Anger and Unrest Mount in Desperate New Orleans

[frets5150]

Anger and Unrest Mount in Desperate New Orleans


By ADAM NOSSITER, AP
NEW ORLEANS (Sept. 1) - Fights and trash fires broke out, rescue helicopters were shot at and anger mounted across New Orleans on Thursday, as National Guardsmen in armored vehicles poured in to help restore order across this increasingly desperate and lawless city.

"We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," the Rev. Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where corpses lay in the open and evacuees complained that they were dropped off and given nothing.

An additional 10,000 National Guardsman from across the country were ordered into the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast to shore up security, rescue and relief operations in Katrina's wake as looting, shootings, gunfire, carjackings spread and food and water ran out.

But some Federal Emergency Management rescue operations were suspended in areas where gunfire has broken out, Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said in Washington. "In areas where our employees have been determined to potentially be in danger, we have pulled back," he said.

"Hospitals are trying to evacuate," said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan, spokesman at the city emergency operations center. "At every one of them, there are reports that as the helicopters come in people are shooting at them. There are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, "You better come get my family.

Police Capt. Ernie Demmo said a National Guard military policeman was shot in the leg as the two scuffled for the MP's rifle. The man was arrested.

"These are good people. These are just scared people," Demmo said.

The Superdome, where some 25,000 people were being evacuated by bus to the Houston Astrodome, descended into chaos.

Huge crowds, hoping to finally escape the stifling confines of the stadium, jammed the main concourse outside the dome, spilling out over the ramp to the Hyatt hotel next door -- a seething sea of tense, unhappy, people packed shoulder-to-shoulder up to the barricades where heavily armed National Guardsmen stood.

Fights broke out. A fire erupted in a trash chute inside the dome, but a National Guard commander said it did not affect the evacuation. After a traffic jam kept buses from arriving at the Sueprdome for nearly four hours, a near riot broke out in the scramble to get on the buses that finally did show up.

Outside the Convention Center, the sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement. Thousands of storm refugees had been assembling outside for days, waiting for buses that did not come.

At least seven bodies were scattered outside, and hungry, desperate people who were tired of waiting broke through the steel doors to a food service entrance and began pushing out pallets of water and juice and whatever else they could find.

An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.

"I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair. "I buried my dog." He added: "You can do everything for other countries but you can't do nothing for your own people. You can go overseas with the military but you can't get them down here."

Just above the convention center on Interstate 10, commercial buses were lined up, going nowhere. The street outside the center, above the floodwaters, smelled of urine and feces, and was choked with dirty diapers, old bottles and garbage.

"They've been teasing us with buses for four days," Edwards said.

People chanted, "Help, help!" as reporters and photographers walked through. The crowd got angry when journalists tried to photograph one of the bodies, and covered it over with a blanket. A woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm.

John Murray, 52, said: "It's like they're punishing us."

The first of hundreds of busloads of people evacuated from the Superdome arrived early Thursday at their new temporary home -- another sports arena, the Houston Astrodome, 350 miles away.

But the ambulance service in charge of taking the sick and injured from the Superdome suspended flights after a shot was reported fired at a military helicopter. Richard Zuschlag, chief of Acadian Ambulance, said it had become too dangerous for his pilots.

The military, which was overseeing the removal of the able-bodied by buses, continued the ground evacuation without interruption, said National Guard Lt. Col. Pete Schneider. The government had no immediate confirmation of whether a military helicopter was fired on.

In Texas, the governor's office said Texas has agreed to take in an additional 25,000 refugees from Katrina and plans to house them in San Antonio, though exactly where has not been determined.

In Washington, the White House said President Bush will tour the devastated Gulf Coast region on Friday and has asked his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and former President Clinton to lead a private fund-raising campaign for victims.

The president urged a crackdown on the lawlessness.

"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this -- whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud," Bush said. "And I've made that clear to our attorney general. The citizens ought to be working together."

On Wednesday, Mayor Ray Nagin offered the most startling estimate yet of the magnitude of the disaster: Asked how many people died in New Orleans, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands." The death toll has already reached at least 121 in Mississippi

If the estimate proves correct, it would make Katrina the worst natural disaster in the United States since at least the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, which was blamed for anywhere from about 500 to 6,000 deaths. Katrina would also be the nation's deadliest hurricane since 1900, when a storm in Galveston, Texas, killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people.

Nagin called for a total evacuation of New Orleans, saying the city had become uninhabitable for the 50,000 to 100,000 who remained behind after the city of nearly a half-million people was ordered cleared out over the weekend, before Katrina blasted the Gulf Coast with 145-mph winds.

The mayor said that it will be two or three months before the city is functioning again and that people would not be allowed back into their homes for at least a month or two.

"We need an effort of 9-11 proportions," former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, now president of the Urban League, said on NBC's "Today" show. "So many of the people who did not evacuate, could not evacuate for whatever reason. They are people who are African-American mostly but not completely, and people who were of little or limited economic means. They are the folks, we've got to get them out of there."

"A great American city is fighting for its life," he added. "We must rebuild New Orleans, the city that gave us jazz, and music, and multiculturalism."

With New Orleans sinking deeper into desperation, Nagin ordered virtually the entire police force to abandon search-and-rescue efforts Wednesday and stop the increasingly brazen thieves.

"They are starting to get closer to heavily populated areas -- hotels, hospitals, and we're going to stop it right now," Nagin said.

In a sign of growing lawlessness, Tenet HealthCare Corp. asked authorities late Wednesday to help evacuate a fully functioning hospital in Gretna after a supply truck carrying food, water and medical supplies was held up at gunpoint.

The floodwaters streamed into the city's streets from two levee breaks near Lake Pontchartrain a day after New Orleans thought it had escaped catastrophic damage from Katrina. The floodwaters covered 80 percent of the city, in some areas 20 feet deep, in a reddish-brown soup of sewage, gasoline and garbage.

The Army Corps of Engineers said it planned to use heavy-duty Chinook helicopters to drop 15,000-pound bags of sand and stone into a 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.

Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu toured the stricken areas said said rescued people begged him to pass information to their families. His pocket was full of scraps of paper on which he had scribbled down their phone numbers.

When he got a working phone in the early morning hours Thursday, he contacted a woman whose father had been rescued and told her: "Your daddy's alive, and he said to tell you he loves you."

"She just started crying. She said, `I thought he was dead,'" he said.

Associated Press reporters Holbrook Mohr, Mary Foster, Robert Tanner, Allen G. Breed, Cain Burdeau, Jay Reeves and Brett Martel contributed to this report.


9/1/2005 13:20:01
If all the Military were over there instead of Iraq there would'nt be 70% of the Mass destruction that is goin on now.

:mad:


"I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair. "I buried my dog." He added: "You can do everything for other countries but you can't do nothing for your own people. You can go overseas with the military but you can't get them down here."



Yes Mr Daniel Edwards unfortunatly you are correct
:mad:

[FORD]

It's goddamn fucking genocide is what it is. If this was a rich white Republican suburb, they would be airlifting food in, and survivors out. Instead Fucking Chimperor Dumbass sent the supplies by BOAT.

FUCKING BOAT? Has to go all the way around Florida and won't get there until Wednesday??

And you have the GODDAMNED FUCKING NERVE to call for "Zero tolerance" toward "looters" trying to feed their families?

FUCK OFF AND DIE YOU COWARDLY RACIST SON OF A COCKSUCKING NAZI BITCH CHIMPANZEE!!

[Guitar Shark]

Originally posted by FORD
It's goddamn fucking genocide is what it is. If this was a rich white Republican suburb, they would be airlifting food in, and survivors out. Instead Fucking Chimperor Dumbass sent the supplies by BOAT.

FUCKING BOAT? Has to go all the way around Florida and won't get there until Wednesday??

And you have the GODDAMNED FUCKING NERVE to call for "Zero tolerance" toward "looters" trying to feed their families?

FUCK OFF AND DIE YOU COWARDLY RACIST SON OF A COCKSUCKING NAZI BITCH CHIMPANZEE!!

Tell us how you really feel FORD.

Where's this info re: sending supplies by boat? I didn't see it in this article.

[FORD]

Originally posted by Guitar Shark
Tell us how you really feel FORD.

Where's this info re: sending supplies by boat? I didn't see it in this article.

Nazi Monkey said that himself in his press conference.

Meanwhile, area hospitals are calling the goddamned Associated Press for help, because the government won't answer. The mayor says he hasn't heard from a single representative of FEMA, let alone from the BCE.

This is beyond sickening. It might as well be Ethiopia or Indonesia down there. Maybe someone should call Bob Geldof so something will get done?

[Mr. Vengeance]

Originally posted by FORD
It's goddamn fucking genocide is what it is. If this was a rich white Republican suburb, they would be airlifting food in, and survivors out.

Truer words have never been written. It's a disgrace!

[Guitar Shark]

But if it were a rich white Republican suburb, the victims probably wouldn't be looting or firing on rescue personnel either. ;)

[Warham]

Don't worry, FORD. Clinton's on the case.

Since when did a natural disaster count as genocide? Somebody fill me in on when that definition changed.

[Nickdfresh]

I know I'm a pansy-'commie' liberal, but anyone looting and acting like sociopathic hooligan (with a weapon) should be shot on site! It's martial law now...

[Warham]

I agree, Nick. It's gone too far with these gangs shooting at military and civilian rescue vehicles. Martial law time here. No fucking around.

[BigBadBrian]

You know...for once....I agree with a little bit of what everyone has said here. Even FORD.

Where are all the fucking HELICOPTERS? The fucking gunships could suppress these goddamn looters.

Don't hand me "They're all in Iraq" argument.

Everyone knows Cheney was holding enough back for North Korea and Iran anyway. :D

Seriously, there are enough military units here stateside to do the job...seriously. Somebody needs to get off of their ass and MOVE.

PRONTO.

They also need to restore order NOW. Anyone caught shooting at the authorities or the military should be SHOT on sight. It seems harsh but it will help restore order in the quickest fashion.

[frets5150]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
I know I'm a pansy-'commie' liberal, but anyone looting and acting like sociopathic hooligan (with a weapon) should be shot on site! It's martial law now...

I agree and disagree If people are breaking into supermarkets to get food instead of starving go ahead the food will proably go bad any way since there is no Electricity. On the other hand I saw this guy carrying a 32' Flat Panel color TV yeah he should be shot no one has got a house to put it in so why did he bother Fuckin Retard.:rolleyes:

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by Guitar Shark
Tell us how you really feel FORD.

Where's this info re: sending supplies by boat? I didn't see it in this article.

He actually said that on TV.
"It has float there" or something like close to that.

That's what pisses me off, everything was a day late and then two days in coming.
Babies need food and diapers.

The looting bullshit is for the birds because there isn't anything there at this point that can be resold and is now a right off.

if the people want it I say it's first find first keep, or until some asshole with an A-K takes it from you.

This is fucked, and it isn't as if I don't understand why it took awhile for the event to end. but supplies and assistance should have been executed better than it has been.
FEMA even said as much themselves.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by frets5150
I agree and disagree If people are breaking into supermarkets to get food instead of starving go ahead the food will proably go bad any way since there is no Electricity. On the other hand I saw this guy carrying a 32' Flat Panel color TV yeah he should be shot no one has got a house to put it in so why did he bother Fuckin Retard.:rolleyes:

I'm only talking about gangs running the streets; the ones attacking civilians, police, and Nat'l Guardsmen...

[ELVIS]

Originally posted by Warham
Martial law time here.

The mayor declared Martial law days ago...

BTW, I survived...


:elvis:

[Cathedral]

DUDE, THANK GOD YOU ARE OK!

[ELVIS]

I just got home...

Me and eight others evacuated 96 people from a nursing home...

I have been working around the clock since saturday...


:elvis:

[Nickdfresh]

Good to hear you're well ELVIS, (relatively speaking that is.:()

[Cathedral]

Your are one hell of a human being and a model American, bro.
And I am extremely happy to know you made it through that mess.

Where are you now?

I'm just glad to know your safe, dude.

[Guitar Shark]

Originally posted by Cathedral
Your are one hell of a human being and a model American, bro.
And I am extremely happy to know you made it through that mess.

Where are you now?

I'm just glad to know your safe, dude.

I concur 100%.

ELVIS, good to see you back bro... after you've had some time to rest fill us in on the experience.

[frets5150]

Originally posted by Cathedral
DUDE, THANK GOD YOU ARE OK!


DITTO
But what i don't understand is that this storm was predicted at least a week in advance more than enough time to get everyone out and the military should have been evacuating everyone then not after the fact.
What a FUCKIN JOKE:mad:

[ELVIS]

Originally posted by Cathedral


Where are you now?



I'm back home in Lockport LA (http://www.townoflockport.com/maps.htm)...

Lot's of damagein the area , but I didn't get any!

http://www.townoflockport.com/images/Lockport-Map.jpg


:elvis:

[Cathedral]

Proof that prayers do get answered.
wow, i'm a bit choked up for some reason.

Get some sleep, bro...I'm sure you need it.

[frets5150]

Just went to the store to get some smokes and look at what i see starin at me the front cover of the NY Post.
Fuckin Disgrace

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by ELVIS
I'm back home in Lockport LA (http://www.townoflockport.com/maps.htm)...

Lot's of damagein the area , but I didn't get any!

http://www.townoflockport.com/images/Lockport-Map.jpg


:elvis:

Thank God!!!

Glad to hear it.

Like the others said, get some rest and we look forward to hearing your stories later. You have rest and work to do there. Your services as a nurse are much more important there at this time.

:) :) :) :killer:

[Nickdfresh]

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/WEATHER/09/01/katrina.impact/top.2032.us.marshall.ap.jpg
Armed U.S. Marshalls are patrolling downtown New Orleans.
Relief workers confront 'urban warfare'
Violence disrupts evacuation, rescue efforts in New Orleans

Thursday, September 1, 2005; Posted: 8:29 p.m. EDT (00:29 GMT)

Programming Note: CNN looks at the disaster and chaos crippling Louisiana, "NewsNight," Thursday, 10 p.m. ET.
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/WEATHER/09/01/katrina.impact/vert.sandbag.drop.pool.jpg
A helicopter drops sandbags during efforts to repair a broken levee Thursday in New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/01/katrina.impact/index.html)) -- Nightfall and rising violence threatened to further disrupt relief efforts Thursday in New Orleans as authorities rescued residents still trapped in the flooded city and evacuated thousands of others living among corpses and human waste.

The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown, said his agency was attempting to work "under conditions of urban warfare."

From the roof of a police station downtown late Thursday, groups of officers armed with rifles could be seen venturing out into the streets, while helicopters buzzed overhead and a shopping mall burned in the distance.

Police warned a CNN crew to stay off the streets because of escalating danger, and cautioned others about attempted shootings and rapes by groups of young men.

"This is a desperate SOS," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said in a statement Thursday afternoon, with thousands of people stranded at the city's convention center with no food, water or electricity -- and fading hope.

Residents expressed growing frustration with the disorder evident on the streets, raising questions about the coordination and timeliness of relief efforts.

Video from the convention center showed a group chanting "we want help, we want help," as mothers tried to console their tired and hungry children. (See video on the desperate conditions -- 4:36 )

Government officials insisted they were putting forth their best efforts and pleaded for patience, saying further help was on the way.

One displaced resident at the Louisiana Superdome, however, issued a warning to authorities who may be headed to the stadium, where up to 30,000 people had sought refuge after Monday's hurricane and now await evacuation to Texas by bus.

"Please don't send the National Guard," he said. "Send someone with a bullhorn outside the place that can talk to these people first."

He described scenes of lawlessness and desperation, with people simply dragging corpses into corners.

"They have quite a few people running around here with guns," he said. "You got these young teenage boys running around up here raping these girls."

Elsewhere, groups of armed men wandered the streets, buildings smoldered and people picked through stores for what they could find.

Charity Hospital, one of several facilities attempting to evacuate patients, was forced to halt the effort
Living 'like animals'

The city is "out of resources at the convention center and doesn't anticipate enough buses," the mayor said in his statement.

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," Lawrence 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."

Nagin said that "the convention center is unsanitary and unsafe and we are running out of supplies for [15,000 to 20,000] people."

He said the city would allow people to march up the Crescent City Connection to the Westbank Expressway in an effort to find help.

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

He said thousands of people were just lying on the ground outside the building -- many old, or sick, or caring for infants and small children.

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.

Food drops began Thursday afternoon at the convention center, as rain also began falling.

A National Guard helicopter delivered MREs -- meals ready to eat -- and bottles of water. The amounts in the first few drops, however, were far short of enough for everyone.

State officials believe Katrina and its aftermath killed "thousands" of people in New Orleans and surrounding parishes, but no official count had been compiled, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said Thursday.

Brown said those who ignored the city's mandatory evacuation order bore some responsibility.

"I think the death toll may go into the thousands and, unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings," Michael Brown told CNN.
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. (Watch report on violence delaying evacuation -- 1:51)

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff denied reports that rescue efforts in New Orleans had been halted for security reasons Thursday, saying those operations "are continuing in full force."

"We are going to continue to increase the tempo of that program until we've cleared people out of the Superdome and we've cleared people out of New Orleans," he said.

Chertoff said that the Coast Guard has rescued about 3,000 people from flooded areas in New Orleans and the surrounding parishes.

Nagin ordered his police force to leave search-and-rescue operations to the Coast Guard and concentrate on establishing order.

But 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.

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.

Chertoff said that 4,200 National Guard military police would be deployed in New Orleans over the next three days, nearly quadrupling the overall law enforcement presence there.

Blanco said Thursday she has requested the mobilization of 40,000 National Guard troops to restore order and assist in relief efforts.
Power out; gas prices 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.

Katrina knocked out electricity for more than 2.3 million people in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida.

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

Two major suppliers of gasoline to the Eastern Seaboard of the United States resumed partial service Thursday.

The news came as gasoline prices surged to more than $3 a gallon in some parts of the country due to outages and bottlenecks in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. (Full story)

The flow of water into New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain has abated, Army Corps of Engineers officials said. But engineers won't begin trying to pump out the water until the breaches are plugged. (Recovery efforts)

The Army Corps of Engineers is attempting to plug a 300-foot breach in the Industrial Canal, a 500-foot breach in the 17th Street Canal and two smaller breaches in the London Avenue Canal.

Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

[blueturk]

Even the most rabid supporters of Bush have to admit that his handling of Katrina and it's aftermath is a fucking disgrace. The son-of-a-bitch has treated the situation in New Orleans as if were a diversion from his schedule of speeches. Bush's agenda of putting his precious fucking war in Iraq first and America second is now much more obvious. FEMA is working with less resources because of Bush's "War Is Peace" budget, and the National Guard's ranks are thinned out for a fight against WMD's, democracy, oil fields, or whatever Bush comes up with next. There are people in AMERICA right now who are in dire need of our government's assistance. Fuck protecting oil fields and spreading democracy, we've got problems HERE. If I sound pissed off , it's because I AM. I've been watching this shit on TV for quite a while and it's fucking unreal.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/09/01/national/a155306D82.DTL

New Orleans in Anarchy With Fights, Rapes
By ALLEN G. BREED, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, September 1, 2005

Hurricane Katrina
New Orleans in anarchy with fights, rapes

New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday, as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out and storm survivors battled for seats on the buses that would carry them away from the chaos. The tired and hungry seethed, saying they had been forsaken. "This is a desperate SOS," mayor Ray Nagin said.


"We are out here like pure animals," the Rev. Issac Clark said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where he and other evacuees had been waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead.


"I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here alive," said tourist Larry Mitzel of Saskatoon, Canada, who handed a reporter his business card in case he goes missing. "I'm scared of riots. I'm scared of the locals. We might get caught in the crossfire."


Four days after Hurricane Katrina roared in with a devastating blow that inflicted potentially thousands of deaths, the frustration, fear and anger mounted, despite the promise of 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop the looting, plans for a $10 billion recovery bill in Congress and a government relief effort President Bush called the biggest in U.S. history.


New Orleans' top emergency management official called that effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly lawless city.


About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at New Orleans convention center grew increasingly hostile after waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead. Police Chief Eddie Compass said he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly driven back by an angry mob.


"We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten," Compass said. "Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon."


A military helicopter tried to land at the convention center several times to drop off food and water. But the rushing crowd forced the choppers to back off. Troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10 feet off the ground and flew away.


In hopes of defusing the situation at the convention center, Mayor Ray Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they could find. But the bedlam made that difficult.


"This is a desperate SOS," Nagin said in a statement. "Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses."


At least seven bodies were scattered outside the convention center, a makeshift staging area for those rescued from rooftops, attics and highways. The sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement.


An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.


"I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair.


"You can do everything for other countries, but you can't do nothing for your own people," he added. "You can go overseas with the military, but you can't get them down here."


The street outside the center, above the floodwaters, smelled of urine and feces, and was choked with dirty diapers, old bottles and garbage.


"They've been teasing us with buses for four days," Edwards said. "They're telling us they're going to come get us one day, and then they don't show up."


Every so often, an armored state police vehicle cruised in front of the convention center with four or five officers in riot gear with automatic weapons. But there was no sign of help from the National Guard.


At one point the crowd began to chant "We want help! We want help!" Later, a woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd ..."


"We are out here like pure animals," the Issac Clark said.


"We've got people dying out here — two babies have died, a woman died, a man died," said Helen Cheek. "We haven't had no food, we haven't had no water, we haven't had nothing. They just brought us here and dropped us."


Tourist Debbie Durso of Washington, Mich., said she asked a police officer for assistance and his response was, "'Go to hell — it's every man for himself.'"


"This is just insanity," she said. "We have no food, no water ... all these trucks and buses go by and they do nothing but wave."


At the hot and stinking Superdome, where 30,000 were being evacuated by bus to the Houston Astrodome, fistfights and fires erupted amid a seething sea of tense, suffering people who waited in a lines that stretched a half-mile to board yellow school buses.


After a traffic jam kept buses from arriving for nearly four hours, a near-riot broke out in the scramble to get on the buses that finally did show up, with a group of refugees breaking through a line of heavily armed National Guardsmen.


One military policeman was shot in the leg as he and a man scuffled for the MP's rifle, police Capt. Ernie Demmo said. The man was arrested.


Some of those among the mostly poor crowd had been in the dome for four days without air conditioning, working toilets or a place to bathe. An ambulance service airlifting the sick and injured out of the Superdome suspended flights as too dangerous after it was reported that a bullet was fired at a military helicopter.


"If they're just taking us anywhere, just anywhere, I say praise God," said refugee John Phillip. "Nothing could be worse than what we've been through."


By Thursday evening, 11 hours after the military began evacuating the Superdome, the arena held 10,000 more people than it did at dawn. National Guard Capt. John Pollard said evacuees from around the city poured into the Superdome and swelled the crowd to about 30,000 because they believed the arena was the best place to get a ride out of town.


As he watched a line snaking for blocks through ankle-deep waters, New Orleans' emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency.


"This is not a FEMA operation. I haven't seen a single FEMA guy," he said. He added: "We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."


FEMA officials said some operations had to be suspended in areas where gunfire has broken out.


A day after Nagin took 1,500 police officers off search-and-rescue duty to try to restore order in the streets, there were continued reports of looting, shootings, gunfire and carjackings — and not all the crimes were driven by greed.


When some hospitals try to airlift patients, Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan said, "there are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, `You better come get my family.'"


Outside a looted Rite-Aid drugstore, some people were anxious to show they needed what they were taking. A gray-haired man who would not give his name pulled up his T-shirt to show a surgery scar and explained that he needs pads for incontinence.


"I'm a Christian. I feel bad going in there," he said.


Earl Baker carried toothpaste, toothbrushes and deodorant. "Look, I'm only getting necessities," he said. "All of this is personal hygiene. I ain't getting nothing to get drunk or high with."


While floodwaters in the city appeared to stabilize, efforts continued to plug three breaches that had opened up in the levee system that protects this below-sea-level city.


Helicopters dropped sandbags into the breach and pilings were being pounded into the mouth of the canal Thursday to close its connection to Lake Pontchartrain, state Transportation Secretary Johnny Bradberry said. He said contractors had completed building a rock road to let heavy equipment roll to the area by midnight.


The next step called for using about 250 concrete road barriers to seal the gap.


In Washington, the White House said Bush will tour the devastated Gulf Coast region on Friday and has asked his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and former President Clinton to lead a private fund-raising campaign for victims.


The president urged a crackdown on the lawlessness.


"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this — whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud," Bush said. "And I've made that clear to our attorney general. The citizens ought to be working together."


Donald Dudley, a 55-year-old New Orleans seafood merchant, complained that when he and other hungry refugees broke into the kitchen of the convention center and tried to prepare food, the National Guard chased them away.


"They pulled guns and told us we had to leave that kitchen or they would blow our damn brains out," he said. "We don't want their help. Give us some vehicles and we'll get ourselves out of here!"

[ODShowtime]

This is fucking horrible. Where are the resources?

[Guitar Shark]

Originally posted by FORD
Nazi Monkey said that himself in his press conference.


I just watched the press conference video on CNN.com and he said no such thing. He talked about transporting gasoline by ships, but not supplies.

But this is even more offensive in my opinion. Bush spent more than half of his speech talking about the price of gasoline and how important it is to get the pipelines and refineries running again. While this is clearly important, I thought it highlighted what he cares about. People are literally starving and dying in the streets and he spends the majority of his speech talking about oil and gas.

[FORD]

Elvis, good to see ya made it through this shit, bro. Though I have a feeling you're gonna be to busy to chill with us freaks for a while.

Sorry to say it's the ONLY news i've heard out of Louisiana today that didn't make me violently ill. It's hard to believe that an American administration in the 21st century could allow the Hell that exists in New Orleans right now. :(

[DLR'sCock]

New Orleans is in ruins, and thousands will die. This is history folks.

[frets5150]

As long as The CHIMP and his family are fed and are all
snug and warm in their bed that's all that really matters right folks:rolleyes:

[Nickdfresh]

September 2, 2005
http://www.latimes.com/media/alternatethumbnails/photo/2005-09/19258383.jpg
With residents in desperate need of aid, many bodies have been ignored. Criticism of government response mounts. (AFP/Getty Images)
IN KATRINA'S AFTERMATH: CHAOS AND SURVIVAL
New Orleans Slides Into Chaos; U.S. Scrambles to Send Troops
Snipers fire on rescue efforts, and corpses litter public areas as rage builds among refugees. Bush is to visit the stricken region today.

By Ellen Barry, Scott Gold and Stephen Braun, Times Staff Writers

NEW ORLEANS — The rushed mobilization of federal troops to the storm-desolated Gulf Coast was outpaced Thursday by New Orleans' rapid descent into chaos. Sniper fire threatened hospital evacuations and a mass bus caravan to Texas, corpses were found outside the city's decaying convention center and weakened refugees collapsed amid enraged crowds on city streets.

At nightfall, heavily armed police and National Guard troops took positions on rooftops, scanning for snipers and armed mobs as seething crowds of refugees milled below, desperate to flee. Gunfire crackled in the distance.

New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin implored federal officials for immediate aid. "This is a desperate SOS," Nagin said.

About 5,000 people filled the city's convention center and the trash-strewn streets outside on a city plaza where tourists once strolled. Outside the dank, cavernous hall, where temperatures soared and lights winked out, seven corpses lay sprawled, covered by blankets. Other deaths were reported nearby, and there was an increasing number of accounts of rapes and beatings, city officials said.

The Mississippi River city's swift downward spiral overwhelmed beleaguered New Orleans emergency officials and posed a stark crisis for the Bush administration and federal troops converging on the flooded Gulf Coast region.

"I know this is an agonizing time," President Bush said of despairing flood victims in the Gulf Coast region, which he planned to visit today for the first time. "I ask their continued patience as recovery operations unfold."

Congress rushed a $10.5-billion down payment in relief aid for Hurricane Katrina's millions of victims Thursday as thousands of National Guard troops converged on bases and staging areas across the flood zone.

As the situation deteriorated, dismayed New Orleans officials and strapped authorities elsewhere in the Gulf Coast begged for immediate aid. Some grumbled openly about the relief effort, saying the Bush administration and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials had endangered lives by moving too slowly.

"This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace," said Terry Ebbert, head of emergency operations for New Orleans. He said it had taken too long to evacuate the Superdome.

Army engineers have also been criticized for failing to act quickly to plug gaping breaches in the city's levees, which were still leaching tons of water Thursday.

Fresh National Guard troops arrived three days after the hurricane hit to find New Orleans police overwhelmed and in some instances outgunned by snipers who holed up in abandoned apartment buildings and storefronts.
http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2005-09/19260711.jpg
A New Orleans police officer guards the streets of the French Quarter to prevent looters from helping themselves. The streets of the French Quarter are in much better condition than most other parts of the city.
(Carolyn Cole / LAT)
September 2, 2005
An attempt by New Orleans police to take control of the convention center collapsed in a shoving match as an angry mob ran off a team of officers who tried to force their way inside.

"We have individuals who are getting raped; we have individuals who are getting beaten," said Police Supt. Eddie Compass, who confirmed the attempt to quell the crowd. "Tourists are walking in that direction, and they are getting preyed upon."

Louisiana National Guard soldiers chased refugees and stragglers away from the intersection of Loyola Avenue and Girod Street in the heart of New Orleans. An unseen sniper holed up in a nearby building fired sporadically at soldiers and pedestrians.

"We think he's in one of those high-rises," Sgt. Matthew Gautreau said, nodding over his shoulder. "He's been shooting all morning."

In the flood-swept city center, another distant gunman hidden in a high-rise terrorized doctors and patients at Charity Hospital as staff worked feverishly to evacuate critically ill patients.

"Sniper! Sniper! Sniper!" nurses screamed as shots drove them back into Charity's emergency room.

Respiratory therapist Blake Bergeron was among staffers and National Guard troops who were forced to retreat when their truck was fired at after 11 a.m. He heard two or three shots and heard bullets ping into the floodwaters. "The soldiers shouted for us to get down," he said.

Later, hoping the coast was clear, medical teams again tried to carry patients outside. But more bursts sent doctors scurrying in retreat. Inside, nurses used bellows-like oxygen bags instead of mechanical ventilators to provide oxygen to patients too ill to breathe on their own. At nightfall, several seriously ill patients were evacuated by boat. But the boats soon returned, forced to retreat because promised rescue vehicles were not there to meet them.

By then, several of the sickest patients had died, said Dr. Ruth Bergeron. "They just brought a dead body down from the third floor," she said grimly.

The dead also lay under a punishing sun outside the convention center. At least seven bodies were scattered outside the hall, a squatter's hell for those downtown after their recent rescue from sodden attics and isolated rooftops. The dead lay among the refugees, who were hungry and thirsty and provoked by rumors of bus caravans that never arrived.

An old man lay dead in a chaise longue in a grassy median. Infants wailed around him. Nearby, an elderly woman lay stiffened in a wheelchair, covered by a plaid blanket. Another corpse was at her feet, wrapped in a white sheet.

"I don't treat my dog like that," said Daniel Edwards, 47.

Many of the dispossessed who sat slumped in the city center were from New Orleans' poorest neighborhoods; they had no way out and no place to go. Those with means, with money and families elsewhere, were long gone. The poor were left, begging for a ride to anywhere.

They had survived the storm and flood in old housing projects. But lacking food and water, and dragging wailing babies, they were miserable and sullen, prey to rumors about buses that never came.

Dierdre Duplessix, 32, left the B.W. Cooper Housing Project on Thursday morning with a neighbor, Lovely Peters, 32, and Peters' three children. They had escaped from a fire escape on a waterlogged mattress.

"They had maggots," Duplessix said. "They had dead cats and dogs in that water," she said. For a moment, she brightened. "God is so good. We made it. We're on dry land."

And then she started crying.

At the Superdome on Thursday morning, gunshots fired at Chinook helicopters trying to move the injured prompted officials to delay a long-awaited mass bus evacuation to Texas. About 23,000 refugees have been penned up for days in the dilapidated stadium, and some were boarding buses Thursday for northern Louisiana, the Houston Astrodome or San Antonio, the latest community to agree to house the evacuees.

Late Thursday, officials at the Astrodome closed the arena to further arrivals after accepting more than 11,000 people. They said taking more people would be unrealistic.

The director of an air medical evacuation service said Thursday that his agency had halted helicopter flights to and from the Superdome after at least one shot was fired at a helicopter and medical workers were jostled and threatened by angry crowds.

Richard Zuschlag, chairman of Acadian Ambulance Service in Lafayette, La., said the flights would not resume until authorities could establish order inside the Superdome. His agency operates 25 civilian helicopters and coordinates with the U.S. military for medical evacuation flights. The agency continued to operate emergency rescue flights elsewhere around New Orleans.

Dr. Charles Burnell and Toby Bergeron, a paramedic, said several gunshots were fired at helicopters — military and commercial — during the 24 hours they spent treating refugees at the Superdome. They treated a National Guard military policeman who was shot in the leg with his own automatic rifle while trying to break up a scuffle. Officials said an arrest had been made.

"People were screaming at us, trying to get through the barricades," said Burnell, 37, who works at a hospital in Lafayette, La. Paramedic Bergeron, 33, of Rayne, La., said medical personnel twice had to move their triage area because of hostility from some people among the thousands gathering in and around the Superdome. "The [National Guard] MPs were trying hard, but they finally said they couldn't guarantee our safety."

Later Thursday, another helicopter trying to drop off food and water was forced to retreat by the rush of the crowd. Troopers inside dumped their supplies before flying away.

Outside the storm-scarred Superdome, a 20-year-old woman collapsed amid crowds of exhausted refugees clutching suitcases and plastic bags filled with their possessions.

"She's not breathing!" someone screamed. Louisiana State Trooper Jason Martell cradled the woman, carrying her away from the gawking crowd with other officials. He tried to revive her. The woman's eyes fluttered, but her pulse vanished. In seconds, she was gone.

"She was like Jell-O when I picked her up," Martell said.

Lives were on the line throughout the flood zones in New Orleans, southern Louisiana and Mississippi. South of New Orleans, in obliterated St. Bernard Parish, scores of refugees were perched on flooded rooftops and apartment house balconies, waving makeshift banners pleading: "Help us!" Along obliterated beaches on the Mississippi coast, survivors picked through piles of rotting garbage for food.

Stray gunshots and threats from evacuees led some rescuers to suspend boat searches along New Orleans' swollen waterways. "In areas where our employees have been determined to potentially be in danger, we have pulled back," confirmed Russ Knocke, Department of Homeland Security spokesman.

Mayor Nagin said the city verged on total breakdown. "Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses," he said. "We need buses. Currently, the convention center is unsanitary and unsafe and we're running out of supplies."

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said she had requisitioned hundreds of school buses from around the state to transport evacuees. She said she also had asked federal officials for no fewer than 40,000 troops and was assured that "if we need them, we'll get them."

Congressional leaders agreed to cut short their summer recess to act on a Bush administration request for $10.5 billion to cover pressing emergency needs. Congress was expected to give the funds final approval today.

Meanwhile, the president warned that hurricane damage to key oil refineries and pipelines would cause temporary gas shortages in the coming weeks, and he urged Americans to "be prudent" in their driving habits.

"Don't buy gas if you don't need it," the president said from the Oval Office.

Michael D. Brown, Homeland Security undersecretary for emergency preparedness and response, defended the administration's performance. "This is still an ongoing disaster," he said. He said the media had exaggerated reports of violence and anarchy in New Orleans.

Nearly 10,000 National Guard troops were being airlifted into bases in Louisiana and Mississippi, and military planes were landing with tons of tarpaulins, food, ice and 144 portable generators to jump-start paralyzed hospitals and shelters.

In the air, inside the cockpit of a C-130 Hercules transport plane that flew from Point Mugu early Thursday, Air National Guard co-pilot Terry Torres mused aloud about the reports of New Orleans' violent disintegration.

"Isn't it crazy having to fear being shot flying over a city in your own country?" he said. The cargo plane, recently returned from Iraq, carried rows of cots for seriously ill patients to hospitals in Shreveport, La., and Jackson, Miss.

All day, thousands of active-duty and National Guard troops massed at staging areas in Louisiana and were trucked into positions around the city center and other facilities that had been patrolled for days by weary New Orleans police.

"We are establishing security there," said Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honore, who is heading the massive federal task force of active-duty and National Guard troops converging on the flood zones.

Blanco and Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.) said Thursday that thousands had probably died after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. "We understand there are thousands of dead people," Landrieu said at a news conference in Baton Rouge. "We know there are elderly people who died. We know children have died."

In Mississippi, bodies were stacked up in a temporary morgue in Biloxi. Rescue teams said they had saved some hurricane survivors after getting cellphone text messages from inside mounds of rubble.

"It's crazy what technology can do," said Larry Fisher, director of homeland security for Hinds County, which includes Jackson. "At this point, I'll take a smoke signal if it means we can save someone."

Hurricane Katrina sent a 29-foot-high storm surge into Bay St. Louis, Miss., according to a storm tide model developed by the International Hurricane Research Center. Much of the Mississippi coast suffered tidal surges of more than 20 feet. Developments as of 9 p.m. Thursday.

Region

- The military says it expects to increase National Guard deployment to 30,000 from around the country to help with security, rescue and relief.

- Houston's Astrodome accepts 11,000 refugees who had been sheltered at the New Orleans Superdome. The remaining 12,000 will be sent to other shelters. Texas officials plan to bring an additional 50,000 refugees to San Antonio and Dallas.

- Congress rushes to provide a $10.5-billion down payment in relief aid.

- Aid agencies tally more than $90 million in private donations.

- Standard & Poor's estimates that the damage may cost insurance companies $50 billion, including repairs to roads and bridges, double the original estimate.

Louisiana

- The government is sending 4,200 National Guard troops to New Orleans over the next three days to help stop looting and other lawlessness. Authorities say 2,800 troops are there now.

Mississippi

- The number of confirmed deaths has reached 126.

Sources: ESRI, TeleAtlas, Associated Press, International Hurricane Research Center. Graphics reporting by Chris Erskine

Barry and Gold reported from New Orleans, as did Times staff writers Alan Zarembo, David Zucchino and Steve Chawkins; Braun reported from Washington with Edwin Chen, Mary Curtius, Nicole Gaouette and Paul Richter; Tony Perry reported from Houston. Times researchers Lianne Hart in Baton Rouge, La., Jenny Jarvie in Atlanta and Lynn Marshall in Seattle also contributed to this report.

Links (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-katrina2sep02,0,190126.story?coll=la-home-headlines)

Photos (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-090105katrina-pg,0,510796.photogallery?coll=la-home-headlines)

Photos 2 (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-0831katrina_rescue-pg,0,1562937.photogallery?coll=la-home-headlines)

Mississippi (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-0831hurricane_outnola-pg,0,1836639.photogallery?coll=la-home-headlines)

[Warham]

Glad to see you are safe, Elvis!

:D

[ELVIS]

I'm interested in volunteering in the relief efforts...

But not until the military halts the violence...

[frets5150]

Just saw this on the news a civilian got ahold of a cameraman he said please follow me he first said no but then decided to follow the civilian into the convention center.The cameraman went into the bathroom dead people on the floor clothes Shit smeared all over the place. WTF
TOTAL DISGRACE...

[ELVIS]

Wow!

[Nickdfresh]

I just heard an eight-year-old girl was raped and perhaps killed in the Convention Center! Fucking animals!

[scamper]

What the fuck are those people thinking, so much for working together.

[Warham]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
I just heard an eight-year-old girl was raped and perhaps killed in the Convention Center! Fucking animals!

This disaster proves that evolution isn't a valid theory any longer.

[ELVIS]

Thank you...

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Warham
This disaster proves that evolution isn't a valid theory any longer.

Quite contraire, it proves that our apish instincts are still in us and rear their ugly head in times of crisis...

[Warham]

Yes, but I've seen apes act more civilized.

[Nickdfresh]

I seriously thought the entire city was underwater...
http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2005-09/19260711.jpg

But are only the low lying sections really under sea level?

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2005-09/19261570.jpg

What a waste..."The streets of Mid Town New Orleans, the second oldest neighborhood in the city, were completely flooded making a mirror image in the still water.
(Carolyn Cole / LAT)
September 2, 2005"

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2005-09/19252046.jpg