Rest Of New Orleans Needs To Be Evacuated. Please pray for everyones safety :: World's Largest Prayer Board Annointed.net News :: Your Prayer Request will be seen by thousands on this Prayer Board

Rest Of New Orleans Needs To Be Evacuated. Please pray for everyones safety

Posted by: Shawn on Tuesday, August 30, 2005 - 07:08 PM

Rest Of New Orleans Needs To Be Evacuated. Please pray for everyones safety .

NEW ORLEANS -- The governor of Louisiana says there's a plan in the works to evacuate those who are left in the city of New Orleans -- including the thousands who've taken shelter at the Superdome and elsewhere.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco called the the situation "untenable and heartbreaking."

Because of two levees that broke Tuesday, the city is rapidly filling with water, and power may be down for a long time. Blanco said the storm severed a major water main, leaving the city without drinkable water.

National Guard troops are evacuating 300 patients from Charity Hospital in New Orleans, which is surrounded by water. There's no working plumbing or electricity at Charity, but patients keep coming.

Nurses held flashlights and ventilated patients by hand. Doctors wearing green scrubs used canoes to ferry supplies between the city's four downtown hospitals.

As a boat pulled up carrying a man doubled over in pain, nursing supervisor Ray Campo said it's like running into a burning building looking for shelter. Ambulance helicopters took babies to hospitals all around Louisiana and airlifted doctors into New Orleans.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said hundreds, if not thousands, of people may still be stuck on roofs and in attics. As a result, he said, rescue crews in boats don't have time to deal with the dead bodies they encounter. He said they're just pushing them aside.

It appears the death toll from the storm will be high. One survivor after another told of friends and loved ones who floated off or disappeared as the floodwaters rose around them.

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NEW ORLEANS -- The governor of Louisiana says there's a plan in the works to evacuate those who are left in the city of New Orleans -- including the thousands who've taken shelter at the Superdome and elsewhere.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco called the the situation "untenable and heartbreaking."

Because of two levees that broke Tuesday, the city is rapidly filling with water, and power may be down for a long time. Blanco said the storm severed a major water main, leaving the city without drinkable water.

National Guard troops are evacuating 300 patients from Charity Hospital in New Orleans, which is surrounded by water. There's no working plumbing or electricity at Charity, but patients keep coming.

Nurses held flashlights and ventilated patients by hand. Doctors wearing green scrubs used canoes to ferry supplies between the city's four downtown hospitals.

As a boat pulled up carrying a man doubled over in pain, nursing supervisor Ray Campo said it's like running into a burning building looking for shelter. Ambulance helicopters took babies to hospitals all around Louisiana and airlifted doctors into New Orleans.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said hundreds, if not thousands, of people may still be stuck on roofs and in attics. As a result, he said, rescue crews in boats don't have time to deal with the dead bodies they encounter. He said they're just pushing them aside.

It appears the death toll from the storm will be high. One survivor after another told of friends and loved ones who floated off or disappeared as the floodwaters rose around them.

Nagin said a death that took place at the Louisiana Superdome appears to be an accident. He told reporters that someone tried to jump from one level to a lower one and was killed in the process.

More than 10,000 people are enduring a second day inside the domed arena where the air conditioning has been off since before Hurricane Katrina came ashore Monday.

Blanco said the devastation being seen "is greater than our worst fears." She described it as "totally overwhelming."

Blanco said there are no casualty figures yet, but that "many lives have been lost." She said 700 people were rescued overnight from flooded areas.

Video from a TV helicopter has been showing a Coast Guard chopper plucking people from rooftops in one area where floodwaters nearly cover the homes.

One by one, the hurricane survivors are being placed in a basket and lifted up to the hovering helicopter.

One man said he and his fiancee sat on their roof for three hours before being taken to safety. Bryan Vernon said the water "kept rising and rising and rising."

Crews hope to plug a broken levee in New Orleans with 3,000-pound sand bags dropped from helicopters.

The city is below sea level, and the network of pumps, canals and levees isn't keeping up with the rising water. Many pumps weren't working Tuesday morning.

Rising water has sent patients from one hospital to the Louisiana Superdome. A knee-deep moat surrounds the stadium and downtown streets are swamped. The water is fouled with gasoline, debris and floating islands of red ants.

The top homeland security official in New Orleans said bodies have been spotted drifting in the floodwaters.

Despite very poor conditions at the Louisiana Superdome, National Guard troops have brought in more refugees who are trying to escape rising water in New Orleans.

Eight of the people who arrived Tuesday had spent the night in the attic of a flooded beauty salon. They had to hack through the ceiling to reach the attic as the water rose.

Another man had spent the night in his own attic -- and said he "almost died" in the water.

They've now reached safety -- but not comfort. The air conditioning has been out since power was lost Monday morning. The bathrooms are filthy and barrels are overflowing with trash.

There are more than 10,000 people in the makeshift shelter. An official of the company that manages the Superdome said two people have died there, but offered no details.

One refugee kept the discomfort in perspective. She said if the facility hadn't been opened, there would have been "a lot of people floating down the river."

Looters Take Advantage Of Devastation

In two of the cities hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina, looters are running rampant.

An AP reporter along the beach in Biloxi, Miss., said it "looks like a free-for-all," as looters came running out of souvenir shops, loaded down with merchandise. He saw two men riding go-carts taken from an amusement park near the beach.

Two men were pushing a large plastic garbage can with wheels, so full that it took both of them to drag it down the street.

The owner of the Super Eight motel in Biloxi said, "People are just casually walking in and filling up garbage bags and walking off like they're Santa Claus."

There's a similar scene in downtown New Orleans, where looters are floating garbage cans filled with clothing and jewelry down the street.

Some of the looting has been taking place in full view of police and National Guard troops. One man with an armload of clothes even asked a police officer if he could borrow his car.

At a Walgreen's drug store in the French Quarter Tuesday morning, 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 at the door and shouted a warning, and the crowd scattered.

A tourist from Philadelphia compared the scene to "downtown Baghdad." She said the scene was insane as she stood and snapped pictures in amazement.

"I've wanted to come here for 10 years. I thought this was a sophisticated city. I guess not," Denise Bollinger said.

Another person described it as a chance for "oppressed" people to "get back at society."

One man walked down Canal Street with a pallet of food on his head. His wife insisted they weren't stealing from the nearby supermarket. She said she had eight grandchildren to feed.

"It's about survival right now," she said.

Nearby, looters ripped open the steel gates on the fronts of stores on Canal Street. They filled industrial-sized garbage cans with clothing and jewelry and floated them down the street on bits of plywood and insulation.

Rescuers Search For Katrina Survivors In Mississippi

Amid what Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour calls "enormous" devastation, rescuers in boats and helicopters are looking for survivors of Hurricane Katrina along Mississippi's Gulf Coast.

Barbour said it's possible 80 people died in just one county. Rescuers in boats and helicopters are plucking hundreds of people off roofs turned into islands in the murky water.

Harrison County coroner Gary Hargrove had this advice for rescuers who encounter bodies: "If they're dead, they're dead. We've got the living to take care of."

Officially, Mississippi has confirmed only a handful of deaths, but Harrison County emergency operations spokesman Jim Pollard said Monday night at least 50 had been killed, including 30 at one apartment complex near the beach in Biloxi. Pollard called it a "major tragedy" and "preventable."

Barbour said the storm surge from Katrina apparently wiped out the apartment complex. It was in area that did not flood during Hurricane Camille, which struck the same area with deadly force in 1969.

Barbour said the storm has dealt "a grievous blow." Barbour said he was worried about those who chose to ignore evacuation orders.

Barbour said damage to casinos deals an enormous blow to the state's pocketbook, but he vowed, " We're going to rebuild, whatever it costs."

The CEO of Treasure Bay Casino said it's a "total loss." He said it will cost more than $100 million to replace it.

At least two of the floating casinos were washed over U.S. 90, which is a major four-lane street that follows the beach. An AP reporter said the casinos' barges are in tatters, adding, "You can see inside them."

There's a ditch on U.S. 90 that's filled with water and slot machines. As for hotels nearby, they were damaged but not destroyed.

The mayor of Biloxi, Miss., said, "This is our tsunami."

Earlier, authorities said three people had been killed in central Mississippi by falling trees. At least two deaths in Alabama are blamed on storm-related highway accidents.

The death toll could rise, considering that emergency officials said they have not yet been able to reach many of the hardest-hit areas.

Survivor Recounts Ordeal

A woman who survived the destruction of a Mississippi apartment complex is describing just how she managed to escape as the complex fell apart in the rising waters from Katrina.

Emergency operations officials believe about 30 people died at the apartment complex along the beach in Biloxi. Officials said there could be as many as 80 dead in the county.

Joy Schovest said, "The water got higher and higher. It pushed all the doors open and we swam out." She said, "We grabbed a lady and pulled her out the window and then we swam with the current."

Schovest said it was "terrifying." She said cars were floating around her as she and her boyfriend tried to swim to safety. She said, "We had to push them away." Schovest was in tears as she described the ordeal. She said she's sure her family thinks she's dead, because cell phones aren't working. She would not say why she stayed behind, despite orders to evacuate.

The head of homeland security for New Orleans said dying is a "hard way to learn a lesson" about evacuating in the face of a dangerous hurricane like Katrina. Terry Ebbert said that for some people who stayed, "it was their last night on Earth."

One man who was in a New Orleans boarding house said he saw the bodies of two other residents in the rising water.

Bush Cuts Vacation Short

President George W. Bush is cutting short his August vacation in Texas, to return to Washington and oversee the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. Aides said Bush will spend Tuesday night in Texas before heading back to Washington Wednesday. He's calling on Americans to donate to the Red Cross and the Salvation Army to help hurricane victims.

Bush said the Gulf Coast faces "trying times" -- and there's "a lot of work to do" to recover from Hurricane Katrina.

In a speech marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, Bush said he knows Gulf Coast residents want to return to their homes. But he said that's not possible right now. He said search and rescue operations continue, and the priority must be on saving lives.

Bush said federal, state and local authorities are working closely to help those in need. And he urged Americans to respond to the disaster by donating to the Red Cross and Salvation Army.

Katrina Marches Through Dixie

Meanwhile, Katrina has battered parts of Georgia with heavy rain, high winds and tornadoes. Scores of homes have been damaged in Carroll, Heard and Polk Counties

At least one death is blamed on the storm. There was a fatal traffic accident in Carroll County as heavy weather moved through the area Monday afternoon.

In Mobile, Ala., antebellum mansions are flooded. One man said many of the homes are worth $1 million.

"At least they were yesterday," he said.

Katrina, now downgraded to a tropical storm, has also knocked out power to more than 1 million people from Louisiana to Florida's Panhandle. Officials said restoring power could take months.

Forecasters warned that the storm isn't going away and is still producing heavy rains,

At 10 a.m. CDT, the center of Tropical Depression Katrina was located near latitude 36.3 north, longitude 87.5 west or about 25 miles south of Clarksville, Tenn.

The depression is moving toward the north-northeast near 21 mph and this motion is expected to continue during the next 24 hours with an increase in forward speed.

Maximum sustained winds are near 35 mph with higher gusts. Katrina is expected to become extratropical during the next 12 to 24 hours.

Additional rainfall accumulations of 2 to 4 inches, with isolated maximum amounts of 6 inches, will accompany Katrina across the Ohio Valley, the lower Great Lakes, and into northern New England.

Tornadoes are possible Tuesday over eastern Georgia, western South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Help Coming, But Recovery May Be Slow

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said the government has known for a long time how vulnerable New Orleans would be in a major hurricane like Katrina.

But Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Hurricane Katrina had a "catastrophic effect" on Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

At least one New Orleans hospital is threatened by flooding. Patients are being transferred to the Superdome, where thousands of other patients and storm refugees are housed.

Brown said he's sending more medical personnel to treat evacuated hospital patients. He said FEMA has already sent medical teams, rescue squads and volunteers into disaster areas, but that it will be "quite a while" before people who ran from the storm will be able to return.

Recovery could be a long-term thing. Brown said restoring electricity could become a "block to block, house to house" reconstruction effort, and some people may be without power for weeks.

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