Reuters - Thu Sep 1,12:30 PM ET The military will expand the number of National Guard troops mobilized for hurricane relief efforts along the Gulf coast to 30,000 in the coming days, and the Navy is sending the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman to help, officials said on Thursday. Pentagon officials had said on Wednesday the number of National Guard troops under the command of state governors would reach 21,000 by the end of Friday. Now the number will top 30,000 in the next few days, mostly in Louisiana and Mississippi, but also some in Alabama and Florida. (Graphic/Reuters)

New Orleans in Anarchy With Fights, Rapes


By ALLEN G. BREED, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 3 minutes ago


NEW ORLEANS - New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out, cops turned in their badges and the governor declared war on looters who have made the city a menacing landscape of disorder and fear.

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"They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said of 300 National Guard troops who landed in New Orleans fresh from duty in Iraq. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will."

Four days after Hurricane Katrina roared in with a devastating blow that inflicted potentially thousands of deaths, the fear, anger and violence mounted Thursday.

"I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here alive," said Canadian tourist Larry Mitzel, who handed a reporter his business card in case he goes missing. "I'm scared of riots. I'm scared of the locals. We might get caught in the crossfire."

The chaos deepened despite the promise of 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop the looting, plans for a $10 billion recovery bill in Congress and a government relief effort President Bush called the biggest in U.S. history.

New Orleans' top emergency management official called that effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly lawless city.

About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at New Orleans convention center grew ever more hostile after waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead. Police Chief Eddie Compass said there was such a crush around a squad of 88 officers that they retreated when they went in to check out reports of assaults.

"We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten," Compass said. "Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon."

Col. Henry Whitehorn, chief of the Louisiana State Police, said he heard of numerous instances of New Orleans police officers — many of whom from flooded areas — turning in their badges.

"They indicated that they had lost everything and didn't feel that it was worth them going back to take fire from looters and losing their lives," Whitehorn said.

A military helicopter tried to land at the convention center several times to drop off food and water. But the rushing crowd forced the choppers to back off. Troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10 feet off the ground and flew away.

In hopes of defusing the situation at the convention center, Mayor Ray Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they could find. But the bedlam made that difficult.

"This is a desperate SOS," Nagin said in a statement. "Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses."

At least seven bodies were scattered outside the convention center, a makeshift staging area for those rescued from rooftops, attics and highways. The sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement.

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.

"You can do everything for other countries, but you can't do nothing for your own people," he added. "You can go overseas with the military, but you can't get them down here."

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. "They're telling us they're going to come get us one day, and then they don't show up."

Every so often, an armored state police vehicle cruised in front of the convention center with four or five officers in riot gear with automatic weapons. But there was no sign of help from the National Guard.

At one point the crowd began to chant "We want help! We want help!" Later, a woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd ..."

"We are out here like pure animals," the Issac Clark said.

"We've got people dying out here — two babies have died, a woman died, a man died," said Helen Cheek. "We haven't had no food, we haven't had no water, we haven't had nothing. They just brought us here and dropped us."

Tourist Debbie Durso of Washington, Mich., said she asked a police officer for assistance and his response was, "'Go to hell — it's every man for himself.'"

"This is just insanity," she said. "We have no food, no water ... all these trucks and buses go by and they do nothing but wave."

FEMA director Michael Brown said the agency just learned about the situation at the convention center Thursday and quickly scrambled to provide food, water and medical care and remove the corpses.

Speaking on CNN's "Larry King Live," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the evacuation of New Orleans should be completed by the end of the weekend.

At the hot and stinking Superdome, where 30,000 were being evacuated by bus to the Houston Astrodome, fistfights and fires erupted amid a seething sea of tense, suffering people who waited in a lines that stretched a half-mile to board yellow school buses.

After a traffic jam kept buses from arriving for nearly four hours, a near-riot broke out in the scramble to get on the buses that finally did show up, with a group of refugees breaking through a line of heavily armed National Guardsmen.

One military policeman was shot in the leg as he and a man scuffled for the MP's rifle, police Capt. Ernie Demmo said. The man was arrested.

Some of those among the mostly poor crowd had been in the dome for four days without air conditioning, working toilets or a place to bathe. An ambulance service airlifting the sick and injured out of the Superdome suspended flights as too dangerous after it was reported that a bullet was fired at a military helicopter.

"If they're just taking us anywhere, just anywhere, I say praise God," said refugee John Phillip. "Nothing could be worse than what we've been through."

By Thursday evening, 11 hours after the military began evacuating the Superdome, the arena held 10,000 more people than it did at dawn. National Guard Capt. John Pollard said evacuees from around the city poured into the Superdome and swelled the crowd to about 30,000 because they believed the arena was the best place to get a ride out of town.

As he watched a line snaking for blocks through ankle-deep waters, New Orleans' emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"This is not a FEMA operation. I haven't seen a single FEMA guy," he said. He added: "We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."

FEMA officials said some operations had to be suspended in areas where gunfire has broken out, but are working overtime to feed people and restore order.

A day after Nagin took 1,500 police officers off search-and-rescue duty to try to restore order in the streets, there were continued reports of looting, shootings, gunfire and carjackings — and not all the crimes were driven by greed.

When some hospitals try to airlift patients, Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan said, "there are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, `You better come get my family.'"

Outside a looted Rite-Aid drugstore, some people were anxious to show they needed what they were taking. A gray-haired man who would not give his name pulled up his T-shirt to show a surgery scar and explained that he needs pads for incontinence.

"I'm a Christian. I feel bad going in there," he said.

Earl Baker carried toothpaste, toothbrushes and deodorant. "Look, I'm only getting necessities," he said. "All of this is personal hygiene. I ain't getting nothing to get drunk or high with."

Several thousand storm victims had arrived in Houston by Thursday night, and they quickly got hot meals, showers and some much-needed rest.

Audree Lee, 37, was thrilled after getting a shower and hearing her teenage daughter's voice on the telephone for the first time since the storm. Lee had relatives take her daughter to Alabama so she would be safe.

"I just cried. She cried. We cried together," Lee said. "She asked me about her dog. They wouldn't let me take her dog with me. ... I know the dog is gone now."

While floodwaters in the city appeared to stabilize, efforts continued to plug three breaches that had opened up in the levee system that protects this below-sea-level city.

Helicopters dropped sandbags into the breach and pilings were being pounded into the mouth of the canal Thursday to close its connection to Lake Pontchartrain, state Transportation Secretary Johnny Bradberry said. The next step called for using about 250 concrete road barriers to seal the gap.

In Washington, the White House said Bush will tour the 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 for victims.

The president urged a crackdown on the lawlessness.

"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this — whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud," Bush said. "And I've made that clear to our attorney general. The citizens ought to be working together."

Donald Dudley, a 55-year-old New Orleans seafood merchant, complained that when he and other hungry refugees broke into the kitchen of the convention center and tried to prepare food, the National Guard chased them away.

"They pulled guns and told us we had to leave that kitchen or they would blow our damn brains out," he said. "We don't want their help. Give us some vehicles and we'll get ourselves out of here!"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/hurricane_katrina;_ylt=AmpU3UhaZVhDxiDGlobsrK8bLisB;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

AFP/Pool - Thu Sep 1,11:53 PM ET Floodwaters driven by Hurricane Katrina fill the streets of New Orleans(AFP/Pool/David J.Phillip)

AP - Fri Sep 2,12:15 AM ET A car passes a group of power line trucks Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005 near Pachuta, Miss. as a repair is made on one of the trucks. The convoy of trucks, from Kinston, N.C., is headed to Covington, La., to help restore power lines destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

AFP/File - Thu Sep 1,12:11 PM ET
US President George W. Bush has picked former presidents George Bush(R) and Bill Clinton, seen here together in Sri Lanka in February 2005, to lead fundraising efforts for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the White House said(AFP/File/Findlay Kember)

AP - Thu Sep 1, 3:10 PM ET
Cuban President Fidel Castrol declares one minute of silence for victims of Hurricane Katrina at the Palace of Conventions, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005 in Havana, Cuba. Castro was among more than 500 members of the National Assembly who stood silently at the start of a regular session to remember the hundreds believed to have died this week when Katrina ravaged New Orleans, Louisiana, and other U.S. coastal communities on the Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/Jorge Rey)

Reuters - Thu Sep 1, 3:31 PM ET
A Coast Guard helicopter plucks a Hurricane Katrina survivor from a rooftop in New Orleans, September 1, 2005. The U.S. Congress was expected to cut short its summer break to pass emergency financial aid for victims of Hurricane Katrina, according to congressional aides who said on Thursday the first aid package could be around $10 billion. REUTERS/Jason Reed

AFP/Pool - Thu Sep 1, 8:28 PM ET
Hurricane Katrina refugees wait to be evacuated from the New Orleans Superdome. New Orleans made a 'desperate SOS' for help as authorities struggled to stem a descent into anarchy and evacuate survivors of Hurricane Katrina which is now believed to have killed thousands.(AFP/Pool/David J. Phillip)

4 September 2005, 14:58 GMT 15:58 UK

Katrina airlift rescues thousands




Rescuers are scouring New Orleans for the last survivors of Hurricane Katrina after what has been called the largest emergency airlift in US history.

Up to 40 aircraft operating around the clock finally cleared thousands from squalid conditions at the Louisiana city's Superdome and convention centre.

Survivors have been telling harrowing tales of violence inside the complex.

President George W Bush has ordered thousands of extra troops to the area, amid criticism of the rescue effort.

The majority of those in most desperate need of relief were impoverished black people who may not have had the means to leave the affected area ahead of Hurricane Katrina.




Civil rights campaigner Jesse Jackson has said racial injustice was to blame for the delayed response to the disaster.

Senior cabinet members, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are due to tour the disaster area, which takes in three states - Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

Ms Rice, the most senior black politician in government, is due to visit the town of Mobile in her home state of Alabama.

Harrowing tales

The streets of New Orleans were quieter on Sunday after more than 10,000 people were removed from the flood-ravaged city the previous day.


Utilities experts were due to enter the city for the first time to assess the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina and the failure of New Orleans' flood defences.

The first few days were a natural disaster, the last four days were a man-made disaster


Devastation at a glance
'We prepared for the worst'

After spending days without food, water or medicines among rubbish and human waste, survivors appeared stunned as they stumbled towards buses and helicopters.

The exact number of victims is still unknown, but thousands are believed to have died.

The bodies of people who had died while waiting to be rescued could be seen among the survivors just outside the convention centre.

Many survivors said they had witnessed scenes of violence, including rapes and murders at the shelters carried out by criminal gangs.

Urgency

The BBC's James Coomarasamy in New Orleans says the arrival of thousands of soldiers has finally made a difference by bringing an overdue sense of urgency to the evacuation process.

On Saturday, in a televised address from the White House, Mr Bush acknowledged the response had been insufficient and spoke of an "incalculable" human cost.




"The magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities," he said.

"The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."

The president has signed off a $10.5bn (£5.7bn) emergency spending package approved by Congress.

More than one million people are said to be displaced. Most of them are in Texas, Tennessee, Indiana and Arkansas.

The US has asked the European Union and the Nato alliance to send emergency aid, including blankets, food and water trucks.





http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4212526.stm

Hurricane Relief Workers Report Progress, Residents Express Frustration

By Mike O'Sullivan
Los Angeles
04 September 2005





Relief workers continue to evacuate residents from hurricane-stricken regions of the U.S. Gulf states. Officials reported progress in their fifth day of rescue efforts, but many residents are frustrated with the pace of the relief work.

Many of the evacuees are being taken to neighboring states. Nearly 100,000 have found shelter in Texas, while relief workers are bringing in beds for the displaced in Louisiana and Mississippi, the two states hardest hit.

Air Force Colonel John Gomez is helping coordinate the military portion of the relief work. From Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, Colonel Gomez told VOA the effort is massive. "We have something close to 300 helicopters, about 75 airlift aircraft, including our largest and most capable aircraft, the C-17 and C-5, as well as our airlift workhorse, the C-130, tanker aircraft, really every asset that the Air Force has available," he said.

He said the aircraft carry supplies into the area and take evacuees out. The U.S. Navy has some 15 support ships in the region.

Relief workers from private organizations are helping on the ground. A spokeswoman for the American Red Cross calls this the biggest response to a natural disaster in the organization's 125-year history. More than 3,000 Red Cross volunteers are in the area, along with thousands from other organizations.

President Bush has ordered more than 7,000 active-duty troops into the region, to assist more than 20,000 National Guard troops on the ground and thousands more being deployed over the weekend. Friday, the president toured the area, then signed a $10.5 billion disaster aid package.

Local officials in New Orleans have harshly criticized Washington for what they say has been a slow response to the disaster. In a radio address Saturday, Mr. Bush acknowledged problems, and said the flooding affected an area larger than that of Britain, and has strained resources in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. "Each state will have its own set of challenges and issues to solve. Yet, all of us agree that more can be done to improve our ability to restore order and deliver relief in a timely and effective manner," he said.

Many residents, however, are angry and frustrated with the pace of the relief work. "Come on. Take care of us. We need you," said one resident.

Another Louisiana man described the past five days as hell. "We've had no power. Water was shut off a few days ago. And then, last night, they turned the gas off. The first few days was a natural disaster. The last few days have been a man-made disaster," he said.

Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff said federal officials will aggressively respond to the pleas for help. "The United States, as the president has said, is going to move heaven and earth to rescue, feed, shelter and restore life and health to the people who are currently suffering," he said.

................

http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-09-04-voa1.cfm

Annual Jerry Lewis Telethon to Raise Hurricane Relief Funds

By Mike O'Sullivan
Los Angeles
03 September 2005




Monday is Labor Day in the United States, when the nation honors its workers in parades, picnics and other celebrations. Comedian Jerry Lewis hosts another Labor Day tradition: an extended telethon that raises millions of dollars for children with the debilitating condition called muscular dystrophy. The telethon this year will also help victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Bob Mackle of the Muscular Dystrophy Association, which sponsors the 21.5 - hour televised fundraiser, says the destruction wrought by Katrina required a change of direction for the annual telethon.

"We decided that this disaster is of such a magnitude that we have to help, there's no way around that," said Bob Mackle. "So we're going to have separate appeals from big-name stars, and they will be diverting those funds to the Salvation Army Relief Fund. We'll be doing a joint effort this year with them to try to help people with muscular dystrophy and also to help the victims in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama."




In addition to the money raised from viewers during the broadcast, the association has also pledged one million dollars from its own funds for the hurricane victims.

Host Jerry Lewis will this year mark his 40th annual broadcast on the charity fundraiser. Scores of celebrity performers will appear on the telecast, which raises funds for research and services for more than one million Americans with neuromuscular diseases.

The telecast starts Sunday evening following days of preparations by cast members and technicians.

Debbie Williams is stage manager for the telethon, which she says is the oldest and biggest event of its kind. "This is the granddaddy of them all, and there isn't anything like this," said Debbie Williams. "This team puts together a lot of the variety shows and specials on TV, and this is a breed of its own. I've been doing it now for 20 years. All of us have been doing it for a very long time. We're all exhausted when it's over, but we all feel good."

The Labor Day telethon raised $59 million last year.

http://www.voanews.com/english/Annual-Jerry-Lewis-Telethon-to-Raise-Hurricane-Relief-Funds.cfm

Katrina's Victims Poorer Than U.S. Average

By FRANK BASS, Associated Press Writer
54 minutes ago

People living in the path of Hurricane Katrina's worst devastation were twice as likely as most Americans to be poor and without a car — factors that may help explain why so many failed to evacuate as the storm approached.

An Associated Press analysis of Census data shows that the residents in the three dozen hardest-hit neighborhoods in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama also were disproportionately minority and had incomes $10,000 below the national average.

"Let them know we're not bums. We have houses. Our houses were destroyed. We have jobs. It's not our fault that we didn't have cars to leave," Shatonia Thomas, 27, said as she walked near New Orleans' convention center five days after the storm, still trapped in the destruction with her children, ages 6 and 9.

Money and transportation — two keys to surviving a natural disaster — were inaccessible for many who got left behind in the Gulf region's worst squalor.

"It's a different equation for poor people," explained Dan Carter, a University of South Carolina historian. "There's a certain ease of transportation and funds that the middle class in this country takes for granted."

Catina Miller, a 32-year-old grocery deli worker who lived in the Ninth Ward, a poverty-stricken New Orleans enclave created in the 1870s by immigrants who were too poor to find higher ground, said she certainly would have liked to have left the city before the hurricane hit.

"But where can you go if you don't have a car?" she asked. "Not everyone can just pick up and take off."

Jack Harrald, director of the Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management at George Washington University in Washington, said emergency planners have known for years that the poverty and lack of transportation in New Orleans would be a significant problem, but the government spent more time and money preparing itself — rather than communities — for disaster.

"All issues were known," said Harrald, whose institute had been scheduling a series of emergency planning community meetings through a partnership with the University of New Orleans. "But it was still a work in progress. ... There's enough blame to go around for everybody."

The AP analysis showed:

_Median household income in the most devastated neighborhood was $32,000, or $10,000 less than the national average.

_Two in 10 households in the disaster area had no car, compared with 1 in 10 in nationwide.

_Nearly 25 percent of those living in the hardest-hit areas were below the poverty line, about double the national average. About 4.5 percent in the disaster area received public assistance; nationwide, the number was about 3.5 percent.

_About 60 percent of the 700,000 people in the three dozen neighborhoods were minority. Nationwide, about 1 in 3 Americans is a racial minority.

_One in 200 American households doesn't have adequate plumbing. One in 100 households in the most affected areas didn't have decent plumbing, which, according to the Census, includes running hot and cold water, a shower or bath and an indoor toilet.

_Nationwide, about 7 percent of households with children are headed by a single mother. In the three dozen neighborhoods, 12 percent were single-mother households.

"It's the same people who don't have the wherewithal to get out of Dodge," explained National Guard Lt. Col. Connie McNabb, who was running a medical unit at the besieged convention center in New Orleans.

The disparities were even more glaring in large, urban areas. One of the worst-hit neighborhoods in the heart of New Orleans, for example, had a median household income of less than $7,500. Nearly three of every four residents fell below the poverty line, and barely 1 in 3 people had a car.

"I didn't have much in there," said Deanna Harris, a 57-year-old unemployed New Orleans resident, "but it was mine.

"Now, this is what I've got," she said, patting a plastic bag.

The Ground Zero victims of Mississippi have much the same story.

In one Pascagoula neighborhood, where 30 percent of residents are minorities, more than 20 percent live in poverty.

In Alabama, where Katrina wasn't as severe, one of the hardest hit areas was a downtown Mobile neighborhood, where the median household income is barely $25,000 and 1 of every 4 residents lives below the poverty line.

"There's not a lot of interest in this issue, except when there's something dramatic," said Carter, the South Carolina historian. "By and large, the poor are simply out of sight, out of mind."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050904/ap_on_re_us/katrina_demographics_of_destruction_hk4

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

AP - Sun Sep 4, 2:35 PM ET Johnny Ingram of Hattiesburg gives Philip Underwood, 9, a haircut at a refugee shelter for victims of Hurricane Katrina in Hattiesburg, Miss. on Sunday, Sept. 4, 2005. Ingram, who is also doing mechanical work on cars belonging to the refugees, is cutting hair for free if the customers have no money, or charging them a couple of dollars if they do. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Police Shoot 8 on New Orleans Bridge

21 minutes ago


NEW ORLEANS - Police shot eight people carrying guns on a New Orleans bridge Sunday, killing five or six of them, a deputy chief said.

Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said the shootings took place on the Danziger Bridge, which spans a canal connecting Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

He said he had no other details.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050904/ap_on_re_us/katrina_shootings_hk1

Suicides among New Orleans police, firefighters

2 hours, 59 minutes ago



NEW ORLEANS, United States (AFP) - Some New Orleans police and firefighters were driven to suicide by the trauma of trying to hold the city together in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Ray Nagin said.

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"Some firefighters and police officers have been pretty much traumatized. And we've already had a couple of suicides," Nagin told CNN.

Local emergency services were overwhelmed by the level of destruction unleashed by Katrina, and found themselves helpless as the city swiftly descended into anarchy with widespread looting and violence.

Outnumbered and unable to deter the looters, a number of police officers simply turned in their badges in disgust.

"They've been holding the city together for three or four days, almost by themselves, doing everything imaginable," Nagin said, "and the toll is just too much for them."

The mayor said his main priority was to cycle the most fatigued emergency personnel out of the city as soon as possible.

"They need physical and psychological evaluations," he added.

Once the evacuation of hurricane survivors from the city had been completed, Nagin said the next priority would be the grisly task of harvesting the rotting corpses from the flooded streets and houses.

"We have to drain this city. We have to get these dead bodies out of the water," he said, estimating that the death toll would be in the thousands.

Nagin has been among the most vocal critics of the government response to the disaster that left 80 percent of New Orleans submerged.

He was especially angered by delays in bringing in sufficient numbers of armed National Guardsmen to help secure the city as the law and order situation broke down.

With the arrival of reinforcements in the last two days, including thousands of active service troops, Nagin said the security situation had improved but the overall picture remained dire.

"I see the same thing I've been seeing for six or seven days now. I see destruction. I see despair. I see suffering. I see death," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/usweatherpolice

AFP/File - Sun Sep 4, 2:58 PM ET
A police car drives past a woman's dead body on the sidewalk at Magazine and Jackson streets 02 September 2005 in New Orleans, Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Some New Orleans police and firefighters were driven to suicide by the trauma of trying to hold the city together in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Ray Nagin said.(AFP/File/James Nielsen)

AP - Sun Sep 4, 6:14 PM ET
An aerial view of a marina north of New Orleans, LA, Sunday, Sept. 4, 2005, that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. (AP Photo/Phil Coale)

AP - Sun Sep 4, 4:15 PM ET
People living a rooftop of a building surrounded by floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina are shown in this aerial view Sunday, Sept. 4, 2005 in St. Bernard Parish near New Orleans. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) Email Photo Print Photo

Reuters - Sat Sep 3, 2:39 PM ET
Unmanned remote-controlled airplanes used in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars may be deployed to find people trapped in New Orleans' buildings by Hurricane Katrina's flood waters, a U.S. congressman said on Friday. Five Silver Fox 'unmanned aerial vehicles,' or UAVs, equipped with thermal imaging technology to detect the body heat of storm survivors, are en route to the crippled city, Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Curt Weldon said. In this file Photo, an Italian Predator UAV sits on the tarmac at Tallil Air Base, about 310 km (192 miles) southeast of Baghdad, March 31, 2005 (Reuters)

Reuters - Sun Sep 4, 6:33 PM ET
Floodwaters surround the city of New Orleans, Louisiana September 4, 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina has devastated New Orleans and U.S. Gulf Coast states, killing hundreds of people and possibly thousands, and drawing support pledges from rich and poor, traditional friends and foes of the United States. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

Crews Plug Levee Break a Week After Storm

AP - 4 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - A week after Hurricane Katrina swept through, engineers plugged the levee break that had swamped much of the city and floodwaters began to recede, but along with the good news came the mayor's direst prediction yet: as many as 10,000 dead.


AP - Mon Sep 5, 5:10 PM ET Flood victims are unloaded from a truck in Chalmette, La., on Monday, Sept. 5, 2005. Some rescuers have decided to quit taking food and water to those who have chosen to stay in an effort to force them out. These flood victims were put on a helicopter and taken to the New Orleans airport. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/hurricanes_and_tropical_storms

Monday, 5 September 2005, 13:40 GMT 14:40 UK

Left behind in New Orleans

By Richard Allen Greene *** BBC News, New Orleans




Diana Womble could barely speak when Ron Henry and Robyn Mooney found her on Sunday morning, six days after the waters of Lake Pontchartrain poured into New Orleans.



The rescuers - volunteers whose own homes near New Orleans had been savaged by Hurricane Katrina - realised they had met an immovable object..............

"You got cages? Pack 'em up and let's go!"..................




At 8137 Oleander Street - the Golean Banquet and Reception Hall - Eva Morgan leaned out a second-storey window in response to Mr Mooney's call.

"Yeah, we'll get out in a little while," Mr Smith said, leaning against a handrail with a grin. "But we know there's more people around here still."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4215390.stm

Monday, 5 September 2005, 15:00 GMT 16:00 UK

World press: Katrina 'testing US'

In newspapers across the world, commentators believe Hurricane Katrina marks a profound change in the way the US is perceived at home and abroad.


Some speak of the American "myth" being shattered by the poverty and racial divisions which they say the disaster has revealed.


Others hope the floods will douse US "arrogance" over its refusal to ratify the Kyoto accord on climate change. An Italian paper, however, jumps to President George Bush's defence.

Michael Streck in Germany's Die Welt

Hurricane Katrina will bury itself into the American consciousness in the same way 9/11 or the fall of Saigon did. The storm did not just destroy America's image of itself, but also has the power to bring an end to the Republican era sooner than expected. America is ashamed.

Stephan Hebel in Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine


Bush's people will say that the moment of need and willingness to help should not be poisoned by political manoeuvres. Maybe this will serve them well enough in a media world where images of victims and heroes are valued more highly than complex background. But then the lie would have won - against the desire to understand things so as to avoid them.

Jean-Pierre Aussant in France's Figaro


This tragic incident reminds us that the United States has refused to ratify the Kyoto accords. Let's hope the US can from now on stop ignoring the rest of the world. If you want to run things, you must first lead by example. Arrogance is never a good adviser!

Philippe Grangereau in France's Liberation

Bush is completely out of his depth in this disaster. Katrina has revealed America's weaknesses: its racial divisions, the poverty of those left behind by its society, and especially its president's lack of leadership.


Robi Ronza in Italy's Il Giornale


Everything can be used in Europe to badmouth Bush, so it may be worth clarifying a few key points: New Orleans was below sea level even before drilling for oil began. Second, there is no certain proof that the increase in the mean global temperature is a consequence of the emission of so-called greenhouse gases. Finally, the federal government has no specific responsibility for the post-hurricane chaos.


Yildirim Turker in Turkey's Radikal

The biggest power of the world is rising over poor black corpses. We are witnessing the collapse of the American myth. In terms of the USA's relationship with itself and the world, Hurricane Katrina seems to leave its mark on our century as an extraordinary turning point.


Editorial in Iran's Siyasat-e Ruz

Hurricane Katrina has proved that America cannot solve its internal problems and is incapable of facing these kinds of natural disasters, so it cannot bring peace and democracy to other parts of the world. Americans now understand that their rulers are only seeking to fulfil their own hegemonistic goals.


Editorial in Iran's Jomhuri-ye Eslami

The devastating waves of Katrina have unmasked the real face of America's profoundly corrupt society, and proved that under the beautiful surface of modern American life, there are decadent thoughts that always try to exploit the situation to fulfil inhuman goals. Although Bush and his team proved their inefficiency in dealing with the disaster, its aftermath proved that America's corrupt system is the main culprit.


Shen Dingli in China's Dongfang Zaobao

Katrina is testing the US. Katrina is also creating an opportunity for world unity. Cuba and North Korea's offer of sympathy and aid to the US could also result in some profound thinking in the US, and the author hopes that it will not miss this opportunity.


Editorial in Malaysia's Berita Harian

What's more saddening is that there have been riots and looting in New Orleans. It turns out that in a developed country with the most powerful economy in the world, some of its citizens are not much different from the poor in Third World countries.


Xiong Shu Li in Malaysia's Sin Chew Jit Poh

Co-operation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can no longer be delayed, but there are still countries - including the US - which still do not take the issue seriously. However, faced with global disasters, all countries are in the same boat. The US hurricane disaster is a "modern revelation", and all countries of the world including the US should be aware of this.


Editorial in Media Indonesia

The superpower United States has finally succumbed to nature's wrath. The US must eventually admit that it is unable to deal with the victims itself. Something has changed: Hurricane Katrina has destroyed some of the US's arrogance.


Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, quoted in El Nacional

The rich were able to leave, the poor stayed there, and it is now that they are evacuating them, four, five days later. That is the model they want to sell us. Racial segregation - the mayor of New Orleans said it - is a question of social classes; the rich were able to leave, the poor were left, enduring the hurricane. It is capitalism, in its extreme individualist phase.



BBC Monitoring selects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several bureaus abroad.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4216142.stm

Under fire, Bush seeks to reassure Katrina survivors

By Tabassum Zakaria
Tue Sep 6, 2:17 AM ET



POPLARVILLE, Mississippi (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, under fierce criticism for his government's slow response to Hurricane Katrina, sought to reassure storm survivors on Monday as a veteran lawmaker complained that bureaucratic red tape was hampering relief efforts in Mississippi.


Bush made his second visit to Louisiana and Mississippi, where the storm has caused one of the biggest humanitarian crises in U.S. history. On his first tour on Friday, five days after the huge scale of the disaster became apparent, the president acknowledged the initial relief effort had been "unacceptable."

Speaking to emergency officials gathered in a stifling auditorium at Pearl River Community College in Poplarville, Bush pledged that "we're here for the long term."

"I understand. I understand the damage. I understand the devastation, I understand the destruction, I understand how long it's going to take. And we're with you. That's what I want you to know," Bush said.

In a sign of the political pressure facing Bush, Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record), a former Senate majority leader, said he has been battling the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its Mississippi counterpart for help for his state and urged Bush to cut red tape.

After a one-on-one meeting with Bush in Poplarville, Lott said: "I am demanding help for the people of Mississippi to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina."

The recovery effort will require "an unprecedented public and private effort that can't be hampered by a process geared toward much lesser disasters," Lott said in a statement issued after Bush left Mississippi.

In Washington, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada backed calls to create a commission, like the one that examined the September 11, 2001, attacks, to study how the hurricane response went wrong.

'SERIOUS MISTAKES'

"Serious mistakes were made," Reid said.

Bush has been under fire from Democrats and Republicans alike for a sluggish federal response to a flood that has made hundreds of thousands homeless and is feared to have killed thousands along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee said congressional leaders were to meet with Bush at the White House on Tuesday.

Bush walked through a neighborhood in Poplarville, shaking hands and talking to people outside their homes. Many trees were down and residents hoped they could get their electricity back.

Earlier, Bush pledged after meeting disaster relief officials at an emergency operations center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that adjustments would be made to the relief effort as needed.

"If it's not right, we're going to fix it, and if it is right, we're going to keep doing it. And this is just the beginning of a huge effort," Bush said.

At Baton Rouge's Bethany World Prayer Center, where dozens of evacuees were being cared for, Bush was with Dallas religious broadcaster T.D. Jakes and Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden, who are both black. The government will "do what it takes" to get people back on their feet, he said.

Some black leaders have accused relief officials of not taking the crisis seriously enough because many of its victims are poor and black.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean called the Bush trip "another callous political move" aimed at shifting blame for the political crisis from himself.

While calling some of the relief efforts unacceptable, Bush has not publicly singled out anyone for criticism although there has been some finger-pointing between state, federal and local authorities. "All levels of government are doing the best they can," Bush said.

The outcry over the slow federal response has triggered a major political crisis for Bush, already suffering from the lowest public approval ratings of his presidency, largely because of the war in Iraq.

"He's doing good now, I guess, since he came down to see it for himself," said one evacuee at the prayer center, Milton Beverly of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050906/pl_nm/bush_dc_8

A child in charge of `6 babies'

By Ellen Barry Tribune Newspapers: Los Angeles Times
Tue Sep 6, 9:40 AM ET


In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard, this group of refugees stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road, holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around as if he were their leader.

They were holding hands. Three of the children were about 2, and one was wearing only diapers. A 3-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love.

Thousands of human stories have flown past relief workers in the last week, but few have touched them as much as the seven children who were found wandering together Thursday at an evacuation point in downtown New Orleans.

In the Baton Rouge headquarters of the rescue operation, paramedics tried to coax their names out of them; nurses who examined them stayed up that night, brooding.

Transporting the children alone was "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, knowing that their parents are either dead" or that they had been abandoned, said Pat Coveney, a Houston emergency medical technician who put them into the back of his ambulance and drove them out of New Orleans.

"It goes back to the same thing," he said. "How did a 6-year-old end up being in charge of six babies?"

Children reported missing

So far, parents displaced by flooding have reported 220 children missing, but that number is expected to rise, said Mike Kenner of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which will help reunite families.

"When my kids were little I used to lose them in Target, so it's not hard for me to believe," said Nanette White, press secretary for the Louisiana Department of Social Services. "Sometimes little kids just wander off. They're there one second and you blink and they're gone."

At the rescue headquarters, Deamonte volunteered his vital statistics. He said his father was tall and his mother was short. He gave his address, his phone number and the name of his elementary school.

He said the 5-month-old was his brother, Darynael, and that two others were his cousins, Tyreek and Zoria. The other three lived in his apartment building.

The children were clean and healthy--downright plump in the case of the infant, said Joyce Miller, a nurse who examined them. It was clear, she said, that "time had been taken with those kids."

All evening Thursday, volunteer Ron Haynes carried one of the 2-year-old girls back and forth, playing with her until she was calm enough to eat dinner.

"This baby child was terrified," he said. "After she relaxed, it was gobble, gobble, gobble."

Late the same night, they got an encouraging report: A woman in a shelter in Thibodaux, about 45 miles west of New Orleans, was searching for seven children. People in the building started clapping at the news. But when they got the mother on the phone, it became clear that she was looking for a different group, said Sharon Howard, assistant secretary of the office of public health.

"What that made me understand was that this was happening across the state," she said. "That kind of frightened me."

The children were transferred to a shelter operated by the Department of Social Services, with rooms full of toys and cribs where mentors from the Big Buddy Program were on hand day and night. For the next two days, the staff did detective work.

One of the 2-year-olds steadfastly refused to say her name until a worker took her picture with a digital camera and showed it to her. The little girl pointed at it and cried out, "Gabby!" One of the boys had a G printed on his T-shirt when he arrived; when volunteers started calling him G, they noticed that he responded.

Deamonte began to give more details to Derrick Robertson, a 27-year-old Big Buddy mentor: How he saw his mother cry when he was loaded onto the helicopter. How he promised her he would take care of his little brother.

Late Saturday, they found Deamonte's mother, who was in a shelter in San Antonio along with the four mothers of the other five children. Catrina Williams, 26, saw her children's pictures on a Web site set up over the weekend by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. By Sunday, a private plane from Angel Flight waited to take the children to Texas.

In a phone interview, Williams said she is the kind of mother who doesn't let her children out of her sight. What happened, she said, was that her family, trapped in a New Orleans apartment building, began to feel desperate.

Wrenching moment

The water wasn't going down, and they had been living without light, food or air conditioning for four days. The baby needed milk and the milk was gone. So she decided they would evacuate by helicopter. When a helicopter arrived, they were told to send the children first and that the helicopter would be back in 25 minutes.

It was a wrenching moment. Williams' father, Adrian Love, told her to send the children ahead.

"I told them to go ahead and give them up, because me, I would give my life for my kids. They should feel the same way," said Love, 48.

The helicopter didn't come back.

While the children were transported to Baton Rouge, their parents wound up in Texas. Days passed without contact. On Sunday, Williams was elated.

"All I know is I just want to see my kids," she said. "Everything else will just fall into place."

At 3 p.m. Sunday, social workers said goodbye to the children who now had names: Deamonte Love; Darynael Love; Zoria Love and her brother Tyreek. The girl who cried "Gabby!" was Gabrielle Janae Alexander. The girl they called Peanut was Degahney Carter. And the boy whom they called G was actually Lee--Leewood Moore Jr.

The children were strapped into car seats and driven to an airport for the flight to San Antonio to rejoin their parents. Deamonte was hanging on to Robertson's neck so desperately that Robertson decided, at the last minute, to ride with him as far as Lafayette.

Robertson said he doubted the children would remember much of the evacuation, or the smell of the flooded city.

"I think what's going to stick with them is that they survived Hurricane Katrina," he said. "And that they were loved."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/chitribts/20050906/ts_chicagotrib/achildinchargeof6babies

AFP - Tue Sep 6, 6:53 PM ET
Water is pumped out to the Metairie Outfall Canal after repairs were made to the levee were completed. Engineers pumped corpse-strewn floodwaters out of New Orleans, revealing more of Hurricane Katrina's horrors and prompting Mayor Ray Nagin to warn of even grimmer scenes to follow.(AFP/David J. Phillip)

New Orleans bus station becomes temporary jail

By Mark Egan
32 minutes ago


NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Rapists, an attempted murder suspect and dozens of men who looted New Orleans after hurricane Katrina huddle in a temporary jail set up as police try to regain city streets which were lawless last week.

The scrawled cardboard sign on the front door of the Greyhound Bus Station, now a makeshift jail reads simply, "We Are Taking New Orleans Back."

Inside the accused, almost all black men aged 18 to 35, are herded out of confinement into buses by heavily armed officers from Angola State Penitentiary.

They stand handcuffed, disheveled and filthy, many with torn clothes, waiting to be taken to a place where they will stand trial via videoconference with judges in Baton Rouge.

The trial facility became operational on Sunday as part of an effort to restore law and order to a chaotic city, rife with crime and lawlessness for days after Katrina hit.

Louisiana State Department of Corrections Lt. Col. Bobby Achord described those held as mainly looters. Others were incarcerated for more serious accusations.

"One guy here is up for attempted murder on a New Orleans police officer," Achord told Reuters. "He was involved in a shootout with New Orleans police in an incident where the officer shot four of them dead."

"We had another guy here last night who was found shooting at a helicopter," he said.

In another case, a homeless man is accused of raping a woman in a deserted downtown street. The woman fought and freed herself then flagged down police, who apprehended her attacker.

Other crimes were less serious. Achord said some looters were caught with absurd spoils, like the man arrested fleeing a hardware store with a large bag of screws.

Facilities, where the inmates are kept for up to 24 hours before being shipped out, are crude. In cramped enclosures made of wire fences topped with barbed wire, they sit on concrete floors stained with oil from busses that normally load passengers here.

In the corner of each enclosure is a "porta-potty" with no door and a water cooler. Meals are military rations.

The temporary jail can hold 700 inmates.

Those locked up here are guarded by corrections officer from Angola prison -- a notorious facility known for it's hardened criminals and tough guards.

Pointing at officers nudging prisoners to waiting busses, Achord said, "These guards are used to handling people who are real bad. They are very professional but very firm."

Those charged with felonies will go to Angola if they are convicted. About 90 percent of Angola's inmates -- currently totaling 5,108 -- usually die there.

Since Katrina devastated New Orleans and other Louisiana towns, another 2,000 prisoners have been temporarily transferred to Angola.

Officials at the bus station jail said they want to get the message out that they are in business because most police in the mostly evacuated city are unaware it exists.

Asked if reporters could talk to the inmates, Achord suggested that was not a good idea.

"The thing is," he said, pointing at the men behind the fence, "if those guys got rowdy we do have non-lethal weapons we could use to try and control them. But if they started pushing that fence down, we'd have to kill somebody."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050906/ts_nm/jail_dc

Reuters - Tue Sep 6, 7:37 PM ET
An inmate sits in a makeshift jail while waiting to be transported from New Orleans to a state prison during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina September 6, 2005. New Orleans' mayor warned that floating oil and leaking gas posed major threats to life and pleaded with stubborn residents on Tuesday to leave the city devastated over a week ago by Hurricane Katrina. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

Reuters - Tue Sep 6, 4:56 PM ET
Fires burn near downtown New Orleans as floodwaters continue to surround homes in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina September 6, 2005. In the state's first major assessment of the environmental havoc in southern Louisiana, Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Mike McDaniel said large quantities of hazardous materials in damaged industrial plants, the danger of explosions and fires and water pollution were his main concerns eight days after the storm struck. (David J. Phillip/Pool/Reuters)