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2001

The foretelling of a deadly disaster in New Orleans

FEMA ranked hurricane scenario highly likely in '01

By ERIC BERGER

Editor's note: This article was originally published on Dec. 1, 2001, in the Houston Chronicle. Because of its relevance to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, it is being republished.

New Orleans is sinking.

And its main buffer from a hurricane, the protective Mississippi River delta, is quickly eroding away, leaving the historic city perilously close to disaster.

So vulnerable, in fact, that earlier this year the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked the potential damage to New Orleans as among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country.

The other two? A massive earthquake in San Francisco, and, almost prophetically, a terrorist attack on New York City.

The New Orleans hurricane scenario may be the deadliest of all.

In the face of an approaching storm, scientists say, the city's less-than-adequate evacuation routes would strand 250,000 people or more, and probably kill one of 10 left behind as the city drowned under 20 feet of water. Thousands of refugees could land in Houston.

Economically, the toll would be shattering.

Southern Louisiana produces one-third of the country's seafood, one-fifth of its oil and one-quarter of its natural gas. The city's tourism, lifeblood of the French Quarter, would cease to exist. The Big Easy might never recover.

And, given New Orleans' precarious perch, some academics wonder if it should be rebuilt at all.

It's been 36 years since Hurricane Betsy buried New Orleans 8 feet deep. Since then a deteriorating ecosystem and increased development have left the city in an ever more precarious position. Yet the problem went unaddressed for decades by a laissez-faire government, experts said.

"To some extent, I think we've been lulled to sleep," said Marc Levitan, director of Louisiana State University's hurricane center.

Hurricane season ended Friday, and for the second straight year no hurricanes hit the United States. But the season nonetheless continued a long-term trend of more active seasons, forecasters said. Tropical Storm Allison became this country's most destructive tropical storm ever.

Yet despite the damage Allison wrought upon Houston, dropping more than 3 feet of water in some areas, a few days later much of the city returned to normal as bloated bayous drained into the Gulf of Mexico. The same storm dumped a mere 5 inches on New Orleans, nearly overwhelming the city's pump system. If an Allison-type storm were to strike New Orleans, or a Category 3 storm or greater with at least 111 mph winds, the results would be cataclysmic, New Orleans planners said.

"Any significant water that comes into this city is a dangerous threat," Walter Maestri, Jefferson Parish emergency management director, told Scientific American for an October article.

"Even though I have to plan for it, I don't even want to think about the loss of life a huge hurricane would cause."

New Orleans is essentially a bowl ringed by levees that protect the city from the Mississippi River to its south and Lake Pontchartrain to the north. The bottom of the bowl is 14 feet below sea level, and efforts to keep it dry are only digging a deeper hole.

During routine rainfalls the city's dozens of pumps push water uphill into the lake. This, in turn, draws water from the ground, further drying the ground and sinking it deeper, a problem known as subsidence.

This problem also faces Houston as water wells have sucked the ground dry. Houston's solution is a plan to convert to surface drinking water. For New Orleans, eliminating pumping during a rainfall is not an option, so the city continues to sink.

A big storm, scientists said, would likely block four of five evacuation routes long before it hit. Those left behind would have no power or transportation, and little food or medicine, and no prospects for a return to normal any time soon.

"The bowl would be full," Levitan said. "There's simply no place for the water to drain."

Estimates for pumping the city dry after a huge storm vary from six to 16 weeks. Hundreds of thousands would be homeless, their residences destroyed.

The only solution, scientists, politicians and other Louisiana officials agree, is to take large-scale steps to minimize the risks, such as rebuilding the protective delta.

Every two miles of marsh between New Orleans and the Gulf reduces a storm surge — which in some cases is 20 feet or higher — by half a foot.

In 1990, the Breaux Act, named for its author, Sen. John Breaux, D-La., created a task force of several federal agencies to address the severe wetlands loss in coastal Louisiana. The act has brought about $40 million a year for wetland restoration projects, but it hasn't been enough.

"It's kind of been like trying to give aspirin to a cancer patient," said Len Bahr, director of Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster's coastal activities office.

The state loses about 25 square miles of land a year, the equivalent of about one football field every 15 minutes. The fishing industry, without marshes, swamps and fertile wetlands, could lose a projected $37 billion by the year 2050.

University of New Orleans researchers studied the impact of Breaux Act projects on the vanishing wetlands and estimated that only 2 percent of the loss has been averted. Clearly, Bahr said, there is a need for something much bigger. There is some evidence this finally may be happening.

A consortium of local, state and federal agencies is studying a $2 billion to $3 billion plan to divert sediment from the Mississippi River back into the delta. Because the river is leveed all the way to the Gulf, where sediment is dumped into deep water, nothing is left to replenish the receding delta. Other possible projects include restoration of barrier reefs and perhaps a large gate to prevent Lake Pontchartrain from overflowing and drowning the city.

All are multibillion-dollar projects. A plan to restore the Florida Everglades attracted $4 billion in federal funding, but the state had to match it dollar for dollar. In Louisiana, so far, there's only been a willingness to match 15 or 25 cents.

"Our state still looks for a 100 percent federal bailout, but that's just not going to happen," said University of New Orleans geologist Shea Penland, a delta expert.

"We have an image and credibility problem. We have to convince our country that they need to take us seriously, that they can trust us to do a science-based restoration program."

Berger is a Chronicle reporter.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3335758

August 25, 2005

Weak Katrina makes landfall south of Fort Lauderdale

Associated Press

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Hurricane Katrina dumped sheets of rain, kicked up the surf and blew strong winds ashore today, toppling trees and driving sand across waterfront streets as it made landfall on the state's densely populated southeast coast.

Katrina's maximum sustained winds increased from 50 to 80 mph today, making it a Category 1 storm as it hit south of Fort Lauderdale, said hurricane specialist Lixion Avila with the National Hurricane Center in Miami. An estimated 5.9 million Florida residents were in Katrina's projected path.

Category 1 storms have maximum sustained winds of 74 to 95 mph, and wind damage to secured structures is usually minimal. Weather officials said Katrina was mostly a rain event, with flooding the main concern.

Before the slow-moving storm hit land, Floridians wary of Katrina prepared by putting up shutters, stacking sandbags in doorways and stocking up on supplies.

At a supermarket in Hollywood, Cassandra Butler hefted two five-gallon bottles of water as well as a 24-pack of smaller bottles into her shopping cart today.

"It's not that I'm worried. I've been in south Florida all my life," Butler said. "But this is a feature of life down here, and you are smart to deal with it."

Gov. Jeb Bush urged residents to prepare because Katrina was expected to bring "tremendous rain" to Florida. "In essence, this is a very dangerous storm. It's important to take this seriously," Bush said.

The storm's path appeared centered on the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area, but forecasters warned that the storm could swing north or south before landfall. Flights were canceled at Miami and Fort Lauderdale airports.

Rain fell steadily in much of Miami-Dade and Broward counties ahead of the eye's arrival, and tropical storm force gusts up to 64 mph were felt along the coast. Seas were estimated at 15 feet as the storm approached.

Water management officials lowered canal levels to avoid possible flooding, and pumps were activated in several low-lying areas of Miami-Dade.

"Ever since Hurricane Andrew, I always prepare for hurricanes," said Icel Diaz, 29, a resident of the flood-prone city of Sweetwater in Miami-Dade, as she gathered some sandbags for her home. "Sometimes I overprepare, buying too many supplies."

Dozens of surfers and spectators lined beaches from Palm Beach to Miami-Dade counties to take advantage of the big waves on the normally placid seas, and long lines didn't seem to be a problem at most area gas stations, supermarkets and hardware stores.

"This is the best of both worlds because it'll bring great waves, but it is not at all dangerous," said surfer Kurt Johnston, 22, of Davie.

At 4 p.m. CDT, Katrina was centered about 15 miles east-northeast of Fort Lauderdale and was moving west at about 6 mph. If Katrina continues on its current track, it would be the first direct hit on Broward County since a destructive Category 4 storm with a recorded gust of 155 mph struck in September 1947.

Katrina would be the second hurricane to hit the state this year — Dennis hit the Panhandle last month — and the sixth since Aug. 13, 2004. Katrina formed Wednesday over the Bahamas and was expected to cross Florida before heading into the Gulf of Mexico.

A hurricane warning was issued for the southeast Florida coast from Jupiter Inlet south to Florida City, as well as inland Lake Okeechobee. A tropical storm warning was issued for all the Florida Keys, from Florida City around the peninsula to Longboat Key on the west coast, and from Jupiter Inlet north to Vero Beach on the east coast.

After crossing the peninsula, the storm could turn to the north over the Gulf of Mexico and threaten the Panhandle early next week, forecasters said. Bush encouraged residents of Florida's Panhandle and Big Bend areas to monitor the storm.

Katrina is the 11th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. That's seven more than have typically formed by now in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, the hurricane center said. The season ends Nov. 30.

--from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3324151

--and: http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=99595

August 26, 2005

12 platforms evacuated in Gulf as Katrina blows in

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — Twelve petroleum production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico had been evacuated today as Hurricane Katrina entered the Gulf of Mexico, but the flow of oil and natural gas was uninterrupted, a federal agency said.

In addition, eight drilling rigs had been evacuated in the face of the storm, the Minerals Management Service reported.

In July, three Gulf storms interrupted some production as energy prices skyrocketed.

But oil prices fell more than $1 a barrel today as traders took profits from recent record highs even as worries lingered that Katrina might disrupt supplies.

Light, sweet crude for October delivery fell $1.36 to settle at $66.13 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract settled Thursday at a record $67.49 after touching $68 earlier in the day.

Last month, Hurricane Emily delayed production of 240,024 barrels of oil and 1.58 billion cubic feet of natural gas, according to the MMS. Hurricane Dennis delayed 5.29 million barrels of oil and 23.3 billion cubic feet of gas. Tropical Storm Emily delayed 312,127 barrels of oil and 1.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

The Gulf normally produces 547.5 million barrels of oil and 3.65 trillion cubic feet of gas a year.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3326890

and: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9089281/

August 27, 2005

Louisiana Residents Ordered to Pack Up

Hurricane Katrina Heads for Coast

From Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS -- Highways were so jammed that it looked like the worst rush hour ever. Lines at gas stations spilled onto nearby streets and stretched for blocks. Hotels 150 miles inland were booked up. Stores shut down so workers could go home and board up houses.

Hurricane Katrina was on its way.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a test. This is the real deal," New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin warned the city. "Board up your homes, make sure you have enough medicine, make sure the car has enough gas. Do all things you normally do for a hurricane but treat this one differently because it is pointed towards New Orleans."

Katrina was expected to strengthen to Category 4 monster with winds of at least 131 mph before hitting the Gulf Coast early Monday. A hurricane watch extended from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, but forecasters are predicting that it will come ashore in the New Orleans area.

"At this juncture, all we can do is pray it doesn't come this way and tear us up," said Jeannette Ruboyianes, owner of the Day Dream Inn at Grand Isle, Louisiana's only inhabited barrier island.

The storm formed in the Bahamas and ripped across South Florida on Thursday, causing seven deaths, before moving into the Gulf of Mexico. It was expected to grow in strength over the gulf because surface water temperatures were as high as 90 degrees -- high-octane fuel for hurricanes.

Katrina could be devastating to New Orleans because the city sits below sea level and is dependent on levees and pumps to keep the water out. A direct hit could submerge the city in several feet of water.

Making matters worse, at least 100,000 people in the city lack the transportation to get out of town. Nagin said the Superdome might be used as a shelter of last resort for people who have no cars, with city bus pick-up points around New Orleans.

"I know they're saying 'Get out of town,' but I don't have any way to get out," said Hattie Johns, 74. "If you don't have no money, you can't go."

Owners of gas stations in and around New Orleans were forced to direct traffic as lines to the pumps stretched down surrounding streets. Gas stations were running low on gas by midafternoon Saturday.

"I was in line at the bank for an hour and have been waiting for gas for 30 minutes," said John Sullivan. "If it's anything like they say its going to be, we don't want to be anywhere close to the city."

Louisiana and Mississippi made all lanes northbound on interstate highways. Mississippi declared a state of emergency and Alabama offered assistance to its neighbors. Some motels as far inland as Jackson, Miss., 150 miles north of New Orleans, were already booked up.

By 5 p.m. EDT Saturday, the eye of the hurricane was about 380 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and about 240 miles west of Key West, Fla. It was moving west at nearly 7 mph, the hurricane center said.

"We know that we're going to take the brunt of it," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. "It does not bode well for southeastern Louisiana."

Some tourists heeded the warnings and moved up their departures, and lines of tourists waited for cabs on New Orleans' famed Bourbon Street.

"The problem is getting a taxi to the airport. There aren't any," said Brian Katz, a salesman from New York.

Others tried leaving but couldn't get a flight.

"We tried to move it up, but they told us they were all booked up," said Terry Evans of Cleveland, whose flight was supposed to leave Monday morning. "We may end up sleeping at the airport."

New Orleans' worst hurricane disaster happened 40 years ago, when Hurricane Betsy blasted the Gulf Coast. Flood waters approached 20 feet in some areas, fishing villages were flattened, and the storm surge left almost half of New Orleans under water and 60,000 residents homeless. Seventy-four people died in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.

Katrina was a Category 1 storm with 80 mph wind when it hit South Florida on Thursday, and rainfall was estimated at up to 20 inches. Risk modeling companies have said early estimates of insured damage range from $600 million to $2 billion.

South Florida utility crews were still working Saturday to restore power to 733,000 customers, down from more than 1 million. Residents plowed through flooded streets without traffic lights and waited in lines that stretched for miles to reach centers distributing free water and ice for those without electricity.

Florida has been hit by six hurricanes since last August.

Katrina is the 11th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. That's seven more than typically have formed by now in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, the hurricane center said. The season ends Nov. 30.

from: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-082705hurricane_wr,1,2566600.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

White House asks coastal residents to heed hurricane warnings

Associated Press

CRAWFORD — The White Housetoday asked residents along Louisiana's southeastern coast to heed authorities' advice to evacuate as Hurricane Katrina headed for landfall.

President Bush, vacationing at his ranch, was being regularly updated about the storm, which is expected to hit land early Monday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency continue to coordinate with state authorities in Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, and have prepositioned supplies in areas expected to be affected, he said.

Authorities told residents of low-lying coastal communities to head for higher ground. The storm was expected to strengthen as it crosses the Gulf of Mexico and could become a Category 4 hurricane with wind of at least 131 mph.

"We urge residents in the areas that could be impacted to follow the recommendations of local authorities," McClellan said.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3327968

August 28, 2005

Experts expect Katrina to turn New Orleans into Atlantis, leaving up to 1 million homeless

By MATT CRENSON Associated Press

When Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans on Monday, it could turn one of America's most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries.

Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct hit by a Category 5 storm.

That's exactly what Katrina was as it churned toward the city. With top winds of 165 mph and the power to lift sea level by as much as 28 feet above normal, the storm threatened an environmental disaster of biblical proportions, one that could leave more than 1 million people homeless.

"All indications are that this is absolutely worst-case scenario," Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, said Sunday afternoon.

The center's latest computer simulations indicate that by Tuesday, vast swaths of New Orleans could be under water up to 30 feet deep. In the French Quarter, the water could reach 20 feet, easily submerging the district's iconic cast-iron balconies and bars.

Estimates predict that 60 percent to 80 percent of the city's houses will be destroyed by wind. With the flood damage, most of the people who live in and around New Orleans could be homeless.

"We're talking about in essence having — in the continental United States — having a refugee camp of a million people," van Heerden said.

Aside from Hurricane Andrew, which struck Miami in 1992, forecasters have no experience with Category 5 hurricanes hitting densely populated areas.

"Hurricanes rarely sustain such extreme winds for much time. However we see no obvious large-scale effects to cause a substantial weakening the system and it is expected that the hurricane will be of Category 4 or 5 intensity when it reaches the coast," National Hurricane Center meteorologist Richard Pasch said.

As they raced to put meteorological instruments in Katrina's path Sunday, wind engineers had little idea what their equipment would record.

"We haven't seen something this big since we started the program," said Kurt Gurley, a University of Florida engineering professor. He works for the Florida Coastal Monitoring Program, which is in its seventh year of making detailed measurements of hurricane wind conditions using a set of mobile weather stations.

Experts have warned about New Orleans' vulnerability for years, chiefly because Louisiana has lost more than a million acres of coastal wetlands in the past seven decades. The vast patchwork of swamps and bayous south of the city serves as a buffer, partially absorbing the surge of water that a hurricane pushes ashore.

Experts have also warned that the ring of high levees around New Orleans, designed to protect the city from floodwaters coming down the Mississippi, will only make things worse in a powerful hurricane. Katrina is expected to push a 28-foot storm surge against the levees. Even if they hold, water will pour over their tops and begin filling the city as if it were a sinking canoe.

After the storm passes, the water will have nowhere to go.

In a few days, van Heerden predicts, emergency management officials are going to be wondering how to handle a giant stagnant pond contaminated with building debris, coffins, sewage and other hazardous materials.

"We're talking about an incredible environmental disaster," van Heerden said.

He puts much of the blame for New Orleans' dire situation on the very levee system that is designed to protect southern Louisiana from Mississippi River floods.

Before the levees were built, the river would top its banks during floods and wash through a maze of bayous and swamps, dropping fine-grained silt that nourished plants and kept the land just above sea level.

The levees "have literally starved our wetlands to death" by directing all of that precious silt out into the Gulf of Mexico, van Heerden said.

It has been 40 years since New Orleans faced a hurricane even comparable to Katrina. In 1965, Hurricane Betsy, a Category 3 storm, submerged some parts of the city to a depth of seven feet.

Since then, the Big Easy has had nothing but near misses. In 1998, Hurricane Georges headed straight for New Orleans, then swerved at the last minute to strike Mississippi and Alabama. Hurricane Lili blew herself out at the mouth of the Mississippi in 2002. And last year's Hurricane Ivan obligingly curved to the east as it came ashore, barely grazing a grateful city.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3328724

and: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/28/AR2005082800780.html

Poor, homeless, frail flock to the safety of Superdome

By MARY FOSTER Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — For thousands of this city's poor, homeless and frail, just getting into the massive Louisiana Superdome and hunkering down was the hardest part.

The sickest among them didn't flee the 160-mph wrath of Hurricane Katrina on Sunday as much as they hobbled to safety on crutches, canes and on stretchers. Others lined up for blocks, clutching meager belongings and crying children as National Guardsman searched them for guns, knives and drugs.

"We just took the necessities," said Michael Skipper, who pulled a wagon loaded with bags of clothes and a radio. "The good stuff — the television and the furniture — you just have to hope something's there when you get back. If it's not, you just start over."

Then Katrina's rain began, heavy and steady, drenching hundreds of people still outside, along with their bags of food and clothing.

Eventually, the searches were moved inside to the Superdome floor, where some people wrapped themselves in blankets and tried to sleep. In the designated medical area, people in wheelchairs lined the corridors. Hundreds of others sat on the loading docks, their possessions around them, waiting to be taken elsewhere.

Gen. Hunt Downer of the National Guard estimated 25,000 to 35,000 refugees were in the dome, though arena official Doug Thornton said it was closer to 9,000 in the stands, with more on the floor.

Mary Francis Brooks had been there since 7:30 a.m., just waiting to get in. "I don't think the storm can be much worse than the buildup here," she said. "This has been a nightmare."

New Orleans' most frail residents got priority for placement in the makeshift Superdome shelter, by far the most solid of the Big Easy's 10 refuges of last resort for the estimated 100,000 city residents who don't have the means, or strength to join a mandatory evacuation. By nightfall, an estimated 25,000 to 35,000 heeded the call.

The dome, with its bare floor and stadium seats, is likely to end up their home for the next few days as the hurricane hits and the region deals with its aftermath.

"They told us not to stay in our houses because it wasn't safe," said 76-year-old Victoria Young, who sat amid plastic bags and a metal walker. "It's not safe anywhere when you're in the shape we're in."

Curtis Cockran, 54, a diabetic who recently had hip surgery, sat in his wheelchair on a loading dock at the dome while nurses, emergency technicians and doctors attended to refugees' needs.

"I just want a place I can be quiet and left alone," he said. "I don't know if I'll have a place to go back to, but there's no reason to worry about that now. For the time being I just want to be safe."

More serious cases had to be taken to other cities in Louisiana for medical care.

"There are some conditions we just can't handle here," said Dr. Kevin Stephens, Sr., head of New Orleans' health department. "Like dialysis. We can't do that, and they'll be here three or four days, so they'll need it before then."

The 77,000-seat stadium, home to the NFL's New Orleans Saints, provided few comforts but at least had bathrooms for the refugees and food donated by several charities.

"They may be here for a while," said Gen. Ralph Lupin, the National Guardsman in charge of the shelter. "The electricity will be out after the storm; streets will be almost impassable. So once they get here, they'll have to stay for the duration."

Guardsmen made able-bodied people clasp their hands behind their backs while they patted them down, feeling the seams and hems of clothing, then ran metal detectors over them. The backpacks, suitcases and plastic grocery bags that held their belongings were searched.

Alice George, 76, a homeless woman wearing shorts and a T-shirt with the word "Love" on the front, was searched for almost 10 minutes.

"They took my cigarettes and lighter," she said. "I guess I'll do without."

Joey Branson wasn't worried. The 42-year-old breezed through the search with just a fresh apple pie and a paperback mystery.

"That's all I need," he said, smiling. "I'm set for the duration."

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3328730

and: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/stormcenter/2005-08-28-katrina-homeless_x.htm

August 29, 2005

Texas reaches out to its neighbor

Houston medical officials share disaster expertise, and rescue teams head to Louisiana

Spared so far during one of the most active hurricane seasons in history, Texas reached out to its neighboring state Sunday, sending medical advice and rescue teams to Louisiana in advance of landfall by monstrous Hurricane Katrina.

Sunday's efforts, local officials predicted, were just the first wave of help Texas would offer in what could potentially be the worst Gulf Coast disaster since the 1900 storm that struck Galveston.

Although one of New Orleans' largest hospitals, the Ochsner Clinic, had sought to transfer patients to Memorial Hermann Healthcare System on Sunday, by mid-afternoon the winds had become too high to safely land Life Flight helicopters there.

So Houston medical officials ended up sharing their reflections on Tropical Storm Allison, which caused widespread flooding and power outages in the Texas Medical Center. The Ochsner Clinic also expects to lose power, albeit for potentially much longer. Unlike with Houston's bayous, there's simply no place for the water to go in New Orleans. It must be methodically pumped out.

Sharing experience

Memorial Hermann's Tom Flanagan, an assistant vice president for emergency services, said Texans advised the New Orleans hospital on optimum staffing during crises and how to deal with long-term power loss. Memorial and other local care facilities, such as Methodist Hospital, said they had capacity for any New Orleans patients that might need care in the aftermath of Katrina.

"This is a prime example of health care working collaboratively," said Flanagan. "We're all here for patient care and patient safety."

Although patients did not come to Houston, some Texans did begin heading to Louisiana on Sunday to support rescue and clean-up efforts.

The city of Houston has sent eight search-and-rescue firefighters, said spokesman Frank Michel. Houston also has told New Orleans it will send heavy equipment for debris clean-up if needed.

Welcoming party

Texas also prepared for refugees from New Orleans as Louisiana and Mississippi hotels filled up Sunday. Officials with the southwest area Red Cross, headquartered in Houston, said several shelters had been set up in Texas to help evacuees.

Those centers included one shelter in Tyler, one in Beaumont, two in Orange, and one in Mont Belvieu.

There also were 16 shelters open in Louisiana and one in Arkansas, said Red Cross spokeswoman Margaret O'Brien Molina.

About 750 Red Cross workers were on the job Sunday, with an additional 2,000 Red Cross volunteers expected to move through the Houston area in the next few days, Molina said.

Molina said that the impact of Tropical Storm Allison is still being felt in Houston four years later, "And right now we are looking at a Category 5 storm. So we are very, very concerned about our funds and our resources."

Molina said that the Red Cross workers want to remind people that the enormous hurricane will have immediate and long-term effects.

"Try to stay patient," Molina said. "The next few days are going to be rotten. We are going to be able to get through it, but it is going to be a lot of work."

Chronicle reporters Anne Marie Kilday and Becky Bowman contributed to this report.

eric.berger@chron.com

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3329000

High winds punch holes in Superdome roof

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Katrina ripped two holes in the curved roof of the Louisiana Superdome today, letting in rain as thousands of storm refugees huddled inside.

Superdome and government emergency officials stressed that they did not expect the huge roof to fail because of the relatively small breaches, each about 15 to 20 feet long and 4 to 5 feet wide.

The holes were in an area of vents some 19 stories above the arena floor.

"We think the wind somehow got into the vents and got between the roof's (waterproof) membrane and the aluminum ceiling tiles," said Doug Thornton, regional manager of the company that manages the huge arena.

The dome was filled with the sound of metal rattling, which Thornton said was produced by the metal ceiling tiles.

"I could have stayed at home and watched my roof blow off," said one of the refugees, Harald Johnson, 43. "Instead, I came down here and watched the Superdome roof blow off. It's no big deal; getting wet is not like dying."

In addition to the two holes, water was leaking in through many other areas, including elevators and stairwells, as the wind forced water in through any small opening.

Refugees sitting below the tears in the roof were moved across the arena. "We wanted to keep them dry and we also wanted to make sure nothing fell on them," Thornton said.

Aside from the tear in the huge roof, the 77,000-seat steel-framework stadium, home of the NFL's New Orleans Saints, provided few comforts but at least had bathrooms and food donated by charities.

The wind that howled around the dome during the night was not heard in the interior of the building where the refugees were kept.

"Everybody slept last night. They didn't seem to have any problems," said Dr. Kevin Stephens Sr., in charge of the medical shelter in the Superdome. "They slept all over the place."

Power failed in the Superdome around 5 a.m. today, triggering groans from the crowd. Emergency generators kicked in, but the backup power runs only reduced lighting, not the air conditioning.

The inside of the Superdome quickly became very hot and muggy, and some floors became wet and very slippery.

"It's not very comfortable now and it's going to get more uncomfortable, but it is safe," Thornton said.

The Superdome opened its doors at noon Sunday, and New Orleans' most frail residents got priority. The stadium is by far the most solid of the Big Easy's 10 refuges for the estimated 100,000 city residents who don't have the means, or strength, to join a mandatory evacuation.

"They hadn't opened up and let us in here, there'd have been a lot of people floating down river tomorrow," said Merrill Rice, 64. "If it's as bad as they say, I know my old house won't stand it."

Residents lined up for blocks, clutching meager belongings and crying children as National Guardsman searched them for guns, knives and drugs.

Then Katrina's rain began, drenching hundreds of people still outside, along with their bags of food and clothing. Eventually, the searches were moved inside to the Superdome floor, where some people wrapped themselves in blankets and tried to sleep.

It was almost 10:30 p.m. before the last person was searched and allowed in. Thornton estimated 8,000 to 9,000 were inside when the doors closed for the 11 p.m. curfew.

More than 600 people with medical needs were inside. "And we sent another 400 to hospitals," said Gen. Ralph Lupin, who commands the 550 National Guard troops in the Dome.

"We've got sick babies, sick old people and everything in between," Stephens said. "We're seen strokes, chest pain, diabetes patients passing out, seizures, people without medicine, people with the wrong medicine. It's been busy."

Thornton worried about how everyone would fare over the next few days.

"We're expecting to be here for the long haul," he said. "We can make things very nice for 75,000 people for four hours. But we aren't set up to really accommodate 8,000 for four days."

Morris Bivens, 53, a painter, came to the dome with his wife, daughter and five granddaughters ranging in age from 1 to 9.

"I had to come," he said. "Not for me. I ride these out all the time. But I knew I couldn't save those children in this one if something happened."

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3329003

and: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/29/AR2005082900156.html

Katrina slams into Gulf Coast, leaving extensive flooding

'It's complete devastation,' Gulfport fire chief says

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — Announcing itself with shrieking, 145-mph winds, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast just outside New Orleans today, submerging entire neighborhoods up to their roofs, swamping Mississippi's beachfront casinos and blowing out windows in hospitals, hotels and high-rises.

For New Orleans — a dangerously vulnerable city because it sits mostly below sea level in a bowl-shaped depression — it was not the apocalyptic storm forecasters had feared.

But it was plenty bad, in New Orleans and elsewhere along the coast, where numerous people had to be rescued from rooftops and attics as the floodwaters rose around them.

Jim Pollard, spokesman for the Harrison County emergency operations center, said 50 people were killed by Katrina in his county, with the bulk of the deaths at an apartment complex in Biloxi. Three other people were killed by falling trees in Mississippi and two died in a traffic accident in Alabama, authorities said. An untold number of other people were feared dead in flooded neighborhoods, many of which could not be reached by rescuers because of high water.

"Some of them, it was their last night on Earth," Terry Ebbert, chief of homeland security for New Orleans, said of people who ignored orders to evacuate the city of 480,000 over the weekend. "That's a hard way to learn a lesson."

"We pray that the loss of life is very limited, but we fear that is not the case," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said.

A number of overpasses on Interstate 10 between New Orleans and Slidell have collapsed, said Gov. Blanco, and some spans on I-10 in Mississippi also are down.

Katrina knocked out power to more than three-quarters of a million people from Louisiana to the Florida's Panhandle, and authorities said it could be two months before electricity is restored to everyone. Ten major hospitals in New Orleans were running on emergency backup power.

The federal government began rushing baby formula, communications equipment, generators, water and ice into hard-hit areas, along with doctors, nurses and first-aid supplies. The Pentagon sent experts to help with search-and-rescue operations.

Katrina was later downgraded to a tropical storm as it passed through eastern Mississippi, moving north at 21 mph. Winds were still a dangerous 65 mph.

Forecasters said that as the storm moves north through the nation's midsection over the next few days, it may spawn tornadoes over the Southeast and swamp the Gulf Coast and the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys with a potentially ruinous 8 inches or more of rain.

Oil refiners said damage to their equipment in the Gulf region appeared to be minimal, and oil prices dropped back from the day's highs above $70 a barrel. But the refiners were still assessing the damage, and the Bush administration said it would consider releasing oil from the nation's emergency stockpile if necessary.

Katrina had menaced the Gulf Coast over the weekend as a 175-mph, Category 5 monster, the most powerful ranking on the scale. But it weakened to a Category 4 and made a slight right-hand turn just become it came ashore around daybreak near the Louisiana bayou town of Buras, passing just east of New Orleans on a path that spared the Big Easy — and its fabled French Quarter — from its full fury.

In nearby coastal St. Bernard Parish, Katrina's storm surge swamped an estimated 40,000 homes. In a particularly low-lying neighborhood on the south shore of Lake Ponchartain, a levee along a canal gave way and forced dozens of residents to flee or scramble to the roofs when water rose to their gutters.

"I've never encountered anything like it in my life. It just kept rising and rising and rising," said Bryan Vernon, who spent three hours on his roof, screaming over howling winds for someone to save him and his fiancee.

In the past four hours, more than 200 people have been rescued in New Orleans and parishes southeast of the city, Blanco said.

``There are thousands of people out there who are stranded,'' said Dwight Landreneau, secretary of the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

Across a street that had turned into a river bobbing with garbage cans, trash and old tires, a woman leaned from the second-story window of a brick home and pleaded to be rescued.

"There are three kids in here," the woman said. "Can you help us?"

Blanco said people are being plucked from rooftops and cut out of their attics. Rescues are being performed from north of Lake Pontchartrain southward through New Orleans and to the coast, she said.

Those rescued were being taken to higher ground, where local emergency workers were taking them to shelters.

In some areas, the water was 12 feet deep where people were being rescued. Blanco said people were so desperate for rescue that many were jumping into the water and swimming to the boats.

``We're finding a mighty lot of people,'' she said.

She again asked that people not try to return home until the all-clear signal is given.

Landreneau said rescue crews would continue seeking stranded people until it was no longer safe to do so. They will start again as early as possible, he said.

Elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, Mississippi was subjected to both Katrina's harshest winds and highest recorded storm surges — 22 feet. The storm pushed water up to the second floor of homes, flooded floating casinos, uprooted hundreds of trees and flung sailboats across a highway.

"Let me tell you something, folks: I've been out there. It's complete devastation," said Gulfport, Miss., Fire Chief Pat Sullivan.

In Alabama, Katrina's arrival was marked by the flash and crackle of exploding transformers. The hurricane toppled huge oak branches on Mobile's waterfront and broke apart an oil-drilling platform, sending a piece slamming into a major bridge.

Muddy six-foot waves crashed into the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, flooding stately, antebellum mansions and littering them with oak branches.

"There are lots of homes through here worth a million dollars. At least they were yesterday," said a shirtless Fred Wright. "I've been here 25 years, and this is the worst I've ever seen the water."

It was Katrina's second blow: The hurricane hit the southern tip of Florida as a much weaker storm Thursday and was blamed for 11 deaths. It was the sixth hurricane to hit Florida in just over a year.

Calling it a once-in-a-lifetime storm, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had issued a mandatory evacuation order as Katrina drew near. But the doomsday vision of hurricane waters spilling over levees and swamping the city in a toxic soup of refinery chemicals, sewage and human bodies never materialized.

Forecasters said New Orleans — which has not been hit directly by a major storm since Category 3 Hurricane Betsy struck in 1965 — got lucky again.

"The real important issue here is that when it got to the metropolitan area, it was weaker," said National Hurricane Center deputy director Ed Rappaport, who estimated the highest winds in New Orleans were 100 mph. "They were fortunate in that they were on the west side and the winds may not have been quite strong enough to top the levees."

A 50-foot water main broke in New Orleans, making it unsafe to drink the city's water without first boiling it. And police made several arrests for looting.

At New Orleans' Superdome, home to 9,000 storm refugees, the wind ripped pieces of metal from the roof, leaving two holes that let water drip in. A power outage also knocked out the air conditioning, and the storm refugees sweltered in the heat.

Katrina also shattered scores of windows in high-rise office buildings and on five floors of the Charity Hospital, forcing patients to be moved to lower levels. White curtains that had been sucked out of the shattered windows of a hotel became tangled in treetops.

In the French Quarter, made up of Napoleonic-era buildings with wrought-iron balconies, the damage was relatively light.

On Jackson Square, two massive oak trees outside the 278-year-old St. Louis Cathedral came out by the roots, ripping out a 30-foot section of ornamental iron fence and straddling a marble statue of Jesus Christ, snapping off the thumb and forefinger of his outstretched hand.

At the hotel Le Richelieu, the winds blew open sets of balcony French doors shortly after dawn. Seventy-three-year-old Josephine Elow pressed her weight against the broken doors as a hotel employee tried to secure them.

"It's not life-threatening," she said as rainwater dripped from her face. "God's got our back."

Chronicle writer Dale Lezon contributed to this report.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3329006

and: http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/orl-mcanemain3005aug30,1,5334844.story?coll=chi-homepagetravel-hed

Government poised for rapid post-storm response

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Baby formula from the Agriculture Department, communications equipment and medical teams from the Defense Department and generators, water and ice from the Federal Emergency Management Agency are among the assistance ready for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

As the Category 4 the storm surged ashore just east of New Orleans today, FEMA had medical teams, rescue squads and groups prepared to supply food and water poised in a semicircle around the city, said agency director Michael Brown.

While federal, state and local agencies were poised to help, recovery could be a slow process.

Former Army Corps of Engineers commander Robert B. Flowers said a major hurricane striking near New Orleans is a worst-case scenario.

"I couldn't even begin to estimate the billions of dollars in damage that are going to result. You could have water several feet deep in the city for days before the pumps can discharge it," said Flowers, now CEO of HNTB Federal Services in Arlington, Va.

Speaking from Baton Rouge, just upriver from New Orleans, Brown told NBC's "Today" show his agency had "planned for this kind of disaster for many years because we've always known about New Orleans' situation." Much of the city is below sea level, making it extremely vulnerable to storm flooding.

The potential damage of such a storm striking New Orleans has long been a worry of federal agencies including the National Weather Service, FEMA and the Environmental Protection Agency, among others.

"We're still focused on Louisiana right now, but I gotta tell you this afternoon as this thing starts making landfall and makes that turn to the north and northeast, I'm very concerned about Mississippi," Brown told Fox News Channel. "We're going to have the flooding in New Orleans and then we're going to have the storm as it moves through Mississippi with additional flooding and tornadoes and downed power lines and all of that. This is going to be a big storm in terms of our response, because of the geographical spread of it."

In other storm-related moves:

— The EPA dispatched emergency crews to Louisiana and Texas, because of concern about oil and chemical spills. The agency has set up facilities for checking on the damage, but won't be able to quickly assess the region's needs until it can safely send more people into the field.

Sam Coleman, a regional director for EPA's Superfund toxic waste division in Dallas, said an employee standing by in Baton Rouge will oversee the agency's after-storm review of petrochemical, wastewater treatment and drinking water plants.

"Once that rapid assessment is done, then we go into full force," Coleman told AP. "We don't want to put everybody too close to the storm until we figure out exactly what to do."

"We have the equipment standing by, an aspect plane for surveillance that can see petrochemical spills from the air, but it's not cleared to fly in high winds or dangerous weather," he said.

— The Coast Guard closed ports and waterways along the Gulf Coast and evacuated its own personnel and equipment.

More than 40 Coast Guard aircraft from units along the entire Eastern Seaboard, along with more than 30 small boats, patrol boats and cutters, were positioned around the area to be ready to conduct post-hurricane search and rescue operations and to do waterway damage checks and begin any needed repairs.

— The Agriculture Department said it will provide meals and other commodities, such as infant formula, distilled water for babies and emergency food stamps, through its Food and Nutrition Service.

Its Natural Resources Conservation Service has an emergency watershed protection program. Its Rural Development office offers housing assistance to keep people from being delinquent on housing payments. The Farm Service Agency has state emergency boards with members who will help assess damage to agriculture and help decide the type and amount of recovery aid available in areas where disasters have been declared.

Also, the Forest Service, which is part of the department, has an incident command team that will coordinate with FEMA and the Red Cross.

— The Federal Aviation Administration said airports were closed in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La.; Biloxi, Miss.; Mobile, Ala.; Pensacola, Fla. and at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Airlines have moved their equipment away from the stricken areas and canceled all flights, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said. Many air traffic control facilities in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are closed.

— The Defense Department dispatched emergency coordinators to Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi to provide a wide range of assistance including communications equipment, search and rescue operations, medical teams and other emergency supplies.

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the states have adequate National Guard units to handle the hurricane needs, with at least 60 percent of the guard available in each state. He said about 6,500 National Guard troops were available in Louisiana, about 7,000 troops in Mississippi, nearly 10,000 in Alabama and about 8,200 in Florida.

The First U.S. Army, based at Fort Gillem near Atlanta, has 1,600 National Guard troops that were there training to go to Iraq, and they will be available to assist the states or evacuate Camp Shelby in Mississippi, if necessary.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3329522

and: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/29/AR2005082900599.html

National Guard says plenty of forces available

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Though thousands of National Guard personnel from Louisiana and Mississippi are serving in Iraq, officials say more than enough personnel were available for disaster duty today as Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore.

"Only about half of available forces are mobilized in Louisiana and forces are available from neighboring states if needed," said Lt. Col. Mike Milord, a spokesman at National Guard headquarters outside Washington.

Some 3,500 Army National Guardsmen from Louisiana were deployed to help hurricane victims and another 3,000 were on standby.

About 3,000 members of Louisiana's 256th Combat Brigade already are in Iraq. Six members were killed by a bomb on Jan. 6 and another two died in a blast four days later.

In Mississippi, the Guard had 853 troops on hurricane duty, preparing to remove debris and provide security, Milord reported, a small slice of the more than 7,000 available National Guard troops in the state's ground and air components.

Some 780 Guard members from Florida are helping residents recover from the hurricane and 130 Guard members are on duty in Alabama.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3329524

and: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/stormcenter/2005-08-29-katrina-nationalguard_x.htm?csp=34

August 30, 2005

EMERGENCY RELIEF

FEMA aims to improve record

Federal officials hope to avoid the criticism received after past storms

WASHINGTON - Hurricane Katrina may mark the moment when the Federal Emergency Management Agency finally avoids criticism for its response to natural disasters.

Since its creation by presidential executive order in 1979, FEMA has been a perennial whipping boy when public officials size up what was done wrong, or not done, to help catastrophe victims.

Foul-weather critics

Seeking to break the pattern, the agency moved quickly to assure the public that its response to Monday's storm would be swift and thorough.

"FEMA has pre-positioned many assets including ice, water, food and rescue teams to move into the stricken areas as soon as it is safe to do so," FEMA chief Michael Brown said before the storm hit Louisiana and Mississippi.

Despite such statements in the past, and an unquestioned record for providing critical disaster relief, the agency has been criticized when the winds abate and the floodwaters recede.

After years of criticism for moving too slowly to help disaster victims, FEMA got blasted last year for moving too fast after four hurricanes ravaged Florida.

Mistakes by inspectors

The agency was accused of paying dubious claims to people alleging hurricane damage.

"Taxpayers bought Miami-Dade residents thousands of television sets, air conditioners and other appliances," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, opening a Senate oversight hearing in May.

"The taxpayers also bought rooms full of furniture and new wardrobes (and) paid to replace 800 cars."

In Miami-Dade County, 12,600 people collected FEMA payouts totaling more than $31 million after Hurricane Frances.

The problem was, as lawmakers noted during a withering critique, the storm hit the greater Miami area with only a bad rain squall, doing most of its damage 100 miles to the north.

Many of the damage claims were fraudulent, auditors later found, citing mistakes by agency inspectors.

It was a familiar pattern for FEMA, which seems to be a convenient target in the political arena, even though it has defenders as well as critics.

FEMA spokesman James McIntyre said Monday the agency was proud of the help it has provided and constantly seeks to improve its response.

President Bush declared an emergency for Louisiana and Mississippi, allowing FEMA to position people and supplies, including generators, ice, food and baby formula, in a vast arc around the hurricane zone.

Waiting in the wings

Anticipating that many residents would not heed the call to evacuate, FEMA dispatched urban search-and-rescue teams from Tennessee to Texas to the afflicted area, a spokesman said.

Eighteen disaster medical assistance groups, including nine with a full complement of 35 members and nine smaller "strike teams," were waiting in Houston, Anniston, Ala., and Memphis, Tenn., to move in as soon as the storm passed.

michael.hedges@chron.com

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3330415

Cooped up Superdome refugees snatch fresh air

More people being brought to arena today

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — Desperate for fresh air, dozens of refugees from Hurricane Katrina slept on the walkway surrounding the Louisiana Superdome as conditions inside worsened and even more people were brought to the huge arena today.

National Guardsmen let some of the 10,000 people sheltering inside the arena take their bedding out onto the concourse, where it was cooler and the breeze was welcome.

"Oh God, fresh air, it's so wonderful. It's the first time I've wanted to breathe all day," said Robin Smith, 33. "When you think what we could've gone through, it's not too bad in there. But it's certainly not as wonderful as this."

The bathrooms were filthy and barrels overflowed with trash. With the air conditioning off since power went out Monday morning, the bricks were slick with condensation.

Despite the conditions, the Superdome was a welcome refuge for people rescued from the rising water in the city today. National Guard troops brought refugees in their big 2 1/2 -ton trucks, and Louisiana's wildlife enforcement department brought more people by pickup.

Mary Stewart, 80, slid off the back of a National Guard truck with nothing but the clothes on her back, her purse and the shoe on her left foot.

"I was so scared I don't feel I have any entrails any more," said Stewart, who spent a harrowing night in the attic of a beauty salon in the city's flooded Ninth Ward.

Beauty salon employee Kioka Williams, 23, said they had to hack through the ceiling to reach the attic as the water rose.

"Oh my God, it was hell," she said. "We were screaming, hollering, flashing lights. It was complete chaos."

The eight people in the salon were rescued early today by a police boat.

"I almost died in the night water," Willie Anderson, 49, said as he arrived at the Superdome. He had spent the night in his attic in the inundated Ninth Ward.

A groan rose from a group listing to a newscast when the devastation was detailed and officials in suburban Jefferson Parish said residents wouldn't be allowed to return until Monday. One woman cried.

"We're doing everything we can to keep these people comfortable," Gen. Ralph Lupin, commander of the National Guard troops at the Superdome, said this morning. "We're doing our best. It's not getting any better but we're trying not to let it get any worse."

"I know people want to leave, but they can't leave," he said. "There's 3 feet of water around the Superdome."

The situation was especially difficult for those in wheelchairs, who were lined up in rows five deep along a wall. One patient's IV bag was attached to a stadium seating sign.

Officials were considering moving the patients to areas with better accommodations.

"This is just too hot, too primitive, too uncomfortable for the patients and too hard to work in for the medical people," said Dr. Kevin Stephens Sr., head of the medical shelter in the Superdome.

Two people had died, according to Doug Thornton, a regional vice president for the company that manages the 77,000-seat Superdome, of the NFL's New Orleans Saints. He provided no details.

Katrina ripped two holes in the curved roof, but Superdome and government emergency officials stressed that they did not expect the huge roof to fail.

"I was OK until that roof fell off," said 82-year-old Anice Sexton. "I was terrified then. Otherwise it hasn't been too bad. People are so nice and the people staying here have really been cooperative. But the washrooms are terrible."

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3331085

and: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9108975/

Congress poised to quickly pass disaster aid

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The question is not whether Congress will pass legislation to speed disaster relief to communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina, but how soon and how much.

The answers: real soon and a lot.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has $2.5 billion in funds available for immediate assistance such as emergency shelters, food, and medical care, said Scott Milburn, spokesman for the White House budget office. But longer-term assistance, such as help in removing wreckage, rebuilding homes, and repairing highways and federal facilities will require a major infusion of cash provided by Congress.

"This is going to be the most expensive natural disaster that's hit the United States in history. It's really quite phenomenal," said Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran. The powerful Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee vowed quick action when the administration sends lawmakers a request for aid. "We're going to do whatever is needed to help the people and local governments recover from this catastrophic event."

It will take at least a few days for FEMA to come up with a preliminary cost estimate and even then it is subject to being revised upward with new information or in case of additional storms.

But as a guide, the four separate hurricanes that pummeled Florida last year prompted Congress to pass a total of $13.6 billion via two separate bills, including a $2 billion measure that was sent to President Bush the very day lawmakers returned from their summer recess. Katrina could well cost more.

"It's truly been a catastrophic event," said FEMA Deputy Director Patrick Rhode.

Despite the partisan atmosphere in Washington, natural disasters invariably draw a sympathetic, bipartisan response from Congress — though it helps affected areas to be represented by lawmakers in powerful posts.

Florida had the advantage of being a key battleground in last year's elections and is home to then-House Appropriations Committee GOP Chairman C.W. Bill Young.

Though Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., is no longer Senate majority leader, Cochran's rise to the helm of the Appropriations panel virtually guarantees a generous congressional response.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3331417

Devastation in New Orleans: 'We have whitecaps on Canal Street'

From staff and wire reports

NEW ORLEANS - The historic city of New Orleans was steadily filling with water from nearby Lake Ponchartrain today after its defenses were breached by the ferocity of Hurricane Katrina.

Water began rising in the streets this morning after a levee broke along a canal leading to Lake Pontchartrain, and many of the pumps relied upon by New Orleans -- built below sea level -- have failed.

Officials planned to use helicopters to drop 3,000-pound sandbags into the breach, but rising floodwaters were threatening the French Quarter, residents were plucked from the roofs of their homes, bodies were seen floating in the streets and rescuers searched the city in boats and helicopters.

Portions of the Interstate 10 high-rise bridge over the mouth of Lake Pontchartrain east of New Orleans have collapsed. Another bridge, the causeway running across the middle of the lake, has structural damage, and engineers are inspecting U.S. 11, which also crosses the lake, to determine if it is structurally sound.

"We probably have 80 percent of our city under water; with some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feet. Both airports are underwater,'' Mayor Ray Nagin told a radio interviewer.

New Orleans, a city that usually throbs with the life of its carnivals and the sound of jazz and blues, was in a "state of devastation,'' Nagin said.

Much of New Orleans, a city of some 500,000, lies in a bowl below sea level, bounded by the lake and the Mississippi River, which curves along the south of the city before discharging in the Gulf of Mexico.

"We always were afraid the bowl that is New Orleans would fill quickly," Walter Maestri, emergency management coordinator for Jefferson Parish, said in a radio interview.

"The water is rising so fast I cannot begin to describe how quickly it's rising," Tulane University Medical Center Vice President Karen Troyer-Caraway told CNN. "We have whitecaps on Canal Street, the water is moving so fast.''

The downtown hospital was surrounded by 6 feet of water and considering evacuating its 1,000 patients.

The New Orleans VA Medical Center began to evacuate this morning after the floodwaters disrupted its generators, endangering patients on ventilators.

"The devastation is greater than our worst fears," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said in a news conference. "It's totally overwhelming.''

Weather experts had predicted the city would be quickly overwhelmed by the impact of Katrina, which tore across the coast on Monday, but initially damage appeared less than catastrophic.

By today, however, the full impact was clear as the water rose and overwhelmed pumps, part of an elaborate system of walls, canals and other devices built to protect the city from just such a disaster.

Fears grew about pollution, with the water believed to be carrying sewage, spilled fuel and other pollutants from residential and commercial districts inundated in the flood.

Reporters said there was waist-high water round the Superdome, the huge covered football stadium near downtown New Orleans that had been used as an emergency evacuation center for thousands of residents.

Local television showed people and dogs sitting on rooftops, the houses below them invisible in brackish water. A hand was visible through a window in a house surrounded by chest-high water.

One man was seen using an ice chest as a flotation device. Another clung to metal scaffolding to escape the deluge, which ironically occurred in sunshine and blue skies today.

No deaths were officially confirmed, but Nagin said bodies were seen floating.

State Sen. Ann Duplessis, who owns a home in eastern New Orleans, said she had reports from neighbors in the gated Eastover subdivision of bodies floating in the floodwaters.

Officials went on television to urge people not to try to return to their homes yet. "You need to get used to where you're at right now because this may take us some time.'' said U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal.

"There will be neighborhoods where people just can't get back into their homes for weeks, if not months," said Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Even if they wanted to, New Orleans residents would have a difficult time just getting back to their hometown.

Much of Interstate 10 is closed on either side of New Orleans. Some sections of Lake Ponchartrain's I-10 twin span — a lifeline between the south and north shores of the lake — are missing; others have shifted position but are still standing.

"We know that the I-10 twin span has blown over, is no longer with us," said Mark Smith, spokesman for the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

"This will be the story for some time to come,"said Lt. Lawrence J. McLeary, spokesman for the Louisiana State Police.

Many roads and highways south and north of New Orleans are either flooded and impassable or have been closed by state police to keep people from entering damaged areas until emergency workers can rescue stranded residents and other crews can make damage assessments.

Blanco said 700 people had been rescued so far, but she said it was still too early to count the casualties.

"We have no counts whatsoever," she said, "but we know many lives have been lost."

Chronicle staffer Dale Lezon and Reuters New Service contributed to this report.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3331422

Looters take advantage of New Orleans' flooding

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — With much of the city flooded by Hurricane Katrina, looters floated garbage cans filled with clothing and jewelry down the street in a dash to grab what they could.

In some cases, looting today took place in full view of police and National Guard troops.

At a Walgreen's drug store in the French Quarter, people were running out with grocery baskets and coolers full of soft drinks, chips and diapers.

When police finally showed up, a young boy stood in the door screaming, "86! 86!" — the radio code for police — and the crowd scattered.

Denise Bollinger, a tourist from Philadelphia, stood outside and snapped pictures in amazement.

"It's downtown Baghdad," the housewife said. "It's insane. I've wanted to come here for 10 years. I thought this was a sophisticated city. I guess not."

Around the corner on Canal Street, the main thoroughfare in the central business district, people sloshed headlong through hip-deep water as looters ripped open the steel gates on the front of several clothing and jewelry stores.

One man, who had about 10 pairs of jeans draped over his left arm, was asked if he was salvaging things from his store.

"No," the man shouted, "that's EVERYBODY'S store."

Looters filled industrial-sized garbage cans with clothing and jewelry and floated them down the street on bits of plywood and insulation as National Guard lumbered by.

Mike Franklin stood on the trolley tracks and watched the spectacle unfold.

"To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society," he said.

A man walked down Canal Street with a pallet of food on his head. His wife, who refused to give her name, insisted they weren't stealing from the nearby Winn-Dixie supermarket. "It's about survival right now," she said as she held a plastic bag full of purloined items. "We got to feed our children. I've got eight grandchildren to feed."

At a drug store on Canal Street just outside the French Quarter, two police officers with pump shotguns stood guard as workers from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel across the street loaded large laundry bins full of medications, snack foods and bottled water.

"This is for the sick," Officer Jeff Jacob said. "We can commandeer whatever we see fit, whatever is necessary to maintain law."

Another office, D.J. Butler, told the crowd standing around that they would be out of the way as soon as they got the necessities.

"I'm not saying you're welcome to it," the officer said. "This is the situation we're in. We have to make the best of it."

The looting was taking place in full view of passing National Guard trucks and police cruisers.

One man with an armload of clothes even asked a policeman, "can I borrow your car?"

Some in the crowd splashed into the waist-deep water like giddy children at the beach.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3331427

and: http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/national-50/1125420841269302.xml&storylist=njkatrina

Power going out at New Orleans' VA hospital

Rising water in New Orleans is disrupting power at New Orleans' VA hospital today, prompting an evacuation as the medical center prepares to lose electricity completely.

Water from a break on a levee along a canal leading to Lake Pontchartrain began filling New Orleans streets this morning and apparently affected generators at the New Orleans VA Medical Center, said Bobbi Gruner, spokeswoman for the Michael DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston.

A complete power loss was expected by early afternoon, and the hospital is focusing on evacuating patients, including nine people on ventilators.

The crisis is remniscent of 2001's Tropical Storm Allison, when power outages and flooded streets immobilized much of the Texas Medical Center, forced the evacuation of Memorial Hermann Hospital and disrupted power to ventilators and other life-support devices.

"I'm really worried about the medical infrastructure in New Orleans," said Dr. Kenneth Mattox, the chief of staff at Ben Taub General Hospital who saw the facility through the Allison crisis. "They tell me they cannot communicate across the street to their sister hospitals because the local phones don't work ... I really think with the levee breaking they need outside help, like the military coming in."

Gruner said plans are being made to move the ventilator patients to another facility within New Orleans or air evacuate them to another VA hospital. There are 154 patients at the New Orleans VA hospital, and about 700 people who have sought refuge in the building. The building is surrounded by water, Gruner said. VA officials are working to coordinate military aircraft support.

Tom Flanagan, director of Life Flight emergency transport at Memorial Hermann Hospital, said a patient in need of a liver transplant was on her way to Houston from Oschner Hospital in New Orleans this morning.

"They have lost all utilities and are operating on emergency power," Flanagan said.

Flanagan said he did not know if a donor liver is available in Houston, but said the patient's condition was deteriorating so doctors wanted her moved to another transplant center.

Flanagan said Life Flight is trying to coordinate other patient pickups today from elsewhere on the Gulf Coast.

In Biloxi, Miss., the VA Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System was accepting civilians and minor trauma patients. Additional supplies and fuel are being trucked from Jackson to Biloxi.

The VA in Jackson is operational, Gruner said, and has received calls for help from the Mississippi Veterans State Homes which are all without water and power.

The Houston VA continues to make preparations to receive patients from the hurricane-affected areas. Its list of emergency response team volunteers grew to more than 75 with the addition of several engineers and police officers, Gruner said.

Overnight, the Houston VA admitted at least two veterans from the storm-struck area, one to the spinal cord injury unit and one for chest pains, Gruner said. The VA is also housing the first patient's family of five and the second patient's wife in the VA's "courtesy quarters." Gruner said the Houston hospital had seen several more veterans as outpatients for assistance with medications and shelter.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3331369

'I've never seen anything like this'

Gulfport, in the line of fire, takes a severe beating

GULFPORT, MISS. - Halfway up Woodward Avenue, a flotilla of loose shipping containers and a forest of cut lumber washed ashore with the waters of Hurricane Katrina.

The lumber and containers — metal boxes designed to ride on freight ships or railroad cars — instead rode the storm surge, scouring away the first four or five houses by the Gulf.

In the next one was Charlene Cuccia. "I floated half out the window in the backyard from 8:30 'til 4," she told a two-man rescue team from the Gulfport Police Department.

"My dog is dead. I was sure I was going to die, too."

Others did die Monday as Gulfport, situated on the intense, northeast side of Katrina's landfall, suffered some of the storm's most powerful fury.

Before they could reach Cuccia, Gulfport Police Detective Duane Merrill and Sgt. George Chaix had to wade up a submerged street over 10-foot-tall piles of lumber, furniture, industrial-size rolls of paper and a dead cat.

They axed their way through one door and kicked down another before they found Cuccia, who said she was in her 50s, in a back bedroom of the small frame house.

The detectives made up one of 10 police search and rescue teams. They figured the lumber and containers washed off a set of piers about a mile and a half east, moved in the grip of the hurricane, then became destructive battering rams as they washed through the neighborhood.

"We watched those containers float up the street and knock down the houses," said David Andre, 62, who lives a little farther from the Gulf than Cuccia.

"Hurricane Camille came to here," Andre said, showing a level at the house's foundation touched by the waters of the mighty 1969 storm. Katrina's waters rose at least 7 feet higher, he said.

Andre and his wife, Kay, said they stayed behind to save their possessions, but the storm's intensity took them by surprise.

They said they crawled into the attic as the waters rose. Then the wind began blowing holes in their roof. "A gust would come and we'd pray the house would hold," Kay Andre said.

Riding it out

An elderly man, who declined to give his name, rode out the storm at the Andres' house after a container slammed into his. A red Ford Focus, turned on its nose in a pile of wood debris, was all that held up the front porch of his house.

As the storm made its early-morning assault, Merrill, Chaix and other officers holed up in a temporary command post set up in the Harrison County school administration building, helpless to respond to 911 calls while winds raged at more than 100 mph and waters rose outside.

It was about 2 p.m., and winds still were at 80 mph, when Merrill and Chaix set out on their rescue mission. When their 5-ton military surplus truck broke down, they returned to the station and picked out a small police bus to make their rounds.

Before their first stop, they climbed through the broken window of a downtown hardware store for supplies: Crowbars, bolt-cutters, sledgehammers and other tools.

"We're not looting. We're commandeering these," Chaix said. "We'll pay later."

As they drove through Gulfport's downtown core on their way to several addresses from which dispatchers had taken emergency calls, they were struck by the devastation.

A sailboat had been tossed eight or nine blocks north from the downtown marina. Most windows had been knocked out of the southern side of the Hancock Bank building, one of the tallest structures in town.

Mystery mounds of debris

On some corners, there were only piles of rubble. "That was a bookstore," Merrill said, pointing out one indistinguishable heap. On Central Street, giant bundles of lumber and steel containers borne by the floodwaters had leveled several blocks of houses, three apartment buildings, a trailer park, a Chinese restaurant and several other businesses.

What was left of the neighborhood — scraps of elaborately carved chairs, broken televisions, a sandal, a set of self-defense instructional tapes — was scattered in the wind.

Chaix maneuvered the bus through piles of office furniture, downed trees and fallen power lines. As he moved into the residential area, a shirtless man flagged him down.

"There's an 800-pound seal in my front yard. I think it's hurt," the man told him.

"We're looking for people right now," Chaix told him. "Not animals."

Chaix and Merrill were working from a sheaf of notes scribbled earlier by 911 operators, who reverted to paper because their computers were down.

Most read, "people in attic" or "roof blown off."

The house at one of the addresses was nowhere to be found. The officers radioed in and said the job would require bulldozers, and perhaps cadaver dogs.

"I've been at this a long time," said Merrill, standing on a tin roof that had been separated from its structure and lay on the ground. "I've never seen anything like this."

thomas.korosec@chron.com

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3330583

Emergency teams deployed to help victims

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Medical disaster assistance teams from across the country were deployed to the area devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The Red Cross sent in 185 emergency vehicles to provide meals. And President Bush cut short his vacation today to return to Washington to focus on the storm damage.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president will chair a meeting Wednesday of a White House task force set up to coordinate the federal response and relief effort.

"We have a lot of work to do," the president said of the storm FEMA director Michael Brown has termed catastrophic.

"This hurricane has caused devastation over a wide area," Brown said.

His agency said medical specialists from Washington state were joining similar teams called in from Massachusetts, New Mexico, Ohio, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Florida to assist people in damaged areas.

Katrina came ashore Monday between New Orleans and Biloxi, Miss., inundating large areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

FEMA's emergency medical teams are designed to be self-sufficient, being able to triage and treat as many as 250 patients over 72 hours. The teams bring their own supplies, including food and medicine.

The teams can handle trauma, pediatrics, surgery and mental health problems. Two Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams are also included to handle pets and rescue dogs.

The American Red Cross, meanwhile, reported it had about 40,000 people in 200 shelters across the area.

Red Cross said it had 185 emergency response vehicles on the scene or en route. These trucks provide breakfast, lunch and dinner to storm victims. Some 2,000 Red Cross volunteers from across the country were joining workers in the area.

FEMA said it has 500 trucks of ice, 500 trucks of water and 350 trucks of military meals ready to eat scheduled for distribution over the next 10 days.

The Coast Guard received hundreds of calls for help and has assisted in the rescue of more than 1,200 people, spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Carter said today.

He said the Coast Guard had received reports that seven mobile offshore oil drilling rigs were adrift, and was working with companies on recovery and salvage plans.

The Coast Guard was conducting search-and-rescue missions and damage assessments by air and water, and was flying supplies to affected areas, Carter said.

In addition, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff — whose agency oversees the Coast Guard — has authorized the callup of 550 Coast Guard reservists to help in recovery operations, Carter said.

In other developments:

— The Department of Health and Human Services reported it had sent 27 pallets of medical supplies to Louisiana. These include basic first aid material such as bandages, pads and ice packs as well as blankets and patient clothing, suture kits, sterile gloves, stethoscopes, blood pressure measuring kits and portable oxygen tanks.

— The storm shut down oil and natural gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico, representing about 8 percent of U.S. refining capacity or about 1 million barrels, further driving up gasoline prices. The president is considering tapping the emergency petroleum stockpile to provide refineries a temporary supply of crude oil to replace interrupted shipments from tankers or offshore oil platforms affected by the storm.

— The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sent out Navigational Response Teams to survey ports and waterways for damage and to work with the Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers in getting ports open again. New Orleans and Mobile, Ala., are two of the nation's most active commercial ports.

— The National Geodetic Survey prepared to launch aerial surveys to assess for damage from erosion along levees and major evacuation routes.

— The Coast Guard asked the public in the hurricane-damaged area to report any oil spills or releases of hazardous materials. The response center phone number is (800) 424-8802.

— The Postal Service has shut down operations in New Orleans and in nearby storm-damaged areas. Some local post offices were reopening in Mississippi, but more than 200 lacked electricity, officials said. Mississippi postal officials said in locations where offices are closed plans are being developed to make first-of-the-month checks available at designated sites.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3331648

and: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/stormcenter/2005-08-30-bush-cuts-vacation_x.htm

August 31, 2005

Levee breach brings more chaos

Corps scrambles to make repairs a day after storm

Early Tuesday the Big Easy had reason to breathe easy. It had, more or less, just survived the third-most-intense hurricane ever to pound U.S. shores.

Then disaster struck — for the second time.

An hour or two after midnight, along a three-mile canal cut into the northern edge of New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain, a 15-foot levee made of earth and concrete began breaking apart. The initial breach was probably small, perhaps just 10 feet.

If stragglers in the area noticed the water gushing into their homes, few had power or telephones to report it. Not until later that morning, when the breach had widened to more than 200 feet, did public works officials take notice.

At that time they were puzzled by the fact that, nearly a full day after the storm passed through, waters across much of New Orleans were still rising.

An effort to drop large sandbags into the breach Tuesday afternoon failed. By late Tuesday, Mayor C. Ray Nagin declared that much of the city would have to be evacuated because the breach at 17th Street Canal, which straddles Jefferson and Orleans parishes, could not be immediately closed.

The decision came after water in the canal, about 10 feet above sea level, poured for hours through the breach into land 6 to 10 feet below sea level.

"What you had, quite simply, is a waterfall," said Joseph Suhayda, retired director of the Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute.

Filling containers

After its initial attempt failed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers scrambled to conceive and execute a broader plan to close the breach. Tuesday night they put the plan into action. They were filling 3,000-pound cargo containers with sand, rock or other heavy materials. They intended to fly these containers and 180 concrete barriers by helicopter to the site, and place them into the breach.

Succeeding will be difficult from the air alone, engineers said. And, after the corps drops each cargo container and concrete barrier into the breach, water will flow through the remaining hole faster and with more force.

The stakes for fixing the breach quickly, though, are high. It makes little sense for the city to begin pumping out water until this breach is closed and the flow of water into New Orleans ebbs. Additionally, the corps does not want to gate off the entire canal from Lake Pontchartrain. A pumping station lies at the end of the three-mile canal, and without it the city won't be able to clear several square miles of flooded terrain.

Prior to Tuesday's breach, some areas east of New Orleans had flooded, Suhayda said, as well as low points west of the city near the airport. Much of this flooding was caused by storm-surge-driven water overtopping levees, or other, smaller and less critical, breaches.

Without the 17th Street Canal breach, it's likely New Orleans would have a much more manageable situation on its hands today, Suhayda said. Instead, the city is talking about further evacuations and, perhaps for a month or more, its residents will be barred at gunpoint from returning home.

Possible causes

Engineers developed several possible scenarios for what might have caused the catastrophic breach in a levee, which is essentially an earthen berm topped by several feet of concrete.

Corps of Engineers officials said their analysis indicated that a limited amount of water washed over the top of the levee in waves, scouring and weakening the foundation on the levee's dry side.

Suhayda said that's possible. But another possibility is that, during the half-day floodwaters built up in Lake Pontchartrain and the canal, water may have percolated through the earthen part of the berm, undermining it. That effect, combined with the cumulative pressure over time, may have caused a breakthrough.

"There's no question that those kind of conditions might have just reached the limit of what that particular levee could handle," said James "Bob" Bailey, a flood and wind hazard risk expert with ABS consulting in Houston. It's also possible the levee was older and had degraded, he said.

A final possibility is that a massive chunk of debris struck the levee at some point during the night, causing a breach.

Tuesday's breach came after New Orleans had, almost miraculously, survived a hurricane many engineers feared would send water gushing over the long, 15-foot levee that protects the city's north shore from Lake Pontchartrain. But Hurricane Katrina moved so quickly its powerful winds did not have enough time to push Gulf of Mexico water into the lake, filling it high enough to crash water over the levee and into bowl-shaped New Orleans.

Katrina's winds moving from east to west — and filling the lake — were soon replaced by winds moving from west to east as the storm moved inland, said Hassan Mashriqui, an assistant professor at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center.

"A slow moving storm would have caused much more damage," he said.

Like many, Mashriqui thought New Orleans was lucky when he went to bed Monday night, having dodged the very worst. Unfortunately, like everyone else, he was mistaken.

eric.berger@chron.com

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3332482

Tales of trapped and dying patients emerging

Tales of nursing home residents trapped without medication and hospital patients who died after power outages ended life support are painting a dire picture today of New Orleans' medically fragile population.

One woman e-mailed the Houston Chronicle Wednesday about her parents, both physicians, who are trapped inside a Louisiana State University hospital.

"I've spoken with them a few times, and they have limited information on when they will be evacuated," she said. " Apparently there has been a large loss of life within the hospital because with no power, many of the life-saving and life-sustaining machines have gone out so they have lost many patients. I am also concerned because my Dad is diabetic, and they have run out of food."

Inspired by memories of Tropical Storm Allison, the Memorial Hermann Healthcare System launched a large-scale rescue operation overnight to move an estimated 40 to 50 hospital patients out of New Orleans today. During Allison, Memorial Hermann evacuated 540 patients during two days without any injuries or deaths.

Early this morning, Memorial Hermann dispatched six ground ambulances, two Life Flight air ambulances and two specially equipped airplanes to a Baton Rouge staging area.

From there, Life Flight will fly to Oschner Hospital in New Orleans, land on a parking garage, and pluck patients two at a time and take them to Baton Rouge. From Baton Rouge, they'll be brought to Houston.

Early this afternoon, aircraft carrying six children arrived at Hobby Airport, to be transferred to Memorial Hermann Children's Hospital. Memorial Hermann officials said they are working with Texas Children's Hospital to disburse patients. For now, parents are being left behind due to limited room on aircraft.

In other Texas Medical Center developments:

• Baylor College of Medicine physicians will provide medical care for evacuees housed at the Astrodome. Physician Tom Gavagan, associate professor of family medicine, will direct the initiative. Baylor President and CEO Peter Traber is asking Baylor doctors to volunteer for shifts.

• The Methodist Hospital is expecting as many as 160 nursing home patients, arriving by bus, from New Orleans within the next few hours. The patients will be evaluated at Methodist's emergency room, and housed in available hospital space, said Methodist spokeswoman Gale Smith.

• The Harris County Hospital District officials are working on plans today to help evacuees, many of whom are expected to seek medical care in local clinics and emergency rooms.

• Approximately 80 veteran inpatients from the New Orleans VA Medical Center are expected to arrive at Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center via military transport within the next 12 to 48 hours, the Houston VA said Wednesday. The New Orleans VA was ordered closed Tuesday because of flooding and power outages. All 154 patients from the hospital are being evacuated to other VA facilities in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

While some elective surgeries have been postponed at the Houston VA while the hospital focuses on incoming patients, all outpatient clinics remain operational, the VA said.

In addition, community members, who wish to show their support for the displaced veterans, should contact MEDVAMC Voluntary Services by e-mail at vhahouvolunteer@med.va.gov to find out about volunteer opportunities and donation needs, the Houston VA said.

leigh.hopper@chron.com

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3332352

Mississippi search crews pulling bodies from rubble

Heaviest loss of life appears to be from Biloxi building collapse

GULFPORT, MISS. - Stunned residents emerged from shelters and homes Tuesday to start assessing the massive damage left by Hurricane Katrina as rescuers pulled bodies from crushed homes and apartments near the coast.

The death toll in this hard-hit county rose to more than 100, but officials believe that number will rise. "There's so much rubble, we won't know for a while. But I fully expect the number to be in the hundreds," said Jason Green, assistant to the Harrison County coroner.

In an auxiliary morgue downtown, hearses unloaded bodies uncovered by search-and-rescue teams.

"Several families have brought in their dead," Green said.

County Supervisor Connie Rockco said it appears the heaviest loss of life was in east Biloxi, where an apartment building collapsed and killed 30 people.

"But there are fatalities from one end of the county to the other," Rockco said.

Gulfport Fire Chief Pat Sullivan said most of those who died in Gulfport perished in the zone of the storm surge, which pushed up to a set of railroad tracks about six blocks from the beach.

"We begged, we pleaded, we demanded. We told them they had a good chance of dying if they didn't leave. But there's only so much government can do to protect people," Sullivan said. "Too many people tried to ride it out. We can't regulate good sense."

Thought they were safe

Sullivan said many homes that survived the catastrophic Hurricane Camille in 1969 were washed away by Katrina. "People in them thought they were safe, that lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place," he said.

In Biloxi, at the Quiet Water Beach apartments, at least 30 people died when the two-story building crumbled in the storm Monday. One resident, Joy Schovest, told the Associated Press she swam for her life.

"We grabbed a lady and pulled her out the window and then we swam with the current," said Schovest, 55, breaking into tears. "It was terrifying. You should have seen the cars floating around us. We had to push them away when we were trying to swim."

All that remained of the apartment complex was a concrete slab surrounded by a heap of red bricks that were once the building's walls. A crushed red toy wagon, jewelry, clothing and twisted boards were mixed in with the debris.

Gulfport Police Lt. Michael Shaw said he and others in his search crew carried bodies across stretches of rubble that ran blocks from the beach.

"I've lived here all my life, and in some places we were, I couldn't recognize where I was," Shaw said.

The central part of the city, near the coast, looked as though it had been rocked by an explosion. At the waterfront, the blocklong floating Copa Casino had been heaved about 200 yards onto the shore. Its sides were blown to tatters, especially on the lower levels of the roughly six-floor structure.

The floating Grand Casino also was pushed aground and came to rest several blocks west of its former location.

On the beachfront U.S. 90, near the center of town, Hugh Keting surveyed where his law office used to be. The two-story stucco house had been scraped off its foundation, although a huge live oak next to it remained with hardly a damaged branch.

Dwight Harper's workplace was all but gone, too. He works for Dole, which runs a shipping operation on the docks. Some of the facility's two-story-tall unloaders and other heavy equipment were tossed about the edge of downtown.

Inside First Presbyterian Church, which faces the water about a block from the shore, waves had pounded away the plaster up to a line about 6 feet high across the entire back wall. The floor was covered with 3 inches of sand.

Gulfport Mayor Brent Warr said the beachfront shopping center that he and his father owned was destroyed, as were their homes.

Warr and his city staff met in the largely undamaged City Hall on Tuesday morning to choose locations for distribution points for the aid they expect to come in. He said he expected it to begin arriving early today.

"We understand the military trying to reach us was bogged down on U.S. 49," Warr said, referring to the main north-south highway into Gulfport. "I was told there were more than 100 big pines across the road in a two-mile stretch in the DeSoto (National) Forest."

City officials said they could not immediately re-establish water or sewer services. All land phone lines and most cell phone communications were out of service, they said, and crews were trying to repair a major gas leak downtown.

Tons of chicken parts, which had been stored for shipping in the port area, ended up scattered across dozens of blocks west of the city.

"That's going to become a biohazard in no time," said Sullivan, the fire chief. "We'll need fast help with that, too."

Police Chief Steve Barnes said there was an immediate need for portable toilets. "There's not one left standing along the whole (Mississippi) coast," he said.

Katrina's destruction was so widespread, Barnes said, that "all the emergency resources we need are being stretched."

Marine life facility gone

After several drug and grocery stores opened late in the day, lines quickly formed and parking lots filled. Some residents, including 67-year-old Norman Vancourt, said they were planning to leave the coast until basic services are restored. "I'll go as far north as it takes to get a hot cup of coffee," he said. His house in Long Beach, a town of about 17,000 just west of Gulfport, was demolished. "In a storm like this, you don't even board it up," he said.

Six bottlenose dolphins from Marine Life Oceanarium that rode out the storm in two motel pools will leave town soon, too.

"We were totally destroyed," said Moby Solangi, the aquarium's president. "We're planning to put them in another facility until we can rebuild."

Three of Solangi's sea lions that ended up in neighborhoods were recovered alive, he said.

"The birds and fish, they're free now," Solangi said, describing how the storm crushed several 30-foot-tall tanks.

thomas.korosec@chron.com

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3332485

U.S. to tap emergency oil reserve

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration will release oil from federal petroleum reserves to help refiners affected by Hurricane Katrina, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said today.

The move, which was expected later in the day, is designed to give refineries a temporary supply of crude oil to take the place of interrupted shipments from tankers or offshore oil platforms affected by the storm.

The U.S. Minerals Management Service said today that 95 percent of the Gulf of Mexico's oil output was out of service. Oil prices surged back above $70 in European markets on Wednesday but slipped quickly to $69.56 after disclosure of the decision involving the release of supplies from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Eight refineries were shut down due to Katrina — half of them producing gasoline.

The government's emergency petroleum stockpile — nearly 700 million barrels of oil stored in underground salt caverns along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast — was established to cushion oil markets during energy disruptions.

The production and distribution of oil and gas remained severely disrupted by the shutdown of a key oil import terminal off the coast of Louisiana and by the Gulf region's widespread loss of electricity, which is needed to power pipelines and refineries.

Tapping the federal emergency petroleum reserves will "certainly help those companies and those refineries to function, whereas they wouldn't be functioning without a supply of crude oil," Bodman told The Associated Press in an interview. But he warned that the action may not ease the skyrocketing price of gasoline at the pump.

"Will it make a major difference in the price of gasoline? Based on the numbers that I see, probably not," Bodman told the AP. "It'll help some, but we have significant refining capacity that is dysfunctional, either because they don't have electric energy or because they're flooded, or both."

The Environmental Protection Agency, seeking to avert a severe supply crunch, announced it would temporarily allow the sale of higher-polluting gasoline in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi because those states can't provide enough fuel to consumers that meets Clean Air Act requirements.

The agency also said those states will be allowed to use motor vehicle diesel fuel with a sulfur content higher than the 500 parts per million standard for the next two weeks through ozone season.

President Bush, meanwhile, was returning to Washington on Wednesday to oversee the federal response to Katrina. He planned to chair a meeting of a White House task force set up to coordinate federal efforts, across more than a dozen agencies, to assist hurricane victims.

Bodman said the reserve was contained in five sites, four of which are operative. The site in New Orleans is not. He said it was too early to say how much oil would be released.

He said his department was dealing with inquiries from three companies about getting oil from the reserve. On Monday, Citgo Petroleum Corp. asked for 250,000 to 500,000 barrels to ensure that its Lake Charles, La., refinery doesn't run out.

"There is an issue with respect to getting electrical power so that we can operate the various pipe lines that supply fuel to the rest of the country," he said, noting that these facilities "deliver finished products, diesel and gasoline, to the Northeast and to the Southeast."

"Our job is to get the infrastructure going again," Bodman said. "To the extent that we have delays in getting these pipelines functioning, then were are going to have the potential for gasoline shortages." Bodman said the administration will "do everything we can do to get fuel available to the rest of the country."

Of tapping the SPR, Bodman said: "Technically it's called an exchange of oil that we deliver today and that we will get oil back plus some interest, if you will, in the future. We will be tapping that today."

Interviewed on the Fox News' "Fox and Friends," Bodman was asked if price gouging is taking place.

"I would like to believe that in this time of crisis that all of us are going to pull together to try to deal with this very difficult circumstance and situation that's confronting not just this region, but this country," he replied. "We're hopeful of that, but if we have some bad actors, we have a mechanism to deal with it."

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3332849

Recovery from storm will take years, Bush says

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Bush pledged today to do "all in our power" to save lives and provide sustenance to uncounted victims of Hurricane Katrina but cautioned that recovery of the Gulf Coast will take years.

"We're dealing with one of the worst national disasters in our nation's history," he said at the White House after breaking off his Texas vacation to make an aerial tour of the devastation and return to Washington.

With a vast federal relief effort grinding into operation, Bush also cautioned that the effects of the storm will be felt far beyond Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

He said he had ordered steps to cushion the impact on the storm on the nation's oil industry. At the same time, he conceded: "This will help take some pressure off of gas prices, but our citizens must understand this storm has disrupted the capacity to make gasoline and distribute gasoline."

Flanked by senior members of his administration, Bush recited some of the actions already taken to help victims of the storm — more than 50 disaster medical assistance teams and more than 25 urban search and rescue teams, both from the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

He said the Transportation Department has provided trucks to convey 5.4 million ready-to-eat meals, 13.4 million liters of water, 10,400 tarps, 3.4 million pounds of ice, 144 generators, 20 containers of prepositioned disaster supplies, 135,000 blankets and 11,000 cots.

"And we're just starting," he added.

He said buses were on the way to help take thousands of storm survivors from the overwhelmed Superdome in New Orleans to the Astrodome in Houston.

Bush said the Pentagon, as well, was contributing to the rescue and relief operations, and the administration would make road and bridge repair a priority.

Bush also said he had instructed Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to work with refineries to "alleviate any shortage through loans."

In addition to the government's efforts, Bush encouraged private cash donations to recovery efforts.

While Bush did not minimize the destruction left by the storm, he expressed optimism in words directed at the victims of the storm who have lost their homes, possessions and employment.

"I'm confident that with time you'll get your life back in order, new communities will flourish, the great city of New Orleans will get back on its feet and America will be a stronger place for it," he said.

"The country stands with you. We'll do all in our power to help you," he said.

Bush stepped to the microphones to put a personal imprint on efforts his administration is making to cope with the disaster in the Gulf Coast.

"Truckloads of water, ice, meals, medical supplies, generators, tents and tarpaulins" are loaded aboard 1,700 trailer trucks in an initial emergency response, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said earlier at a news conference.

He pledged a "full range of federal resources" — a list that ran from bridge inspection and repair to restoration of communications networks to mosquito abatement in a region with vast stretches underwater.

At the same time, officials warned of continuing hardships across an area laid waste by the powerful storm.

Michael Leavitt, secretary of Health and Human Services, announced that he had declared a public health emergency in the area stretching from Louisiana to Florida. "We are gravely concerned about the potential for cholera, typhoid and dehydrating diseases that could come as a result of the stagnant water and the conditions," he said.

Chertoff and Leavitt spoke at a news conference attended by an unusual array of department and agency heads, each of whom came equipped with a list of actions already taken by the administration.

In addition to steps designed to alleviate the suffering of victims, the administration moved to cushion the impact the storm might have on the nation's oil supply.

Bush signed off on a plan to release oil from emergency stockpiles, a decision intended to offset the loss of production from Gulf Coast refiners.

At the same time, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson announced a temporary nationwide waiver of certain pollution standards covering gasoline and diesel fuels.

Johnson had issued the waiver for the four storm-damaged Gulf states on Tuesday but said the broader move was necessary "to ensure that fuel is available throughout the country, to address public health issues and emergency vehicle supply needs."

Additionally, Bodman said the Transportation Department had waived rules governing trucker hours, a step he said would increase the supply of gasoline.

Overall, "the first stage is, of course, life saving," said Chertoff, who emerged as the administration's point man on the disaster response.

Efforts are under way to clear roads and inspect bridges, establish communications and expand operations at airports, he added.

"We are also looking at maritime assets that we can deploy to New Orleans to re-establish port operations there," he said.

Longer term, Chertoff said, will be the rebuilding efforts.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3333218

Public health emergency declared on Gulf Coast

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS -- As a public health catastrophe unfolded today in New Orleans, hospitals in the Crescent City sank further into disaster, airlifting babies without their parents to other states and struggling with more sick people appearing at their doors.

Dangerous, unsanitary conditions spread across the city, much of which now sits in a murky stew of germs.

The federal government declared a public health emergency for the Gulf Coast region, promising 40 medical centers with up to 10,000 beds and thousands of doctors and nurses for the hurricane-ravaged area.

In a stunning example of how desperate the situation has become, 25 babies who had been in a makeshift neonatal intensive care unit at New Orleans' Ochsner Clinic were airlifted Wednesday to hospitals in Houston, Baton Rouge, La., and Birmingham, Ala. Many were hooked up to battery-operated breathing machines keeping them alive.

Their parents had been forced to evacuate and leave the infants behind; by late in the day, most if not all had been contacted and told where their babies were being taken, said hospital spokeswoman Katherine Voss.

"We actually encouraged them to leave. It would just be more people to evacuate if there was a problem," said Dr. Vince Adolph, a pediatric surgeon.

Helicopters had to land on the roof of the parking garage to get the babies because water covered the helipad at the hospital, one of the few in the area that had been operating almost normally.

"We're getting kind of at the end of our rope," with a skeleton staff of doctors and nurses who have been on duty nonstop since Sunday, Voss said.

Officials were trying to evacuate 10,000 people — patients, staff and refugees — out of nine hospitals battling floodwaters or using generators running low on fuel. About 300 people were stranded on the roof of one two-story hospital in the New Orleans suburb of Chalmette.

Yet even as they tried to evacuate, many hospitals faced an onslaught of new patients — people with injuries and infections caused by the storm, people plucked from rooftops who are dehydrated, dialysis and cancer patients in need of their regular chemotherapy or radiation treatments.

"We have thousands of people who are getting ill ... our hospitals need to be prepared to take care of the incoming sick," said Coletta Barrett of the Louisiana Hospital Association.

Only about 150 patients were able to be evacuated today from all nine New Orleans hospitals, said Knox Andress, an emergency room nurse in Shreveport, La. He is regional coordinator for a federal emergency preparedness grant covering the state and is involved in helping place evacuees in other hospitals.

"We're ready for patients and we can't get them. We just can't get them out," he said.

The government said dozens of medical disaster teams from nearby states were moving into hard-hit areas.

"We've identified 2,600 beds in hospitals in the 12-state area. In addition to that, we've identified 40,000 beds nationwide, should they be needed," said Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt.

Storm survivors, particularly in New Orleans where floodwaters remain, face a cauldron of infectious agents, public health experts said.

"You can think of floodwaters as diluted sewage," said Mark Sobsey, a professor of environmental microbiology at the University of North Carolina.

Whatever infections people carry go into sewage and can be expected to show up in floodwaters. That includes common diarrheal germs including hepatitis A and Norwalk virus.

"We are gravely concerned about the potential for cholera, typhoid and dehydrating diseases that could come as a result of the stagnant water and the conditions," said Leavitt.

However, officials at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health experts said cholera and typhoid are not considered to be high risks in the area. CDC officials suggested Leavitt was simply mentioning examples of diseases that could arise from contaminated food and water.

Some experts said worries about catching illnesses from being near dead animals or human bodies are somewhat overblown.

"People who are alive can give you a whole lot more diseases than people who are dead," said Richard Garfield, a Columbia University professor of international clinical nursing who helped coordinate medical care in Indonesia after the tsunami.

Mosquito-borne diseases may start to emerge within days. West Nile virus and dengue fever are both potential risks following a situation like the one in coastal Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Officials also cited carbon monoxide poisoning risks to people using generators and stoves.

"One of the things they have got to do — we've got to plead for — is to make sure that when these hospitals get evacuated, the National Guard or somebody is there putting major security around these hospitals, or they're going to get ransacked. And it's going to make a bad situation even worse," said John Matessino, president of the Louisiana Hospital Association.

He said the four hospitals in New Orleans' central business district — Tulane, Charity, University and the VA hospital — had the worst problem with would-be looters.

Days after the storm hit, many people in key positions to help were still struggling to figure out how.

The Pharmamaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association asked the government to make a public health assessment to guide drug companies.

"Once we know what is required, we can begin to donate and ship in desperately needed medicines," said a statement from Billy Tauzin, the group's president and former congressman from Louisiana.

The American Diabetes Association wants to help get insulin and syringes to diabetics and is working with the Red Cross, but the relief agency "is still very much in 'rescue mode,'" an association spokeswoman said.

Eli Lilly and Co. said it would give $1 million in cash and would match any donations by its U.S. employees to the Red Cross. The company also is donating $1 million in insulin.

The American Medical Association's Center for Public Health Preparedness and Disaster Response was trying to figure out a system to help coordinate doctors who want to volunteer.

"It's going to take years — years — to rebuild the medical infrastructure. There will be continuing health needs," said Dr. James J. James, the center's director.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3332803

CITY IN CHAOS

Desperation, looting fill streets of New Orleans

National Guard, police stand by in some cases as crowds ransack shops, pharmacies

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — Mayor Ray Nagin ordered 1,500 police officers to leave their search-and-rescue mission today night and return to the streets to stop looting that has turned increasingly hostile as the city plunges deeper into chaos.

``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 statement to The Associated Press.

The number of officers called off the search-and-rescue mission amounts to virtually the entire police force in New Orleans.

Amid the turmoil Wednesday, thieves commandeered a forklift and used it to push up the storm shutters and break the glass of a pharmacy. The crowd stormed the store, carrying out so much ice, water and food that it dropped from their arms as they ran. The street was littered with packages of ramen noodles and other items.

Looters also chased down a police truck full of food. The New Orleans police chief ran off looters while city officials themselves were commandeering equipment from a looted Office Depot. During a state of emergency, authorities have broad powers to take private supplies and buildings for their use.

Managers at a nursing home were prepared to cope with the power outages and had enough food for days, but then the looting began. The home's bus driver was forced to surrender the vehicle to carjackers.

Bands of people drove by the nursing home, shouting to residents, ``Get out!'' Eighty residents, most of them in wheelchairs, were being evacuated to other nursing homes in the state.

``We had enough food for 10 days, said Peggy Hoffman, the home's executive director. ``Now we'll have to equip our department heads with guns and teach them how to shoot.

At one store, hordes of people from all ages, races and walks of life grabbed food and water. Some drove away with trunkloads of beer. At one point, two officers drew their guns on the looters, but the thieves left without incident.

One young man was seen wading through chest-deep floodwater, carrying a case of soda, after looting a grocery store.

Police officers were asking residents to give up any firearms before they evacuated neighborhoods because police desperately needed the firepower: Some officers who had been stranded on the roof of a hotel said they were being shot at overnight.

``It's really difficult because my opinion of the looting is it started with people running out of food, and you can't really argue with that too much, Nagin said. ``Then it escalated to this kind of mass chaos.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she has asked the White House to send more people to help with evacuations and rescues, thereby freeing up National Guardsmen to stop looters.

Bob Mann, an aide to the governor, said dozens of law officers are being brought in from around the country and Canada to help stop the looting. Officials said they hope the 4,000 National Guard troops already in New Orleans, who have been engaged in search and rescue, will be available for police actions.

``We will restore law and order, an emotional Blanco said at a news conference. ``What angers me the most is that disasters like this often bring out the worst in people. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior.

John Matessino, president of the Louisiana Hospital Association, said he had not heard of anyone breaking into the hospitals, but he added that thieves got into the parking garage at one hospital and were stealing car batteries and stereos.

New Orleans' homeland security chief, Terry Ebbert, said looters were breaking into stores all over town and stealing guns. He said there are gangs of armed men moving around the city. At one point, officers stranded on the roof of a hotel were fired at by criminals on the street.

Authorities said an officer was shot in the head and a looter was wounded in a shootout. The officer and looter were expected to survive.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3332484

Texas soldiers heading out to help hurricane victims

About 240 U.S. Army soldiers from Fort Hood have been ordered to Louisiana, while an undetermined number of Texas National Guard assemble at Houston's Westheimer Armory in preparation for deployment to hurricane ravaged areas.

The active-duty troops involved are aviation brigade soldiers from Fort Hood's 4th Infantry Division. Their task force is expected to leave Central Texas on Thursday to supplement the Gulf Coast relief effort with 12 UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, two CH-47 Chinook helicopters and about 240 soldiers, officials said Wednesday.

The infantry soldiers are expected to be involved in evacuations, movement of civilians and logistics operations, Army officials said.

Guard members from several Texas cities, many with medical and policing skills, have been summoned to duty, state Guard spokesman Tech Sgt. Greg Ripps said.

"Some of them are already there (in Houston)," he said, calling the situation "very fluid."

Even a vague estimate of the number of troops involved wasn't immediately available, he said. Their precise destinations in Louisiana weren't established, nor their range of military specialities.

"What I do know is the Westheimer Armory in Houston seems to be the staging area for most of the National Guard members who are then going on to Louisiana," Ripps said.

"Some are there (Houston) completing the formalities and paperwork to go to Louisiana," he said.

Even with large numbers of Texas Guard members on combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, the state has a sufficient number of Guard members available to answer Louisiana's pleas for help, he said.

"There has never been a time when they were all called to active duty. There are about 6,000 overseas at this point and that's less than a third of the Texas National Guard," he said.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3333228

Airlines cancel flights into New Orleans, Gulfport

Associated Press

ATLANTA — Some major carriers have canceled flights to the New Orleans and Gulfport, Miss., airports — popular destinations for tourists, convention participants and gamblers — until at least next week, increasing financial pressure for the airlines as they also deal with potential fuel shortages.

Daily jet fuel production nationwide has been cut 13 percent because of damage from the hurricane to Gulf Coast refineries, according to Jack Evans of the Air Transport Association.

"What it means is there is less fuel essentially," Evans said today. "Carriers are having to take measures to conserve fuel at airports where they are low and tanker in fuel when serving some destinations on the East Coast."

Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc., the nation's third-largest carrier, has canceled all flights into and out of the New Orleans and Gulfport airports through Monday, spokeswoman Chris Kelly said. As for fuel, Delta is working closely with suppliers to make sure contingency plans are in place to deal with any potential shortages, Kelly said.

AMR Corp. unit American Airlines, the nation's biggest carrier, canceled 34 flights in and out of New Orleans today. Spokesman Tim Smith said the Fort Worth-based carrier doesn't expect to resume scheduled flights there until next Tuesday at the earliest.

Houston-based Continental Airlines Inc. and its Continental Express commuter service canceled 40 flights today and a similar number for Thursday in and out of New Orleans and Gulfport, Miss., said spokeswoman Julie King.

King said Continental was not having trouble finding fuel and could carry extra fuel aboard planes if shortages develop.

No. 2 U.S. carrier United Airlines, a unit of Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based UAL Corp., which was still updating flight cancellation numbers today, does not expect a significant financial impact, spokeswoman Jean Medina said. United does not serve the Gulfport airport.

"Right now, we are focused on assisting our customers and employees in those areas," Medina said.

Asked about potential fuel shortages, Medina said, "We are assessing the situation, and working closely with our suppliers."

Eagan, Minn.-based Northwest Airlines Corp. has suspended service into New Orleans and Gulfport. Spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch did not say when service to those airports would resume. He said flights to Las Vegas, Orlando, Tampa, and Fort Myers, Fla. were carrying enough fuel for the round trip rather than depending on refueling in those cities, as a precaution against shortages.

Arlington, Va.-based US Airways Group Inc. has canceled service to and from New Orleans until at least Sept. 7. US Airways does not serve the Gulfport airport.

Discount carrier AirTran Airways has shuttered its 18 daily flights to and from the two airports through at least Saturday. The canceled flights represent roughly 3 percent of AirTran's 564 daily flights. Spokesman Tad Hutcheson said the airline has a seven-day supply of fuel on hand at its Atlanta hub and currently doesn't expect any shortages. "We have plenty of fuel," Hutcheson said.

The New Orleans airport, meanwhile, has reopened to allow humanitarian flights in and out during daylight hours, but officials are unsure when commercial service will resume there. The uncertainty has raised questions about the financial impact on the airlines that in particular serve that airport. One runway is usable but getting to the airport is difficult, officials said.

Officials said the New Orleans airport has no significant airfield damage and had no standing water in aircraft movement areas. The airport did sustain damage to its roofs, hangars and fencing. At the Gulfport airport, which is served by five airlines, there was some damage to the control tower and to AirTran's gate area, Hutcheson said.

The flight cancellations and fuel problems come at a time when the major airlines, especially Delta, are already reeling.

"I think all of the airlines will feel this," said airline expert Terry Trippler, who runs a travel Web site cheapseats.com. "It's a little more than a blip, but New Orleans and Gulfport alone is not going to put Delta into bankruptcy. I think $70 a barrel oil is the straw that would break the camel's back."

Crude oil prices fell 87 cents today to close at $68.94 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after briefly trading as high as $70.65.

Delta shares fell 3 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $1.17 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. AMR shares fell 20 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $12.49 on the NYSE, where Continental shares fell 22 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $13.03. AirTran shares fell 7 cents to $10.13 on the NYSE.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3333409

23,000 Superdome refugees boarding buses for Astrodome

NEW ORLEANS — As many as 23,000 refugees at the Superdome prepared to board buses and head to Houston's Astrodome today even as hundreds of others arrived from New Orleans on their own, exhausted and desperate, only to find they won't be allowed in.

Hurricane refugees trapped in the Superdome were expected to begin arriving on over 500 buses as early as tonight, but security officers at the Astrodome were turning people away this evening, telling them the giant shelter won't be ready to open until Thursday -- and then only to Superdome evacuees.

"I'm ready to get away from here. Anybody in their right mind would be," said David Ellis, a construction worker who was on the ramp outside the Superdome, escaping the oppressive conditions.

As the prospects of returning to New Orleans anytime soon grew more grim today, many refugees who drove to Texas before water overwhelmed the Crescent City found themselves in need of a better place to sleep than the back of a car or lodging cheaper than a hotel. Shelters are operating as far away as Dallas and Austin, and the Red Cross opened a handful of additional shelters in the Houston area to meet the surge in demand, but word of the Astrodome shelter spread faster than this morning's decision to reserve it for Superdome evacuees.

Streets around the Astrodome were clogged with frustrated refugees by this afternoon, and some who were turned away said they've had no better luck at other shelters around the Houston area.

"We have no money. All we have is the clothes on our backs," said Rhonda Calderon, who drove 14 hours to get to Houston. "This is our fifth shelter. Everybody keeps turning us away."

Local law enforcement agencies have been tapped to keep the peace at the Astrodome - both inside and out - when the crush of evacuees arrive in Houston from the Superdome in flood-ravaged New Orleans.

"We are going to be providing some security. We will have some part in it," said Lt. John Martin, with the Harris County Sheriff's Department.

Martin didn't know how many deputies would be needed to watch over the evacuees or how they would be deployed.

"I know this morning we were trying to figure out exactly what our role was going to be and how many people we were going to have participating," he said.

Houston police officers from the downtown Special Operations division may also be used for security at the Astrodome but by Wednesday night no decision had been made, an HPD official said.

Harris County Judge Robert Eckels said the aging landmark would be quickly overwhelmed if it opened to all those displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Helping those from the Superdome will be giant task by itself.

"It will be a noble calling for the grand lady at this time in her career," said Eckels. "We'll have a group of people who are tired, who are frustrated, who are scared and who have been through a tremendous tragedy.''

Eckels said officials are not expecting to house refugees in the stadium very long.

"I'm thinking in terms of days, maybe weeks," he said.

A spokeswoman for the local American Red Cross, however, said she expects evacuees may stay in the Astrodome not weeks, but months. And in Houston itself even longer.

"It could be years. Places have to be found for these people. People may not be able to rebuild," said Margaret O'Brien-Molina, spokeswoman for the American Red Cross' Southwest Service Area.

Cots and blankets for up to 25,000 people were being set up on the Astrodome's floor. Knowing that the people would arrive tired, frustrated and disheartened, shelter organizers began planning activities that might help take the evacuees' minds off their troubles, such as free trips to museums and amusement parks.

Organizers plan to use Astrodome kitchens and locker rooms to keep refugees fed and clean, but they realize it won't be easy because the arena was not built to handle so many people.

"The Dome is not suited well for this kind of a crowd for a long term," Eckels said. "The problem when you get 20,000 or 30,000 people in a single place, you have problems with privacy. These people have been without food, without water, without sanitary sewer, without the ability to take a shower for three or four days. They are not happy, and we are cognizant of that."

With that in mind, shelter organizers began planning activities that might help take the evacuees' minds of their troubles, such as free trips via Metro bus to museums and amusement parks. Stadium managers were also working to get TVs, big and small, and light-hearted programming or news channels for those who want to keep up with the latest on their drowning city.

The temporary Astrodome residents will be issued passes that will allow them to leave as they please, Eckels said.

Organizers plan to use Astrodome kitchens and locker rooms to keep refugees fed and clean, but they said they realize it won't be easy.

"Obviously, locker rooms were made to handle baseball teams and football teams, not crowds of 20,000 to 25,000 people," said Shea Guinn, president of SMG Reliant Park, which operates the Astrodome and Superdome.

Other areas in the stadium were being configured to accommodate people with various needs, such parents needing a nursery for infants and toddlers.

The Astrodome's air-conditioning and plumbing -- along with extra portable toilets coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- will be an upgrade for New Orleans refugees, who've been trapped inside the Superdome by 4 feet of water.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said today the situation inside the Superdome is desperate. There is no electricity, no air conditioning, no flushable toilets. One man either fell or jumped to his death inside the facility several days ago.

"This is going to help us immensely," Blanco said.

FEMA, which will reimburse Harris County for putting up the evacuees, is providing the buses for the journey to Houston, and refugees too frail to join the bus convoy will be transferred to the Astrodome in military aircraft.

"We feel that we can do this in less than two days, said Col. Jeff Smith, director of emergency preparedness for the Louisiana office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. "This is one of the largest evacuations we have had in this country.

In addition to the Astrodome, the Red Cross has set up a dozen shelters in the Houston area, and Texas officials also have been talking with Jefferson County officials about using the Ford Center in Beaumont as a longterm shelter for refugees stranded in campgrounds, hotels and other temporary quarters, said Kathy Walt, a spokeswoman for the Texas governor's office.

In the meantime, frustration is mounting for those who were hoping for a cot in the Astrodome today.

This afternoon 29-year-old Nureka Jacobs of New Orleans sought shelter at the Dome for herself, five daughters, ages 5 to 10, and a 95-year-old woman in her care.

She broke down crying when they all were turned away at the Kirby entrance.

"They're telling me to go," she said. "Go where? I don't have a home."

Jacobs said she had been staying at a motel on Cullen, but now was out of money and almost out of gasoline for her minivan. She and her six companions crossed Kirby to a parking lot where good Samaritans were cooking hotdogs for storm evacuees, but she doesn't know where to go next.

She said she has tried to get a job here as a nurse's aide, but that at least one employer has turned her away because she couldn't produce her Social Security card, which she left behind in New Orleans.

"I've given Houston all I have to give. This is cold," she said.

Angel Mackie, 39, said she and her family drove to the Astrodome after their hotel raised its rates.

"We're going to try to hang around and see if they'll let us in," Mackie said after she was turned away from the Astrodome.

Antionette Cambrick, 32, said she's out of options.

"We may have to sleep in the cars tonight. We don't have nowhere to go. We don't know what we're going to do," she said.

Desperate motorists argued heatedly with parking lot staff at the Astrodome.

"Nobody's got no clothes. Nobody has any money. We've been on the road since Sunday. We're real frustrated," said New Orleans refugee Joseph Knight, 41.

In the same boat were Christy and Honald Salomon and five carloads of family members, including a 93-year-old great-great-grandmother.

The Salomons and their extended family have been staying at a Comfort Inn for $55 a night. News of a longer stay had the family searching for more permanent housing arrangements.

But they were turned away from the Astrodome a little before noon, with only a one-page information sheet of services offered by the Red Cross.

"People with no money will be able to stay here, but what about people like myself who have a little money to hold us?" said Brian Salomon. "Where are we going to stay when we run out of money?"

"We might have to stay here and find a job," said Honald Salomon.

Hiep Pham of New Orleans arrived at the Astrodome this morning looking for his sister, her husband and four children, but he too was turned away.

"I've lost my family," he said. "I really don't know if they are surviving or not.''

One local resident, Betty Lewis, 46, said she showed up at the Astrodome to volunteer and they would not let her in. "They're just sending people on wild goose chases," said Lewis, a 13-year resident of Houston who has family in New Orleans. "People are pissed off.

"I'm not going to be leaving. I'm getting in there," said Lewis, a home health-care giver. "All I want to do is help."

At least some volunteers with the Harris County Citizen Corps, a organization that responds to disasters, also were barred from the Astrodome this afternoon.

Volunteers received an email from Eckels at 6 a.m. today saying their help was needed to set up cots and prepare necessities at the Astrodome for the evacuees by 5 p.m., said corps volunteer Chris Brown, 32, of Houston.

But Brown has been waiting outside the Astrodome gate since noon, unable to get inside because security officers stopped him.

"They told us there's nobody in the Dome doing anything. We don't know what to do," Brown said.

"I'd really like to help. I had some free time today. People need help," Brown said.

Even as authorities in Houston scramble to prepare for the refugees' arrival, others are trying to think about the long term, how to move evacuees to facilities that are more comfortable and closer to home.

Bill Lokey, federal coordinating officer for FEMA, said his agency is exploring long-term shelter options for displaced people from across New Orleans. The agency is considering purchasing land where mobile homes and trailers could be placed. It is also considering buying apartment complexes and hotels that are in bankruptcy to house evacuees. FEMA is preparing to shelter more than a million people if needed.

For the Astrodome, the transformation into a shelter for hurricane refugees has happened far more quickly than any other plans ever proposed for it. The question of what to do with the Astrodome has lingered since the Astros relocated to Minute Maid Park five years ago.

Many Houstonians are sentimentally attached to the building, which was the world's first domed stadium but is expensive to maintain. Harris County has been spending about $1.5 million annually to host a few events there, and private investors are currently trying to persuade county county commissioners to let them turn it into a luxury hotel with indoor trees, walkways and a river walk.

Since Hurricane Katrina hit on Monday, bloggers and others have floated the idea of using the Astrodome to house refugees who are pouring into Houston.

Richard Murray, director of the University of Houston's Center for Political Policy, said the sprawling city's relatively low population density should make it easier to absorb refugees from the hurricane.

But he said the challenges faced by charities and relief organizations would be enormous.

"Initially there will be this wave of good feeling," Murray said. "I would be more worried with the kind of wearing-out-the-welcome thing down the road. If it drags on, there are going to be some crimes and other things that come with new residents.''

Chronicle staffers Dale Lezon, Rad Sallee, Salatheia Byrant, Bill Murphy and Kristen Mack, along with the Associated Press, contributed to this report.

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3332869

Companies move to give to hurricane relief efforts

Associated Press

Pharmaceutical companies rounded up much-needed medicine, water suppliers loaded trucks with thirst-quenching cargo and companies from petroleum giants to beer makers pitched in millions in cash and products today to help communities battered by Hurricane Katrina.

The efforts to collect money and goods to help the Gulf Coast rebuild gathered momentum Wednesday as officials continued assessing the damage from one of the nation's worst natural disasters.

American Red Cross spokeswoman Sarah Marchetti said at least 30 companies had made donations by this morning, and the number was expected to climb.

"They've been pouring in," she said.

In Indianapolis, drug maker Eli Lilly & Co. prepared to send 40,000 vials of refrigerated insulin to patients in the Southeast, along with at least $1 million in cash to the American Red Cross.

"We're poised to ship as soon as we get the OK," Lilly spokesman Edward Sagebiel said.

Drug maker Wyeth of Madison, N.J., planned to donate antibiotics and nonprescription pain relievers, health care giant Johnson & Johnson provided $250,000 worth of kits containing toothbrushes, soap and shampoo, as well as pallets of pain relievers and wound care supplies. Drug maker Merck & Co. planned to send antibiotics and hepatitis A vaccines to protect those facing contaminated waters.

"Our commitment is open-ended," said Merck spokeswoman Janet Skidmore.

Illinois-based pharmaceutical company Abbott Laboratories Inc. is giving $2 million cash and at least $2 million in nutritional and medical products.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said initial corporate donations to the relief efforts could total more than $100 million.

Hank Goldstein, chairman of Giving USA in Glenview, Ill., said individual and corporate donations combined could reach $1 billion.

But he predicted the corporate relief effort would be smaller than those recorded after the 2001 terrorist attacks and the tsunami that ravaged Asia in December.

"This kind of money comes quick and comes early and then falls off fast after that," Goldstein said. "It will abate along with the water."

Donations today already had reached well into the millions and included $5 million from Chevron Corp., $3 million each from JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup, $2 million from Pfizer and $1 million from insurer State Farm.

The Walt Disney Co. contributed $2.5 million, $1 million of which will go to the American Red Cross and the rest for rebuilding efforts and volunteer centers helping affected communities.

The contributions also included 50 trucks donated by Nissan North America to the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, more than 825,000 cans of water supplied by Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis and 3,000 walkie talkie-type phones for emergency personnel from Sprint Nextel Corp. Kellogg Co. of Battle Creek, Mich., sent seven truckloads of crackers and cookies to hard-hit areas. General Motors Corp. also planned to donate 25 cars and trucks to the Red Cross.

Qwest Communications International Inc. will send 2,000 long-distance calling cards so those affected could call loved ones, said spokesman Michael Dunne. He said Denver-based Qwest also has given the Red Cross $230,000 to help train responders.

Home improvement companies Home Depot and Lowe's pledged cash and manpower, while Culligan International of Northbrook, Ill., sent five truckloads of water to residents in Alabama and Mississippi.

The water, part of a larger, 28-truck convoy organized by the Missouri-based Convoy of Hope, was traveling at 10 mph through Mississippi.

"It's very treacherous," said Mike Ennis, director of strategic initiatives at Convoy of Hope.

Office Depot of Delray Beach, Fla., donated $1 million to the American Red Cross for hurricane relief efforts. Officials announced Wednesday the company also would give the contents of its five New Orleans stores, valued at $4 million, to New Orleans officials to use as they recover from Hurricane Katrina.

Spokesman Brian Levine said the contents include items such as printers, paper, cartridges, pens and notebooks. What might be available and its condition were unclear.

City officials on Wednesday commandeered equipment from a looted Office Depot. During a state of emergency, authorities have broad powers to take private supplies and buildings for their use.

But Levine couldn't say what condition the items might be in given the flooding that has ravaged the city.

"I couldn't tell you if it's completely flooded, a little flooded, or not," he said. "Our position is we're donating the contents of the entire store."

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3333766

Hundreds -- maybe thousands -- may be dead in New Orleans

Authorities plan total evacuation of flood-ravaged city

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — With thousands feared drowned in what could be America's deadliest natural disaster in a century, New Orleans' leaders all but surrendered the streets to floodwaters today and began turning out the lights on the ruined city — perhaps for months.

Looting spiraled so out of control that Mayor Ray Nagin ordered virtually the entire police force to abandon search-and-rescue efforts and focus on the brazen packs of thieves who have turned increasingly hostile.

Nagin called for an all-out evacuation of the city's remaining residents. Asked how many people died, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."

With most of the city under water, Army engineers struggled to plug New Orleans' breached levees with giant sandbags and concrete barriers, and authorities drew up plans to clear out the tens of thousands of remaining people and practically abandon the below-sea-level city.

Nagin said there will be a "total evacuation of the city. We have to. The city will not be functional for two or three months." And he said people would not be allowed back into their homes for at least a month or two.

If the mayor's death-toll estimate holds true, it would make Katrina the worst natural disaster in the United States since at least the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, which have 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.

A slow exodus from the Superdome began Wednesday as the first of nearly 25,000 refugees left the miserable surroundings of the football stadium and were transported in buses to the Astrodome in Houston, 350 miles away. Conditions in the Superdome had become horrendous: There was no air conditioning, the toilets were backed up, and the stench was so bad that medical workers wore masks as they walked around.

In Mississippi, bodies are starting to pile up at the morgue in hard-hit Harrison County. Forty corpses have been brought to the morgue already, and officials expect the death toll in the county to climb well above 100.

Tempers were beginning to flare in the aftermath of the storm. Police said a man fatally shot his sister in the head over a bag of ice in Hattiesburg, Miss.

President Bush flew over New Orleans and parts of Mississippi's hurricane-blasted coastline in Air Force One. Turning to his aides, he said: "It's totally wiped out. ... It's devastating, it's got to be doubly devastating on the ground."

"We're dealing with one of the worst natural disasters in our nation's history," Bush said later in a televised address from the White House, which most victims could not see because power remains out to 1 million Gulf Coast residents.

The federal government dispatched helicopters, warships and elite SEAL water-rescue teams in one of the biggest relief operations in U.S. history, aimed at plucking residents from rooftops in the last of the "golden 72 hours" rescuers say is crucial to saving lives.

As fires burned from broken natural-gas mains, the skies above the city buzzed with National Guard and Coast Guard helicopters frantically dropping baskets to roofs where victims had been stranded since the storm roared in with a 145-mph fury Monday. Atop one apartment building, two children held up a giant sign scrawled with the words: "Help us!"

Looters used garbage cans and inflatable mattresses to float away with food, blue jeans, tennis shoes, TV sets — even guns. Outside one pharmacy, thieves commandeered a forklift and used it to push up the storm shutters and break through the glass. The driver of a nursing-home bus surrendered the vehicle to thugs after being threatened.

Police were asking residents to give up any firearms before they evacuated neighborhoods because officers desperately needed the firepower: Some officers who had been stranded on the roof of a hotel said they were shot at.

Police said their first priority remained saving lives, and mostly just stood by and watched the looting. But Nagin later said the looting had gotten so bad that stopping the thieves became the top priority for the police department.

"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 statement to The Associated Press.

Hundreds of people wandered up and down shattered Interstate 10 — the only major freeway leading into New Orleans from the east — pushing shopping carts, laundry racks, anything they could find to carry their belongings.

On some of the few roads that were still open, people waved at passing cars with empty water jugs, begging for relief. Hundreds of people appeared to have spent the night on a crippled highway.

Nagin, whose pre-hurricane evacuation order got most of his city of a half a million out of harm's way, estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people remained, and said that 14,000 to 15,000 a day could be evacuated in ensuing convoys.

"We have to," Nagin said. "It's not living conditions."

He also expressed concern about people staying in the water: "People walking in that water with those dead bodies, it can get in your pores, you don't have to drink it."

In addition to the Astrodome solution, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was considering putting people on cruise ships, in tent cities, mobile home parks, and so-called floating dormitories.

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.

Around midday, officials with the state and the Army Corps of Engineers said the water levels between the city and the lake had equalized, and water had stopped spilling into New Orleans, and even appeared to be falling. But the danger was far from over.

The Corps of Engineers said it planned to use heavy-duty Chinook helicopters to drop 15,000-pound bags of sand and stone as early as Wednesday night into the 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.

In Washington, the Bush administration decided to release crude oil from the federal petroleum reserves after Katrina knocked out 95 percent of the Gulf of Mexico's output. But because of the disruptions and damage to the refineries, gasoline prices surged above $3 a gallon in many parts of the country.

The death toll has reached at least 110 in Mississippi alone. But the full magnitude of the disaster had been unclear for days — in part, because some areas in both coastal Mississippi and New Orleans are still unreachable, but also because authorities' first priority has been the living.

In Mississippi, for example, ambulances roamed through the passable streets of devastated places such as Biloxi, Gulfport, Waveland and Bay St. Louis, in some cases speeding past corpses in hopes of saving people trapped in flooded and crumbled buildings.

State officials said Nagin's guess of thousands dead seemed plausible.

Lt. Kevin Cowan of the state Office of Emergency Preparedness said it is too soon to say with any accuracy how many died. But he noted that since thousands of people had been rescued from roofs and attics, it could be assumed that there were lots of others who were not saved.

"You have a limited number of resources, for an unknown number of evacuees. It's already been several days. You've had reports there are casualties. You all can do the math," he said.

On the flooded streets of New Orleans, dozens of fishermen from up to 200 miles away floated in on caravans of boats to pull residents out.

One of those rescued was 40-year-old Kevin Montgomery, who spent three days shuttling between the attic of a one-story home and a canopy he built on the roof.

Every once in a while, Mongtomery would see a body float by. But he cannot swim and had to fight the urge to wade in and tie them down.

"It was terrible," he said. "All I could do was pass them by and hope that God takes care of the rest of that."

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3333250

September 01, 2005

School bus comandeered by renegade refugees first to arrive at Astrodome

The first busload of New Orleans refugees to reach the Reliant Astrodome overnight was a group of people who commandeered a school bus in the city ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and drove to Houston looking for shelter.

Jabbar Gibson, 20, said police in New Orleans told him and others to take the school bus and try to get out of the flooded city.

Gibson drove the bus from the flooded Crescent City, picking up stranded people, some of them infants, along the way. Some of those on board had been in the Superdome, among those who were supposed to be evacuated to Houston on more than 400 buses Wednesday and today. They couldn't wait.

The group of mostly teenagers and young adults pooled what little money they had to buy diapers for the babies and fuel for the bus.

After arriving at the Astrodome at about 10:30 p.m., however, they initially were refused entry by Reliant officials who said the aging landmark was reserved for the 23,000 people being evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.

"Now, we don't have nowhere to go," Gibson said. "We heard the Astrodome was open for people from New Orleans. We ain't ate right, we ain't slept right. They don't want to give us no help. They don't want to let us in."

Milling about the Reliant entrance, Sheila Nathan, 38, told her teary-eyed toddler that she was too tired to hold him.

"I'm trying to make it a fairy tale so they won't panic," said Nathan, who had four grandchildren in tow. "I have to be strong for them."

After about 20 minutes of confusion and consternation, Red Cross officials announced that the group of about 50 to 70 evacuees would be allowed into the Astrodome.

All were grateful to be out of the devastation and misery that had overtaken their hometown.

"I feel good to get out of New Orleans," said Demetrius Henderson, who got off the bus with his wife and three children. Many of those around him alternated between excited, cranky and nervous, clutching suitcases or plastic garbage bags of clothes.

They looked as bedraggled as their grueling ride would suggest: 13 hours on the commandeered bus driven by a 20-year-old man. Watching bodies float by as they tried to escape the drowning city. Picking up people along the way. Three stops for fuel. Chugging into Reliant Park, only to be told initially that they could not spend the night.

Every bit worth it.

"We took the bus and got out of the city. We were trying to get out of the city," James Hickerson said.

Several passengers on the bus said they took the matter into their own hands earlier Wednesday because they felt rescuers and New Orleans authorities were too slow in offering help.

"They are not worried about us," said Makivia Horton, 22, who is five months pregnant.

salatheia.bryant@chron.com

cynthia.garza@chron.com

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/katrina/3334317

September 07, 2005

FEMA Chief Sent Help Only After Storm Hit

September 07, 2005 10:48 AM EDT

WASHINGTON - The top U.S. disaster official waited hours after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast before he proposed to his boss sending at least 1,000 Homeland Security workers into the region to support rescuers, internal documents show.

Part of the mission, according to the documents obtained by The Associated Press, was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.

Acknowledging that such a move would take two days, Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29.

Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials acknowledged the first department-wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged.

Brown's memo to Chertoff described Katrina as "this near catastrophic event" but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, "Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities."

The initial responses of the government and Brown came under escalating criticism as the breadth of destruction and death grew. President Bush and Congress on Tuesday pledged separate investigations into the federal response to Katrina. "Governments at all levels failed," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Aid from Canada - three warships and a coast guard ship - departed for the Gulf Coast on Thursday, more than one week after Canada first offered to send military support. Ottawa has been careful not to criticize the slow U.S. response and simply repeated their willingness to help when Washington finally accepted its offer of assistance.

Several Sea King helicopters and about 1,000 personnel were aboard the Canadian ships, which will take several days to arrive off Louisiana. The ships were loaded with medical supplies, 1,200 cots, body bags, assault boats, lumber, pollution cleanup equipment - even diapers, baby wipes and teddy bears.

Navy divers were also dispatched to New Orleans from Halifax and British Columbia to inspect damaged levees and help U.S. officials clear navigational hazards.

In the U.S., Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said Brown had positioned front-line rescue teams and Coast Guard helicopters before the storm. Brown's memo on Aug. 29 aimed to assemble the necessary federal work force to support the rescues, establish communications, and coordinate with victims and community groups, Knocke said.

Instead of rescuing people or recovering bodies, these employees would focus on helping victims find the help they needed, he said.

"There will be plenty of time to assess what worked and what didn't work," Knocke said. "Clearly there will be time for blame to be assigned and to learn from some of the successful efforts."

Brown's memo told employees that among their duties, they would be expected to "convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public."

"FEMA response and recovery operations are a top priority of the department and as we know, one of yours," Brown wrote Chertoff. He proposed sending 1,000 Homeland Security Department employees within 48 hours and 2,000 within seven days.

Knocke said the 48-hour period indicated for the Homeland employees was to ensure they had adequate training. "They were training to help the lifesavers," Knocke said.

Employees required a supervisor's approval and at least 24 hours of disaster training in Maryland, Florida or Georgia. "You must be physically able to work in a disaster area without refrigeration for medications and have the ability to work in the outdoors all day," Brown wrote.

The same day Brown wrote Chertoff, Brown also urged local fire and rescue departments outside Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi not to send trucks or emergency workers into disaster areas without an explicit request for help from state or local governments. Brown said it was vital to coordinate fire and rescue efforts.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said Tuesday that Brown should resign.

from: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050907/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/katrina_disaster_response

The memo from FEMA Director Mike Brown to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff: Attach:dhskatrina.pdf Δ

Firefighters stuck in hotel awaiting orders

Associated Press

ATLANTA — Hundreds of firefighters who volunteered to help rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina have instead been playing cards, taking classes on FEMA's history, and lounging at a local hotel as they wait for days for deployment orders.

"On the news every night you hear, 'How come everybody forgot us?'" said Joseph Manning, a firefighter from Washington, Penn. "We didn't forget. We're stuck in Atlanta drinking beer."

As of Tuesday, some of the firefighters, like Thomas Blomgren of Battle Creek, Mich., have waited at the hotel for four days. Now he and colleague Steven Richardson have been told they could be dispatched to a relief camp in South Carolina rather than help the devastated Gulf Coast.

"FEMA hired the best of the best firefighters, got them together and gave them secretary jobs," Blomgren said at the hotel near the Atlanta airport that as serving as the staging area for the firefighters.

He and Richardson said they followed FEMA's advice and brought huge packs filled with special firefighting suits, sleeping bags and lifesaving equipment to survive in harsh conditions for as long as a month. "But we'd be better off bringing pencils and cell phones," Blomgren sighed, taking a drag on his cigarrette outside the hotel.

Tony Russell, the FEMA official in charge of the firefighters, says he's trying to get the officers deployed as fast as he can but wants to make certain they're sent where the need is greatest.

When the Federal Emergency Management Agency called for 2,000 firefighters from across the country, it made clear the mission was one of community service and outreach — not firefighting, Russell said.

"People are in need," said Russell. "Sometimes you just need to mop the floor if that's what's best for the victims."

Desk work may be the first priority for some firefighters for now, but the mission's needs could rapidly change, Russell said. Those who are upset, he said, are free to go. "This is not a draft."

Russell said it takes at least two days to process and train the volunteers, who continue to arrive each day in Atlanta for FEMA training. Some 500 firefighters have been sent to needy areas and hundreds more await their marching orders, he said. The firefighters are paid by FEMA for their time.

In the meantime, the firefighters waiting for deployment — some from as far away as Washington state — have received vaccines and specialized training, including classes on sexual harrassment, the history of FEMA and tips on how to deal with ethnic groups.

Throughout the hotel, a sea of burly firefighters wearing navy blue shirts loafed on couches Tuesday. A few sat outside in the gentle August breeze, enjoying boxed meals.

Kelly Wayne Sisson, a firefighter from La Mesa, Calif., lounged with a candy bar in hand on the floor of the hotel's lobby.

"It's been frustrating because we've been here for a couple of days," he said. "But FEMA's a big machine. We'll get sent out when the time is right."

from: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3342973