being seen Tuesday morning "is greater than our worst fears."
She described it as "totally overwhelming." Blanco said there are no casualty figures yet, but that "many lives have been lost."
She said 700 people were rescued overnight from flooded areas.
Harrison County coroner Gary Hargrove had this advice for rescuers who encounter bodies: "If they're dead, they're dead. We've got the living to take care of."
30 Reported Killed in Biloxi Apartment
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's office said Tuesday that more than 80 are feared dead in that state after Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast.
Officials told television stations WAPT and WDSU that they expect to find more dead and injured as Tuesday continues.
Officially, the state has confirmed only a handful of deaths. But an emergency official in Harrison County said Monday night that at least 50 had been killed, including 30 at one apartment complex near the beach in Biloxi.
In media interviews Tuesday morning, Barbour said the storm surge from Katrina apparently wiped out the apartment complex. It was in area that did not flood during Hurricane Camille, which struck the same area with deadly force in 1969.
Barbour said damage to casinos dealt an enormous blow to the state's pocketbook but vowed that "we're going to rebuild, whatever it costs."
Levee Breaches Inundate New Orleans
In New Orleans, residents who had ridden out the brunt of Katrina faces another, delayed threat: rising water.
Failed pumps and at least two breaches in levees sent water from Lake Ponchartrain coursing through the streets in the Big Easy, which sits mostly below sea level.
In downtown New Orleans, streets that were relatively clear in the hours after the storm now are filled with water.
Canal Street is literally a canal and officials say water is lapping at the edge of the French Quarter.
The water is fouled with gasoline, debris and floating islands of red ants.
Residents were urged to avoid drinking the water in New Orleans.
Meanwhile, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said that 200 people were stranded on rooftops in the Lower Ninth Ward, including 20 police officers who were riding out the storm at their homes in preparation to take over shifts from other officers.
He said that boats would be dispatched on rescue missions Tuesday.
Nagin also said preliminary reports show at least 20 buildings in the city have collapsed and that it might be 48 hours before residents would be allowed back to their homes to assess the damage.
Man Tells of Boarding House Deaths
The tragic stories continued to unfold in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Frank Mills was in a boarding house in New Orleans when water started swirling up to the ceiling.
The 56-year-old told The Associated Press that as he was looking down the hallway he saw one woman "floating face up."
Mills said he made it to a roof covering the front porch and tried desperately to pull another elderly man to safety.
But he slipped away.
Mills said, "Next thing I knew he came floating past me," adding, "I don't know if he drowned or had a heart attack."
Mills sat on the roof for about two hours before catching a floating compressor in the 20-foot-deep water and making his way to a two-story building nearby.
That's where he was eventually picked up by a boat.
Conditions at Superdome Called 'Miserable'
Despite very poor conditions at the Louisiana Superdome, National Guard troops have brought in more refugees who are trying to escape rising water in New Orleans.
Eight of the people who arrived Tuesday had spent the night in the attic of a flooded beauty salon. They had to hack through the ceiling to reach the attic as the water rose.
Another man had spent the night in his own attic - and said he "almost died" in the water.
They've now reached safety - but not comfort. The air conditioning has been out since power was lost Monday morning.
The bathrooms are filthy and barrels are overflowing with trash.
Rosetta Junne said conditions at the New Orleans Superdome are miserable, and besides, "Everybody wants to go see their house. We want to know what's happened."
There are over 10,000 people in the makeshift shelter.
An official of the company that manages the Superdome said two people have died there, but offered no details.
New Orleans Spared Direct Hit
The Big Easy is breathing a bit easier right now.
Hurricane Katrina spared New Orleans a direct hit, but its effects were still being felt there and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast.
The quick calming of a storm that many thought would level low-lying New Orleans was apparent late Monday. Less than one hour after downgrading the storm to Category 2, forecasters lowered their assessment of the hurricane at 4 p.m. to a Category 1 storm with winds of nearly 95 mph.
Despite weakening after landfall, the storm still produced widespread damage not only in southeast Louisiana, but also on the Gulf Coast in neighboring Mississippi. That state's floating casinos are no longer just on the water - they have water in them, officials said.
Landfall Arrives Early
The center of Hurricane Katrina crashed ashore at about 6 a.m. Monday just east of Grand Isle, La. The storm was about 60 miles south of New Orleans when it made landfall.
The National Hurricane Center said at 6 a.m. the Category 4 storm made landfall on the southern Louisiana coastline in Lower Plaquemines Parish, which had already seen sustained hurricane-force winds in the early-morning hours. Hurricane-force winds and driving rain enveloped much of New Orleans by 7:20 a.m.
More than 770,000 people were reportedly without power across southeastern Louisiana as of Monday evening. In addition, pumps that are used to shuttle water out of low-lying parts of New Orleans were not working, city officials said.
Residents Flee City ahead of Storm
On Sunday, thousands fled New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast or made preparations to ride out the storm. By early Monday morning, relief officials had meals, supplies and military personnel ready at nearby locations to prepare for recovery efforts.
The approaching storm forced a mandatory evacuation, a last-ditch Superdome shelter and prayers for those left to face the doomsday scenario in New Orleans, which is below sea level and needs levees and pumps to keep out water.
Katrina intensified into a Category 5 giant over the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico but had weakened to a Category 3 storm by Monday afternoon. If the heart of the storm had hit the city, it would have been New Orleans' first direct hit in 40 years and the most powerful storm ever to slam the city.
On Sunday, Mayor Ray Nagin called the evacuation order unprecedented, saying anyone who could leave, should.
"We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared," Nagin said. "God bless us."
Experts have warned of New Orleans' vulnerability for years. Louisiana has lost more than 1 million acres of coastal wetlands in the last seven decades. The swamps and bayous had served as a storm buffer.
3 Die While Fleeing Storm
An official with the East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner's Office said three residents of a New Orleans nursing home fleeing Hurricane Katrina aboard a school bus died Sunday during an evacuation to a Baton Rouge church.
The names, ages and sexes of the dead were not available.
Don Moreau, chief of operations, said the coroner's office responded to a call from emergency medical technicians to a Baptist church, which was the destination for the bus of nursing home patients. Once there, Moreau said one person was dead inside the church and another was found dead inside the bus.
He said the person in the bus appeared to have been dead for some time.
Moreau said the others on the bus, 21 people, were transported to Earl K. Long Hospital, where a third nursing home resident later died.
The coroner's office has not determined a cause of death for any of the three. However, Moreau said many people on the bus were suffering from dehydration.
Moreau would not name the nursing home or the church in which it sought refuge from the oncoming storm.
The deaths come almost a year after two nursing home residents died during an evacuation of a nursing home for Hurricane Ivan.
Bush: Move to 'Safe Ground'
Nagin exempted hotels from the evacuation order because airlines have already canceled all flights.
Gov. Blanco said President George W. Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.
Speaking Sunday, Bush said that he "cannot stress enough the dangers this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast communities."
"I urge all citizens to put their own safety and the safety of their families first by moving to safe ground," he said.
WDSU meteorologist Dan Thomas said the dangers from the hurricane cannot be overstated.
"I've told some people in the newsroom, I think this is going to be the scariest moment of your life," he said.
Relief, Security at Staging Areas
Relief teams are prepared for the worst in the wake of Katrina's sweep through New Orleans and its surrounding parishes.
The American Red Cross has moved 250,000 meals to Baton Rouge, ready to bring them into New Orleans and surrounding parishes once the storm passes.
Federal officials are stockpiling supplies in Selma, Ala. They already have 290,000 bags of ice, more than 250,000 gallons of water, 652,000 meals ready to eat and 110,000 tarps.
More than 4,000 National Guardsmen were mobilizing in Memphis, Tenn., before heading to New Orleans to help police the streets.
LSU Watches Storm
Louisiana State University football coach Les Miles canceled Monday's 3 p.m. practice and will wait out Katrina like the rest of south Louisiana.
Miles said his main concern is players whose families live in the path of the dangerous storm.
LSU's roster has 26 players from the New Orleans area.
Miles' first press luncheon of the season had been scheduled for Monday, but was postponed with no new date set. LSU is scheduled to open the season at 7 p.m. Saturday against North Texas in Tiger Stadium. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us