Nickdfresh
09-08-2005, 08:22 PM
2:50 PM PDT, September 8, 2005
Hundreds of Police Officers Missing in New Orleans
Bush vows to step up federal response.
By Julie Cart, Edwin Chen and Scott Gold, Times Staff Writers
NEW ORLEANS — Hundreds of police officers are missing and many may be dead from Hurricane Katrina, according to a top police official, who in an interview today also said that the population of the city may sharply drop because of the storm.
Deputy Police Supt. Warren Riley said about 700 of the city's 1,600-officer force was told to stay home until the storm passed so that they would be available to be deployed wherever they were needed.
Between 400 and 500 officers remain unaccounted for and many are feared dead, though some are believed to have walked away from the job, he said.
Riley said that survivors would have likely called the department to say that they are alive or to explain their absence. He declined to speculate about how many officers may have perished: "One is too many."
"We don't know how many officers are dead," he said. "We don't know how many officers drowned. That's a fear of ours."
Riley spoke as the city continued its evacuation by trying to persuade the thousands of residents who refuse to leave their homes that the city is too dangerous for them to remain. If the stragglers insist on staying, they will be forcibly evacuated, officials said.
Vice President Dick Cheney landed this afternoon in New Orleans as part of his tour of the Gulf Coast, devastated when Katrina hit in the predawn hours of Aug. 29.
President Bush, whose popularity has been falling because of questions about the federal relief effort, briefly addressed the nation today and proclaimed Sept. 16 as a national day of prayer for the victims of Katrina.
Bush appeared on television flanked by four of his Cabinet officers, hours after Democrats in Washington stepped up their attacks on the quality of the federal response and again called for an independent commission to investigate.
No one had been forcibly removed from their homes as of noon today, Police Superintendent Eddie Compass said. Many have resisted calls to leave, but "some people just want to have someone explain to them face to face why they have to leave."
He said that officers will soon begin entering houses and removing people who won't leave. He recognized that there could be considerable tension once that starts, but he pledged to do what he could to ease any difficulties.
"We're going to be respectful," he said. "We understand it is a dramatic experience and we're going to handle it that way. We are very sensitive to the needs of our community. We are not going to be tough. We are going to be sensitive."
Officials have been emptying the city, which remains substantially flooded by waters that poured through three broken levees after Katrina landed upon the coast. In the more than 10 days since the storm began its march through the gulf, the floodwaters have become infected with large amounts of bacteria.
Hundreds of thousands of evacuees have been moved to shelters across the country, with an estimated 250,000 in Texas alone. New Orleans had a population of about 500,000, but that could decrease to 350,000 when people are allowed to return, Riley said.
There have already been reports of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people leaving out-of-state shelters, such as the Houston Astrodome, in an attempt to start new lives there.
While that could have devastating consequences for a tax base that was strained before the storm, Riley sought to find some solace.
"Some people will probably go places and live better lives," he said. "New Orleans with a smaller population may be a better city. You take away the tragic loss of life here and maybe there is a silver lining."
Fire Superintendent Charles Parent said today that three multistory buildings on the flooded campus of Dillard University, an African American college founded in 1869, were destroyed in an overnight fire.
Parent said the campus is small and he feared that the damage to the school would be substantial and lasting. But he said that because of deep-standing water, firefighters were only able to fight the blaze with helicopters and have not been able to access the site.
The buildings were destroyed in one of 11 major fires the city fought overnight, with the assistance of hundreds of firefighters who have come from other states.
In a message posted to students on its website, Dillard called itself an "institution with a rich, proud and triumphant history."
"Our beginnings are rooted in struggle and a committed determination to overcome social, political and environmental obstacles," the statement said.
"Today, we face a formidable challenge; however, we are equally resolute in our ability to recall our collective strength. We resolve to recommit to our future with full expectation that our beloved Dillard will remain one of the nation's premier institutions of higher learning."
Dillard's campus sits amid the deep flooding in the heart of the city, north of downtown and west of the Gentilly area.
Cheney visited the aircraft carrier Iwo Jima, docked in the Mississippi River. He met with Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, just appointed as deputy to beleaguered FEMA Director Michael Brown. Cheney viewed maps and large aerial photographs of the destruction area.
"As you can see, the water is starting to recede," Allen told Cheney.
Allen said the next step is a door-to-door search of residences as evacuation of the city proceeds.
Afterward, Cheney took a ride in a Humvee to look at repairs to the levee.
Before his arrival in New Orleans, Cheney visited Gulfport, Miss. He and Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales were briefed by Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff.
After meeting with local officials, Cheney and his wife, Lynne, walked through a devastated neighborhood. He praised the first responders and pledged that the federal government would do more.
"I think the progress we're making is significant," Cheney said. "I think the performance, in general, at least in terms of the information I've received from locals, is definitely very impressive.
"That's not to say there's not an awful lot of work to be done — there is."
As Cheney toured the region, the political fallout from what has turned into the nation's worst natural disaster continued.
Democrats sharply attacked Republican plans for a congressional task force to examine the federal response and called for an independent commission. The panel was proposed Wednesday by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said today that she wouldn't appoint any Democrats to a panel that she called a "charade."
"I'm protesting the fact that it's not bipartisan. And we've got to work together to get this done. So let's not have a charade about what they decide is bipartisan. That's not what bipartisanship is," she said.
Pelosi and others have also said that Bush should fire Brown, but Cheney defended appointees like the FEMA director.
Cheney also backed the Republican leaders' task force, saying it was similar to the Iran-Contra committee on which he served as a congressman in the 1980s.
Criticism of the federal response has also taken a toll on Bush's poll ratings.
A survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 67% of those sampled thought Bush could have done more to speed up relief efforts, and 28% thought he had done all he could. His job approval rating dropped to 40%, with the greatest slippage occurring among Republicans and conservatives, the base of his support.
Bush took to the airwaves to explain how to apply for the previously announced program to give $2,000 in disaster assistance to families displaced by the storm. He also said the administration would continue federal benefits such as food stamps, Medicaid and unemployment payments.
He proclaimed Sept. 16 a national day of prayer for victims of Katrina.
"I ask that we pray, as Americans have always prayed in times of trial, with confidence in His purpose, with hope for a brighter future, and with the humility to ask God to keep us strong, so that we can better serve our brothers and sisters in need," the president said.
Earlier this week, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin authorized officials to forcibly remove the remaining residents, even if they didn't want to go, because the city is dangerous.
The order applies to the inundated eastern wards and the lightly damaged French Quarter and Garden District. It exempts Algiers and other communities south of the Mississippi River, known as the West Bank, which were largely spared from flooding. The mayor has said that standing water still covers 60% of New Orleans, down from 80% at its peak.
According to Walter Boasso, a Republican state senator whose district includes the flooded St. Bernard Parish, sheriff deputies and other local officials began forcibly removing residents on Wednesday.
He said today that in at least one case a reluctant evacuee had to be restrained and tied to the bed of a pickup truck.
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has not ordered forced evacuations.
National Guard Maj. Gen. Ron Mason said today in Baton Rouge that if the order is given to forcibly remove the estimated 10,000 residents who remain in New Orleans, that task would fall to the New Orleans Police Department.
"I don't believe that you will see National Guard soldiers actually forcing people to leave," Mason said. "We think that is a police effort."
Mason said 7,000 National Guard troops in New Orleans are going house to house to assist willing evacuees. Should a forced evacuation be ordered, he said, Guard troops will drive vehicles and support the police.
"In every situation where we send National Guard soldiers, we have rules for use of force," he said. "That means these soldiers are allowed to protect themselves. That's the purpose of the weapons. The purpose of the weapons is not to be used against American citizens and force them from their homes."
Complicating the situation is that the floodwaters in New Orleans are teeming with bacteria, carrying the potential for a variety of diseases.
At least four flood victims have died of bacterial infections caused by the water in New Orleans and other hard-hit towns. They appeared to have been infected with vibrio vulnificus bacteria, a water-borne pathogen related to the bacteria that cause cholera.
The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals announced today that 19 cases of West Nile disease had been detected.
As health authorities joined New Orleans and Louisiana officials in urging the city's estimated 10,000 holdouts to leave their homes, the House passed the Bush administration's latest request for another $51.8 billion in funding to speed help to victims of Hurricane Katrina. The Senate is expected to act soon.
Congress has already approved $10.8 billion in aid.
Ripples from the flooding, which has left as many as 1 million people homeless and untold numbers dead, continued to shake the nation's economy. The federal Labor Department said today that about 10,000 of the evacuees have filed for unemployment benefits last week.
On Wednesday, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that 400,000 jobs would be lost through the end of the year, with privately insured losses topping $30 billion.
The official death count stood at 196 bodies in the state of Mississippi and more than a dozen in other states where Katrina hit.
Juliette Saussy, director of emergency medical services in New Orleans, said today that hundreds of bodies have been removed from the city, and officials are expecting the death toll to climb.
With the increased security has come an increase in arrests. David Dugas, U.S. attorney for the middle district of Louisiana, said 223 prisoners have been processed, most coming from Jefferson Parish. They are being screened at Hunt Correctional Institute in St. Gabriel, southwest of New Orleans.
As officials struggle with how to deal with the evacuees, school officials in Orleans Parish were unsure whether any schools will open this year. Schools in Jefferson Parish are expected to open in January. In hard-hit St. Bernard Parish and Plaquemines Parish, no dates have been set for school to begin.
Gasoline tankers have become a more regular sight along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, causing lines for fuel to begin to ease. Lines that just a few days ago had stretched for several miles were cut in half. Residents outside the hardest-hit coastal towns spoke about being able to drive up to a gas station with no wait.
But as gas became easier to get and more residents who had fled the hurricane began to return, traffic on main roads throughout the Mississippi Gulf, particularly Interstate 10, has become extremely heavy.
Meanwhile, construction crews are busy repairing roads, so law enforcement officers are directing drivers through a series of detours, exacerbating the traffic snarls. There are even morning and evening rush hours — another sign of normalcy.
Utility trucks, military vehicles and law enforcement from around the state are also clogging the roads, making commutes sometimes unbearably long.
Link (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-090805katrina_lat,0,7918762,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines)
Gold reported from New Orleans, Chen from Gulfport, Miss., and Cart from Baton Rouge. Staff writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed from Baton Rouge, as did Richard Fausset and Greg Miller from New Orleans, James Gerstenzang from Washington, P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago and Michael Muskal from Los Angeles.
Hundreds of Police Officers Missing in New Orleans
Bush vows to step up federal response.
By Julie Cart, Edwin Chen and Scott Gold, Times Staff Writers
NEW ORLEANS — Hundreds of police officers are missing and many may be dead from Hurricane Katrina, according to a top police official, who in an interview today also said that the population of the city may sharply drop because of the storm.
Deputy Police Supt. Warren Riley said about 700 of the city's 1,600-officer force was told to stay home until the storm passed so that they would be available to be deployed wherever they were needed.
Between 400 and 500 officers remain unaccounted for and many are feared dead, though some are believed to have walked away from the job, he said.
Riley said that survivors would have likely called the department to say that they are alive or to explain their absence. He declined to speculate about how many officers may have perished: "One is too many."
"We don't know how many officers are dead," he said. "We don't know how many officers drowned. That's a fear of ours."
Riley spoke as the city continued its evacuation by trying to persuade the thousands of residents who refuse to leave their homes that the city is too dangerous for them to remain. If the stragglers insist on staying, they will be forcibly evacuated, officials said.
Vice President Dick Cheney landed this afternoon in New Orleans as part of his tour of the Gulf Coast, devastated when Katrina hit in the predawn hours of Aug. 29.
President Bush, whose popularity has been falling because of questions about the federal relief effort, briefly addressed the nation today and proclaimed Sept. 16 as a national day of prayer for the victims of Katrina.
Bush appeared on television flanked by four of his Cabinet officers, hours after Democrats in Washington stepped up their attacks on the quality of the federal response and again called for an independent commission to investigate.
No one had been forcibly removed from their homes as of noon today, Police Superintendent Eddie Compass said. Many have resisted calls to leave, but "some people just want to have someone explain to them face to face why they have to leave."
He said that officers will soon begin entering houses and removing people who won't leave. He recognized that there could be considerable tension once that starts, but he pledged to do what he could to ease any difficulties.
"We're going to be respectful," he said. "We understand it is a dramatic experience and we're going to handle it that way. We are very sensitive to the needs of our community. We are not going to be tough. We are going to be sensitive."
Officials have been emptying the city, which remains substantially flooded by waters that poured through three broken levees after Katrina landed upon the coast. In the more than 10 days since the storm began its march through the gulf, the floodwaters have become infected with large amounts of bacteria.
Hundreds of thousands of evacuees have been moved to shelters across the country, with an estimated 250,000 in Texas alone. New Orleans had a population of about 500,000, but that could decrease to 350,000 when people are allowed to return, Riley said.
There have already been reports of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people leaving out-of-state shelters, such as the Houston Astrodome, in an attempt to start new lives there.
While that could have devastating consequences for a tax base that was strained before the storm, Riley sought to find some solace.
"Some people will probably go places and live better lives," he said. "New Orleans with a smaller population may be a better city. You take away the tragic loss of life here and maybe there is a silver lining."
Fire Superintendent Charles Parent said today that three multistory buildings on the flooded campus of Dillard University, an African American college founded in 1869, were destroyed in an overnight fire.
Parent said the campus is small and he feared that the damage to the school would be substantial and lasting. But he said that because of deep-standing water, firefighters were only able to fight the blaze with helicopters and have not been able to access the site.
The buildings were destroyed in one of 11 major fires the city fought overnight, with the assistance of hundreds of firefighters who have come from other states.
In a message posted to students on its website, Dillard called itself an "institution with a rich, proud and triumphant history."
"Our beginnings are rooted in struggle and a committed determination to overcome social, political and environmental obstacles," the statement said.
"Today, we face a formidable challenge; however, we are equally resolute in our ability to recall our collective strength. We resolve to recommit to our future with full expectation that our beloved Dillard will remain one of the nation's premier institutions of higher learning."
Dillard's campus sits amid the deep flooding in the heart of the city, north of downtown and west of the Gentilly area.
Cheney visited the aircraft carrier Iwo Jima, docked in the Mississippi River. He met with Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, just appointed as deputy to beleaguered FEMA Director Michael Brown. Cheney viewed maps and large aerial photographs of the destruction area.
"As you can see, the water is starting to recede," Allen told Cheney.
Allen said the next step is a door-to-door search of residences as evacuation of the city proceeds.
Afterward, Cheney took a ride in a Humvee to look at repairs to the levee.
Before his arrival in New Orleans, Cheney visited Gulfport, Miss. He and Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales were briefed by Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff.
After meeting with local officials, Cheney and his wife, Lynne, walked through a devastated neighborhood. He praised the first responders and pledged that the federal government would do more.
"I think the progress we're making is significant," Cheney said. "I think the performance, in general, at least in terms of the information I've received from locals, is definitely very impressive.
"That's not to say there's not an awful lot of work to be done — there is."
As Cheney toured the region, the political fallout from what has turned into the nation's worst natural disaster continued.
Democrats sharply attacked Republican plans for a congressional task force to examine the federal response and called for an independent commission. The panel was proposed Wednesday by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said today that she wouldn't appoint any Democrats to a panel that she called a "charade."
"I'm protesting the fact that it's not bipartisan. And we've got to work together to get this done. So let's not have a charade about what they decide is bipartisan. That's not what bipartisanship is," she said.
Pelosi and others have also said that Bush should fire Brown, but Cheney defended appointees like the FEMA director.
Cheney also backed the Republican leaders' task force, saying it was similar to the Iran-Contra committee on which he served as a congressman in the 1980s.
Criticism of the federal response has also taken a toll on Bush's poll ratings.
A survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 67% of those sampled thought Bush could have done more to speed up relief efforts, and 28% thought he had done all he could. His job approval rating dropped to 40%, with the greatest slippage occurring among Republicans and conservatives, the base of his support.
Bush took to the airwaves to explain how to apply for the previously announced program to give $2,000 in disaster assistance to families displaced by the storm. He also said the administration would continue federal benefits such as food stamps, Medicaid and unemployment payments.
He proclaimed Sept. 16 a national day of prayer for victims of Katrina.
"I ask that we pray, as Americans have always prayed in times of trial, with confidence in His purpose, with hope for a brighter future, and with the humility to ask God to keep us strong, so that we can better serve our brothers and sisters in need," the president said.
Earlier this week, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin authorized officials to forcibly remove the remaining residents, even if they didn't want to go, because the city is dangerous.
The order applies to the inundated eastern wards and the lightly damaged French Quarter and Garden District. It exempts Algiers and other communities south of the Mississippi River, known as the West Bank, which were largely spared from flooding. The mayor has said that standing water still covers 60% of New Orleans, down from 80% at its peak.
According to Walter Boasso, a Republican state senator whose district includes the flooded St. Bernard Parish, sheriff deputies and other local officials began forcibly removing residents on Wednesday.
He said today that in at least one case a reluctant evacuee had to be restrained and tied to the bed of a pickup truck.
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has not ordered forced evacuations.
National Guard Maj. Gen. Ron Mason said today in Baton Rouge that if the order is given to forcibly remove the estimated 10,000 residents who remain in New Orleans, that task would fall to the New Orleans Police Department.
"I don't believe that you will see National Guard soldiers actually forcing people to leave," Mason said. "We think that is a police effort."
Mason said 7,000 National Guard troops in New Orleans are going house to house to assist willing evacuees. Should a forced evacuation be ordered, he said, Guard troops will drive vehicles and support the police.
"In every situation where we send National Guard soldiers, we have rules for use of force," he said. "That means these soldiers are allowed to protect themselves. That's the purpose of the weapons. The purpose of the weapons is not to be used against American citizens and force them from their homes."
Complicating the situation is that the floodwaters in New Orleans are teeming with bacteria, carrying the potential for a variety of diseases.
At least four flood victims have died of bacterial infections caused by the water in New Orleans and other hard-hit towns. They appeared to have been infected with vibrio vulnificus bacteria, a water-borne pathogen related to the bacteria that cause cholera.
The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals announced today that 19 cases of West Nile disease had been detected.
As health authorities joined New Orleans and Louisiana officials in urging the city's estimated 10,000 holdouts to leave their homes, the House passed the Bush administration's latest request for another $51.8 billion in funding to speed help to victims of Hurricane Katrina. The Senate is expected to act soon.
Congress has already approved $10.8 billion in aid.
Ripples from the flooding, which has left as many as 1 million people homeless and untold numbers dead, continued to shake the nation's economy. The federal Labor Department said today that about 10,000 of the evacuees have filed for unemployment benefits last week.
On Wednesday, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that 400,000 jobs would be lost through the end of the year, with privately insured losses topping $30 billion.
The official death count stood at 196 bodies in the state of Mississippi and more than a dozen in other states where Katrina hit.
Juliette Saussy, director of emergency medical services in New Orleans, said today that hundreds of bodies have been removed from the city, and officials are expecting the death toll to climb.
With the increased security has come an increase in arrests. David Dugas, U.S. attorney for the middle district of Louisiana, said 223 prisoners have been processed, most coming from Jefferson Parish. They are being screened at Hunt Correctional Institute in St. Gabriel, southwest of New Orleans.
As officials struggle with how to deal with the evacuees, school officials in Orleans Parish were unsure whether any schools will open this year. Schools in Jefferson Parish are expected to open in January. In hard-hit St. Bernard Parish and Plaquemines Parish, no dates have been set for school to begin.
Gasoline tankers have become a more regular sight along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, causing lines for fuel to begin to ease. Lines that just a few days ago had stretched for several miles were cut in half. Residents outside the hardest-hit coastal towns spoke about being able to drive up to a gas station with no wait.
But as gas became easier to get and more residents who had fled the hurricane began to return, traffic on main roads throughout the Mississippi Gulf, particularly Interstate 10, has become extremely heavy.
Meanwhile, construction crews are busy repairing roads, so law enforcement officers are directing drivers through a series of detours, exacerbating the traffic snarls. There are even morning and evening rush hours — another sign of normalcy.
Utility trucks, military vehicles and law enforcement from around the state are also clogging the roads, making commutes sometimes unbearably long.
Link (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-090805katrina_lat,0,7918762,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines)
Gold reported from New Orleans, Chen from Gulfport, Miss., and Cart from Baton Rouge. Staff writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed from Baton Rouge, as did Richard Fausset and Greg Miller from New Orleans, James Gerstenzang from Washington, P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago and Michael Muskal from Los Angeles.