Posted on 09/06/2005 1:22:38 PM PDT by Uncle Joe Cannon
Water Receding Noticeably in New Orleans
By DOUG SIMPSON, Associated Press Writer 27 minutes ago
NEW ORLEANS - With a major levee break finally plugged, engineers struggled to pump out the flooded city Tuesday as authorities braced for the horrors the receding water is certain to reveal. "It's going to be awful and it's going to wake the nation up again," the mayor warned.
The Army Corps of Engineers began pumping the water out after using rocks and sandbags to close a levee break that swamped 80 percent of the bowl-shaped, below-sea-level city in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Across the city, the water was dropping noticeably, and the Corps said Tuesday the area under water had fallen to about 60 percent.
"I'm starting to see water levels much lower than I've seen," Mayor Ray Nagin said after surveying his city from the air. "Even in areas where the water was as high as the rooftops, I started to see parts of the buildings." He added: "I'm starting to see rays of light."
Still, he warned that what awaits authorities below the toxic muck would be gruesome. A day earlier, he said the death toll in New Orleans could reach 10,000.
Walter Baumy, a Corps manager in charge of the engineering job, said it will take 24 to 80 days to drain the city.
"We're working every aveunue to do whatever we can to get things back in order," he said.
Exactly how long the job will take depends on a number of factors. Among other things, the condition of the pumps — especially whether they were submerged and damaged — is not yet fully known, the Corps said. Also, the water is full of debris, and while there are screens on the pumps, it may be necessary to stop and clean them from time to time.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, began sending paratroopers from the Army's storied 82nd Airborne Division to New Orleans to use small boats, including inflatable Zodiac craft, to launch a new search-and-rescue effort in flooded sections of the city. Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, division commander, said about 5,000 paratroopers would be in place by Tuesday.
Boat rescue crews and a caravan of law enforcement vehicles from around the country also searched for people to rescue.
"In some cases, it's real easy. They're sitting on the porch with their bags packed," said Joe Youdell of the Kentucky Air National Guard. "But some don't want to leave and we can't force them."
Nagin warned: "We have to convince them to leave. It's not safe here. There is toxic waste in the water and dead bodies and mosquitoes and gas. We are pumping about a million dollars' worth a gas a day in the air. Fires have been started and we don't have running water."
Nagin said some dry sections of the city may have running water within 36 hours. The system needs to be flushed out before that can happen, he said.
Early Tuesday, fire broke out at a big house in the city's historic Garden District — a neighborhood with lots of antebellum mansions. National Guardsmen cordoned off the area as firefighters battled the blaze by helicopter. In all, firefighters battled at least four major fires in New Orleans by midafternoon.
At the same time, the effort to get the evacuees back on their feet continued on several fronts.
Patrick Rhode, deputy director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said evacuees would receive debit cards so that they could begin buying necessary personal items. He said the agency was going from shelter to shelter to make sure that evacuees received cards quickly and that the paperwork usually required would be reduced or eliminated.
"We're eliminating as much red tape as humanly possible," Rhode said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
The Air Force late Monday concluded its huge airlift of elderly and serious ill patients from New Orleans' major airport. A total of 9,788 patients and other evacuees were evacuated by air from the New Orleans area.
Local officials bitterly expressed frustration with the federal government's sluggish response as the tragedy unfolded.
"Bureaucracy has murdered people in the greater New Orleans area. And bureaucracy needs to stand trial before Congress today," Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, said on CBS' "The Early Show."
"So I'm asking Congress, please investigate this now. Take whatever idiot they have at the top of whatever agency and give me a better idiot. Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don't give me the same idiot."
In New Orleans, Deputy Police Superintendent W.J. Riley estimated that fewer than 10,000 people were left in the city. Some simply did not want to leave their homes, while others were hanging back to loot or commit other crimes, authorities said.
The mayor said the city had the authority to force residents to evacuate but didn't say if it was taking that step. He denied reports that the city will no longer hand out water to people who refuse to leave.
The leader of troops patrolling New Orleans declared the city largely free of the lawlessness that plagued it in the days following the hurricane. He lashed out at suggestions that search-and-rescue operations were being stymied by random gunfire and lawlessness.
"Go on the streets of New Orleans — it's secure," Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore said to a reporter. "Have you been to New Orleans? Did anybody accost you?"
In neighboring Jefferson Parish, some of its 460,000 residents got a chance to briefly see their flooded homes, and to scoop up soaked wedding pictures and other cherished mementos.
"I won't be getting inside today unless I get some scuba gear," said Jack Rabito, a 61-year-old bar owner whose one-story home had water lapping at the gutters.
___
Tom Daschle is deeply saddened.
All together now, "Bush's Fault!"
Go toward the light, Ray. Go toward the light!
Anyone who says this is W's fault is all wet.
How come every dang article can quote the Mayor, but no reporterbot can ask him the question "Why didn't you deploy the busses, Mayor?"
Have the buses dried out yet Ray?
"wake up the nation" indeed!
the mayor failed to ensure protection for his city and blamed the president.
the mayor failed to evacuate his people and blamed the president.
the mayor failed to properly plan for a disaster and blamed the president
it ain't bush's fault that you didn't feel the levees were important enough to spend your own money on.
it ain't bush's fault that you didn't use the facilities at your command to save lives in your own back yard.
it ain't bush's fault that you gathered people in a refugee area (superdome) and then forgot to provide food and water or security.
dear mr. mayor - ANY TRAGEDY IS YOUR OWN DERN FAULT!!!
I hadn't even heard from him three days ago, but he's coming on strong, spewing more and stupider comments than either Nagin or even Blanco.
Yea, like the LOCAL bureaucracy that did not use the readily available school busses to get the people out of twon before the storm hit, or the state bureaucracy that did not order the National Guard into town to put down the looting and anarchy.
If it had been my friend's mother who was calling for help for three days as he has so emotionally exclaimed...and I do not doubt the sincereity of that emotion...I by gosh would have found a way with my frioend to GET OVER TO HER instead of telling her that the Feds were coming.
What lunacy is this? Why the hell didn't HE go help her. Boat, wade, helo, etc.
Like the Governor talikiing in the one press conference about the malnurished and sik child in the Superdome she had seen that needed help. Except she had retourned to the state capitol to hold the news conference. Why didn;t she take that child out? Or better yet, why didn;t she exhibit leadership and coordinate for the twenty most sick children be taken out on her helicopter while she stayed with those poor souls she had consigned to the Supredome?
Sheer lunacy and an inability...or more likely, a lack f desire, for the MSM to report where the true lack of leadership lay.
Couldn't find the keys to the buses and now he can't remember where the main gas valve is....
Good news indeed.
I think people are going to start to get pretty sick of these local, self-pitying officials carrying on that nobody cares, nobody is helping them, etc. because their people are all poor and black, etc. When people do care and have helped the people whose lives were put in danger by these same local officials.
I'd advise Broussard, esp. to STFU, the man is a cartoon.
May it haunt your nightmares for the rest of your long life.
Their draining the bathtub...........whoopppeeee!!!!!!
Broussard as a Parish President is a part of the beaurocracy that he is chiming in about as for Nagin
****"It's going to be awful and it's going to wake the nation up again," the mayor warning**
The nationa was awake the first tme thru dumbazz it was you and Blanko that wouldnt wake up.
Every article written about New Orleans goes on and on and on about how toxic, comtaminated, polluted and all other sorts of adjectives referring to the water and what's under the water. How do they know? We have floods all the time and they don't leave behind any Superfund sites. These journalists can't stop crying wolf. It's hard to read this crap.
I guess I missed the sarcasm tag.
Doesn't the City of NO have a dept of public safety with an emergency manager that is supposed to step in in case of impending disaster rather than have the Mayor, who is a politician not a tech manager, try to do these things? Usually, the Mayor is a figurehead, the person out front, not the person doing the actual work.
I thought it was going to take 80 days and the four horsemen were going to come on down.....
Doomsday hasn't quite panned out yet.....though CNN is certainly trying their hardest!!!
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