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Topic: Military Finally Arrives (Read 124 times)

Rhune
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Military Finally Arrives
« on: Sep 2^nd, 2005, 1:29pm »

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Convoy brings relief supplies to New Orleans
Friday, September 2, 2005; Posted: 1:58 p.m. EDT (17:58 GMT)

Programming Note: CNN correspondents throughout the region gauge the impact from the heart of disaster.

(CNN) -- A convoy of military vehicles plowed through the flooded streets of New Orleans on Friday bringing food, water and medicine to the thousands of people trapped at a downtown convention center.

The relief effort came as President Bush toured the Gulf Coast to survey damage from Hurricane Katrina and shortly after the mayor of New Orleans said the city was "holding on by a thread."

The commanding general in charge of the relief effort in New Orleans was directing the operation from a street corner. He told the troops, part of a deployment of 1,000 members of the National Guard, to make sure they kept their guns down.

"A few moments ago, he stopped a truck full of National Guard Troops ... and said, 'Point your weapons down, this is not Iraq,'" said CNN's Barbara Starr who is traveling with the three-star general.

"He is very determined to keep this looking like a humanitarian relief operation," Starr said. Mayor's order

Thousands of people have been stranded at the Ernest Morial Convention Center with little help and surrounded by corpses, trash and human waste.

"We got here, there's no food. There's no water. There's shooting. They're killing people," evacuee Tishia Walters told CNN from inside the center. "They're robbing men in the restrooms, they're raping women trying to go to the restroom. So people have resorted to defecating on the floors. You can't walk. There's babies without Pampers, mammas without milk. It's chaos total chaos."

Mayor Ray Nagin said in a statement that more than 10,000 people were evacuated from the city Thursday but that more than 50,000 survivors were still on rooftops and in shelters, in urgent need of help.

Earlier, Nagin lashed out at state and federal authorities saying they were "thinking small" in the face of the massive crisis.

Bush: Results 'not acceptable'
President Bush arrived in Mobile, Alabama, on Friday to inspect the storm damage. He sad the federal government would "restore order in the city of New Orleans," where violence has hampered rescue efforts.

Bush also visited Biloxi, Mississippi, where he embraced two women as they recounted their ordeal and talked to other people in the neighborhood.

Nagin will meet with President Bush on at the New Orleans airport when Bush arrives there Friday, according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

Before leaving Washington, Bush told reporters that millions of tons of food and water were on the way to -- but the results of the relief effort "are not acceptable."

Police outnumbered and outgunned
Overnight, police snipers were stationed on the roof of their precinct, trying to protect it from gunmen roaming through the city, CNN's Chris Lawrence reported.

One New Orleans police sergeant compared the situation to Somalia and said officers were outnumbered and outgunned by gangs in trucks.

"It's a war zone, and they're not treating it like one," he said, referring to the federal government.

The officer hitched a ride to Baton Rouge Friday morning, after working 60 hours straight in the flooded city. He has not decided whether he will return.

He broke down in tears when he described the deaths of his fellow officers, saying many had drowned doing their jobs. Other officers have turned in their badges as the situation continues to deteriorate.

In one incident, the sergeant said gunmen fired rifles and AK-47s at the helicopters flying overhead.

He said he saw bodies riddled with bullet holes, and the top of one man's head completely shot off.

Lt. Gen Steven Blum of the National Guard said that as many as 2,600 National Guard troops were expected to arrive in Louisiana Friday to join the nearly 2,000 who went in Thursday.

Other developments

An effort to evacuate patients and staff from downtown's Charity Hospital had to be suspended after a sniper opened fire on rescuers. The hospital was caring for about 200 patients with no power or water, and the only food left was a couple of cans of vegetables and some graham crackers.

The Houston Astrodome in Texas, where thousands of refugees had been bused over the past couple of days, stopped accepting refugees late Thursday. However, authorities later decided to process evacuees at the Astrodome and house them in the nearby Reliant Arena, said Patrick Trahan, city spokesman. Other New Orleans refugees are being taken to Huntsville, Texas, along with San Antonio and Dallas, he said.

Offers of support have poured in from all over the world in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Many countries have offered their condolences and made donations to the Red Cross, including Britain, Japan, Australia and Sri Lanka, which is still recovering from last year's tsunami.

At Louis Armstrong airport, a field hospital set up by FEMA was overwhelmed with patients. Equipment normally used to move luggage was instead ferrying patients to a treatment center and to planes and buses for evacuation. "I do not have the words in my vocabulary to describe what is happening here," said Ozro Henderson, a medical team commander with FEMA. "Catastrophe and disaster don't explain it."

In Washington, the Senate approved a $10.5 billion disaster relief request from the Bush administration. The House is expected to do the same when it takes up the matter Friday.

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Rhune
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Re: Military Finally Arrives
« Reply #1 on: Sep 2^nd, 2005, 1:40pm »

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I didn't know whether to post this in the Political section or not, because I'm gonna make some comments here...

First off let me clarify that I do not blame any of the soldiers, nor do I blame any officers that were not directly responsible for the decisions on when & how to move our military in. HOWEVER...I am just furious that it took this long for what military we have left in this country to be moved down there...AFTER the city has been ransacked and burned, AFTER many people who went to the centralized places like the Superdome died from inadequate emergency health care. AFTER innocent people died beacuse looters wanted what they had. DAYS AFTER in some cases... It was very obvious very quicly that the National Guard couldn't contain or clean this up alone, and that they needed support. Troops should have been moved in, in significant numbers 2 days ago... Angry