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New Orleans shelters to be evacuated
« on: Aug 30th, 2005, 7:07pm » |
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New Orleans shelters to be evacuated
Floodwaters rising, devastation widespread in Katrina's wake
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; Posted: 7:45 p.m. EDT (23:45 GMT)
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Deteriorating conditions in New Orleans will force authorities to evacuate the tens of thousands of people at shelters in the city, as Gulf Coast communities struggled to deal with the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Officials could not yet provide accurate estimates for fatalities or time needed for recovery in the area and are focusing, instead, on widespread search-and-rescue operations.
The death toll from the storm so far is estimated at 70 -- mostly in Mississippi. Officials stressed that the number is uncertain and likely to be much higher. (See aerial video of the aftermath -- 3:02)
"A lot of people lost their lives, and we still don't have any idea [how many], because the focus continues to be on rescuing those who have survived," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco told reporters Tuesday.
Elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, authorities used boats and helicopters to reach residents stranded by Hurricane Katrina and search for survivors.
The storm ripped ashore in Louisiana on Monday morning with winds topping 140 mph before scourging Mississippi and Alabama.
The U.S. Coast Guard said its crews assisted in the rescue Monday of about 1,200 people stranded by high water in the New Orleans area, and thousands more were rescued Tuesday morning.
Waters rising in New Orleans
New Orleans on Tuesday resembled a war zone.
The city had no power, no drinking water, dwindling food supplies, widespread looting, water rising in the streets, smoke rising on the horizon and even the sounds of gunfire. At least one large building was ablaze Tuesday.
Frustration was also rising among people who now find themselves refugees in their own city.
As many as 30,000 people were being housed in the Louisiana Superdome, where toilets were overflowing and there was no air conditioning to provide relief from 90-degree heat.
Blanco said officials are making plans to evacuate people from the Superdome and other shelters, but she did not say when that might happen or where they might be taken.
The city's main public hospital, Charity Hospital, was no longer functioning and was being evacuated, Blanco said.
Also under way was the evacuation of more than 1,000 people from Tulane University Hospital with the help of the U.S. military, hospital spokeswoman Karen Troyer Caraway said.
"It's an unbelievable situation," she said. "We're completely surrounded by water. There's looting going on in the streets around the hospital."
Hundreds of people were looting businesses downtown, throwing rocks through store windows and hauling away goods.
Nearly all of the parishes in the New Orleans area -- Orleans, St. John the Baptist, Plaquemines, St. Tammany and Jefferson -- put curfews in place.
U.S. Coast Guard crews in helicopters continued to pluck people from the roofs of their inundated houses, while local rescue crews used boats to reach residents marooned by the floods.
Inmates from a flooded parish jail were relocated to a freeway on-ramp, where they sat out in the sun, under the watch of armed officers.
Mayor Ray Nagin said 80 percent of the city was under water, which was 20 feet deep in some places.
Water from Lake Pontchartrain was pouring into the downtown area from a levee breach, rising steadily throughout the day along Canal Street, the city's main thoroughfare that separates the central business district from the French Quarter.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported two major breaches in the levee system that protects New Orleans, much of which lies below sea level.
The Corps said it planned to bring "all assets available" into the city to plug the breaches, including rocks, gigantic sand bags and cranes.
The entire downtown area of Slidell, across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans in St. Tammany Parish, was under 15 feet of water, emergency management officials said.
Getting anything into New Orleans will be difficult because of the damage to two, 7-mile bridge spans that carry Interstate 10 over Lake Pontchartrain, linking the city to points east.
"This is a tragedy of great proportions, greater than any we've see in our lifetimes," Blanco said. "We know many lives have been lost."
The governor also said it was "impossible to even begin to estimate" how long it will take to restore power and drinking water in New Orleans.
Food is being brought into the city for emergency workers and people in shelters because it is scare in the city, she said.
Death toll rising in Mississippi
While there are no official numbers yet, the death toll in Mississippi from Hurricane Katrina is expected to be heavy, officials said Tuesday.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who toured the affected areas of his state Tuesday afternoon by helicopter, earlier said credible reports indicated as many as 80 people had died in Biloxi.
"There are credible accounts of 50 to 80 in Harrison County, those are not confirmed but they're credible," he told reporters at the headquarters of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency in Jackson.
"And I hate to say it, I think there are going to be more."
Jason Green, of the Harrison County Coroner's Office, said funeral homes in Gulfport had received 26 bodies since the storm passed Monday.
In the small town of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, search-and-rescue crews put black marks on homes known to contain bodies, because there weren't enough refrigerated trucks to remove the corpses.
In Biloxi, an employee of the city's Grand Casino was awed by the extent of the damage.
"I was a senior in high school when Hurricane Camille hit, in 1969, and I have never seen destruction of this magnitude," said Scott Richmond.
At least a dozen gaming places were closed and damaged by Katrina -- costing the state $500,000 a day in lost tax revenues.
Part of the city's sea wall was washed away, and nearly every downtown building had extensive damage to its first level.
State emergency management officials said 80 percent of the state's residents had no power.
In Biloxi, a 25-foot swell of water crashed in from the Gulf of Mexico Monday and inundated structures there.
Up to 30 people are believed to have been killed when an apartment complex on the beach collapsed in the storm.
Distraught resident Harvey Jackson told a local television station about losing his wife in the floodwater as they stood on their roof.
"I held her hand as tight as I could and she told me, 'You can't hold me.' She said 'Take care of the kids and the grandkids,' " he sobbed.
Streets and homes were flooded as far as 6 miles inland from the beach, and the eastbound lanes of Interstate 10 between Gulfport and Biloxi were impassible because of debris deposited in the roadway by floodwater.
Looting also was reported in Biloxi and in Gulfport, Mississippi, officials said. Barbour said police would be "ruthless" with looters, using "whatever means necessary" to deal with them.
Other developments
• In Mobile, Alabama, the storm pushed water from Mobile Bay into downtown, submerging large sections of the city, and officials imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew. An oil drilling platform broke away from its moorings and lodged under a bridge that carries U.S. Highway 98 over the Mobile River.
• The impact of Katrina on U.S. oil production and refinery capabilities may be worse than initial reports estimated and could lead to a national gas crisis in the short-term, analysts warned Tuesday.
• President Bush was returning to Washington two days ahead of schedule to help oversee Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts, the White House announced.
CNN's Anderson Cooper, Kathleen Koch, David Mattingly, Jeanne Meserve, Miles O'Brien, Jim Spellman, Gary Tuchman and John Zarrella contributed to this report.
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