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Fights and trash fires broke out at the hot and stinking Superdome and anger and unrest mounted across New Orleans as the first of nearly 25,000 refugees being sheltered at the Superdome began to arrive in Houston, Texas. Thousands of people rushed from nearby hotels and other buildings, hoping to climb onto the buses taking evacuees from the arena. "We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," the Rev. Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where corpses lay in the open and evacuees complained that they were dropped off and given nothing. One ambulance official overseeing the airlift rescue operations said a gunshot was fired at a military helicopter over the Superdome before daybreak. "We have suspended operations until they gain control of the Superdome," said Richard Zeuschlag, head of Acadian Ambulance, which was handling the evacuation of sick and injured people from the Superdome. The military, which was overseeing the removal of the able-bodied by buses, continued the ground evacuation without interruption, said National Guard Lt. Col. Pete Schneider. Schneider said those evacuations were continuing and were not affected by trash fires burning outside the Superdome. Law enforcement officers will ride with the school buses, he said. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the government is sending in 1,400 National Guardsmen to help stop looting and other lawlessnes in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Already, 2,800 National Guardsmen are in the city, he said. But across the city, the rescuers themselves came under attack from storm victims hungry, desperate and tired of waiting.
"Hospitals are trying to evacuate," said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan, spokesman at the city emergency operations center. "At every one of them, there are reports that as the helicopters come in people are shooting at them. There are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, `You better come get my family."' Meanwhile, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered virtually the entire police force to abandon search-and-rescue efforts and stop thieves who were becoming increasingly hostile. "They are starting to get closer to heavily populated areas — hotels, hospitals, and we're going to stop it right now," Nagin said Wednesday. Volunteers with boats hoping to help rescue those still stranded on rooftops in New Orleans were told to stand down by the Federal Emergency Management Agency after shots were fired. "The truth is, a terrible tragedy like this brings out the best in most people, brings out the worst in some people," said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour on NBC's "Today" show. "We're trying to deal with looters as ruthlessly as we can get our hands on them." President Bush will tour the hurricane devastated Gulf Coast region on Friday and has asked his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and former President Clinton to lead a private fund-raising campaign to help victims recover, the White House said Thursday. Bush will survey the Alabama and Mississippi coast by helicopter, then go on to New Orleans. He also will tour some locations on the ground. The president on Thursday warned that looters, price gougers, insurance fraudsters, those taking advantage of charity and others will face the maximum consequences for their actions. There will be "zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this," Bush said in a live interview at the White House with ABC's "Good Morning America." "I've made that clear to our attorney general."
Chaos at the Superdome Evacuees who had taken refuge in the Superdome were waiting hours to get onto buses that were taking them 350 miles away to the Houston Astrodome, which can hold 27,000 people. 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. "We are going to do everything we can to make people comfortable," Red Cross spokeswoman Margaret O'Brien-Molina said. "Places have to be found for these people. Many of these people may never be able to rebuild." In New Orleans, the refugees had lined up for the first buses, some inching along in wheelchairs, some carrying babies. Almost everyone carried a plastic bag or bundled bedspread holding the few possessions they had left. Many had no idea where they were heading. "We tried to find out. We're pretty much adrift right now," said Cyril Ellisworth, 46. "We're pretty much adrift in life. They tell us to line up and go, and we just line up and go." At the Supredome, fights broke out. A fire erupted in a trash chute inside the dome, but a National Guard commander said it did not affect the evacuation. The sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement. Thousands of storm refugees had been assembling outside for days, waiting for buses that did not come. At least seven bodies were scattered outside, and hungry, desperate people who were tired of waiting broke through the steel doors to a food service entrance and began pushing out pallets of water and juice and whatever else they could find. An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet. "I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair. "I buried my dog." Just above the convention center on Interstate 10, commercial buses were lined up, going nowhere. The street outside the center, above the floodwaters, smelled of urine and feces, and was choked with dirty diapers, old bottles and garbage. "They've been teasing us with buses for four days," Edwards said. People chanted, "Help, help!" as reporters and photographers walked through. The crowd got angry when journalists tried to photograph one of the bodies, and covered it over with a blanket. A woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm. John Murray, 52, said: "It's like they're punishing us." The Astrodome's new residents will be issued passes that will let them leave and return as they please, something that wasn't permitted in New Orleans. While they recognize it's not a permanent fix, the governors of Louisiana and Texas worked out a plan to get refugees to Texas where they can have clean clothes, food, showers and ways to communicate with family. "Unfortunately there are no great ideas at this particular point in time. You have to do what you have to do," Texas Gov. Rick Perry told FOX News Thursday morning. "As America comes together on this, this is the only appropriate and right thing to do." Texas has agreed to take in an additional 25,000 refugees from Katrina and plans to house them in San Antonio, though exactly where has not been determined. Perry said there will be a "substantial" number of additional shelters that will be made available with beds, showers and other items provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other organizations. "We're going to be very flexible with these individuals," Perry said. "We're going to find a place for these people to stay until they make arrangements." Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said his state has welcomed many evacuees and is preparing for more in what he calls "Operation Care." "We're now working on ways to deal with helping them long-term — everything from educating their kids" to helping with prescriptions, communicating with families, accessing bank accounts, finding long-term housing and employments, Huckabee told FOX News. He also hailed the leaders of the states hite hardest by Katrina. "They're doing an outstanding job in ... trying to lead their states in the equivalent of Armageddon — it is apocalyptic in nature," he said. Violence Escalates Nagin has called for a total evacuation, saying that New Orleans will not be functional for two or three months and that people would not be allowed back into their homes for at least a month or two. Nagin estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people remained, and said that 14,000 to 15,000 a day could be evacuated in ensuing convoys. Asked how many people died in the hurricane, Naglin said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands." The death toll has already reached at least 110 in Mississippi. State officials said Nagin's guess of thousands dead seemed plausible. That 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. "I would not be surprise if this is the worst disaster this country has seen," Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., told FOX News. Tempers were also starting to flare amid the chaos. Some FEMA rescue operations were suspended in areas where gunfire has broken out, Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said in Washington. "In areas where our employees have been determined to potentially be in danger, we have pulled back," he said. A National Guard military policeman was shot in the leg as the two scuffled for the MP's rifle, police Capt. Ernie Demmo said. The man was arrested. "These are good people. These are just scared people," Demmo said. Tenet HealthCare Corp. asked authorities late Wednesday to help evacuate a fully functioning hospital in Gretna, La., after a supply truck carrying food, water and medical supplies was held up at gunpoint. "There are physical threats to safety from roving bands of armed individuals with weapons who are threatening the safety of the hospital," said spokesman Steven Campanini. Terry Ebbert, head of New Orleans' emergency operations, warned that the slow evacuation at the Superdome had become an "incredibly explosive situation," and he bitterly complained that FEMA was not offering enough help. "This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace," he said. "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans." Looters used garbage cans and inflatable mattresses to float away with food, clothes, 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. Water Finally Stops Rising The water that has been gushing into New Orleans after several levees broke appeared to have finally stopped rising. The water apparently has finally reached a level higher than that of Lake Pontchartrain. The Army Corps of Engineers will try to pump water out of the city; they're hoping the water will seep out of the city at about a half-an-inch per hour. The floodwaters covered 80 percent of the city, in some areas 20 feet deep, in a reddish-brown soup of sewage, gasoline and garbage. City officials have estimated that it could take weeks to pump out the city and even more time to get the city's power back on and water systems functioning again. The Army Corps of Engineers said it planned to use heavy-duty Chinook helicopters to drop 15,000-pound bags of sand and stone into a 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 Mississippi, 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. Jerry Lewis' annual Labor Day fundraiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association also will include celebrity appeals for help. Although 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, gasoline prices surged above $3 a gallon in many parts of the country. |
Lord I am without words as I helplessly watch the devastation along the Gulf Coast. The situation is desperate there as those sent to provide aide are turned away by thugs and unruly crowds. I ask for your protection over those who would sacrifice in order to save others. I ask for safe deployment of Guard troops and that they rapidly get control of the situation. I ask for clear thinking of those in charge as a disaster of this magnitude is overwhelming. I ask that blame be reserved for later and that people pull together to minimize further loss. Protect those who are the most helpless, especially Christians Lord. Those who are unsaved, may they get the word before it's too late. Ease the suffering, especially for those who are ill, children and animals. It's funny, those who have the love in their heart for You still shine amidst all the suffering. I saw them on TV Lord, with graditude in their hearts for their lives. Thank you Lord for them. May their witness rub off. Thank you for sparing so many lives. We ask for a miracle now in restoring order, feeding and clothing so many. Forgive them, for they know not what they do. IN Jesus Name, Amen.