8/17/2023 0 Comments The looter katrina"I can only imagine that this is what Hiroshima looked like 60 years ago," said Mississippi Gov. If the water rises a few feet higher, it could also wipe out the water system for the whole city, said New Orleans' homeland security chief, Terry Ebbert.Ī helicopter view of the devastation over Louisiana and Mississippi revealed people standing on black rooftops, baking in the sunshine while waiting for rescue boats. Riley said it could take close to a month to get the water out of the city. Army Corps of Engineers said officials also had a more audacious plan: finding a barge to plug the 500-foot hole. To repair one of the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain, officials late Tuesday dropped 3,000-pound sandbags from helicopters and hauled dozens of 15-foot concrete barriers into the breach. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was considering putting people on cruise ships, in tent cities, mobile home parks, and so-called floating dormitories - boats the agency uses to house its own employees. But in Houston, Rusty Cornelius, a county emergency official, said at least 25,000 of them would travel in a bus convoy to Houston starting Wednesday and would be sheltered at the 40-year-old Astrodome, which is no longer used for professional sporting events. She gave no details on exactly where the refugees would be taken. It's getting more difficult to get food and water supplies in, just basic essentials." "The logistical problems are impossible and we have to evacuate people in shelters," the governor said. The sweltering city of 480,000 people - an estimated 80 percent of whom obeyed orders to evacuate as Katrina closed in over the weekend - also had no drinkable water, the electricity could be out for weeks, and looters were ransacking stores around town. I-10 is the only route for commercial trucking across southern Louisiana. The situation inside the dank and sweltering Superdome was becoming desperate: The water was rising, the air conditioning was out, toilets were broken, and tempers were rising.Īt the same time, sections of Interstate 10, the only major freeway leading into New Orleans from the east, lay shattered, dozens of huge slabs of concrete floating in the floodwaters. At some point in time the dead bodies are going to start to create a serious disease issue."īlanco said she wanted the Superdome - which had become a shelter of last resort for about 20,000 people - evacuated within two days, along with other gathering points for storm refugees. "We are looking at 12 to 16 weeks before people can come in," Mayor Ray Nagin said on ABC's "Good Morning America, "and the other issue that's concerning me is have dead bodies in the water. The death toll from Hurricane Katrina reached at least 110 in Mississippi alone, while Louisiana put aside the counting of the dead to concentrate on rescuing the living, many of whom were still trapped on rooftops and in attics.Ī full day after the Big Easy thought it had escaped Katrina's full fury, two levees broke and spilled water into the streets on Tuesday, swamping an estimated 80 percent of the bowl-shaped, below-sea-level city, inundating miles and miles of homes and rendering much of New Orleans uninhabitable for weeks or months. The Red Cross reported it had about 40,000 people in 200 shelters across the area in one of the biggest urban disasters the nation has ever seen. Kathleen Blanco said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "The National Guard has been dropping sandbags into it, but it's like dropping it into a black hole."Īs the waters continued to rise in New Orleans, four Navy ships raced toward the Gulf Coast with drinking water and other emergency supplies, and Red Cross workers from across the country converged on the devastated region. "The challenge is an engineering nightmare," Gov. Army engineers struggled without success to plug New Orleans' breached levees with giant sandbags, and the governor said Wednesday the situation was worsening and there was no choice but to abandon the flooded city. We will be either loading them by boat, helicopter, anything that is necessary," Gov. The governor of Louisiana says everyone needs to leave New Orleans due to flooding from Hurricane Katrina. Facebook Email This article is more than 17 years old.
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