Troops continued to go door to door Thursday in New
Orleans, urging the last of the stubborn, the skeptical and the
eccentric to get out of a crippled, once magnificent city formerly
filled with their kind.
As they did Wednesday, armed military
and police pounded on doors and served notice that the last of an
estimated 10,000 inhabitants now have to leave the wreckage of a
city that two weeks ago contained 480,000 souls.
Some of
those they encountered were tired, beaten and ready to come out.
Many more apparently were self-selected survivalists: determined not
to let go of what little was certain in their lives in exchange for
so much uncertainty ahead.
“I got my own place,” said a
defiant Robert Thomas in the city’s historic Treme neighborhood. “I
ain’t sharing it with no freaking body.” If he agreed to leave the
city, “where the hell I’m gonna be after that?”
“They
are trying to get this neighborhood for the rich people,” said a man
calling himself Chief Al; he was sitting on a stoop at St. Claude
Avenue and St. Philip Street.
Yet there were no reports of
what police and military authorities have promised since midweek:
that soon, stern encouragement will shift to evacuation by
force.
Kansas National Guard Maj. Gen Ron Mason said the
National Guard helped bring out more than 650 willing people between
Wednesday and Thursday morning from neighborhoods ravaged by
flooding from Hurricane Katrina since Aug. 29.
In many ways,
Thursday seemed to be a day of small victories: Water continued to
drain away. Some downtown hotels struggled toward life. A weak but
discernible commercial pulse began to beat in the city’s
suburbs.
In Baton Rouge, officials closed the makeshift
hospital that sprung up on the floor of the Pete Maravich Assembly
Center at Louisiana State University. In 10 days, volunteer doctors
and nurses treated 6,000 patients rushed by helicopter and ambulance
from New Orleans area rooftops and other places.
Water levels
continued to recede throughout the metropolitan area. Some drained
through gaps deliberately punched in levees, sluicing back into
surrounding waterways that have fallen back to pre-storm levels. In
addition, the region’s pumping system -- still a feeble remnant of
its original power -- continued to suck at stagnant standing
water.
St. Bernard Parish officials reported two feet of
water remaining in the government center in Chalmette, which once
was flooded up to the second floor. However, fires continued to
break out, although in fewer number. Fire Superintendent Charles
Parent said three unidentified multistory buildings burned down at
Dillard University on Wednesday.
Thursday saw 11 fires, six
of which were inaccessible from the ground, Parent said.
Yet
in the context of the horrors of the last week, 11 fires was a good
day, he said. Firefighters were heartened by the fact that water
pressure has begun to return for the first time, he
said.
Still, there were intimations that the dreadful next
phase, body recovery, is drawing nearer.
Bob Johannessen, a
spokesman for the state Department of Health and Hospitals, said
officials have 25,000 body bags on hand. “We don’t know what to
expect,” he said.
Teams set up body recovery points in St.
Bernard Parish and at the intersection of Interstate 10 and I-610.
Bodies would be carefully logged in, personal effects catalogued and
the precise global positioning coordinates of their places of
recovery carefully recorded.
The bodies will be sent to a
special federal emergency mortuary in St. Gabriel, where
sophisticated techniques would be deployed to make an
identification.
Authorities said the task promised to be
daunting: Many bodies have decomposed. Many were too poor to have
dental records useful in identification. Many belong to families who
will have to be found after scattering across the
country.
Jefferson Parish Emergency Operations Director
Walter Maestri estimated that Hurricane Katrina may have killed 200
in that parish. Many bodies may be trapped in the poor,
blue-collar subdivisions of Lincolnshire and Westminster in Marrero.
Water rose as high as four feet in those areas, where many residents
did not have the means to evacuate, he said.
Crews may begin
body retrieval today and Saturday in Marrero and in flooded
neighborhoods around Airline Drive, he said. In a nationally
televised speech, President Bush promised to cut through red tape to
rush relief to New Orleans and the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf
Coasts.
"The government is going to be with you for the long
haul," he said.
U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans,
told WWL-TV that rebuilding the city could cost more than $200
billion. “It’s important to talk about the big number up front,” he
said.
The president asked that Sept. 16 be treated as a
national day of prayer and remembrance.
Vice President Dick
Cheney visited the area Thursday. He toured the flooded Lakeview
neighborhood with Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Sen. David Vitter, R-La.
Cheney said he was impressed with the Army Corps of Engineers’
repair work at the breeched 17th Street Canal. He said new taxes are
not the answer to paying for the billions of dollars in relief the
region will require.
In Kenner, the New Orleans City Council
granted Mayor Ray Nagin unprecedented emergency spending and
borrowing power to deal with the crisis.
Five council members
– all but Councilmen Jay Batt and Eddie Sapir – convened their first
post-Katrina meeting at Louis Armstrong International Airport, a
city-owned outpost in Kenner. Sapir was en route to the city from
out of town, and Batt already had scheduled a conflicting caravan
back to his partially flooded district.
The council
suspended normal waiting periods and slashed at other procedural
safeguards to give Nagin more executive power. Three council members
disclosed that they had lost their homes. Councilwoman Cynthia
Willard-Lewis said her brother, Elliot Willard Jr., is
missing.
Council members made clear that they expect to see
local businesses and residents drafted into the rebuilding effort
facing the city – the better to rebuild its middle
class.
“Don’t pimp us,” Council President Oliver Thomas
warned. “Help us rebuild.”
As he spoke, workers at major
downtown hotels such as the Hilton New Orleans Riverside, the
Windsor Court and the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel hustled to bring
them back into commerce, perhaps as housing centers for relief crews
and construction workers.
“We’ll be up in a couple of
weeks,” said Kevin Ryan, regional vice president of operations for
Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc., which owns the Sheraton.
“We want to get people back to work and make sure we rebuild the
city as fast as we can.”
St. Tammany Parish President
Kevin Davis said as many as 60,000 displaced residents are free to
return beginning Friday, although many will have to show
identification before being admitted to damaged
neighborhoods.
Thousands of homes in flood-damaged Slidell
are not yet fit for habitation, he said.
Davis said he has
asked federal authorities for 20,000 housing units for homeless
families.
But in general, conditions are improving rapidly,
Davis said. Power has been restored to a third of the parish, and
most roads are open. More businesses are coming back every day, he
said.
In Jefferson Parish, isolated signs of life began to
spread across the West Bank.
A few stores opened for
business here and there west of the Harvey Canal. Three-fourths of
Gretna reported it had electrical power. The sewerage treatment
plant was working and the city had water, although a boil order was
still in effect, Police Chief Arthur Lawson said.
Meantime,
conditions are improving rapidly in Kenner and Harahan on the east
bank, Maestri said.
Jefferson Parish President Aaron
Broussard said officials hoped to open the parish by Sept. 30; he
and other parish officials urged residents to stay out, if
possible.
Jefferson residents were allowed into the parish on
a look-see basis earlier in the week. But Broussard said those
electing to stay would not be forced out – although they faced
hardships with widespread power outages, water that still must be
made safe by boiling, shortages of food and gasoline, and a
generally shattered economy.
With reporting by Jarvis
deBerry, Michele Krupa, Becky Mowbray, John Pope, Manuel Torres and
The Associated Press.
As confusion over evacuation rises, floodwaters
go down
Slowly, city’s streets emerging from
muck
By James Varney Staff writer
Amid
heightened confusion over whether New Orleans residents would be
removed forcibly from their homes Thursday, the city welcomed a
noticeable reduction in the increasingly vile floodwaters that have
coated neighborhoods for 10 days.
Overnight, the waters
receded in the Lower 9th Ward, in Mid City and even along the
often-flooded dip where Interstate 10 crosses beneath the Southern
Railroad overpass.
About a fifth of the city's 75 major
drainage pumps are back in operation, according to officials with
the Sewerage & Water Board. As one example of continuing
progress, the water board's main purification plant, which was
inundated with as much as 3 feet of water and still flooded
Wednesday, was dry Thursday.
Over at Pumping Station No. 6,
along the Jefferson Parish line on the west side of the 17th Street
Canal, the impact of the three reactivated pumps was apparent.
Debris ranging from garbage cans to flower pots piled up on the
grates as the massive pumps sucked floodwaters toward Lake
Pontchartrain. The current was strong, rippling in
places.
Although there were still no indications of major
disease outbreaks, the slop that has covered the city for days, a
witch’s brew of bloated corpses, human excrement, chemicals and
debris, is leaving its mark.
Along St. Claude Avenue on the
eastern side of the Industrial Canal, cars and low-slung homes that
had been out of sight since the levees broke reappeared Thursday
morning. The vehicles were uniformly brown, caked with layers of
mud. On the curbsides and sidewalks of Esplanade Avenue, the recent
high water mark could be traced in the film sheathing trash and
downed trees, and the snagged flotsam, such as ripped garbage bags,
clinging to them.
The mess remains a home to holdouts against
evacuation. Army paratrooper teams, which run foot patrols in
neighborhoods from the French Quarter to the Industrial Canal,
played loudspeakers down still-flooded streets Thursday. The message
to residents ended with a promise they would be rescued.
New
Orleans Police Department teams pushed into uncharted territory,
finding dry ground around Delgado Community College, for example,
and in eastern New Orleans, where some pumps were again working. And
with those new frontiers came gruesome evidence of Katrina's toll: a
body floating face down in the muck against the Esplanade Avenue
bridge over Bayou St. John, another covered by a blanket at the base
of one of the two columns marking the City Park entrance to the New
Orleans Museum of Art.
"We just put it out over the air, and
they make a list of them and they can get them," said 1st District
NOPD Sgt. Danny Scanlan. Scanlan conceded he had no idea who "they"
were, but he noted it wasn't on the NOPD's list of responsibilities
to retrieve corpses.
At the intersection of City Park and
Orleans avenues, in happier times the launch point for the Endymion
parade, Scanlan's patrol found two men walking with a sleek new
shotgun. The men, Chris Montero and J.T. Lanasa, were trying to get
to Montero's house on South Scott Street to rescue two
cats.
"I'm not real comfortable with you having that weapon,"
Scanlan told them. They named two ranking NOPD officers who they
said had told them it was advisable to be armed. Scanlan returned
the shotgun to them but told them to "abort their mission for today"
and try again later, when it should be drier.
The 1st
District team said it had no orders to remove residents forcibly
from their homes despite talk from Superintendent Eddie Compass and
Mayor Ray Nagin that a mandatory evacuation was in effect for New
Orleans and that the city must be cleared.
NOPD spokesman
Capt. Marlon Defillo said such orders would be issued only as a last
resort. "We're still rescuing people and helping those who want to
evacuate voluntarily," he added.
During an interview early in
the day, Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu said officials have yet to
determine whether "mandatory evacuation really means mandatory
evacuation," forcing people to leave their homes and hauling them
out if they refuse.
It could also amount to strongly urging
reluctant residents to leave, he said, and warning them of the
health risks and the lack of assistance if they stay
behind.
Terry Ebbert, the city's director of Homeland
Security, said the decision ultimately lies with Compass. "The
federal government and the 82nd Airborne Division operate in support
of the New Orleans Police Department," Ebbert said.
The
evacuation, which Compass insisted would be "strictly a law
enforcement, not military" operation, may kick start this weekend,
but not all NOPD officers are thrilled with the policy. Some of them
said they were uncomfortable with the prospect of forcibly removing
residents who have enough water and food to remain in their
homes.
"I'm going to do what we're told, we will follow the
order, but I'd like to have a meeting about it," said Capt. Jeff
Winn, commander of the NOPD's tactical SWAT teams. "I must say that
right now the concept is not acceptable to me and I'm worried about
situations where SWAT teams are called to remove residents and
someone could get hurt."
Working the 7th Ward up toward City
Park, Scanlan's team yelled at pedestrians and residents gathered by
windows, telling them they had to leave. The sentiments of one
household were easy to read, printed as they were in big letters on
boarded windows along Esplanade Avenue: "F--K BLANCO, F--K FEMA."
The window next door declared, "We've gone to Texas," and a smaller
sign on the porch said, "Please stop 'helping' us.
Thanks."
The officers frisked some of the "zombies" -- cop
lingo for survivors the officers think are insane to stay in
the city -- and the residents said they did not mind the
inconvenience. "You know you got to get out, right?" officer
Bryan Mulvey said to Robert Cummings, as Cummings climbed out of a
tangle of downed trees on Esplanade Avenue. Scanlan was suspicious
of the man's bulging pockets, and he ordered Mulvey to search him.
When the search came up empty, Scanlan apologized.
"That's
all right, I understand you've got a job to do," Cummings said,
saying he was walking "for exercise."
One of those picked up
Thursday, Johnny Dunn, said he tried to stay in his Uptown home as
long as he could, until the city was simply too quiet and eerie to
bear. "There wasn't no civilization," he said. "I got tired of
walking around my house seeing nothing and
nobody."
Staff writers Jeff Duncan, Steve Ritea and
Gordon Russell contributed to this story.
The
first suspect locked up at Camp Greyhound, the temporary jail built
in the New Orleans bus terminal to house people accused of looting
and other crimes in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, unwittingly
walked smack dab into the hands of the law, police
say.
Louisiana prison officials love telling the story.
"He drove up in a stolen Enterprise rental car to buy a bus
ticket," Louisiana State Penitentiary Warden Burl Cain said Thursday
morning. "He got a ticket, all right."
Claude Mamone was
arrested, fingerprinted, photographed and housed briefly in the bus
terminal on Loyola Ave. that substitutes for flooded Orleans Parish
Prison. On Sept. 3, he was shipped to the state prison at St.
Gabriel, where he was awaiting trial Wednesday.
Mamone is one
of 223 suspects who have passed through Union Passenger Terminal
since the storm hit.
The overwhelming majority - 178 as of
Wednesday -- are accused of looting. Twenty were booked with
resisting arrest; 26 with having stolen cars; 14 with theft; and
nine with attempted murder. One was booked with not having a
driver's license, and three people were accused of disturbing the
peace, a misdemeanor.
The new lockup isn't far from the
original parish prison, from which about 7,000 inmates were
evacuated last week and dispersed across the state prison system.
Camp Greyhound has room for 700 suspects. In the past week,
155 came from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office; 39 were nabbed
by Kenner police. New Orleans police brought in 17, and the rest
were hauled in by the state attorney general's office, the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Marshals
Service. Even the Army brought in one of its own, a
deserter.
Take away the federal agents toting assault rifles
and 12-gauge shotguns, and the interior of the terminal appeared
frozen in time, a time before Katrina struck.
The only
newspaper on sale in the coin machines was a USA Today from Aug. 26
to 28, with a giant photograph of Martha Stewart on the front page
and a tiny picture of Katrina's first swipe at south
Florida.
The suspects were caged outside. The group of about
50 awaiting transportation to prisons elsewhere were generally quiet
Thursday. Some lay on the pavement of the station's parking lot; a
few were barefoot. Several called out for help when visitors passed
by.
Cain allowed reporters to talk to some detainees, but in
the blunt language spoken by those who spend their work days dealing
with the impoverished and disease-stricken inmate population, he
cautioned against trying to communicate with others.
"They
might spit on you," Cain cautioned. "They might have
AIDS."
"I have rights," a long-haired and bearded wisp of a
man called out from cell No. 8. "Please, sir."
Cain
pronounced the young man mentally disturbed and said he believed he
had been booked with looting. In his temporary cell, the long-haired
man behaved strangely.
"He stuck his head in a bucket (of
clean water) and then started drinking the filthy water," Cain
said.
Another man who had come and gone was booked with
looting a Walgreens pharmacy. "He was in a stupor for eight
hours until he came down," Cain said. "We were afraid he was going
to overdose."
Cain said he brought a psychiatric nurse from
Angola to treat other suspects.
A few of the detainees have
been accused of violence: Lance Madison, 48, of New Orleans was
booked with eight counts of attempted murder of a police officer
after being nabbed by 7th District officers Sept. 4. Madison fired
at an officer at the intersection of Chef Menteur Highway and
Downman Road, and when reinforcements arrived, he shot at them, too,
according to the police report of the incident. Madison finally fled
and threw his handgun into the Industrial Canal before the cops
caught up with him, police say.
Lance was transferred Sept. 4
to the Hunt Correctional Facility.
"Welcome to New Angola
South," said a handwritten sign on the gate leading to the outdoor
lockup at Camp Greyhound, a row of 16 cells made of chain-link
fencing topped with razor wire.
The facility is the result of
work by Louisiana Department of Corrections Secretary Richard
Stalder and state Attorney General Charles Foti Jr., who for nearly
30 years was Orleans Parish criminal sheriff. Foti's successor,
Marlin Gusman, isn't involved with the bus terminal facility, Cain
said. Instead, Gusman is dealing with administrative issues, such as
payroll and securing records at the prison.
The temporary
jail was constructed by inmates from Angola and Dixon state prisons
and was outfitted with everything a stranded law enforcer could
want, including top-of-the-line recreational vehicles to live in and
electrical power, courtesy of a yellow Amtrak locomotive. There are
computers to check suspects' backgrounds and a mug shot station --
complete with heights marked in black on the wall that serves as the
backdrop.
Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan's
office has a designated work space, as does U.S. Attorney Jim
Letten's. Two young state prosecutors worked at a table Thursday in
the center of the station, casual clothes offsetting their courtroom
faces as they screened cases.
On Thursday, one cell included
three men from Syria who were said by police to have been carrying
$14,000 in cash that no one with a badge believed they earned
honestly.
Several of the men locked up Thursday said they did
only what they had to do in the wake of the storm.
"My son
wanted fruit punch," Melvin Jackson, 35, of Marrero told Cain
through the chain-link fence. Jackson, who was arrested Sept. 4 in
the 6600 block of the Westbank Expressway, was being held in lieu of
$50,000 bond. The fruit punch was supplemented with booze stolen
from Mike's Liquor Store, according to police.
In the eyes of
its makers, the art-deco Greyhound station is the sensible,
practical and legally prudent place to house suspects, a place for
police to process them swiftly and send them to a holding cell
unless they can make their bail.
To the inmates, it's an
added twist to the post-Katrina ordeal. Several of the new arrivals
loudly insisted they were wrongly arrested Thursday.
Kenneth
Corner of Uptown was picked up for public drunkenness. "If I don't
leave my house, who is going to feed me?" said Corner, who was
slouched in a plastic bus station seat with his wrists handcuffed
behind him.
Billy Mahuron, a Kentucky prison guard working
in New Orleans, replied, "It's for your own good." If you stay on in
New Orleans, he said, "disease is going to get you."
Mahuron,
26, of Shelbyville, who works as a "safety specialist" at a women's
prison in Pewee Valley, Ky., said the New Orleans trip was his
first, though he had planned on attending Mardi Gras next year.
"I think it's a shame that citizens turned against the city
like this," he said. "Where I'm from, this wouldn't have
happened."
The fresh arrests are interviewed, photographed,
fingerprinted and then tagged with wristbands: Pink for federal
cases; red, yellow or blue for various felonies, green for
misdemeanors, and blue for women, of which there have been 38,
officials said Thursday.
"You hear stores about (police)
letting people go," Cain said. "That's bull----. We got a
jail."
Cain, 63, a native of Vernon Parish who has run the
state's maximum security prison at Angola for 10½ years, said he is
proud of the operation.
"A looter to me is no different from
a grave robber," he said.
By Jan Moller and Robert Travis
Scott Capital Bureau
BATON ROUGE - As it became clear
last week that the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina required
far more help than state and local authorities could provide, Gov.
Kathleen Blanco and other state officials began pleading for more
help from the federal government.
But substantial
active-duty Army deployments didn't arrive until a week after the
storm, a fact that might turn out to be one of the enduring
controversies about the state and federal response to what likely
will be one of the deadliest and most costly events in American
history.
This week, Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who
commands Joint Task Force Katrina, said search and rescue is the top
priority for the 7,000 active-duty soldiers ordered to Louisiana by
President Bush on Saturday. But the vast majority of the rescue
effort was conducted by state and local authorities, volunteers with
flat-bottomed boats that could access the narrow streets where flood
victims were stranded on roofs and attics, and by the Louisiana
National Guard.
"We pulled out 250,000 people before the Army
got here,"said Sam Jones, a former mayor of Franklin who serves as a
senior adviser to Blanco and helped organize the boat rescue
operation. "By Thursday (Sept. 1), we knew we'd turned a
corner."
Despite the presence of 5,700 Guard troops and
assistance from the Coast Guard, Navy helicopters and other military
assets, which were deployed in advance of Katrina and in its
immediate aftermath, state and local officials said there was a need
throughout the week for more troops to aid in search and rescue
operations, provide food and other assistance and restore order as
New Orleans was beset by looting and violence.
Blanco
spokeswoman Denise Bottcher said the situation was so dire that the
need for Army support was obvious. New Orleans was like a dying man
who needed CPR, she said, and shouldn't have had to ask for help.
State officials of both parties remained frustrated by the
delays in getting federal forces. A review of records and interviews
with state, White House and military officials revealed contentious
negotiations and apparent miscommunication between the two sides as
they tried to cope with a disaster that presented unexpected
challenges each day.
Blanco administration officials said
the governor spoke twice to Bush - once Sunday morning, in the hours
before Katrina made landfall, and again Wednesday morning after the
storm. In both telephone conversations, according to Blanco and her
senior aides, the governor asked Bush for increased federal
help.
"I asked him to send me everything he's got," Blanco
said of their first conversation,. In their second conversation,
Blanco was more specific, saying the state needed 40,000 troops to
restore order and complete the search and rescue mission.
But
state officials said the governor didn't ask directly for
active-duty troops. Bottcher said the governor was prepared to
accept any combination of Guards members and regular Army troops, as
long as there were enough numbers to calm the city and complete the
rescue effort.
The subject of active-duty troops did not
come up until a face-to-face meeting on Air Force One on Sept. 2,
when Blanco and Bush spent about 45 minutes meeting behind closed
doors. But the president's order to deploy was not made until the
following day, and in the meantime the White House and the Blanco
administration tussled over who ultimately would be in charge of the
rescue effort.
A Bush administration official, speaking on
the condition of anonymity, said the delay in ordering active-duty
forces occurred because the regular Army had to wait for Guard units
to be in place before they could deploy.
But Lt. Col. Pete
Schneider, a spokesman for the Louisiana National Guard, said, "I
don't know how that has anything to do with it."
By law,
federal troops are not allowed to engage in law enforcement, which
makes the Guard the logical first responder in times of crisis.
The White House official said Bush's mobilization order
Sept. 3 came at the appropriate time given the sequence of the
various military mobilizations. The official said the prolonged
dispute over lines of authority "obviously … caused some problems,"
but said the disagreement in no way affected the speed at which the
Army forces were deployed.
A senior official with the U.S.
military said that from the Army's point of view, the president's
order is the only criteria for deploying soldiers, whether or not
Guards members are in place.
Blanco said this week that she
fears the conflict over lines of authority wasted valuable time that
she and her staff could have better spent addressing other issues,
possibly slowing the relief effort. "It's just a paper war, that's
all it is," she said. "This is about the silliest argument that I
can think of."
After the meeting on Air Force One, the White
House sent Blanco a proposed memorandum of understanding late Friday
night that she was urged to sign right away, according to the
governor. The memo would have taken the rare step of putting Honore
in charge of both the Guards and the active-duty military units
while answering to both the president and Blanco, known in the
military as dual reporting.
But Blanco, after meetings by
her staff that consumed much of Friday night and Saturday morning,
declined to sign the memo and opted to preserve her authority of the
Guard forces, which by then numbered more than 13,000. Blanco said
she did not want to undermine the authority of Maj. Gen. Bennett
Landreneau, who leads the Louisiana National Guard and oversees the
Guard troops who have arrived from other states.
"The
problem with the offer (to federalize) was that when the question
was asked, 'How does this make things better?' the question was
never answered," said a state official who attended meetings about
the issue but asked to remain anonymous because he does not have
authority to speak for the governor.
Relief efforts have
ramped up rapidly, with more than 18,000 Guard troops from 29 states
in Louisiana and about 18,000 active-duty military spread across the
Gulf Coast by Thursday, but the delay remained mystifying to some of
the local rescue workers who struggled against impossible obstacles
to keep people alive at makeshift shelters where conditions
deteriorated with each passing hour.
Dr. Gregory Henderson,
a pathologist at Ochsner Clinic Foundation who helped set up a
makeshift medical clinic at the French Quarter Bar last week, said
he will never understand why help didn't arrive sooner
In a
brief interview outside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
Wednesday, where he was tending to evacuees, Henderson said, "That's
going to be, at the end of the day, the great mystery."
As usual, the day started with a
prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance.
But from that point on,
New Orleans City Council members threw out the rule book, holding an
extraordinary, emotional meeting - their first since the city they
govern was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.
With a crippled
City Hall still off limits, five members of the council, including
three who think they lost their homes to floodwaters, gathered in a
conference room at Louis Armstrong International Airport to grant
emergency spending powers to Mayor Ray Nagin's administration.
They also took the opportunity to bare their souls about the
catastrophe that has rendered New Orleans a partially submerged,
heavily fortified ghost town. And they began to plot a strategy to
get their constituents and the businesses that employ them back
home.
That won't happen any time soon. Nagin this week
extended his mandatory evacuation order for the city's east bank
through the first week of October, citing contaminated standing
water and the lack of basic services. Even after the mayor gives the
all-clear, residents likely will be able to return only a section at
a time, Chief Administrative Officer Brenda Hatfield said.
Acutely aware that evacuees are anxious about their homes'
security, Council President Oliver Thomas said he has been told that
the military will stay for "as long as it takes," although he added
that he has not seen that pledge in writing.
Business owners
might not have to wait much longer to get a look at the damage. The
council asked the administration to let local companies retrieve
payroll records and other essentials as soon as possible so they can
temporarily operate elsewhere. Council members also hope to let
construction firms pick up their equipment so they can help with the
massive rebuilding effort.
Driving home the point that quick
action is needed, Councilwoman Renee Gill Pratt said she has heard
from funeral home owners who were forced to delay burials as the
storm approached.
"The bodies need to come out," she said.
For much of the meeting, council members spoke somberly,
recalling images of floating corpses, whole neighborhoods under
water and rampant looting.
But there were also moments of
gallows humor. Noting that he probably won't salvage much from his
flooded Broadmoor home, the 6-foot-6 Thomas said: "It's a good thing
I have tall friends. I have on their clothing."
The five
members present - Thomas, Pratt, Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson,
Cynthia Hedge Morrell and Cynthia Willard-Lewis, unanimously agreed
to hand the administration unprecedented borrowing authority to keep
the city afloat and to draw upon all cash reserves and accounts,
regardless of how the money is earmarked. In a rare departure from
normal checks and balances, the action allows Hatfield and finance
director Reggie Zeno to choose lenders and set terms without
returning to the council for final approval.
The council
also waived the City Charter's requirement that such measures be
introduced at one meeting for approval at later one.
Unable
to recall the official numbering system for city laws, the deputy
city attorney improvised and labeled the first ordinance K-1, for
Katrina. With virtually no staff on hand, the council drafted deputy
fiscal officer Barbara Avalos to step in as acting clerk, enabling
her to sign the documents and forward them to the mayor.
Councilman Eddie Sapir did not attend the meeting because he
was en route to the city, and Councilman Jay Batt had a scheduling
conflict in the form of a previously arranged caravan back to his
partially flooded district.
With official business taken
care of, council members used the forum to demand that local
businesses play a major role in the city's reconstruction and that
contractors hire local people.
The goal, Thomas said, is to
bring displaced New Orleanians back from places as far away as Utah
and Minnesota and re-create a local middle class. His message to the
business community: "Don't pimp us. Help us rebuild."
That's
a particularly urgent need, several council members said, because a
handful of other states are courting evacuees with the prospect of
jobs, housing and schools.
With many families still searching
for loved ones, Willard-Lewis called on Microsoft billionaire Bill
Gates and his company to set up a comprehensive survivor
notification database. She also asked President Bush to formulate an
interim relocation strategy for survivors, to bring them closer to
home, and asked FEMA to extend its benefits.
Much of the
remainder of the meeting was spent recounting the horrors of the
storm. Morrell listed the thriving neighborhoods in her district
that have been lost, including Pontchartrain Park, the city's first
middle class African-American subdivision, as well as Indian
Village, Sugar Hill and Gentilly Woods.
Willard-Lewis
described a flyover of her district: "The lake blended into the
Industrial Canal, and the canal blended into the Mississippi
River. New Orleans East was a body of water. There was no
land."
Later in the meeting, Willard-Lewis trod even more
personal ground. She revealed that one of her brothers, Elliot
Willard Jr., namesake and son of the former Orleans Parish School
Board member, is among the missing.
Thomas bemoaned the slow
response by the federal government immediately after the storm
passed and criticized people who blame local and state
authorities for not doing enough. Calling New Orleans "this
little place," he said "it's crazy to say that we should have taken
the lead. Our job is to prepare. We don't have the ability to manage
a disaster of this size."
"I call this 'ground below zero,'"
Thomas said. "We were so far south that they almost forgot about
us."
But the council president also had some harsh words for
local thugs who terrorized the city during the first chaotic days
after Katrina. Noting the widely broadcast images of looters hauling
electronics out of stores, he struck an exasperated pose and asked
why anyone would want a TV that they can't plug in.
"Whatever happens to you, you deserve," he said, referring
to the looters.
The council also offered the highest
possible praise to police and firefighters who left their families
to protect the city, without radios and in some cases without
ammunition; Sewerage & Water Board workers who struggled to keep
the utilities from failing completely; Entergy officials who moved
in quickly to begin restoring power, and Zeno, who has managed to
keep paying city workers.
Although they supported the Nagin
administration's efforts to fully evacuate the city, council members
expressed sympathetic respect for people who refuse to leave.
Although she disagrees with the sentiment, Clarkson said,
"The spirit of these people who won't leave their homes is the
spirit that will rebuild this city."
Coroner says owner snubbed help until it was too
late
By Paul Rioux Staff Writer
Less
than 24 hours before Hurricane Katrina began ravaging St. Bernard
Parish with 140 mph winds and a 20-foot storm surge, Coroner Bryan
Bertucci made an urgent call to the owner of St. Rita's Nursing Home
near Poydras.
"I told her I had two buses and two drivers
who could evacuate all 70 of her residents and take them anywhere
she wanted to go," he said.
But Mabel Mangano refused the
offer. "She told me, 'I have five nurses and a generator, and we're
going to stay here,'" Bertucci said.
It turned out to be a
tragic decision.
On Wednesday, nine days after the storm had
passed, Bertucci watched as a dozen workers from a federal agency
that specializes in handling mass casualties began the gruesome task
of removing about 30 decomposing bodies from the still-flooded
nursing home.
On Thursday, Attorney General Charles Foti Jr.
announced he's launching an investigation into the deaths at the
nursing home. "I want answers. I want to know why those people were
trapped and were not evacuated," Foti said. The storm pounded
through the parish's levees, unleashing raging floodwaters that
knocked able-bodied men off their feet. At the single-story,
privately-owned nursing home, residents confined to their beds or
wheelchairs were quickly overwhelmed by the rapidly rising water,
Bertucci said.
As the storm raged, neighbors and
firefighters in boats rescued about 40 nurses and residents,
carrying some -out on their mattresses. But rescuers could not save
everyone. The body of an elderly woman wearing a housedress was
found on a concrete patio near the front door. An elderly man's body
was slumped over the back of a chair, a recovery worker
said.
Inside the home, a table was nailed over a window, and
couches and dressers were shoved against doors in a futile attempt
to keep out the rushing water, which rose to within inches of the
ceiling. When the water finally receded a week later, it left behind
several inches of muck on the floors and the overwhelming stench of
putrified flesh.
The tragedy at St. Rita's is one of the
deadliest storm-related incidents reported so far in the New Orleans
area as rescue efforts are gradually shifting to recovery. In
Meraux, authorities found the bodies of about 20 people who tied
themselves together in an apparent attempt to ride out the storm.
Bertucci's voice cracked as he talked about how 40 of the
home's residents are his patients from a private practice.
"Out of all the devastation, this is the only time I've
cried," said Bertucci, whose house and doctor's office were
destroyed by flooding. "These people were like family to me."
He said he urged Mangano to accept the buses and evacuate
when he called her about 2 p.m. on Aug. 28, the day before the
Category 4 hurricane churned ashore. At the time, parish was under a
mandatory evacuation order.
After she declined help, Mangano
apparently changed her mind two hours later when she called another
parish official to see if the buses were still available, the
coroner said. But by then it was too late, he said.
"They
all could have been stuck on a highway in buses in the middle of a
hurricane," Bertucci said. "It might have been an even worse tragedy
than this."
Mangano, who Bertucci said stayed at the nursing
home during the hurricane, could not be reached for comment
Wednesday. Bertucci said he believes she survived the storm, but he
has not spoken to her.
Foti said investigators with his
office's Medicaid Fraud division are searching for information
regarding the location of Mangano and Salvador Mangano.
Bertucci, who described Mangano as a friend, said she made a
"terrible misjudgment."
"Is there talk of negligence? Yes,"
he said. "But I don't want to get into that because I'm a doctor,
not a lawyer."
Officials with the St. Bernard Parish
Sheriff's Office could not be reached Thursday to comment about the
incident. Bertucci said the parish's other three nursing homes
evacuated their residents without significant problems.
"All
of our nursing homes have evacuation plans to begin getting their
residents to safety 72 hours before a hurricane is expected to make
landfall," he said. "There may have been some extenuating
circumstances that kept St. Rita's from executing their plan."
He said Mangano was having trouble finding transportation
for five special needs patients. He also said the storm's late shift
toward southeastern Louisiana proved to be a challenge for even the
best-laid evacuation plans.
St. Rita's, first certified in
1998, has an average safety record compared to other nursing homes
in Louisiana, according to data on safety inspections dating back to
1999 and analyzed by The Times-Picayune.
Since 1999, federal
officials have determined that no deaths inside the nursing home
were related to substandard care. But the home was cited twice for
violations that either caused harm or endangered residents, records
show. St. Rita's was also denied federal funding for a total of 42
days for failing to promptly correct problems discovered by
inspectors. That number of days without funding is relatively high
compared to other nursing homes, according to the newspaper's
analysis.
A Sept. 2004 inspection identified six other
"deficiencies" that had either caused "minimal" harm or the
potential to cause harm, according to federal records. The problems
included a failure to keep adequate medical records, and a failure
to have a program to keep infection from spreading. All six
deficiencies were corrected by Nov. 2004, the records show.
Workers with the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team
used a pickup truck Wednesday to tow a flatboat back and forth
through 2 feet of floodwater surrounding the nursing home off
Louisiana 46 as they began removing the bodies.
Wearing
masks and heavy protective jumpsuits with ice packs strapped inside,
it took the workers a few hours to recover the first five bodies.
The operation, which resumed Thursday, was slowed by displaced
furniture that blocked the doors inside several of the residents'
rooms, officials said.
The bodies were loaded onto a
refrigerated truck. The ones that can be identified will be taken to
the Jefferson Parish morgue. The others will go to a makeshift
morgue in a St. Gabriel warehouse, where authorities will try to
identify them using DNA and - dental records, Bertucci said.
He said the last of the bodies were expected to be recovered
from the nursing home by Thursday evening.
As he spoke
grimly about the devastation in St. Bernard, where nearly all of the
26,700 homes flooded, Bertucci found some levity in the shipment of
8,000 body bags he received from federal authorities.
"They're everywhere," he said. "What am I going to do with
them?"
Pressed for an estimate on how many he might actually
need, Bertucci grew somber and said, "Maybe 150. Maybe less, if
we're lucky."
Staff writer Jeffrey Meitrodt contributed to
this report
Though the rash of fires in New Orleans generally has
abated, Dillard University got bad news Thursday as New Orleans Fire
Superintendent Charles G. Parent announced that three “multi-story”
buildings on the campus have burned.
Dillard has several
dormitories that have multiple floors, but Parent didn’t know which
buildings burned, and he wouldn’t speculate. Nor would he
guess what started the fire. But he said he believed that the
damage, inflicted Wednesday, was severe.
“From what I
understand they were destroyed,” he said. “It doesn’t look like they
are salvageable.”
Speaking at a Thursday morning news
conference at City Hall, Parent said the New Orleans Fire Department
responded to 11 fires Wednesday. Six were inaccessible to tanker
trucks, he said, and had to be contained by helicopters dropping
water from above.
Parent declined to say whether he thought
the fires were set by arsonists. “I’m not going to assume,” he said.
“You can’t do an investigation by air.”
When asked if
a fire could conceivably start with nobody around, Parent said,
“Anything’s conceivable.” Reactive chemicals could have gotten
sloshed around together in a chemistry lab, he said, before cutting
off the guessing game.
Even though the area is too
watery to be reached, he expects that his investigators will find
clues when they are able to make it to the Gentilly Boulevard
campus.
He said the fires at Dillard hadn’t been completely
extinguished but that they had been contained.
The majority
of Parent’s comments Thursday revealed real progress in the city.
The number of fires had fallen off precipitously, and water was once
again flowing through the city’s mains. Although the water’s not
safe to drink, it doesn’t have to be clean to put out fires. The
average water pressure in the city Thursday morning was 65 pounds
per square inch, he said. On a good day, the average pressure
in the Central Business District is 95 psi and 75 psi in the city’s
outlying areas, he said. Nevertheless, the fact that they had
even a below-average water pressure boosted the morale of his
firefighters, Parent said.
“Before, it was simply alien to us
to fight an urban fire without any water,” he said.
Third
District Chief Gary Haydel said later Thursday that the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina had forced the department to become creative.
Haydel has been fighting fires for 28 years, and “I’ve never been
able to call on a water drop before,” he said, referring to the
helicopters that dangle huge buckets from long wires, scoop water
out of the river or the lake and drop it onto burning
buildings.
He said firefighters battled some blazes with
water sucked up from floodwaters around them.
And
reinforcements have been arriving from around the nation, he
said. Thursday brought a blissfully slow morning at the Central
Fire Station on Decatur Street, but visiting firefighters, many of
them veterans of the terrorist attacks in New York on Sept. 11,
2001, were ready to go if needed.
New Yorker Peter Acton was
one. He had come down from Engine 79 in the Bronx because he
remembered what happened four years ago.
“We all wanted to do
something to repay, and more importantly thank, Louisiana for all
they did during 9/11,” he said. Acton flew to New Orleans
Monday and expected to stay two or three more weeks, he said.
He said there was a list of a thousand names of people who
wanted to come to New Orleans to help.
Haydel said his
department would have a ceremony Sunday – the fourth anniversary of
the Sept. 11 attacks – to remember those firefighters who died when
the World Trade Center twin towers collapsed. He said he expects
that New Orleans’ current catastrophe will help the New York
firefighters “deal with what they had to deal with.” But the
brotherhood between firefighters is such that he said he could have
counted on help from New York even if the city had never been
attacked.
BATON ROUGE --
Homeowners from Shreveport to Slidell will be hit with a 20 percent
increase in insurance premiums next year thanks to new state
legislation forcing property owners statewide to reimburse insurance
companies for supporting the state's catastrophe insurance
fund.
After next year, the special charge to policyholders
statewide will continue at 10 percent, probably for several years,
state insurance officials said. The increases are in addition to
rate hikes that insurers are likely to seek from state regulators as
a result of new risk assessments after Hurricane
Katrina.
State legislation in 2003 created the Louisiana
Citizens Property Insurance Corp., basically a state-sanctioned
company providing homeowners insurance to people who cannot get it
at reasonable prices on the open market. The corporation is
especially geared toward storm-prone areas, but it also helps
homeowners who can't get anyone else to write a policy for any
number of reasons, such as credit problems.
Citizens Property
has 135,000 policies statewide, with a total exposure of about $12
billion, Citizens Secretary Terry Lisotta said. About 60,000 of the
policies are likely to result in claims as a result of Katrina, he
said. The coverage does not include flood damage, which is handled
by a federal insurance program.
Under the new program,
started last year, Citizens started building a catastrophe fund to
be used for claims following a disaster.
But the fund is so
new that is has accumulated only about $100 million, well below the
$750 million to $950 million state officials estimate will be needed
to pay for claims under the plan.
The state had a similar
insurance institution before Citizens, but its rules of operation
were significantly different. Previously, in the event of a
disaster, the insurance companies had to make payments into a
catastrophe fund within 30 days and eat the costs, although they
could attempt make it up indirectly in future years with increased
premiums.
The new program still requires insurance companies
to fill up the fund in 30 days to cover the total claims, but the
companies now can borrow the money and charge residential
policyholders statewide to pay off the loans.
State
Insurance Commissioner Robert Wooley and the insurance industry
pushed for the legislation, saying companies were reluctant to
continue writing polices in the state under the old plan and that
homebuyers were facing crisis in trying to find coverage on the
commercial market.
At the time, the predecessor to Citizens
was bulging with clients, causing industry analysts nationwide to
warn about a potentially serious problem looming in Louisiana, which
was becoming overly dependent on the state insurer. The sparse
availability of household insurance, more than the price, was a
major consumer and political issue in Baton Rouge in
2003.
Citizens will now embark on a four-step process that
will reverberate for years throughout the state.
First it
will draw money from its existing fund. Lisotta said that out of the
$100 million in the fund, only about $50 million can legally be paid
for claims, because of the fund's requirements to maintain a cash
reserve and pay for operations.
Next, Citizens can take
advantage of the fact it, too, is protected by insurance. Called
re-insurance, it will provide a net of about $260 million to the
fund to pay for claims.
In step three, the insurance
companies will make a payment equal to 10 percent of the total home
premium coverage in the state, which will put about $112 million
more into the fund. The companies can pay cash or borrow the money
and charge customers to pay it off. As a result, the insurers will
begin charging all customers statewide next year a 10 percent
increase over their regular premium.
The fourth step is when
Citizens borrows money by issuing bonds with the permission of the
state Bond Commission. The bonds are supposed to provide enough
money for all remaining claims that can't be paid by Citizens.
Lisotta said the bonds are likely to amount to several hundred
million dollars and that they will be paid off by an emergency
assessment on all homeowners policies statewide.
The
emergency assessment can be up to 10 percent per year of a
customer's premium, which means Citizens can rake in about $112
million a year and pay off the bonds over a multi-year
period.
The figures assume that the homeowner policy base in
Louisiana will be about the same it has been in the past, Lisotta
said, but that could change with people leaving the
state.
The end result is that homeowners next year will pay
an extra 10 percent on their premiums for the insurance company
assessment, plus another 10 percent for the emergency assessment to
pay off the bonds. In subsequent years, policyholders will continue
paying the emergency assessment until the bonds are paid
off.
Jeff Albright, chief executive of the Independent
Insurance Agents and Brokers of Louisiana, said the creation of
Citizens was critical to the health of the insurance industry and to
encourage companies to keep writing policies in the
state.
"We have a systematic way to pay for this cataclysmic
loss," Albright said. In the old system, the insurers would have
received a bill for the whole loss. "State Farm would be totally
devastated" under the previous system, Albright said of Louisiana's
largest insurance carrier.
For the first time since Hurricane Katrina, Jefferson
Parish authorities estimated Thursday that at least 200 residents
perished in the storm, many of their bodies likely trapped in
apartment buildings and in the flood-ravaged Lincolnshire and
Westminster neighborhoods from which residents didn’t have means to
evacuate.
The grim task of recovering the dead in those
Marrero subdivisions and swamped portions of Old Metairie and around
Airline Highway could begin soon, while workers elsewhere continued
to restore electricity, water and sewerage services so Jefferson can
become a staging area for the recovery of Orleans and St. Bernard
parishes, Emergency Management Director Walter Maestri said
Thursday.
The process, however, has been hampered by
communication problems across the region. Cell phone service is
spotty, Parish President Aaron Broussard said, and there are too few
radios and walkie-talkies to direct information quickly to thousands
of police officers and armed military personnel manning the parish
streets, and satellite phones don't work.
"We are having a
tough time getting in touch with New Orleans," Maestri said. "There
are very few officials still there." Red Cross opened its
regional warehouse at a Kmart store at Lapalco and Ames boulevards
in Marrero, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency set up a
base at nearby Belle Terre Playground, Maestri and agency officials
said. From those sites, rescue workers with food and medical
supplies were dispatched to Behrman Stadium in Algiers and to other
New Orleans locations.
A FEMA spokeswoman said her agency on
Thursday was considering moving its headquarters from Baton Rouge to
Belle Terre or to another West Jefferson location.
As
residents re-entered the parish Thursday morning, the last of four
days they would be allowed to return to visit homes, electricity
sparked on major roads. Tastee Donuts, Walgreens, Domino's Pizza and
a few gasoline stations opened on the West Bank Expressway, west of
the Harvey Canal. Parish leaders said businesses would be allowed to
continue operating, despite a dusk-to-dawn curfew that went into
effect at 6 p.m. Thursday, when the parish shut down to any more
outside entrants until further notice.
But even with
citizens mostly locked out, Parish Councilman Chris Roberts said he
spoke Thursday with real estate agents who were swamped with
requests for homes and offices to rent or buy in West Jefferson, the
area of greater New Orleans expected to bounce back fastest from the
hurricane.
"He can't even handle the number of phone calls
coming from people asking for commercial property," Roberts said of
one agent. Though Broussard has set a goal of Sept. 30 to have
critical infrastructure restored in Jefferson Parish, Maestri said
allowing residents to return on that date could compromise efforts
to relieve areas hardest-hit by Katrina. "We know people want to
come home, but that can interfere with the recovery process" in
Orleans and St. Bernard, he said. Jefferson residents who
chose to stay in their homes after Thursday's re-entry deadline
would not be forced to leave, officials said, though they warned
that lack of critical services such as power, water and sewerage
would make life uncomfortable. A boil-water order remained in
effect.
For those who stayed, five public elementary schools
opened Thursday as medical clinics and food distribution sites under
an emergency parish program dubbed Operation Lifeline Depot.
At Ames Elementary School on Marrero’s Pine Street, a steady
stream of cars stopped in Thursday for ice, water, military-style
meals and sometimes a stop into the ambulance for advice about a
swollen ankle or itchy rash. Neighbor Milton Veazie, a retired cab
driver, volunteered to dispatch provisions.
With sweat
beading on his head even in the patch of shade he managed to find,
Veazie said the amount of food and quality of medical service
available after the storm was unprecedented.
"We didn't have
anything like this during Betsy," he said. "People are being treated
well this time."
The other locations are :
St. Ville
Elementary Library, 1121 Pailet Ave., Marrero Marrero-Estelle
Fire Station, 3190 Destrehan Ave, Harvey Lincoln Elementary, 1429
Ames Blvd., Marrero Herb Wallace Fire Station, 4040 U.S. 90 West,
Avondale
Across the parish, residents clearing their property
were urged to get immunized against tetanus and Hepatitis A and B.
Free shots were available at East Jefferson General Hospital in
Metairie, Ochsner Foundation Clinic in Jefferson and West Jefferson
Medical Center in Marrero.
Around noon, dozens lined up at a
vaccination tent outside West Jefferson Medical Center. For some, it
was just one of many stops they intended to make at a tent hospital
set up in the facility's parking lot and lawn to augment the full
services available inside. The facility, run in part by a pair of
federal agencies that provide medical relief in disasters, had
private exam rooms, an air-conditioned administration office and a
pharmacy.
Stationed outside was Frank Torres, a Federal
Protection Service police officer from the Bronx. He wore a black
bulletproof vest, dark sunglasses and a P90 submachine gun. West
Jefferson workers had nicknamed him "The Wall."
Torres said
he was assigned to a 30-day stint to protect the hospital from
looters. By Thursday morning, he had already heard automatic weapon
fire in neighborhoods west of the medical center. But Torres said no
one had bothered the clinic operation. "I guess just looking at
it is intimidating enough," he said, nodding toward his weapon.
Across town, about 50 cars lined up in Westwego to get ice,
water and food at the Alario Center, its parking lot jammed with
camouflage-painted military trucks and a temporary fence topped with
barbed wire. Sitting at the side of the road inside the open trunk
of their car, Sheila Attaway, Amanda Harris and 4-year-old Sky
Benitez clocked the fourth hour of their wait for a friend to return
with gasoline to refill the empty tank.
The group survived
Katrina in the Westwood neighborhood of Marrero, but on the 10th day
after the storm’s landfall, even as some residents were starting to
rebuild their homes, Attaway was thinking about pulling up stakes
forever.
She said she had not heard from her boss at
Boomtown Casino and feared she might lose her job. Without air
conditioning, she was sleeping in stifling heat, and her son had
invited her to move closer to him in North Dakota.
"Our
landlord is ready to kick us out because we haven't paid the rent,"
Attaway said. "We're kind of stuck. We're aggravated, too. We're
thinking of moving up North."
WASHINGTON -- In an
emotional appeal for immediate federal help, the superintendent of
Jefferson Parish public schools said Thursday she feared that the
longer it takes to reopen schools, the fewer people will come back
from their far-flung shelters and temporary
housing.
Superintendent Diane Roussel broke into tears as she
spoke before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions. She said her district is trying to rebuild from Hurricane
Katrina with its cash reserves nearly gone and its residents largely
out of work and unable to pay the sales and property taxes that
finance schools. And the community "more than ever" needs the
stability schools provide.
"We must rebuild quickly. The
longer it takes to rebuild, people will stay away, our teachers will
not come back, our workers will not come back and an important part
of the economy of our state and country will be gone, not to mention
the culture and human resources," Roussel said before breaking into
tears.
A few minutes later, Roussel drew a laugh when she
described herself as the type of person who rarely cries, someone
who "grew up with three brothers, was once a high school principal"
and generally can take care of herself. It was her misfortune, she
told Committee Chairman Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., and the panel's
ranking Democrat, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., that her tears were
captured on national television.
School districts devastated
by Hurricane Katrina, she said, are faced with almost unprecedented
challenges at a time when their finances are in dire
straits.
The normal reimbursement process of "spend, document
and then be reimbursed," Roussel said, is no longer viable because
of a lack of financial resources and the loss of financial records.
She pleaded with the committee for allocations and more flexible
financing formulas that would enable her district to repair its
schools quickly and replace the broken computers and waterlogged
books.
Roussel said one-third of the parish's 84 schools
escaped major damage and probably could be operational soon after
power and water are restored to the parish. About half the schools
are damaged but probably could be partially used for instruction,
and the remainder suffered so much damage that they probably won't
be available until 2006 or 2007, assuming they can ever be repaired,
she said.
It's her hope, Roussel said, that the schools could
be a hub, which along with temporary housing, can allow families to
return to Jefferson Parish so that they can fill the rebuilding jobs
so important to the metro area's recovery.
Since her
district's schools are in better shape than those in Orleans, St.
Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, she said, it's likely that the
district will have to absorb students from those school
districts.
That task is made more difficult, she said, by the
state's preliminary decision to reallocate about one-third of the
formula assistance provided to districts not accepting students to
help districts taking in the estimated 135,000 displaced public
school students in the state.
Roussel likened that policy to
"robbing one person to pay another." One solution, she said, would
be for the federal government to let her use earmarked federal
funds, such as Title I aid designed to aid economically
disadvantaged students, and special education money for disabled
students "to get the district back up and running."
Michael
Casserly, head of the Great City Schools Association, said that in
New Orleans only eight of the district's 128 schools escaped serious
damage, and the district will need significant federal help to
rebuild. He recommended that Congress allocate "dedicated funding"
to help districts with damaged schools reopen and another account
for districts taking in dislocated students.
Kennedy said if
he has anything to say about it, the resources provided to
Jefferson, Orleans and other communities will be substantial. He
said the hurricane and the damage it caused is of "biblical
proportions" but praised the willingness of districts in Baton
Rouge, Houston and other areas to pick up the slack.
"It's
our turn in Congress to reach out and provide the resources needed
for schools to take these students in, while also helping to rebuild
educational institutions devastated by Katrina," Kennedy
said.
Leonard Merrell, superintendent of Katy Independent
Schools, just outside Houston, said his district has taken in 900
students displaced by the hurricane, and he anticipates many more.
He asked the senators to help the district meet the
demand.
But he assured them that the district's new students
would get a quality education, in some cases taught by out-of-work
teachers from Louisiana. The students, he added, are being warmly
welcomed by their fellow classmates because of all they've been
through.
Joseph Savoie, the Louisiana commissioner of higher
education, said colleges in southern Louisiana have been seriously
disrupted, and the state will need $1 billion in federal aid to
finance repairs and reconstruction and to help pay tuition for
displaced college students.
Amid the wreckage
scattered up and down Mandeville's lakefront, small flourishes of
the once-charming row of historic homes shine through the
debris.
A wrought-iron fence topped with fleur-de-lis
medallions frames a yard where very little of the destroyed house
remains. Intricate woodwork lines the overhang of a porch, still
standing despite its missing columns. Carved wooden finials adorn a
front staircase that leads nowhere.
Hurricane Katrina's tidal
surge and winds battered Lakeshore Drive, a stretch of Mandeville’s
most identifiable homes and businesses, some of which date back more
than a century. One of the few familiar sights on the lakefront
Thursday was a single brown pelican that perched on a pier in Lake
Pontchartrain while homeowners picked through the shattered
buildings nearby.
"My family's been here for 148 years and we
never, ever, ever had something like this happen," said Londi Moore,
47, whose first floor was wiped out.
Though her house, at the
east end of the lakefront, was raised, Moore lost the contents of
the first-floor bedroom, bathroom and meditation area. Most precious
to her were a wedding ring, a watch and other items left behind by
her father, who died when she was 18.
Before the storm, Ron
Stoessell, Moore’s husband, could hardly drive through town without
passing a landmark built by his grandfather, Ernest Prieto. Many of
them lay shattered Thursday.
Two doors down, a house owned
by Stoessell’s sister stood in much worse shape than his. It was one
of four houses Ernest Prieto built for his children. All Moore could
pull out were 14 pieces of heirloom silverware.
Despite the
extensive damage, owners of the lakefront homes could see their
property values skyrocket, Moore predicted. She said a family whose
New Orleans home and two Navarre Beach homes were destroyed offered
her $48,000 cash to rent the undamaged second floor of her house
for six months. She turned it down, but surmised that many families
strapped for cash to repair will sell to newcomers attracted to the
serene water views outside their front doors.
“Now what
you’re going to have is no multigenerational families on the
lakefront,” Moore said.
Greg Reardon, 47, said he had no
doubt he would refurbish the home his parents bought in
1964.
Known as “Time Out,” the house painted “Covington blue”
was built by candy maker Joe Elmer within the past century, Reardon
said. Though most of the original house withstood the storm, its
porch columns and master bedroom addition were ripped off. Only a
mirror hung on the wall that now faced outward.
“We think a
tornado came through,” Reardon said, pointing out that there was
very little water damage in his house and no flooding in his
neighbor’s house, whose kitchen opened out to the yard with all of
its contents sprayed everywhere.
A tiki head carved from an
old stump kept watch on Reardon’s front porch and bore the sign:
“This building is not safe and its use or occupancy has been
prohibited by the building inspector.” Next to the smiling statue
rested a once-soggy stuffed dog and a water bowl – a scene Reardon
jokingly set up after at least three people asked him why he had
left what they thought was a dead dog lying on his
porch.
Less comical to Reardon on Thursday were the droves of
sightseers who paused one after another to gaze at his and
neighbors’ houses. Reardon rolled down his window as he drove by one
of them and tried to make clear why the drive-bys frustrated
him.
“I said, ‘Oh, you’re stopping to help?’” he said. “And
the woman’s face just went blank. I was like, ‘I got you.’”
A
few houses down, Carolyn Smith, 55, checked on the pile that last
week was her brother’s home. A row of azaleas stood alone, where
they once had framed the foundation. Behind them was a heap of
debris, most of it unrecognizable except for a toppled rocking
chair, a printer, a lamp and a filing cabinet.
Smith rushed
to evacuate from her own home in Mandeville’s Old Golden Shores when
her 80-year-old mother started showing signs of congestive heart
failure. She made it to a hospital in time, but now most of her
family’s memories lay in ruins on Lakeshore Drive.
“That’s
the history of our family, so that’s all gone,” Smith said. “We just
didn’t have enough time.”
Mandeville Mayor Eddie Price spoke
Thursday in more optimistic tones. He said buildings that were more
than 50 percent damaged will be required to be raised, but at least
one landmark might escape that fate: Donz Bar, a Civil War-era
building at Girod and Lakeshore Drive. The tidal surge gutted it,
taking out the bar and all the eclectic wind chimes hanging above
it.
Price said new structures will have to be built within
existing codes, so the lakefront strip has no chance of losing its
charm.
“We’re never going to look like a Navarre Beach,” he
said. “This is always a bedroom community. You’re never going to see
these high-rise condos. The flavor of Old Mandeville is not going to
change.”
Reporter Meghan Gordon can be reached at
meghangordon@hotmail.com.
Dry community offers base for cleanup, restoring
services
By Rob Nelson Staff
writer
Having escaped the devastating flooding from Hurricane
Katrina, Algiers will become the hub of city operations as the rest
of New Orleans recovers and rebuilds, City Councilwoman Jacquelyn
Brechtel Clarkson said Thursday.
Algiers, mainly a bedroom
community of about 60,000 residents, will house several services and
city employees from waterlogged New Orleans, Clarkson said. Algiers
residents who rode out Hurricane Katrina in their homes will be
allowed to stay, despite Mayor Ray Nagin's order that the rest of
New Orleans' residents evacuate.
“We’re going to run a lot of
city government out of Algiers, absolutely,” Clarkson said. “That’s
how we’ll be able to restore the rest of the city so
fast.”
Hundreds of cleanup workers are based at the Behrman
Sports Complex in Algiers, which was filled Thursday with
bulldozers, trucks and trailers, where the workers sleep. The
effort, run by Omni Pinnacle of Slidell, includes removing debris
and trash citywide, worker Craig Flucke said, adding that the
schedule called for crews to be finished in Algiers by Thursday
night.
Floodwaters are hampering cleanup in other parts of
the city, Flucke said. “If the water would go down, we’d be
rolling,” he said. At least one worker carried a gun at the site,
and Flucke said a security force began monitoring the complex
Thursday night. He said the crews would be in place for
months.
Kathy Lynn Honaker, executive director of the Algiers
Economic Development Foundation, said Algiers can easily
accommodate the companies and city services that could be shifted to
the area. Businesses might have to relocate to Algiers, and people
involved in reconstruction will create a need for housing that could
benefit the community, Honaker said in an interview from Pensacola,
Fla., where she fled the hurricane.
“Out of this terrible
tragedy, we have been given the opportunity to lead the way and
help the rest of New Orleans get things going again,” she
said.
But first, Algiers must get back to the basics. Except
for a handful of customers, power remained out in the area, and
Clarkson said she hopes the community’s electricity is fully
restored within two weeks.
One grid in Algiers has power,
which was turned on Wednesday night, because it includes the
Little Sisters of the Poor’s Mary Joseph Residence, which is housing
local and out-of-state firefighters, police and emergency officials.
That grid might also include some residential homes, Clarkson
said.
Downed power lines tangled with trees are still a fire
hazard, and water pressure in some neighborhoods might be too low to
fight such blazes, she said, advising residents to return to Algiers
only when they know electricity is back on at their
homes.
“Lights will go on grid by grid, but everybody has to
be patient,” she said, predicting that thousands of residents
remained in Algiers for the storm, including people who evacuated
from St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes.
Algiers also has
clean drinking water and working sewer service, Clarkson
said.
That won’t be enough, though, to keep Jan Butterfield
and her daughter, Shana Sanders, in their Algiers Point
neighborhood. With a trailer and pickup truck loaded with a mattress
perched on their front yard, the pair, Algiers residents for seven
years who fled to Alexandria during the storm, said they returned
Thursday to retrieve some of their belongings and are now headed for
Houston.
They had planned to move to Texas in a few years,
but Katrina changed that schedule. “Mother Nature decided for us,”
said Butterfield, who works for Tulane University, which has
transferred its administrative offices to Houston.
Even
though their house had little damage, both were certain of their
decision to move. But they said they would miss the community. “It
is ever so charming,” Butterfield said.
Emily Harville and
her husband, Chris Andrews, who also evacuated, never had time to
enjoy the neighborhood. The storm struck just three weeks after the
Chapel Hill, N.C., couple moved to Algiers Point. They came back to
gather some of their belongings.
Caught minutes before
starting to drive their packed car to Dallas, Harville said they
hoped to return to the area. “All of our stuff is here, so we’ll
definitely be back,” she said.
Whether money is a grant or loan yet to be
determined
By Mary Judice Business
writer
Many Louisiana and Mississippi residents displaced by
Hurricane Katrina and who still need emergency shelter may qualify
for a one-time $2,000 payment per household from the Federal
Emergency Management Agency.
The temporary housing program is
an attempt to get immediate assistance to those stricken by the
storm. However, they may not get their money for 10 days or
so.
The assistance applies to those who fled as a result of
the storm, either renters or home owners, and are still living in a
shelter, a hotel or with family. The money is designed to handle
disaster needs, including transportation, clothing, housing and
food.
The payment effectively would be an early draw from the
benefits that evacuees eventually could get from FEMA. The $2,000
will be deducted from the total package the evacuee would qualify to
receive.
To qualify, evacuees must register with FEMA at
www.fema.gov or by calling (800) 621-3362. FEMA has not established
a center in Baton Rouge to take applications.
A call late
Thursday to the hotline could not be completed because of the volume
of calls.
So far, more than 400,000 people have registered
for assistance by -phone and online. The call centers are open 24
hours a day.
To make an application, an individual needs to
provide a social security number, insurance information and a bank
account routing number. FEMA said its staff will work around missing
information.
The assistance is available to the uninsured as
well as to those who have homeowners or renters insurance and
may have received a check for emergency expenses from their
insurer, said Win Henderson, a spokesperson for FEMA.
He said
policy holders with a policy rider for "additional living
expenses" do not qualify for the benefit. Typically, such riders
are on policies for homes in the $1 million range.
Whether
the payment qualifies as a grant or a loan that must be repaid
depends on the individual's financial circumstances and the federal
package he qualifies for. That can't be determined until the
applicant goes through the FEMA process.
Those who receive
the money but later discover they don't qualify for it as a grant
must repay it.
For those who do qualify for the money,
Henderson said the $2,000 is not taxable by the Internal Revenue
Service.
Evacuees in the Astrodome in Houston will receive a
debit card from which they can withdraw the $2,000, David Passey
of FEMA said in Baton Rouge on Thursday.
All other evacuees
will receive their money by check, mailed to their current address,
or by electronic deposit into their bank account.
Passey
said those applying should expect to receive payment in 10 days
to two weeks. Approximately 24 hours after applying, evacuees
may check to see the status of their request.
Facing his own personal storm, Bush reassures
evacuees
Congress OKs another $51.8 billion in
aid
By Bill Walsh Washington
bureau
WASHINGTON -- Under fire for his response to Hurricane
Katrina, President Bush took to the airwaves Thursday to assure the
tens of thousands of Gulf Coast evacuees that his administration was
moving quickly to help them in the aftermath.
In an unusual
midday address, a somber Bush also declared Sept. 16 a national day
of prayer and remembrance for the dead and those who have been
displaced by the storm.
"The people who have been hurt by
this storm need to know that the government is going to be with you
for the long haul," Bush said in a seven-minute address from the Old
Executive Office Building next to the White House. He took no
questions.
Polls show that the American public is less than
enthused with the president's response to the Aug. 29 storm and the
resulting flooding. When CBS polled 725 adults Tuesday and
Wednesday, it found that 38 percent approved of Bush's handling of
the storm's aftermath. Nearly half, 49 percent, said they had little
or no confidence in the federal government's ability to respond to
natural disasters.
As the president was speaking, Congress
was moving toward passage of a $51.8 billion aid package targeting
relief and recovery efforts in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
The House passed the measure 410-11. One of those voting against was
Rep. Thomas Tancredo, R-Colo., who urged Republican leaders to keep
the money away from politicians in Louisiana.
"The question
is not whether Congress should provide for those in need, but
whether state and local officials who have been derelict in their
duty should be trusted with the money," Tancredo wrote in a letter
to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., Majority Leader Tom DeLay,
R-Texas, and House appropriators. "Their record during Katrina and
the long history of public corruption in Louisiana convinces me they
should not."
The Senate unanimously approved the measure late
Thursday.
The assistance is in addition to $10.5 billion OK'd
by Congress last week for a disaster whose price tag is still
unknown. The administration said it planned to return to Congress in
a few weeks with yet another financial assistance
request.
Just to make sure the money -- the bulk of which is
directed to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to spend as it
sees fit -- isn't misspent, Congress added $15 million for
audits.
In a spurt of Katrina-related lawmaking Thursday, the
House also increased to $3.5 billion the amount available for FEMA
to pay flood insurance claims, and it passed a bill by Rep. Bobby
Jindal, R-Kenner, to grant the secretary of education authority to
give loan repayment waivers to students forced out of college by the
storm.
Despite the bipartisan good will surrounding efforts
to help hurricane victims, a sharp divide has opened over
investigating the Bush administration's response to it. Democrats
said they would boycott a Republican-led committee proposed by
Hastert and Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist. Democrats called
for an independent probe such as the one that investigated the
government's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks.
"I do not believe that the committee proposed by
Speaker Hastert and Sen. Frist is in the best interests of the
American people," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.
In his speech,
Bush urged people displaced by the storm to sign up for
$2,000-per-household in emergency assistance that the Federal
Emergency Management Agency unveiled Wednesday. People can register
over the phone at 1-800-621-FEMA or on the Internet at www.fema.gov.
Bush said more than 400,000 families have already registered but
that tens of thousands more hadn't.
Bush also said he was
making it easier for displaced people to get public assistance by
granting "evacuee status" to those from parishes declared disaster
areas, including the entire metropolitan New Orleans area. The
special designation will allow people to apply for and collect
benefits through a host of public assistance programs without the
paperwork normally required. The programs include Medicaid;
temporary assistance for needy families; child care; mental health
services and substance abuse treatment; food stamps; housing; foster
care; women's, infants' and children's nutrition; school lunch;
unemployment compensation and job training.
N.Y., La. legislators agree that obstacles are greater
this time
By Bruce Alpert Washington
bureau
WASHINGTON -- Four years ago, Sen. Charles Schumer,
D-N.Y., remembers the predictions that businesses and residents
wouldn't return to downtown Manhattan after the World Trade Center
towers were toppled in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks.
But they did, along with a lot of
new businesses and people, thanks to a series of tax credits and
other inducements. Appearing with Rep. William Jefferson, D-New
Orleans, at a news conference Thursday, Schumer predicted the same
could be true for New Orleans, with the right mix of government aid
and incentives.
"Everyone forgets there
was a real view that downtown could just be hollowed out and nobody
would want to be there ever again," Schumer said. "And we decided
that we had to move quickly ... to give people hope so they don't
get stuck in their head, ‘I got to go somewhere else.’
"
What worked, Schumer said, was $20
billion in federal aid, grants of as much as $12,000 to cover up to
30 percent of rental or mortgage costs over two years, as much as
$1,500 for parents with children who made at least a one-year
commitment to live in lower Manhattan, and tax-exempt financing that
cost $1.2 billion but leveraged tens of billions of dollars in new
construction.
The trick, Schumer said, was to do
everything at once: the residential units, the shopping and
businesses, and transportation facilities.
"People weren't going to move back unless they knew there were
supermarkets and dry cleaners, but dry cleaners and supermarkets
wouldn’t be open unless they knew there were people," Schumer
said.
Jefferson concedes that the
obstacles facing New Orleans are greater than New York’s after Sept.
11, 2001.
New York had part of its downtown
evacuated, but all of New Orleans is under evacuation orders. New
Orleans’ airport, schools, many government offices and thousands of
businesses aren't functioning, and that was never the case in New
York.
But Jefferson said he thinks the
incentives used to lure people and businesses back to lower
Manhattan can do the same for those who until Hurricane Katrina
called New Orleans home.
"At the end of
the day, we want to see our people come back home, reunited with
their culture, reunited with their families, reunited in a place
they can identify as their home,” Jefferson
said.
Incentives, including job training
and help with rent and mortgage payments, could bring people back to
New Orleans, and tax incentives could convince businesses to return,
as well, Jefferson said.
Schumer said
there's no doubt that restoring New Orleans is more of a challenge,
and therefore the incentives might have to be
bigger.
"If you know, 25 percent to 50 percent
rental assistance worked in New York, you may need 50 percent to 75
percent or even 100 percent at certain times in New Orleans,"
Schumer said.
But he said that incentive
programs need to be put in place quickly.
"Financial incentives brought people back to places, brought
businesses back to places and were a lifeline for small businesses
that would have gone under," Schumer said of the New York
experience.
Jefferson and Schumer said that Congress,
while divided on party lines over how much blame to place on the
Bush administration for the inadequate rescue efforts, generally
agrees that New Orleans should be rebuilt. House Speaker Dennis
Hastert, R-Ill., said last week that it isn’t necessarily a good
idea to rebuild New Orleans, but since then put out a modified
statement that he only meant the city should be rebuilt so it isn’t
as vulnerable to hurricanes and flooding.
“I haven’t seen
anyone in the House, from the most conservative to the most liberal
member, who isn’t at this moment behind this idea,” Jefferson said.
Saints, two cities remain on hold concerning home
games
NFL's decision on playing site may come in a
week
By Mike Triplett Staff writer
SAN
ANTONIO - Saints players have expressed a desire to play all the
team's home games in San Antonio this season. However, like the
rest of the Saints organization and the cities of San Antonio and
Baton Rouge, the players remain in a wait-and-see mode.
Although Saints players, coaches and management can give
their input, the decision on where the team will play its home games
is ultimately up to NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue.
The
league has expressed its desire to play games in Baton Rouge. But,
with so many logistics still to be worked out in the city, which is
consumed with relief efforts, a decision on the Saints' games may
have to wait into next week, if not longer. NFL spokesman Greg
Aiello said the league hopes to make a decision as soon as possible,
but he had no updates on the situation by late Thursday.
"I
have no idea," Saints coach Jim Haslett said after being asked when
he expects to hear a decision. "I know they expressed their concerns
to (NFL Players Association executive director) Gene Upshaw, and we
expressed our concerns to Commissioner Tagliabue. I don't think you
have to be a brain surgeon to figure out that you'd like to play the
games where you're practicing."
Asked if he is happy with
how the league is handling the issue, he said, "I don't know yet."
Upshaw met with Saints players during their team meetings in
San Antonio on Wednesday, and players said they were unified in
their stance.
Receiver Donte' Stallworth said the players
would like to have some kind of home-field advantage, as well as a
place to call home every other weekend. He said playing in Baton
Rouge is a nice idea, but he said there are plenty of displaced
Saints fans scattered throughout Texas, which is another good reason
to play in the Alamo City.
Saints and San Antonio officials
also said they have not heard anything new from the league. But just
in case, the Alamodome cleared the Oct. 2 date, when the Saints are
scheduled to play host to the Buffalo Bills, by moving the city's
Builder's Showcase to a later date.
The Alamodome director
Mike Abington said not to read anything into that move, however,
because he has not heard anything from the NFL or the Saints. He
said he was just doing his "due diligence" so the Alamodome is ready
and able if the Saints give the word.
"We know the Saints'
schedule, and we know there's a possibility - some may say a
probability - that the Saints will play games in the Alamodome,"
Abington said. "We're preparing our schedule just in case.
"If we don't, and they should call and we have not cleared
the calendar, then we wouldn't be able to play the games here."
Abington said the last time he spoke with Saints officials was
when team owner Tom Benson toured the facility last Thursday or
Friday to "get his mind's eye refreshed." The Saints played a
preseason game in the Alamodome against Minnesota in 2001.
The city of San Antonio has made every effort to accommodate
the Saints, but Mayor Phil Hardberger has not vocally pursued the
team while concentrating on the city's relief efforts.
Former mayor Henry Cisneros contacted the NFL on Wednesday
to try to assure the league that the Saints would draw significant
crowds in San Antonio. Reports have indicated that the NFL was
concerned about low attendance in San Antonio, but Aiello said
earlier this week that was not the case.
Some have
speculated the league might not want the Saints to develop a fan
base in San Antonio because of Benson's reported interested in
moving his team here permanently. But no one has acknowledged that.
"This is a great opportunity
for the city, and we need to seize the moment, jump into it with all
four legs,'' said Red McCombs. That's Red (The Vulture) McCombs,
former owner of the Minnesota Vikings, speaking from his hometown,
which happens to be San Antonio.
"Every effort needs to be
made to tie up the Saints for this season, including having people
stand in front of the Alamodome singing, 'When the Saints Come
Marching In.' ''
What class.
In a stricken, evacuated,
underwater New Orleans, they've only begun to count the dead, and
here you have a former NFL owner dancing on the coffin, telling the
San Antonio Express-News he believes a permanent move of Tom
Benson's franchise would be supported by league owners.
Red
The Vulture. What a sleazeball.
There's a time for
everything. This is not the time to talk about moving a franchise -
permanently - from a city that has served as the host of nine Super
Bowls.
This is a time to open your arms to those who have
lost homes, lost loved ones, lost everything, which is exactly what
the city of San Antonio has done.
It has been open arms to
Tom Benson's football team, in the way of practice facilities, also
to an estimated 12,000 of the displaced, in the way of shelters,
rooms for the elderly, tons and tons of food and runaway
charity.
In San Antonio, you have someone like Famous
Washington, a pharmacist who grew up in New Orleans, sheltering 16
members of his extended family, from 9 months old to 77 years
old.
In San Antonio, you also have Red (The Vulture)
McCombs.
Millionaire McCombs, a longtime friend of Benson,
bought the Vikings a few years ago and unloaded them after failing
to get a new stadium.
Now he's saying, if Benson wants to
make a permanent move to Alamo City, he'll get the green light from
the owners because, as McCombs puts it, "Tom sits on the management
council and has a lot of clout.''
What do I think?
In
the post-Katrina world, I have little doubt Benson would like to
relocate to San Antonio.
Forever.
But what about Paul
Tagliabue, commissioner of the NFL?
That's the billion-dollar
question.
Because a vote of the owners would stop a move,
because the commissioner owns the ultimate clout, Tagliabue sits in
an emperor's chair.
A city that has been the crown jewel
among Super Bowl hosts has suffered the greatest catastrophe in the
history of this country, assuming you place what happened on 8/29
above 9/11.
All of which leaves the commissioner facing
several questions:
How crucial, how fair to the future of the
NFL, is keeping the Saints in Louisiana over the short term, in New
Orleans over the long haul?
If it turns out Katrina KO'd the
Superdome as the Saints' home, where can the team play on an interim
basis while a new home is being built?
What part -
financially - would the league play in a "new''
Superdome?
Given the circumstances, what part might the
federal government be willing to play in such a
revival?
Looking down the road, waiting for a renovated Dome,
or a new one, in New New Orleans, all sorts of options would face
the gypsy Saints of, let's say, 2006 and 2007.
Perhaps
playing all home games in Tiger Stadium?
Perhaps scattering
them among Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Mobile, Jackson,
Miss.?
And San Antonio?
Keep in mind, while the
(North) Carolina Panthers, who the Saints play Sunday, were waiting
to move into their new home in Charlotte, their interim home was
across the state line, in Clemson, S.C.
Who knows what the
future holds.
In a long-term manner of speaking, Katrina has
made it a moment of truth.
For Tom Benson.
For Paul
Tagliabue.
For the moment, my message to Red (The Vulture)
McCombs is simple: Stop doing the boogie on a fleur de lis
grave.
It's unbecoming.
Let's see how it all plays
out.
New Orleans is down.
But not out.
How do I
know?
Well, Paul Prudhomme is planning to show up Friday,
leading a caravan of trucks to his offices in Elmwood.
"We've
got generators, food and trailers, and we'll be in a parking lot
cooking for anyone who needs it,'' he said. "We're going home,
baby.''
Smitten last season, Panthers expected to rise
again
Receiver Smith tops key injured players who have
returned
By Mike Triplett Staff
writer
SAN ANTONIO - Two seasons ago, the Carolina Panthers
were on top of the NFL world, reaching the Super Bowl before a
narrow loss to the New England Patriots.
Then the
injury-riddled team hit bottom last year, starting 1-7, before
bouncing back up and finishing 7-9. The Panthers were making a
playoff run until a crushing 21-18 loss to the Saints in Week
17.
No one knows what is in store for the tumultuous team
this year, but for the record, many prognosticators are predicting
an NFC South championship and perhaps another Super Bowl
run.
The Panthers will get their first test Sunday against
that same Saints team in that same Bank of America
Stadium.
Carolina quarterback Jake Delhomme said last
season's finish was a "huge motivation" in the offseason, but added,
"You've got to understand, last year after losing in the Super Bowl,
that had motivation, too."
"I think last year, too, we
certainly had high expectations and people had high expectations for
us. We had even higher," said Delhomme, who said this year is no
different. "Next thing you know, we have injuries that start to pop
up, but there was no doubt that we were going to go into every game
and we were going to play well and win. I think that's just what you
have to have. That's just one thing that I enjoyed so much about
last year. We started 1-7, but guys didn't point fingers, coaches
didn't point fingers. "Nobody on offense looked at defense.
Nobody on defense looked at offense. We just weren't getting it done
collectively as a team. You just stick together and fight, and they
see how you practice and prepare for one another, and it just kind
of turns out that makes it rewarding in the end."
Panthers
coach John Fox said he is neither pleased nor worried about the high
expectations. He said the adage around his team is that "you're
never as bad as they say you are, and you're never as good as they
say you are."
But there is certainly reason for optimism in
Carolina, which boasts one of the strongest rushing attacks and most
physical defensive fronts in the NFL.
The Panthers return
receiver Steve Smith, whose leg was broken in Week 1 last year, and
have back defensive tackle Kris Jenkins and tailbacks Stephen Davis
and Deshaun Foster, among others who were hurt last
year.
"They've got a lot of things going for them," Saints
coach Jim Haslett said of the Panthers. "They're a well-coached
football team, first of all. They do a great job running the
football; they've got good running backs, a good line. Steve Smith
coming back gives them a big-play guy. I love (receiver Keary)
Colbert; he's kind of a go-to guy. And their defense is solid. And
they don't make a lot of mistakes.
"So I can see why people
would pick them. But we feel we'll be in the mix with them, and it's
going to be a heck of a game."
RELIEF EFFORTS - The
Saints are now accepting contributions to their Hurricane Katrina
Relief Fund, either through www.saintshurricanefund.org or by mail
at Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund c/o New Orleans Saints, 9613
Interline, Baton Rouge, LA 70809.
Checks should be made
payable to The New Orleans Saints Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund. An
independent Board of Directors will be formed to allocate and
administer these funds to the affected people.
Team owner Tom
Benson opened the fund by making a $100,000 donation.
"As a
native of New Orleans, my heart goes out to everyone in our city,
state and region that was victimized by this horrific natural
disaster," Benson said in a statement. "Our organization remains
committed to being a leader in the rebuilding process and helping
the people of the Gulf South. The establishment of this fund is a
first step in that rebuilding process."
The NFL also
announced that Sept. 18-19 will be designated "Hurricane Relief
Weekend," culminating with the Saints-Giants game in New York on
Monday night.
Every NFL game that weekend will include
elements that will highlight and contribute to the national relief
effort, with assistance from the NFL's television network partners.
There also will be a fund-raising telethon from ABC's Times Square
studio in New York that will be incorporated into the Monday-night
broadcasts of the Saints game and the Redskins-Cowboys
game.
The NFL announced that the league, its owners, teams
and players have contributed nearly $8 million so far to Hurricane
Katrina relief. The league also produced a national public service
announcement to promote donations to the American Red Cross and the
United Way, featuring Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and Steve
McNair.
Haslett and players Joe Horn and Wayne Gandy also
filmed a television message to promote the Saints' fund.
And
this weekend, the Panthers announced they are giving 350 tickets to
Hurricane Katrina evacuees who are registered with the Red Cross at
the Charlotte Coliseum. The Panthers are also giving out $10 food
vouchers for each person to use at the game.
The tickets came
out of the players' allotments and the unused portion the Saints
returned. About 800 evacuees are in Charlotte, with about 400
staying at the Coliseum.
NEW AGENT - Fourth-year
receiver Donte' Stallworth recently signed with high-profile agent
Drew Rosenhaus, but he isn't asking for a new contract from the
Saints just yet. Rosenhaus, who was in San Antonio visiting clients
Stallworth, Mike McKenzie and Dwight Smith, said he expects
Stallworth to have a breakout season. Stallworth is signed through
2007, with a voidable option on the last year.
GRANT IS
GONE - The Saints did not sign linebacker Cie Grant to the
practice squad, as was originally planned. The former third-round
draft choice played in only seven career games with the team because
of chronic knee problems. In his place, the Saints added receiver
Levon Thomas, an undrafted rookie from Georgia Tech, to the practice
squad. Thomas spent training camp with the Indianapolis
Colts.
Meanwhile, the Denver Broncos signed former Saints
quarterback Kliff Kingsbury to their practice squad. That role was
filled last year by former LSU quarterback Matt Mauck, who joined
the Tennessee Titans' practice squad this year.
INJURY
UPDATE - Saints linebacker James Allen (knee) will return to the
field Sunday after missing all four preseason games, but he will not
start. Defensive tackle Brian Young (knee) is expected to start
after missing the last two preseason games. Willie Whitehead will be
the other starting defensive tackle.
Even with an extra week to ponder
the decision, LSU coach Les Miles apparently has no plans to
announce which quarterback will start Saturday's game against
Arizona State.
Miles was not scheduled to meet with the media
on Thursday, and LSU sports information director Michael Bonnette
said there would be no statement issued on the choice.
Originally, Miles pegged Thursday Sept. 1 as his
announcement date, but that got pushed back a week because of the
postponement of the North Texas opener. At his Monday press
conference, Miles said more than once that he'd let his decision be
known this Thursday.
Tigers face tall task in stopping Sun Devils'
Keller
Quarterback's versatility poses multiple threats to
LSU's defense
By Jim Kleinpeter Staff
writer
BATON ROUGE - As debuts go, it's hard to beat what
Arizona State quarterback Sam Keller did in his first
start.
He stepped in for record-setting teammate Andrew
Walter and won the Sun Bowl MVP award in leading Arizona State to a
27-23 victory over Purdue.
He picked up where he left off
with 14 completions in 24 attempts for 208 yards and four touchdowns
last week in a 63-16 victory over Temple in the season
opener.
But Keller's thus far seamless transition will get a
real test - as will the No. 15-ranked Sun Devils - when Arizona
State hosts LSU on Saturday in Tempe.
Walter, who owns every
major passing record at Arizona State and holds the Pac-10 touchdown
record, was injured in the regular-season finale against Arizona.
Keller finished that game completing eight of 13 passes for 94 yards
and a touchdown, and then dissected Purdue, hitting 25 of 45 throws
for 370 yards and three scores. He was savvy in driving the Sun
Devils 80 yards for the winning touchdown late in the
game.
He entered the 2005 season with a veteran offensive
line and an improved running game, but also an important
intangible.
"Those last two games did volumes for my
confidence as a quarterback and strengthened the chemistry of our
team," Keller said. "Everyone thought Andrew going down was going to
be a really big deal and it wasn't because our offense was so well
prepared because of the way our coaches put us in position to win.
We didn't skip a beat. Those games, the game we just played was good
we got the kinks out. Now we're going to be tested on a national
level against a national powerhouse."
"Sam was always working
hard behind Andrew and it's showing now," said Arizona State
preseason All-American wide receiver Derek Hagan. "He's a great
quarterback and it's showing now."
Keller knows he can
further his development with a strong effort Saturday against a
seasoned LSU defense, which has seven starters back from last
season. He has the advantage of working at home instead of a
raucous, deafening Tiger Stadium. The game was moved from Baton
Rouge to Tempe so as not to interfere with Hurricane Katrina relief
efforts.
"They're big and fast and probably the most athletic
I'm going to see, or right up there, in college," he said. "They
bring the blitzes. They'll try to smash us in the mouth early.
That's what we're prepared for."
LSU is preparing for Keller,
6 feet 4 and 233 pounds, who is the son of former Michigan
Wolverines linebacker Mike Keller. He's not a great threat to run,
but is nimble enough to avoid the rush in the pocket, where he can
deliver any manner of pass - the lob, the down-and-out, the deep out
and the bomb. He has also shown good poise.
"He makes good
decisions, he moves the ball around and he knows what he's supposed
to do with the ball," LSU coach Les Miles said. "He's a good
quarterback."
Said LSU safety Jessie Daniels: "On tape it
looks like he can throw every kind of pass there is."
Keller
rated himself a six out of 10 on his performance against Temple.
Along with his four touchdown passes he threw two interceptions.
Keller was also protected by a strong running game.
"Sam was
not as sharp as he usually practices," Arizona State coach Dick
Koetter said. "Some of the things that didn't look very good to you
or to me were not Sam's fault. We had receivers guess on a couple of
plays and they guessed wrong, which is disappointing to me. There is
no need to guess against a team like Temple. I thought Sam made some
great throws. The second touchdown pass to Hagan was a beautiful
throw, his best pass of the night."
Said Keller: "I had a
couple of forced throws because I was getting greedy out there.
That's stuff that can easily be fixed. The running game was an
excellent surprise."
Keller's play against LSU may be telling
on the remainder of the Sun Devils' season. In their first four
seasons under Koetter, the Sun Devils alternated winning and losing
records, but are coming off a 9-3 record last year. That earned them
a No. 20 preseason ranking and another good season could earn
Koetter a raise and a new contract.
"My opinion is biased but
his team can do anything it wants," Keller said.
"Everything
is going in the right direction. This team is on the
verge."
BATON ROUGE - The LSU kickoff time for its scheduled
game with Tennessee Sept. 24 in Tiger Stadium won't be changed once
it is set by television, SEC commissioner Mike Slive indicated
Thursday.
Slive, who visited the LSU campus with Georgia
Chancellor Michael Adams to study the relief effort put forth by LSU
for the victims of Hurrricane Katrina, acknowledged that Tennessee
had asked for an early kickoff to allow fans time to find lodging
after the game. The influx of storm refugees into Baton Rouge last
week has made hotel accommodations scarce. The hotels have said they
would not displace refugees even for people with prior
reservations.
Tennessee sold its full visitors allotment of
8,000 tickets.
"The home team can play the game when it wants
to play the game," Slive said. "I understand everyone's concerns.
LSU needs to get back to a sense of normalcy."
Kickoff time
has not been officially scheduled but it is highly-probable that
ESPN, which has first choice of SEC games for that date, will choose
it for the 6:45 p.m. time slot. CBS has the second choice for its
2:30 p.m. slot.
LSU chancellor Sean O'Keefe said "all trends
are positive" that the game will be played. LSU postponed its Sept.
3 season opener against North Texas to a later date and moved this
week's home game against Arizona State to Tempe, Ariz., because the
Pete Maravich Assembly Center next to Tiger Stadium was being used
as a triage area for hospitalized refugees and makeshift morgue.
Most of the patients have been moved elsewhere and the area is no
longer restricted, though helicopters were still taking off and
landing at the track stadium next door.
Louisiana horsemen are seeking at least 40 racing days
at either Louisiana Downs or Evangeline Downs to make up for the
cancellation of the Fair Grounds racing season, Sean Alfortish,
president of the Louisiana Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective
Association, said Thursday.
Last week, Churchill Downs
officials told horsemen that a plan is under consideration to shift
19 or 20 New Orleans racing days to Louisiana Downs for an
abbreviated season in December. The Fair Grounds was scheduled to
run from Nov. 24 through March 26.
Alfortish said that a
short December season would be "a total waste.'' Also, he said,
Kentucky horsemen wouldn't bother to come to Louisiana for such a
short season.
"As far as I'm concerned, 20 days is a dead
issue,'' he said. "We're not going to back it. We're not going to go
for it. "I pretty much have expressed to (Fair Grounds president)
Randy Soth that the HBPA's official position is, we want to go for
nothing less than a 40- to 50-day meet at $250,000 per day in purse
giveaway. Louisiana Downs is very accommodating. Evangeline Downs is
accommodating as well.''
Soth couldn't be reached for
comment. He was at Churchill Downs on Thursday and met with company
officials about the situation, said Churchill spokesperson Julie
Koenig.
"I know that we're still working to find some common
ground with the Louisiana horsemen,'' Koenig said. "That's really
where we're at.''
She also said that Soth, Fair Grounds
director of racing Ben Huffman and Donnie Richardson, Churchill's
senior vice president in charge of racing at all the company's
tracks, "are trying to find a solution that works for both
sides.''
Alfortish said he's proposing a transferred season
that would begin Thanksgiving Day, which is the traditional opening
day, and run at least until the end of February. By law, the Fair
Grounds must run 80 days in 20 consecutive weeks to keep its racing
license, but Alfortish said that the LHBPA would support any waivers
needed for the proposed season.
"If they give us what we're
asking for, it is a viable solution,'' Alfortish said. "I will not
accept racing at the Fair Grounds anywhere else than in the state of
Louisiana.''
The Fair Grounds has enough money in its purse
account to cover purses for the proposed season, he said. The track
has $1.8 million from underpayment of purses from the past Fair
Grounds season, he said. Purse money generated from off-track
betting and video poker during the offseason swells the available
amount for purses to about $8 million, he said. Also, more money for
purses would be raised from betting - on-track and from
simulcasting.
A Thanksgiving opening is important to show the
spirit of the Fair Grounds, Alfortish said.
"Our horsemen
want to do it,'' he said. "They're ready to do it. More importantly,
they need to do it.''
DALLAS - Tulane's home stadium,
at least for one weekend, will be Shreveport's Independence Stadium.
The Sept. 17 game against Mississippi State, originally scheduled
for the Superdome, will kickoff at 7 p.m.
"We're proud of
the facility that we have and that we can mobilize and put on a
event such as this in such short notice," said Ken Antee, chief
administrative officer for the city of Shreveport. "We'll be ready
to accommodate whatever crowds we need to."
Tulane still is
looking at possible other locales for its remaining five home games,
Athletic Director Rick Dickson said. A former coach, Dickson wasn't
using coachspeak when he said, "We're going to take this one game at
a time."
By this time next week, he said, he hopes to have a
site for the Oct. 1 game against Southeastern
Louisiana.
Tulane's football team evacuated to Dallas and
will spend the season based at Louisiana Tech in Ruston. After the
Mississippi State game, the Green Wave will return to Dallas to play
Southern Methodist on Sept. 24.
Dickson said earlier this
week the city of Mobile has offered Ladd-Pebbles Stadium. And he
said Florida State athletic director Dave Hart called him about the
possibility of Tulane playing some of its games on that
campus.
"We're wide open," Dickson said on
Thursday.
Mississippi State, which has six players from areas
hit by Katrina, has been understanding of Tulane's situation. It
will waive its guaranteed fee of $200,000 and is encouraging fans
who purchased tickets but cannot attend the game to forego a refund
and donate the ticket cost to Tulane Athletics.
Tulane was
offered Shreveport's stadium free of charge and will receive all
proceeds from the game operations.
Also, the game will be
televised nationally by College Sports Television, which has
announced that all commercial proceeds are being donated to
specially created funds focused on restoring the New Orleans area.
Monies will be divided between Conference USA's Relief Fund and
CSTV's Field & Dreams Rebuilding Fund.
Instead of
spending Friday night in Shreveport, Mississippi State's football
team will fly into town Saturday afternoon and fly out that
night.
"We don't want to displace any person that's evacuated
to a hotel," Athletic Director Larry Templeton said. "And the other
issue is we will bring our pep band and not our full band. And we
will keep the cheerleaders and the band in Vicksburg on Friday night
and bus over there Saturday.
"We only send the band to a
couple of road games a year, and New Orleans was one of the trips
they were going to go on. But we decided it was best not to bring
seven busses and take up hotel rooms for 175 kids."
Antee
said his city's stadium is available for the other five games. And
he is confident Shreveport will promote all the games to its local
football fans.
"Our media is committed to put it out in the
community that the community needs to step up and support Tulane,
because the program's basically devastated," Antee said. "It's a way
our community can take them under their wing."
Shreveport
Mayor Keith Hightower said the city "is happy to be in a position to
assist Tulane during this very trying time." "We are encouraging
our citizens to support the Green Wave by attending the game and are
asking our corporate citizens to help offset the loss of home game
revenues in New Orleans," Hightower said.
Tickets for the
game are $35 for sideline general admission seats and $20 for end
zone general admission. They will be sold via Ticketmaster at
www.Ticketmaster.com, at Ticketmaster outlets in Louisiana and
Mississippi, or can be bought by calling 800-488-5252. Tickets will
go on sale Friday at noon.
Tulane season ticket-holders who
have not received their tickets and will be attending the game
should notify the Green Wave athletic department via e-mail at
tulane7@c-usa.org.
Dickerson trying to get Wave basketball team
settled in
Housed at Texas A&M, Tulane, head coach seeks
to adjust, win
By Benjamin Hochman Staff
writer
DALLAS - Every day, his 4-year-old son asks him: "Dad,
when are we going home?"
And every day, Dave Dickerson
tiptoes around the truth without saying the only thing he knows: "I
don't know." Dickerson, the Tulane men's basketball coach hired
April 1, took his family to his native South Carolina to escape
Hurricane Katrina. Now, dad is in College Station, Texas, with his
surrogate family. His immediate family will soon join him in this
foreign city, just like they did five months ago when they moved to
New Orleans.
"As far as our house and belongings (in New
Orleans), we have no word on that, and there's no time in the
perceivable future that we can get back and assess our damages,"
Dickerson said. "But we do have each other, and that's the most
important thing."
Now Dickerson has united his basketball
family at Texas A&M. These players, including one from New
Orleans, will try to attain normalcy while attending classes,
practicing basketball and living their college lives in an
unfamiliar setting. Dickerson has to do the same
thing.
"Part of being a basketball coach is being a surrogate
father, being a mentor and leader through the good times and the bad
times," said Dickerson, previously an assistant at Maryland. "The
thing I have to do is be myself and be the person that got me to
this point - and don't change. Our players, more than ever, need
someone that's going to be consistent, be honest and be there for
them. As far as growing up, I think I've grown maybe 50 years the
last four or five days, but it's going to be a situation 10 years
from now that we can look back on and know that we grew as
people.
"The emotions, that's what we're trying to deal with
now. Quite frankly, I think everyone needs to take a self-check to
take a realistic snapshot of where each other is. And I think I need
to do that, also. In order for me to be an effective surrogate
father, I have to make sure that I'm emotionally stable."
The
women's basketball team is across the state in Lubbock, Texas. Like
their male counterparts, they all arrived on campus Wednesday or
Thursday, leaping into Texas Tech classrooms the same day they
arrived.
"We were a little skeptical and worried at first,"
Wave junior Jami Montagnino said. "We didn't know what classes we
were taking or when we were practicing … but everything has gotten a
lot better since we have gotten here."
"They are a week
behind in class, so they have a lot of catching up to do," Tulane
women's coach Lisa Stockton said. "But I think just being in one
spot and knowing where we are going to be is going to be a big
relief for us. I think they will be able to relax. I hear there is a
football game this weekend, so that sounds good."
The men's
team is moving into University Apartments near Texas A&M's
campus. The last player to arrive, Kory Castine, got to campus
Thursday. Castine is from Marrero, and his mother, Desiree, is a
registered nurse. She stayed in New Orleans during Hurricane
Katrina. For 48 frightening hours, Castine didn't hear from his
mother. He finally touched base with her - so did Dickerson - and
Castine, a power forward, left for Texas.
Tulane men's
basketball is expected to set up its offices in the available space
at the Aggies' Koldus Building near its athletic complex.
The
women's team has eight non-conference home games scheduled,
including Nov. 28 against LSU. And the men's team is supposed to
open its regular season Nov. 12 by hosting Loyola. It has seven
non-conference home games scheduled before Conference USA play -
including UNO on Nov. 22 and Texas Christian on Dec. 7 in an
ESPN-televised game. Texas Tech and Texas A&M have offered their
home facilities to the Green Wave, but a decision has not been made
where Tulane will play home games.
"Right now, as a head
basketball coach, I'm not worried about the basketball part of it,"
Dickerson said. "I'm worried about our guys getting into classes,
getting into some kind of meal plan and our guys being able to cope
with what they just went through - so we can move
forward."
Dickerson said counseling is "imperative." He knows
its benefits. When he was a freshman, he dealt with the death of
Maryland teammate Len Bias, the college star drafted into the NBA
who died because of drug use.
"It's important that we carry
the torch and be a positive image for the university and the city of
New Orleans," Dickerson said. "But it's so more important that we
can get through it as people. The humanistic side is the most
important part of it."
On Thursday, Dickerson took a deep
breath when asked if the goal this season was "to survive." Tulane's
basketball team, in its first year in a new system, will be
transplanted for, at minimum, a semester, while sharing practice
facilities with another team. "But I don't see myself going into
this basketball season just trying to survive," said Dickerson, who
has never been on a staff of a losing team in 15 years. "That's just
not my nature. There are some things that we have to get
accomplished first before we think about the wins and losses, and I
understand that.
"What I have to do as a head coach is step
back a little bit and embrace my players, embrace my coaching staff,
and make sure we're OK as people first. But I don't think I'll ever
look at this as a survival thing. I don't think you can go into a
game or a season just trying to survive. You got to think you can
win every game, and you have got to sell your team on
that."
Staff writer Fred Robinson contributed to this
report.
Tree loss estimated at 1,000; 40 percent of course
under water
By Brian Allee-Walsh Staff
writer
The PGA Tour plans to send a team of agronomists to
assess the turf damage at TPC of Louisiana, the first step perhaps
in rebuilding the golf course in time for the Zurich Classic of New
Orleans in April.
That decision was made Thursday at a
meeting attended by PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem and
high-ranking officials from the PGA Tour, Zurich and the Fore!Kids
Foundation in Ponte Vedra, Fla.
Approximately 40 percent of
the TPC of Louisiana remains underwater from Hurricane Katrina,
which struck southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29. The
Category 4 storm also uprooted an estimated 1,000 trees on the
par-72, 7,400-yard layout designed by Pete Dye.
"It's our
hope to get in there next week if we can,'' said Henry Hughes, chief
of operations for the PGA Tour. "We assured them that we are working
hand-in-glove to do the best we can for the event in New
Orleans.
"We did not form any conclusions. We basically put
together a path of action to find the information we need to
determine what actions we can take.''
Mike Rodrigue, chairman
of the board for the Fore!Kids Foundation, said he remains hopeful
that the TPC of Louisiana can be restored in time to host the
tournament April 27-30.
"It's too early to say exactly what
they're going to do until they can assess the damage to the golf
course,'' Rodrigue said. "We know we have water on holes 4, 5 and 6.
But we don't have any major damage at TPC.
"We're confident
that the golf course is going to be there in the long term. If the
course is so damaged that they can't do anything with it, they'll
start regrowing new grass this year instead of waiting. If we have
the tournament there, we'd throw rye on it and replant the Bermuda
grass after the golf tournament. The Bermuda down there now has been
under water for more than a week, so it's likely going to
die.''
Rodrigue, who attended the 2 ½-hour meeting along with
Fore!Kids Foundation president John Subers and board member Bill
Reinhardt, speculated that PGA Tour officials may consider several
courses of action once the damage is assessed.
The tournament
could be held as scheduled at the TPC of Louisiana. Or, it possibly
could be held at a course within a close proximity to New Orleans,
perhaps English Turn Golf & Country Club which played host to
the PGA Tour event from 1989 through 2004, or the David
Toms-designed Carter Plantation in Springfield.
"This is a
multiple production between hotels, restaurants and the golf
course,'' Rodrigue said. "One consideration is to house the players
on cruise ships. The one thing we can say is we know this is going
to be the best field we've ever had. It's just a shame that it takes
something like this for us to get the best field.
"The tour
is reaching out to their global and title sponsors. One possibility
is to take a portion of the purse from every PGA Tour event,
including ours, to give to the relief fund.''
Rodrigue said
the PGA Tour has pledged a minimum of $5 million to the hurricane
relief fund.
"I know we're going to blow that number through
the roof,'' Rodrigue said. "None of that money is going to the golf
course. We told the PGA people that we need money basically to get
this town rebuilt and back on its feet.
"The PGA emphasized
to us how fully supportive they are. We were there to show them the
energy that we still have. We're ready to do what we have to do to
put this event on.''
Bayou Oaks, Eastover suffer significant damage to
courses
Damages at City Park estimated at $25 million;
Audubon, ET fare well
By Brian
Allee-Walsh Staff writer
As expected, Hurricane
Katrina wreaked havoc on several area golf courses, none worse than
Bayou Oaks in City Park and the Golf Club of New Orleans at Eastover
in eastern New Orleans, which also appeared to sustain substantial
property damage.
Three courses at Bayou Oaks and two courses
at Eastover remained under flood waters Thursday, 10 days after the
Category 4 storm pounded southeast Louisiana and the Gulf
Coast.
English Turn Golf & Country Club and Audubon Golf
Club apparently fared much better, according to course officials.
Each property suffered wind damage but did not flood.
"If we
have to rebuild all three courses and the structures on the
property, it could be upwards of $25 million in golf-related damages
alone,'' Bayou Oaks general manager Gordon Digby said Thursday when
reached in Chicago. "We couldn't have had a worse
scenario.
"Then there's the wind damage. We might have a
thousand trees down for all we know. I'm sure we'll re-open
eventually. Right now, we just don't know. Hopefully, we'll get some
help from FEMA.''
The longer the courses at Bayou Oaks and
Eastover remain under brackish water - a mixture of salt and fresh
water - the less chance the turf has of surviving.
Eastover
director of golf Jimmy Headrick said the window of opportunity might
have closed already on the Teeth of the Gator and Rabbit's Foot
courses.
"Eastover took it as bad as any golf course in New
Orleans because of its eastern location,'' Headrick said when
reached in St. Louis. "We're still under water; the cart barn,
maintenance building, clubhouse, golf course, everything has been
impacted. We have 130 golf carts under water.
"The next issue
is going to be the Bermuda grass. It can't live under that water for
much longer than 10 days and we're right there now. Eastover got it
pretty rough.''
English Turn, site of the PGA Tour event in
New Orleans from 1989 through 2004, and Audubon managed to stay
relatively dry and course officials hope to begin the cleanup
process soon.
Audubon Park presently is serving as a staging
area for the National Guard.
"We had quite a few trees get
knocked down,'' Audubon director of golf Stan Stopa said when
reached in Destin, Fla. "Many of them were defective trees - junk
trees that had lived their life span - and should have been taken
down quite a while ago.
"The golf course looks pretty good
except for the fact that they're landing helicopters on greens and
tees. At least it will be protected but there's no telling what
they're going to do to the course. But we had no water damage
whatsoever, and the cart barn and the clubhouse came through
OK.''
Under ideal conditions, Stopa said Audubon could be
back in the golfing business by mid-October.
"That's not my
decision,'' Stopa said. "If it was up to me, and the mayor said it
was safe, I'd push to get the golf course back up and running ASAP.
The city needs to get it back. People need a break from all this
stress.''
Rick Miller, director of golf at English Turn,
visited the West Bank property for the first time Thursday and
assessed the damage, which included 120-130 downed
trees.
"There wasn't a whole lot of water damage on the
course, mostly trees and stuff,'' Miller said. "Hopefully in the
next 10 days we can start cleaning it up. I think we're going to be
able to put it back together. I guess it depends on how fast we can
get people in there to begin the cleanup.''
Proximity of finalists to determine football
championship sites
LHSAA also trying to identify title venues
for for other sports
By Tammy Nunez Staff
writer
For the first time in 25 years, the high school
football state championships will not be played in the Superdome,
Louisiana High School Athletic Association commissioner Tommy Henry
said.
State championship games will be played at three
venues, which could include LSU's Tiger Stadium and Independence
Stadium in Shreveport. The state championship games are scheduled
Dec. 9-10.
Henry said damage to the Superdome from Hurricane
Katrina and the uncertainty as to when the facility can be repaired
led to the change of venue.
The sites where certain
classifications play will be determined by the proximity of schools
in the state championship game to the venue. For example, if the
Class 5A finalists are close to the Baton Rouge area, the game could
be played at Tiger Stadium.
Henry met with LSU officials
Thursday morning to discuss relocating five of the association's
state sports championships that New Orleans was slated to host. The
swimming state meet, originally scheduled to be held at UNO, will
move to the LSU natatorium. The LSU swim team will be out of town
Nov. 16-19, opening the door for the high school meet. No decision
was made on relocating wrestling, soccer or volleyball, Henry said.
State championships in those three sports were scheduled to be
played in the New Orleans area.
"This year, we're going to
have to do things differently than we've ever done them before,"
Henry said. "We've got to make some tough decisions."
One of
the most difficult, he said, was deciding to keep the original state
championship date for football. Many schools in storm-affected
parishes will not play a full 10-game regular season.
Henry
said the qualification process will be only slightly altered, and it
is possible for a team to make the playoffs with a drastically
shortened schedule. He said teams would still automatically qualify
by winning their district championships and the remaining bracket
slots would be filled based on power points divided by games played.
The problems don't end with football. The swim season is in
a state of flux, according to New Orleans Metro Area Swim League
director Jorge Blasini.
"I don't know what to do," Blasini
said. "Really, what I'm trying to do is see when what schools are
going back in session." In addition to most of the south shore
schools being closed for the season, many of the area's pools were
damaged by the storm. So, even if schools go back into session, it's
unclear where they can practice or compete.
UNO's Lakefront
Arena pool, site of the state championships and at least half of the
metro swim league dual meets, might not be ready for competition
until December, pool director Janice Roth said.
"Things were
flying off the roof like crazy (during the storm)," Roth said. "Now
I don't know when we're going to be able to get back in. It's going
to be a long time."
Roth said she expected the state meet to
change, but said it might be possible for the metro meet to be
contested in December, a month later than originally scheduled.
"We can still do a metro meet. The state (meet) has nothing
to do with that," Roth said.
A decision will need to be made
soon on the volleyball state tournament, scheduled for the
Pontchartrain Center in Kenner Nov. 9-12. The question is where to
move it.
"There are conflicts everywhere we look," Henry
said.
Baton Rouge is a possible location, but hotel
availability could be a problem. Lafayette is another city being
looked at, Henry said. It's also undetermined where wrestling and
soccer's state championships, scheduled for February, will be held.
LSU has offered its venues on non-conflicting dates, but the
university has a full athletic schedule and isn't able to
accommodate those sports' dates right now.
Curtis aims to kick off abbreviated season in
late September
School spared major damage, sets tentative
opening date of Sept.26
By Billy Turner Staff
writer
John Curtis officials have cleared the rooms of the
school and anticipate returning to operation as early as Sept. 26.
Football will quickly follow behind, football coach J.T. Curtis said
Monday.
"God's been good to us," Curtis said. "Our school
building took no damage at all. We could open school tomorrow. Our
elementary school had one room that was damaged, and we shut it
off.
"What we have told our parents is we are waiting for
Jefferson Parish officials giving us clearance and as soon as they
do, we're going to start school."
Curtis said he is looking
at trying to fill the fifth playing date (Sept. 29 or 30). Curtis
had open dates on the fifth weekend as well as the sixth.
"If
we can practice a week, we will play the next week," Curtis said.
"That would get us ready."
Curtis said he spoke with
Louisiana High School Athletics Association commissioner Tommy Henry
last week and was happy with Henry's ruling that kids would be
allowed to play elsewhere.
"He also told me he would be
passing a rule that when a student returns to school, they would be
eligible if they were eligible when they left," Curtis said. "That's
one of the things we had worried about, keeping
continuity."
No Patriots players currently are playing at
other schools, J.T. Curtis said.
"But we have kids in
Houston, Galveston, Texas, and everywhere in the country," he said.
"Until they can get direct news, they won't be coming back.
"But it's our feeling that it's important to get as many
back in place as quickly as possible."
Curtis' Web site,
eteamz.com/jcfootball, is instrumental in keeping the team and the
remainder of the school members and officials informed, Curtis said.
"We pulled up to our elementary school. Saw the one building
room that was bad; saw the big tree had fallen on the other
building,'' he said.
Curtis said that when Patriots family
members arrived at the elementary school to remove a fallen tree off
the building, they were amazed at how little damage the structure
sustained.
"We got chain saws, and got to work on it and when
we got to the bottom of it, my brother (Leon) said, 'I don't' think
we got any dents up here (on the roof).' We all said, 'How can that
be?' As we got to the bottom, there was an old Crape Myrtle tree my
dad (who died earlier this year) had planted," Curtis said. "It held
that tree off that building.
"The way we tell it, he was up
there saying, 'A little to the left. You can drop it on the Crape
Myrtle.' He protected that building."
Lutcher, St. James to kick off weekend of football
games
By Lori Lyons River Parishes
bureau
For students at Lutcher and St. James, life is as back
to normal as it can be, with school resuming two days ago. But,
for the schools' football players, things just won't be the same
until Friday night.
Both schools will start their 2005
football seasons at 7 p.m., a week later than scheduled because of
Hurricane Katrina. St. James will play host to Terrebonne, and
Lutcher will travel to St. Amant.
Three other River Parish
teams will begin their seasons this weekend, too. Riverside Academy
will travel to Houma to play H.L. Bourgeois at Terrebonne High
School, and West St. John will play at South Terrebonne on Friday at
7. On Sunday, Hahnville will travel to Central Lafourche for a 3
p.m. game.
Lutcher coach Tim Detillier and St. Amant coach
David Swacker are planning a pre-game ceremony to mark the occasion
and acknowledge the suffering of their neighbors.
"No
football game is as important as what's going on out there,"
Detillier said. "I want to emphasize that. But the big
accomplishment for us is that we're playing a game. The big news is
we're playing."
And it's not so much about football as it is
about normalcy.
"It's what we do," St. James coach Rick
Gaille said. "In the simplest terms, the players play and it's our
profession as coaches to coach. That's normalcy for us. Just as
people want to get back to their homes and their businesses to get
them back to normal, that's what we want to do as well."
Of
course, nearly all of the River Parishes coaches have been
scrambling to rework their schedules in the wake of Katrina. Many
had opponents from Orleans, Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes,
which were decimated by the storm and probably won't play this
season. It appears that Lutcher is the only team remaining in
District 10-3A that will have a season.
Of the eight River
Parishes schools, five are playing this week. Next week, St. Charles
will join in by playing host to H.L. Bourgeois, and Destrehan will
travel to Terrebonne. District 5-5A opponents Hahnville and East St.
John will play at Hahnville in a non-district game. St. James will
travel to South Lafourche, Lutcher will host Thibodaux, and
Riverside will play St. Thomas Aquinas.
West St. John is the
only school that will be playing its original schedule. Next week,
the Rams will play host to Patterson. Hahnville coach Lou Valdin
said he was able to salvage this week's game against former district
opponent Central Lafourche by moving it to Sunday.
"We're
going to have a skeleton crew," Valdin said. "But (Central Lafourche
coach) Ro Pitre was the only coach in the bayou that had the guts to
play Hahnville High (this season). And, if I have to hire 11 kids
riding their bikes on the street, I'm going to give him a game."
Valdin said there is a more important reason to play the
game.
"These kids need to get back to some kind of
normalcy,'' Valdin said. "And nothing galvanizes this community more
than Hahnville football.''
The UNO swim team has relocated to
Emory University in Atlanta, Coach Ashley Tappin said
Thursday.
The team's home, the Lakefront Arena pool, won't be
ready for competition for a "long time," according to pool director
Janice Roth. But Tappin said 12 of her 14 swimmers moved to Atlanta
temporarily and have resumed training. The swimmers are staying in
homes of members of the Atlanta Rotary Club.
"It always takes
something horrendous to pull out the resiliency and kindness in
people," Tappin said. "We wouldn't survive without
them."
Tappin said she was overwhelmed with calls from
college programs around the country with offers for training and
lodging following Hurricane Katrina. But Tappin said the Atlanta
area was the best match for her team, and she is grateful for their
help.
"I've had an unbelievable response," Tappin
said.
NOTE: New Orleans Metro Area Swim League
director Jorge Blasini said he is looking for member coaches to
contact him and provide updates on the status of their schools and
teams. He can be reached at jblasini@cox.net.
BASEBALL
TEAM AT NMSU: New Mexico State University will house the UNO
baseball program in Las Cruces, N.M., beginning immediately until
the campus at UNO and Maestri Field are returned to an acceptable
condition, the university announced in a release.
Hurricane
Katrina damaged facilities at UNO and has rendered the metropolitan
New Orleans area without power and services for an undetermined
time.
In securing the partnership with New Mexico State,
Privateers coach Tom Walter expressed his sincere
gratitude.
"New Mexico State and UNO have been friendly
rivals in the Sun Belt Conference for the past several years, and
the hand of friendship extended by the Aggies in our hour of need is
deeply appreciated," Walter said.
New Orleans athletics
director Jim Miller is hopeful the Privateers will be able to play
at Maestri Field in 2006.
"We remain adamant in our desire to
play baseball at Maestri Field this season," Miller said. "We are
thankful to (New Mexico State) Athletics Director McKinley Boston
and Coach Rocky Ward for their generosity."
New Mexico State
and the UNO were members of the Sun Belt Conference the past several
years before the Aggies departed for the Western Athletic Conference
following the 2005 baseball season.
The first inmate locked up at Camp
Greyhound, the temporary jail built in the New Orleans bus terminal
to house people accused of looting and other crimes in the aftermath
of Hurricane Katrina, unwittingly walked smack dab into the hands of
the law.
Louisiana prison officials love telling the story.
“He drove up in a stolen Enterprise rental car to buy a bus
ticket,” Louisiana State Penitentiary Warden Burl Cain said Thursday
morning. “He got a ticket all right.”
Claude Mamone was
arrested, fingerprinted, photographed and housed briefly in the bus
terminal off Earhart Boulevard that now substitutes for flooded
Orleans Parish Prison. On Sept. 3, he was shipped off to the state
prison at St. Gabriel where he awaits trial.
Mamone is one of
223 detainees who have passed through Union Passenger Terminal,
after being arrested on suspicion of using the chaos following the
storm to loot, shoot, batter or otherwise foul up in front of
various forms of uniformed enforcers.
The overwhelming
majority – 178 as of Wednesday -- are accused of looting and
sometimes other crims as well. Twenty were booked with resisting
arrest; 26 with having stolen cars; 14 with theft and nine with
attempted murder. One was booked with not having a driver’s license
and three people were accused of disturbing the peace, a
misdemeanor.
The new lockup isn’t far from the original
parish prison, from which some 7,000 inmates were evacuated last
week and dispersed across the state prison system.
Camp
Greyhound has room for 700 accused wrong-doers. In the past week,
the vast majority of arrestees -- 155 -- came from the Jefferson
Parish Sheriff’s Office; 39 were nabbed by Kenner police. New
Orleans police brought in 17, and the rest were single-digit collars
hauled in by the Attorney General’s office, the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Marshals Service. Even
the U.S. Army brought in one of their own, a deserter.
Take
away the federal agents toting assault rifles and 12-gauge shotguns
and the interior of the terminal appeared frozen in time, a time
before Katrina struck.
The only newspaper on sale in the
coin-machines was a USA Today from Aug. 26-28, with a giant
photograph of Martha Stewart on the front page and a tiny picture of
Katrina’s first swipe at South Florida.
The alleged
malefactors were caged outside. The group of about 50 awaiting
transportation to prisons elsewhere were generally quiet Thursday.
Some lay on the pavement of the station’s parking lot; a few were
barefoot; several called out for help when visitors passed
by.
Cain allowed reporters to talk to some detainees, but in
the blunt language spoken by those who spend their workdays dealing
with the impoverished and disease-stricken inmate population, he
cautioned against trying to communicate with others.
“They
might spit on you,” Cain cautioned. “They might have
AIDS.”
“I have rights,” a long-haired and bearded wisp of a
man called out from cell no. 8. “Please, sir.”
Cain
pronounced the young man mentally disturbed and said he believed he
had been booked with looting. In his temporary cell, the long-haired
man behaved strangely. “He stuck his head in a bucket (of clean
water) and then started drinking the filthy water,” Cain
said.
Another man who had come and gone was booked with
looting a Walgreens pharmacy. “He was in a stupor for eight
hours until he came down,” Cain said. “We were afraid he was going
to overdose.”
Cain said he brought down a psychiatric nurse
from Angola to treat other arrestees.
A few of the detainees
are accused of violence: Lance Madison, 48, of New Orleans was
booked with eight counts of attempted murder of a police officer
after being nabbed by 7th District Officers Sept. 4. Madison fired
upon an officer at the intersection of Chef Menteur Highway and
Downman Road and when reinforcements arrived, he shot at them, too,
according to the police report of the incident. Madison finally fled
and threw his handgun into the Industrial Canal before the cops
caught up with him, his rap sheet says.
Lance was transferred
on Sept. 4 to the Hunt Correctional facility.
“Welcome to
New Angola South,” reads a handwritten sign on the gate leading to
the outdoor lockup, a row of 16 cells made of chain-link fencing
topped with razor wire.
Camp Greyhound is the work of
Louisiana Department of Corrections Secretary Richard Stalder and
state Attorney General Charles Foti Jr., formerly, for nearly 30
years, the Orleans Parish jailer. Foti’s successor as Orleans
sheriff, Marlin Gusman, isn’t involved with the bus terminal
facility, Cain said. Instead, Gusman is dealing with administrative
issues, such as payroll and securing records at the
prison.
The temporary jail was constructed by inmates from
Angola and Dixon state prisons and is outfitted with everything a
stranded law enforcer could want, including top-of-the-line
recreational vehicles to live in and electrical power, courtesy of a
yellow Amtrak locomotive. There are computers to check arrestees’
backgrounds and a mug shot station -- complete with heights marked
in black on the wall that serves as the mugshot backdrop.
Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan’s office has a
designated work space, as does U.S. Attorney Jim Letten’s. Two young
state prosecutors worked at a table Thursday in the center of the
station, casual clothes offsetting their courtroom game faces as
they screened cases.
On Thursday, one cell included three men
from Syria who were said by police to have been carrying $14,000 in
cash that no one with a badge believed they earned
honestly.
Several of the men locked up on Thursday said they
only did what they had to do in the wake of the storm.
“My
son wanted fruit punch,” Melvin Jackson, 35, of Marrero, said to
Cain through the chain-link fence. Jackson, who was arrested Sept. 4
in the 6600 block of the Westbank Expressway, was being held in lieu
of $50,000 bond. The fruit punch was supplemented with booze stolen
from Mike’s Liquor Store, according to his rap sheet.
In the
eyes of its makers, the art-deco Greyhound station is the sensible,
practical and legally prudent place to house malefactors, a place
for police to take their arrestees, swiftly process them and send
them to a holding cell, unless they can make their bail.
To
the inmates, it’s an added twist to the post-Katrina ordeal. Several
of the new arrivals loudly insisted they were wrongly
arrested.
Kenneth Corner was picked up for public
drunkenness. “If I don’t leave my house, who is going to feed me?”
said Corner, an Uptown resident, who was slouched in a plastic bus
station seat with his wrists handcuffed behind him.
Billy
Mahuron, a Kentucky prison guard working in New Orleans, replied,
“It’s for your own good.” If you stay on in New Orleans, “disease is
going to get you.”
Mahuron, 26, of Shelbyville, Ky., who
works as a “safety specialist” at a women’s prison in Pewee Valley,
Ky., said this New Orleans trip was his first, though he had planned
on attending Mardi Gras 2006.
“I think it’s a shame that
citizens turned against the city like this,” he said. “Where I’m
from, this wouldn’t have happened.”
The fresh arrests are
interviewed, photographed, fingerprinted and then tagged with
wristbands: Pink for federal cases; red, yellow or blue for various
felonies, green for misdemeanors and blue for women, of which there
have been 38 so far, officials said Thursday.
“You hear
stores about (police) letting people go,” Cain said. “That’s
bullshit. We got a jail.”
Cain, 63, a native of Vernon parish
who has run the state’s maximum security prison at Angola for 10½
years, is proud of the operation.
“A looter to me is no
different from a grave robber,” he said.
By JAMES VARNEY Staff
writer Amid heightened confusion over whether New Orleans
residents would be forcibly removed from their homes Thursday, the
city welcomed a noticeable reduction in the increasingly vile
floodwaters that have coated neighborhoods for almost two
weeks. Overnight, the waters receded, in the Lower 9th Ward, in
Mid City, and even along the critical infrastructure piece of
Interstate 10 where it dips under the railroad bridge near the
Jefferson/Orleans parish line. Roughly one fifth of the city's 75
major drainage pumps are back up and on line, according to officials
with the Sewerage & Water Board. In some areas, that meant a
noticeable reduction in water levels. For instance, the water
board's main purification plant, which was inundated with as much as
three feet of water, and still flooded Wednesday, was finally dry
Thursday. Over at Pumping Station No. 6, along the Jefferson
Parish line on the west side of the 17th Street Canal, the action of
the three reactivated pumps was apparent. Debris ranging from
garbage cans to flower pots piled up on the gates as the massive
pumps sucked floodwaters toward Lake Pontchartrain. The current was
strong, rippling in places. Although there were still no
indications of major disease outbreaks, the slop that had sat for
days throughout the city, filled with bloating corpses, human
excrement, chemicals and other debris, left its mark. Along St.
Claude Avenue on the eastern side of the Industrial Canal, cars and
low-slung homes that had stewed in gloppy water since the levees
broke reappeared Thursday morning. The vehicles were uniformly
brown, coated with layers of the mud. In the curbsides and the
sidewalks of Esplanade Avenue, a kind of film sat atop the trash and
trees, broken here and there and hanging loose like ripped plastic
bags. Within this mess, human beings continued to live. Army
paratrooper teams, which run foot patrols in neighborhoods from the
French Quarter to the Industrial Canal, played loudspeakers down
still-flooded streets, The message to residents ended with a promise
they would be rescued. New Orleans Police Department teams pushed
into uncharted territory, finding dry ground around Delgado
Community College, for example, and in eastern New Orleans, where
some pumps were again working. And with those new frontiers came
gruesome evidence of Katrina's toll: a body floating face down in
the muck against the Esplanade bridge over Bayou St. John, another
covered by a blanket at the base of one of the two columns marking
the City Park entrance to the New Orleans Museum of Art. "We just
put it out over the air and they make a list of 'em and they can get
'em," said 1st District NOPD Sgt. Danny Scanlan. Scanlan condeded he
had no idea who "they" were, but noted it wasn't on the NOPD's list
of responsibilities to start retrieving corpses. At the
intersection of City Park and Orleans avenues, launching point for
the Endymion parade in happier times, Scanlan's patrol found two men
walking with a sleek new shotgun. The men, Chris Montero and J.T.
Lanasa, were trying to get to Montero's house on South Scott Street
to rescue two cats. "I'm not real comfortable with you having
that weapon," Scanlan told them. They named two ranking NOPD
officers who they said had told them it was advisable to be armed.
Scanlan gave them back the shotgun but told them to "abort their
mission for today," and try again tomorrow when it should be even
drier. The 1st District team said it had no orders to take
residents out of their homes despite talk from Superintendent Eddie
Compass and Mayor Ray Nagin that a mandatory evacuation was in
effect for New Orleans and that the city must be cleared. NOPD
spokesman Cpt. Marlon Defillo said such orders had not been issued
and would be "only as a last resort. "We're still rescuing people
and helping those who want to evacuate voluntarily," he
added. During an interview early in the day, Lt. Gov. Mitch
Landrieu said officials have yet to determine whether "mandatory
evacuation really means mandatory evacuation," forcing people to
leave their homes and hauling them out if they refuse. It could
also amount to strongly urging reluctant residents to leave, he
said, and warning them of the health risks and the lack of
assistance that will be available if they stay behind. Terry
Ebbert, the city's director of Homeland Security, said the decision
ultimately lies with Compass. "The federal government and the 82nd
Airborne Division operate in support of the New Orleans Police
Department." The evacuation operation, which Compass insisted
would be, "strictly a law enforcement, not military," one, may kick
start this weekend, but not all NOPD officers are thrilled with the
prospect. Some of them said they were uncomfortable with the
prospect of forcibly removing residents who have water and food from
their own homes. "I'm going to do what we're told, we will follow
the order, but I'd like to have a meeting about it," said Cpt. Jeff
Winn, commander of the NOPD's tactical SWAT teams. "I must say that
right now the concept is not acceptable to me and I'm worried about
situations where SWAT teams are called to remove residents and
someone could get hurt." Scanlan's team yelled at residents in
windows that they had to leave and stopped the occasional pedestrian
in blasted neighborhoods in the 7th Ward up to City Park. The
feelings of some residents were easy to read, printed as they were
in big letters on boarded windows. "F-K BLANCO, F-K FEMA" read
two on Esplanade Avenue. The window next to them read, "We've gone
to Texas," and a smaller sign on the porch said, "Please stop
'helping' us. Thanks." The officers would frisk some of the
"zombies" - cop lingo for survivors the officers think are insane to
stay in the city - and the residents said they did not mind the
inconvenience. "You know you gotta get out, right?" said
Patrolman Bryan Mulvey to Robert Cummings, a man who climbed out of
a tangle of downed trees on Esplanade. Scanlan was suspicious of the
man's bulging pockets, and ordered Mulvey to search him. When the
search came up empty, Scanlan apologized. "That's alright, I
understand you've got a job to do," Cummings said, saying he was
walking "for exercise." One of those picked up Thursday, Johnny
Dunn, said he tried to stay in his Uptown home as long as he could,
until the city was simply too quiet and eerie to bear. "There
wasn't no civilization," he said. "I got tired of walking around my
house seeing nothing and nobody."
Staff writers Steve Ritea,
Jeff Duncan and Gordon Russell contributed to this
story.
Though the rash of fires in New
Orleans generally has abated, Dillard University got bad news
Thursday as New Orleans Fire Superintendent Charles G. Parent
announced that three “multi-story” buildings on the campus have been
severely burned.
Dillard has several dormitories that have
multiple floors, but Parent didn’t know which buildings burned, and
he wouldn’t speculate. Nor would he guess what started the fire. But
he said he believed the damage, inflicted Wednesday, was
severe.
“From what I understand they were destroyed,” he
said. “It doesn’t look like they are salvageable.”
Speaking
at a Thursday morning press conference at City Hall, Parent said the
New Orleans Fire Department responded to 11 fires Wednesday. Six of
those fires were inaccessible to tanker trucks, he said, and had to
be contained by helicopters dropping water from above.
Parent
declined to say whether he thought the fires were set by arsonists.
“I’m not going to assume,” he said. “You can’t do an investigation
by air.” When asked if a fire could conceivably start with nobody
around, Parent said, “Anything’s conceivable.” Reactive chemicals
could have gotten sloshed around together in a chemistry lab, he
said, before cutting off the guessing game. Even though the area is
too watery to be reached now, he expects that his investigators will
still be able to find clues when they are able to make it to the
Gentilly Boulevard campus.
He said the fires at Dillard
hadn’t been completely extinguished, but they had been
contained.
The majority of Parent’s comments Thursday
revealed real progress. The number of fires had fallen off
precipitously, and water was once again flowing through the city’s
mains. Although the water’s not safe to drink, it doesn’t have to be
clean to put out fires. The average water pressure in the city
Thursday morning was 65 pounds per square inch, he said. On a good
day, the average pressure in the Central Business District is 95 psi
and 75 psi in the city’s outlying areas, he said. Nevertheless, the
fact that they had even a below-average water pressure boosted the
morale of his firefighters, Parent said.
“Before it was
simply alien to us to fight an urban fire without any
water.”
Third District Chief Gary Haydel said later Thursday
that the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina had forced the NOFD to
become creative. Haydel has been fighting fires for 28 years, and
“I’ve never been able to call on a water drop before,” he said, of
the helicopters that dangle huge buckets from long wires, scoop
water out of the river or the lake and drop it onto burning
buildings.
He said they also have fought some fires by
sucking up the floodwaters around them.
And reinforcements
have been arriving from around the nation, he said. It was a
blissfully slow morning at the Central Fire Station on Decatur
Street, but the visiting firefighters, many of them veterans of the
terrorist attacks in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, were ready to go if
needed.
New Yorker Peter Acton was one of them. He had come
down from Engine 79 in the Bronx because he remembered what happened
four years ago.
“We all wanted to do something to repay --
and more importantly thank -- Louisiana for all they did during
9/11,” he said. Acton flew to New Orleans Monday and expected to
stay two or three more weeks, he said. He said there was a lift of a
thousand names of people who wanted to come to New Orleans to
help.
Haydel said his department would have a ceremony Sunday
to remember those firefighters who died when the World Trade Center
towers collapsed. He said he expects that New Orleans’ current
catastrophe will help the New York firefighters “deal with what they
had to deal with.” But the brotherhood between firefighters is such,
he said, that he could have counted on help from New York even if
the city had never been attacked.
The experienced folks are the ones with the
lawn chairs and milk crates. They know that this is going to be a
long wait.
They came to this office in New Roads Wednesday
morning at 4 a.m. to apply for food stamps. Many of them were here
Tuesday night as well. Although the office stayed open until
midnight, there was still a line when the doors were locked.
"I got here about 8:30 p.m., but they had some people who
had been here since 2:00 that day," said Gloria Pierson of
Batchelor. "We waited outside until midnight, and they told us we
couldn't come in. Everyone had to come back at 6 a.m."
The
people waiting in line Tuesday night had to return Wednesday morning
and get back in line. The time they had already spent in an
unsuccessful attempt to get assistance was wasted.
A mother
and daughter from New Roads, who declined to give their names, had
arrived at 3:30 Tuesday afternoon.
"We had number 142," the
daughters said. "They said the numbers had to be destroyed and we
had to come back and they would give us new numbers."
At the
front of the line, there is a handwritten sign. But, by the time
evacuees get that far in the process, the sign's message may have
been communicated too late to do them any good.
"Effective
immediately: We have been notified by our state office that we must
close our office to the public between the hours of 12:00 midnight
until 6:00 a.m. in order to process work and make the disaster
cards. Thank you for your patience."
Victor Davis, who lives
on St. Phillip Street in the Faubourg Treme, evacuated to New Roads
before Katrina hit. Wednesday morning he came prepared to apply for
aid.
"I got out here at 4:10 a.m. and a line had already
formed. I was told the office would open at 6 a.m. I got out here. I
had my coffee, had my radio, had my seat. The guy cames out,
unannounced and started handing out these numbers."
Davis
was the 25th person in line, but by the time he caught up with the
security guard, another dozen people had received numbers.
The security guard was not sympathetic. "That's too bad; you
have to go to the end of the line."
But, almost
spontaneously, the people in the line began passing their numbers
forward so Davis would get his appropriate place in line.
"I'm just thankful that these people, irrespective of the
disaster, haven't lost their heads or their hearts," Davis said.
"Obviously, the spirit of the people is so strong, the devil didn't
have any place here.
Perhaps what is most remarkable is the
fact that even as the pre-dawn cool sweated into the heat of late
morning, the people in this line remain calm and cooperative.
The security guard stopped passing out numbers after the
first 150. When those numbers ran out, the people still in line had
to stand there, in order, holding on to the faith that higher
numbers would be given out later. They dared not move out of line
for fear of not being able to save their places.
By 11 a.m.,
those people were still standing; still numberless.
It would
seem obvious that, in the face of such a tremendous disaster things
would be different. Although extra personnel have been hired by the
state Department of Social Services, the numbers have clearly not
been sufficient. So folks who survived the storm and so much else,
still have to wait in line for nutrition assistance for hours upon
hours.
We have faced a lot of tests in the 10 days since
Hurricane Katrina. We have not done well on them.
We failed
the evacuation
We failed the rescue
Now, we are well
on our way to failing the relief effort.
Lolis Eric
Elie can be reached at elietp@gmail.com.
As usual,
the day started with a prayer and the pledge of allegiance.
But from that point on, New Orleans City Council members
threw out the rule book, holding an extraordinary, emotional
meeting – their first since the city they govern was ravaged by
Hurricane Katrina.
With a crippled City Hall still off
limits, five members of the council, including three who believe
they lost their homes to floodwaters following the storm, gathered
in a conference room at Armstrong International Airport to grant
emergency spending powers to Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration.
They also took the opportunity to bare their souls about the
catastrophe that has rendered New Orleans a partially submerged,
heavily fortified ghost town. And they began to plot a strategy to
get their constituents -– and the businesses that employ them --
back home.
That’s not going to happen any time soon. Nagin
this week extended his mandatory evacuation order for the city’s
east bank through the first week of October, citing contaminated
standing water and the lack of basic services. Even after the
mayor gives the all-clear, residents likely will be able to return
only a section at a time, Chief Administrative Office Brenda
Hatfield said.
Acutely aware that evacuees are anxious about
their homes’ security, Council President Oliver Thomas said he’s
been told that the military will stay for “as long as it takes”
– although he added that he has not seen that pledge in writing.
Business owners might not have to wait much longer to get a
look at the damage, though. The council asked the administration
to allow local companies to retrieve payroll records and other
essentials as soon as possible, so they can temporarily operate
elsewhere. Council members also hope to let construction firms pick
up their equipment so they can help with the massive rebuilding
effort.
Driving home the point that quick action is needed,
Councilwoman Renee Gill Pratt said she’d heard from funeral home
owners who were forced to delay burials as the storm approached.
“The bodies need to come out,” she said.
For much of
the meeting council members spoke somberly, recalling images of
floating cadavers, whole neighborhoods under water and rampant
looting.
But there were also moments of gallows humor. Noting
that he probably won’t salvage much from his flooded Broadmoor
home, the 6-foot, 6-inch Thomas said, “It’s a good thing I have
tall friends. I have on their clothing.’’
The five members
present – Thomas, Pratt, Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson, Cynthia
Hedge Morrell and Cynthia Willard-Lewis, unanimously agreed to
hand the administration unprecedented borrowing authority to
keep the city afloat, and to draw upon all cash reserves and
accounts, regardless of how the money is earmarked. In a rare
departure from normal checks and balances, the action allows
Hatfield and finance director Reggie Zeno to choose lenders and set
terms without returning to the council for final approval.
The council also waived the City Charter’s requirement that
such measures be introduced at one meeting for approval at later
one.
Unable to recall the official numbering system for city
laws, the deputy city attorney improvised and labeled the first
ordinance K-1, for Katrina. With virtually no staff on hand, the
council drafted deputy fiscal officer Barbara Avalos to step in as
acting clerk, enabling her to sign the documents and forward them to
the mayor.
Councilman Eddie Sapir did not attend the meeting
because he was en route back to the city, and Councilman Jay
Batt had a scheduling conflict in the form of a previously
arranged caravan back to his partially-flooded district.
With the official business taken care of, council members
used the forum to demand that local businesses play a major role
in the city’s reconstruction, and that contractors hire local
people.
The ultimate goal, Thomas said, is to bring
displaced New Orleanians back from places as far away as Utah
and Minnesota and recreate a local middle class. His message to
the business community: “Don’t pimp us. Help us rebuild.”
That’s a particularly urgent need, several council members
said, because a handful of other states are courting evacuees
with the prospect of jobs, housing and decent schools.
With
many families still searching for loved ones, Willard-Lewis called
on Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates and his company to set up a
comprehensive survivor notification database. She also asked
President Bush to formulate an interim relocation strategy for
survivors, to bring them closer to home, and asked FEMA to extend
its benefits.
Much of the remainder of the meeting was spent
recounting the horrors of the storm. Morrell listed the thriving
neighborhoods in her district that have been lost, including
Pontchartrain Park, the city first middle class African-American
subdivision, as well as Indian Village, Sugar Hill and Gentilly
Woods.
Willard-Lewis described a fly-over of her district:
“The lake blended into the Industrial Canal, and the canal
blended into the Mississippi River. New Orleans East was a body
of water. There was no land.”
Later in the meeting,
Willard-Lewis trod even more personal ground. She revealed that
one of her brothers, Elliot Willard Jr., namesake and son of the
former Orleans Parish School Board member, is among the
missing.
Thomas bemoaned the slow initial response by the
federal government after the storm passed, and criticized those
who blame local and state authorities for not doing enough.
Calling New Orleans “this little place,” he said that “it’s crazy to
say that we should have taken the lead. Our job is to prepare. We
don’t have the ability to manage a disaster of this size.”
“I call this Ground Below Zero,” Thomas said. ““We were so
far south that they almost forgot about us.”
But the council
president also had some harsh words for local thugs who
terrorized the city during those first chaotic days. Noting the
widely broadcast images of looters hauling electronics out of
stores, he struck an exasperated pose and asked why anyone would
want a TV that they can’t plug in.
“Whatever happens to you,
you deserve,” he said, referring to the looters with a scowl.
The council also offered the highest possible praise to
police and firefighters who left their families to protect the
city, without radios and in some cases without ammunition; Sewerage
& Water board workers who struggled to keep the utilities from
failing completely; Entergy officials who moved in quickly to begin
restoring power, and Zeno, who has managed to keep paying city
workers.
While they supported the Nagin administration’s
efforts to fully evacuate the city, council members expressed
sympathetic respect for those still refuse to leave.
Although she disagrees with the sentiment, Clarkson said,
“The spirit of these people who won’t leave their homes is the
spirit that will rebuild this city.
Bay St. Louis. Ms. - I
had planned to ride out Hurricane Katrina in a schoolhouse-turned
shelter about seven miles north of Pass Christian. When, on the day
before landfall, police advised that the building - DeLisle
Elementary - was no longer on the list of approved shelters, I cast
about for an alternative bse of operations.
Not unlike the
little pigs of fairy-tale fame fleeing the I'll-blow-your-house-down
wolf, I join family members - including my mother, retreating from
her home in Bay St. Louis, and a sister with her three children from
Diamondhead - at the house built by my brother, Thyrone, with
invaluable help from an uncle. The house, barley north of Interstate
10, is a solid, spacious, one-story structure, and my brother, like
our late father, is a man of action during and after natural
disasters.
The lens opens here on the personal, week-long
journey of a Times-Picayune reporter struggling with other coastal
Mississippi residents in Katrina's whirlpool of
misery.
Monday, August 29
At 10 a.m., the
hurricane is advancing at about 16 miles per hour through an area
roughly 35 miles northeast of New Orleans between Slidell and Bay
St. Louis. Its category-three, 125-mile-per-hour sustained winds
reach 125 miles outward from the eye.
At my brother's home,
pine trees bow to the ferocious winds until the trees snap like
twigs in a child's hand. One breaks several feet from its base, then
another, then dozens, like popcorn beginning to pop on a kitchen
stove. Some of us watch from a glass door in my brother's bedroom
and find ourselves trying to predict which colossal tree will topple
next.
We wait for the tree that will smash the house -- and
us.
During the most forceful winds, my brother orders
everyone into the hallway.
In the end, the house is spared a
direct hit.
By late afternoon, tropical force winds linger,
but we venture outside. My brother moans about the loss of nearly
half the trees on his property. We pile into his pickup truck to
check on others, and at the sight of the severe and widespread
destruction, a sense of despair gives way to relief and then to
gratitude that my brother's losses are limited to trees and some
shingles on his roof.
Like others in the area, my brother
doesn't wait for government services to kick in. Two chainsaws and a
collection of strong bodies, including his wife, Luella, and teenage
daughter, Simone, comprise a work crew. We move through a jungle of
hazards: trees blocking sections of Firetower, Vidalia and other
roads become unblocked as Thyrone cuts and we haul the pieces to the
side of the road.
As we advance, we find Mike Holmes and his
wife, Ginger, doing the same. The Holmes add a small bulldozer to
the list of available tools. They are working their way down Giani
Road. "We have a neighbor who lives about one and a half miles
away," Ginger says, adding that the neighbor hadn't answered the
telephone since Katrina passed.
On this torn and scarred
landscape, an undamaged home is an uncommon sight. Trailers are
turned over as well as vehicles. Boats are pitched far from sources
of water. Trees are embedded in homes. Many houses have been knocked
off their foundations. Sections of roofs are missing. Toppled trees
and dangling power poles abound.
Soon we stumble upon
members of the Swanier Family, a large family in the DeLisle-Pass
Christian area. Oliver Swanier, 72, looks whipped as he talks of the
wind damage and the water - more than a foot deep -- that poured
into his home. "I've never seen anything like it," he declares.
"Camille couldn't touch it." He laments the loss of the gorgeous,
three-story home owned by his son, Volme. "It's gone," he
says.
Those are the words many people use to describe once
familiar neighborhood landmarks: "It's gone."
Turns out that
Oliver Swanier was being literal. Volme is moving slowly with the
weight of the tragedy on his broad shoulders when we find him not
far from where his home, with a picturesque view of a marsh, once
stood. Only the foundation remains.
On Bradley Road in
DeLisle, before reaching Volme, I hear a young woman screaming and
smell smoke.
A granddaughter of Olteray Swanier, 78, and his
wife Virginia, 74, has discovered that her grandparents' home and
vehicles have been reduced to ashes and shells of hot
metal.
"We lived in this house for 74 years," recalls Olteray
as he inventories the smoldering ruins. "Man, I lost so much stuff,
my Ford Ranger pickup, my Buick Century. It's everything I owned.
It's a shame."
"I called the Diamondhead Fire Department," he
continues, "but they said there was nothing they could do" because
the trucks could not get to the house.
Tuesday, August
30
My mother, Doris, gasps and hugs herself when she sees
what has become of our family home in Bay St. Louis, a one-story
brick house on Ballentine Street that handily survived the notorious
Hurricane Camille in 1969 even though it was only two blocks from
the beach.
It's as if someone swung a giant baseball bat and
knocked the away the walls, causing the roof, at least a portion of
it, to fall to the earth.
"It's gone," my mother manages to
utter as she sobs uncontrollably and stares at what's left of the
roof, plopped like a baseball cap over the muddy, crushed
wreckage.
For some unknown reason I reach in my pocket for my
set of keys and feel a splinter poking in my heart when I realize
the keys no longer open anything.
My damp eyes focus on a
toy ball that I bought for my mother to use when playing
pitch-'n'-catch with my niece, Sarah. For some unknown reason, it
seems a bit like the Wicked Witch's shoes jutting from underneath
the house that crushed her in "The Wizard of Oz."
Maybe the
witch symbolizes Katrina and the ball represents the magic she left
behind.
I feel cowardly because I don't walk toward my mother
and hold her when I see pain in her eyes equal only to the look she
had when my dad died a few years ago. She suffers. I remain
immobile, fearful that I'll fall apart like the house the moment I
touch her.
I was born in New Orleans and I live there, but
this small Mississippi town was imprinted on me as a boy, a place
where I watched estuarine life in the shallows of the Sound and Bay
the way I now watch television. My childhood was a life of
skimboarding, fishing, taking long walks under a full moon and
star-filled skies. In the rain and in the glow of a rising sun, I'd
pull up crab nets from the bow of a skiff steered by my
father.
In my soul, the shoreline, a short walk down the
street, has been a family member. It has been brother and sister to
me, never far from anything that mattered while I grew up.
In
the days that pass, my mother will return often in her thoughts to
the moment when she first saw the rubble that has replaced our
family home at 222 Ballentine St. She will weep, not for the bricks
and mortar but for everything they represented: safety, a lifetime
of memories, my father - who built the place, the space where she
cradled her children and experienced dramas and peace, joys and
troubles, the place where she felt the same contentment and sense of
purpose and belonging that she feels at the church she attends every
Sunday. Her home is no more just a building than my father was just
a man.
Dad was lover, provider, father, joker, wild man and
enough other things to fill a five-volume set of books. Each room in
what Dad often referred to as our "cinder-block home," with the
American flag out front, was similarly packed with history and
personal meaning.
The entire stretch of Ballentine Street
from my parents' home to the beach is covered with debris so high
that I cannot see the water down an archway created by decades-old
trees considerably thinned by Katrina. With a few exceptions, the
homes on each side of the 100 block of Ballentine and part of the
200 block have been crushed by storm surge and high wind. The same
is true for homes along intersecting Easy
Street.
Unprecedented destruction, say neighborhood
elders.
"Gone. Gone. Gone," says my mother as she looks at
the neighbors' houses.
At the intersection of Highway 90 and
the bridge connecting the city of Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian,
only the bridge's concrete pilings remain, the same for the train
bridge that parallels it.
The large homes recently built near
the intersection have been razed, massive amounts of shoreline along
Beach Boulevard carved away. My mother looks for the home of a
friend that she's visited at least a hundred times. But the
landscape is so distorted, she can't determine where the home is or
should be.
Wednesday, August 29
I get up late,
around 7 a.m. I'd hoped to start the day at sunrise. My sister,
Merinda Davis, her teenage son Braden, her 11-year-old daughter,
Sarah, my mother and I plan to return to Bay St. Louis and recover
what we can from wreckage. One goal is to find some of the hundreds
of family photos Mom has collected in her 73 years. All of her
photos, on display on walls and in photo albums, were left behind
when she evacuated.
The drive from Merinda's place in
Diamondhead to Bay St. Louis, goes smoothly. We take I-10 to the
NASA exit and come into town via Highway 90, past an overturned fuel
tanker, flipped cars and other signs of chaos.
She seems
weary.
I try to set up an orderly search-and-recovery
process: Merinda and I will search in the rubble, watching out for
protruding nails, unstable surfaces and broken glass. Sarah will
walk in a tiny hazard-free area carrying the treasured things we
find to a spot near the street. My mother will supervise, keeping an
eye on us all. And I forget what I assigned Braden because I'm
distracted by the task of finding him shoes in the rubble that will
fit his size 13 foot. His boots and sneakers are in my brother's
pickup. It doesn't matter anyway because everyone pretty much
ignores my instructions, except Sarah, who soon wants to know, "How
long do we have to do this?"
We've been at the site perhaps
less than 30 minutes when Mom, who has wandered off with Braden,
slips on something slathered with gray silt and smacks her forehead
on something hard. The sudden swelling looks as if a hot-dog bun has
been pushed under the skin just above her left eye.
I'm
alarmed. My sister's beside herself.
She wants to leave
immediately to get Mom medical attention. I argue that there's
nothing anyone can do for her and that only time will heal the
injury. My sister announces, "We're going." I declare, "We're
staying." I tell her I've hidden the keys to Mom's car and she can
leave if she finds them. My great fear is that rain will come any
moment and destroy whatever Katrina has not. Every moment seems
precious to me.
I believe my niece and nephew are appalled by
my behavior - and they should be, even though it turns out nothing
can be done for Mom's injury.
My sister, who has her own set
of keys to Mom's car, loads up the group and drives away. I ask them
to send someone to pick me up about 6 p.m. At about 4 p.m., my
sister-in-law and her 8-year-old son, Prescott, will come to get me.
Prescott will tell me I smell and move away when I get in the back
seat with him.
During the day, my clothes have been
completely drenched with sweat and dried at least twice. I don't
understand why it's so hot. Thirst has been my only companion during
this solitary recovery mission. I regret not bringing lots of
water. I don't regret staying to complete the work.
Hours
after the others leave, I find the address marker for the family
home. The marker, a Christmas gift, is carved out of metal. It is a
tilting palm leaning over the house numbers. I took several pictures
of similar address markers on New Orleans homes in Algiers Point to
show the designer what I was trying to achieve. It has several coats
of sparkly white-pearl paint and it's still in prime condition. I
found the marker on a mostly vacant lot across the street. The front
of our family home landed there after Katrina ripped it off, spun it
around and slammed it against a gate.
I find Mom's giant
notebook of telephone numbers and addresses of friends and family
that she has amassed over the years. It, like many of the photos, is
covered with gray mud. I find more than 150 photos. Only about 50
are in good condition. All of the damp items are scattered on roof
shingles to dry. Some of the pictures are from days long ago and
make me smile. Each item evokes memories that bring me back and
forth in time so often that nostalgia becomes as pervasive as the
mud.
While I work, a large, well-equipped search-and-rescue
team arrives and begins looking for the body of our neighbor, Kim
Bell, in the collapsed house on Easy Street, directly behind
ours.
Bell, 51, and her 20-something son, Stephano, opted not
to evacuate. Larry Lewis, a resident of the neighborhood, tells me
that her son's body was found earlier in the week.
"No one
can find Kim," he says.
The rescue team does.
In the
afternoon, they place her bagged corpse on a canvas stretcher and
hoist it onto a small trailer pulled by a motorcycle-like
four-wheeler popular with hunters. A neighborhood man identifies the
body.
I take a walk toward the beach, hopping like a mountain
goat over the wreckage littering Ballentine Street. When I reach the
shoreline, I see only trees where homes, some old and magnificent,
faced the Sound. It's eerie, as if the houses were never
there.
I walk to the edge of the shoreline and dip my boots
in the Sound. The water is a rusty color, more common to a creek. I
walk to a favorite haunt, Da Beach House, near the intersection of
Washington Street and Beach Boulevard. Only the slab
remains. Gone. Gone. Gone.
Thursday, September
1
My mother's eye is black and blue. She looks like she
was punched by a heavyweight, a look that matches the way she feels
- beat up.
I spend the morning and early afternoon in my
sister's garage sorting through the smelly, muddy photos that I've
harvested from the site. Mom, Merinda and her children pack.
Tomorrow they leave for the homes of relatives in Alabama and
Georgia. Primitive living ain't my sister's style - and I don't
blame her. My mother is reluctant to leave me behind until I remind
her that I lived in Europe for nine months, basically with my house
on my back - a Gregory backpack that served me like a faithful
dog.
I open the garage door to get as much sun on the photos
as possible. Many images from our childhood don't make it through
the recovery process. Water damage has made some faces
unrecognizable. Pulling a photo out of a plastic sleeve tears away
three or four children in a circa 1970s shot. Birthday celebrations
are no more when the image comes off the page with the mud that must
be removed.
The enormous value of these photos became evident
to me early on. Whenever a visitor was curious about the family, my
mother would pull out her photo albums and begin telling stories -
some short, some long - as she paged through the ever-growing
archive. Katrina has stolen the visual aids to that
story-telling. The oral history from my mother's lips will forever
have missing parts. Like the current Bay Bridge with only pilings
left, Mom will have no easy road back to the past.
I feel
like an environmentalist trying to save beached whales that die, one
here one there.
Sad. Discouraged. Weary.
There are
some victories: unscathed coffee mugs from Jazzland, Corpus Christi,
Texas, as well as ones with her name on them and the "What is a
Grandma?" mug; the high school diploma of my dead sister, Deborah;
and Mom's Walk America for Healthier Babies plaque honoring her
fund-raising for the March of Dimes.
I listen to radio
broadcasts from New Orleans while I work in the garage. It's a
luxury I cannot afford while playing archaeologist at my parents
home. Distraction there equals injury. And like every day since I
was dispatched to Mississippi to cover Hurricane Katrina, I try to
get in touch with the Times-Picayune newsroom. It seems
incomprehensible to me that I cannot reach headquarters.
I
try calling whatever city government and New Orleans Police
Department number I can remember when I have a working telephone,
but I never get through to the party on the other end. Avid radio
and television watchers will later tell me that the newspaper has
abandoned its Howard Avenue headquarters and moved to Houma, then to
a temporary base of operations in Baton Rouge.
I atone for
my earlier inability to open up emotionally with my mother. I talk
candidly with her about her suffering the loss of her home. And this
time I hold her while she sobs.
Friday, September
2
I've never been on an archaeological dig. Yet, I
imagine archaeologists to be patient and methodical as they explore
sites. Since the first day at the site of our family home, I've
tried to temper my explorations with similar patience.
Today,
this approach yields rewards.
I unearth from the debris Mom's
bike, the sail for my Sunfish, sentimental elementary school photos
of brothers and sisters and a box full of the coral-colored stone
tiles I purchased to redo the smaller of the two bathrooms in our
family home.
If my mother decides to rebuild, these extra
tiles could be used in a bathroom in the new home.
When Mom
was 71, she surprised us all when she bought the red, wide-wheeled
bicycle with a big seat that I recovered today. She was in her 20s
the last time she owned a bicycle.
She bragged about riding
the apple-red Huffy Santa Fe II model around town. Mom kept it in
the laundry room, but hadn't ridden it recently.
On occasion,
visitors to our house in Bay St. Louis would regret not bringing a
bike to pedal around the city. And I think Mom enjoyed seeing the
surprise on their faces when she said, "Would you like to use
mine?"
Although I've found my sail and mast, my Sunfish -
which I kept on a trailer on a lot across the street - appears to
have been pirated by Katrina.
Among the photos culled today
from the wreckage, one is an image of Dad, decades ago, being
congratulated by his employer for submitting a suggestion that
improved performance. There's a photo of my first aquarium, a head
shot of my sister, Petrina, in elementary school, looking like a
glamorous child movie star. Another shows my brother, Pierre, and
me, each holding a side of our first store-bought kite.
While
I sort through the mounds of debris, workers arrive to clear the
street. A bulldozer pushes the broken walls, floors and roofing to
the sides of the road. When I step out the front gate of our family
home, or should I say lot, and look in the direction of the beach, I
can again see the Mississippi Sound. It strikes me that this
rearranging of debris is the first major sign in this neighborhood
of civilization reasserting itself in the territory conquered by
Katrina.
I saw more people today than I have since I started
sifting through the crushed remains of our family home. A sister of
Kim Bell walks by and wants to know "where in the house did my
sister die." I look at the flattened structure and doubt anyone will
ever know.
My muscles ache. The sun is
setting.
Saturday, September 3
I hand wash
clothes in a bucket, pants, socks, underwear. I eat an apple and
mixed nuts. I empty the contents of black plastic bags I carried
from the site.
The sooner the items inside get in the sun the
better.
I'm in my first gas line at 10:46 a.m. at the BP
station near the entrance to the Diamondhead golf community. The
rules are cash and no more than $20 of fuel per customer. I get mine
after waiting two hours and 13 minutes.
Welcome to
civilization.
I also pick up free ice and water from a
distribution center near the entrance.
I'm beginning to feel
emotional fatigue. My battery is low. I despair over the loss of
what had been the center of the family universe, the safe place, a
place to retreat from the noise of a busy world, a place familiar, a
place that helped define me, a place whose very sight reminded me of
who I am, a place so full of meaning that I saw it as a country on
the continent of Bay St. Louis, a place that my tribe
built.
Sunday, September 4
Only two hours in
the BP line today, starting in roughly the same spot in line as
yesterday. A U.S. Coast Guard worker from Georgia and others in
uniform keep the line tight, efficient and orderly.
My
brother John Jr., on a brief leave from military duty in Egypt,
loans me his Honda generator, a dreamy little device that will help
me better communicate with the outside world as services
improve.
Civilization advances . . . but without my ancestral
home.
Police and
soldiers armed with M-16 rifles fanned out across the remaining high
ground of a wrecked and flooded city Wednesday, ordering the last
holdouts to evacuate in no-nonsense terms that promised consequences
if they didn't.
The orders, delivered through screen doors
and on stoops, flowed from Mayor Ray Nagin's Tuesday decision to
clear the devastated city because of its multiple threats to safety
- from fire, polluted water and natural gas leaks.
Many
holdouts told officers they were reluctant to leave, either because
they feared refugee shelters, they did not want to leave their
belongings or they believed they were safe where they
were.
Officers indicated the time was nearly at hand when
they would force citizens out, Police Superintendent Eddie Compass
said. He indicated officers and troopers were making one easy
pass through the city, then would return meaning
business.
"We have thousands of people who want to
voluntarily evacuate at this time," Compass said. "Once they're all
out, then we'll concentrate our forces on mandatory
evacuation."
Meanwhile, scattered fires continued to burn in
a city tormented by plagues of flame as well as flood.
Since
Hurricane Katrina struck Aug. 29, the city has suffered 57 major
fires in nine days, Fire Superintendent Charles Parent said. Many
burned unchecked or were fought by helicopters dropping buckets of
water from the Mississippi River.
The city is now reinforced
with firefighters from New York City and Illinois, Parent
said.
But the civil disorder of the first few days after the
storm has been quelled, Compass said.
Backed by thousands of
active duty soldiers and civilian law enforcements from around the
country, "New Orleans may be the single safest city in the United
States," Compass said.
He reported only three arrests since
Tuesday night.
Police and federal forces are moving more
swiftly and with greater coordination.
Early Wednesday,
National Guardsmen and the police department's SWAT team swarmed the
Algiers Fischer Housing Development, where someone fired on nearby
technicians trying to restore cell phone service. Two men were
arrested.
Efforts to drain the city continued. Army Corps of
Engineers officials reported the 17th St. Canal Pumping Station is
running at about 20 percent capacity. More portable pumps were
arriving to supplement their work.
Infections kill
five
Still, nine days after the powerful storm stuck the
Gulf Coast, Katrina continued to take a few more lives.
Four
people in Mississippi and one person in Texas died of bacterial
infections probably picked up in the storm's polluted floodwater,
health authorities said.
They died of Vibrio vulnificus
infections, produced by a bacterium that can enter through open
wounds. The infection is most dangerous to the chronically ill and
those with weak immune systems, health authorities
said.
"There will be some more deaths associated with Vibrio
vulnificus in the affected areas," said Tom Skinner, a spokesman for
the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Yet
overall, authorities seemed to downplay the overall disease
potential posed by floods that percolated flooded sewage treatment
plants and dumpsters, and which almost certainly contained thousands
of corpses.
State epidemiologist Raoult Ratard said the
health effect of all the water swirling about New Orleans for more
than a week is uncertain.
Ratard said he doubted doctors
would see many more digestive diseases related to the hurricane
because their incubation periods are no longer than three days.
Hepatitis A remains a possibility, although it is too soon to tell
because it takes 30 days to develop after initial
exposure.
Treatment for Hepatitis A is available, but the
state's supply of that vaccine is short, he said.
Outlying
areas struggling
Outside of New Orleans, state Rep. Nita
Hutter, R-Chalmette, said St. Bernard Parish, which flooded from
border to border, likely will remain closed for at least three weeks
even though much water has drained away. She said communication in
St. Bernard is "almost nonexistent."
And St. Tammany
President Kevin Davis asked residents who have not yet returned to
stay away a few more days. Thousands of people rode out the storm
in St. Tammany or have returned since. But an estimated 60,000
residents are still away, he said.
"Please try to hold on
and give us just a couple of more days," he said. He feared
congestion from returning traffic might slow utility crews that are
making repairs.
Cleco said it had restored power to about a
quarter of its customers in St. Tammany and Washington
parishes.
Residents of Grand Isle are returning to a spit of
land without gasoline, power or running water. The low-lying barrier
island apparently suffered no major erosion, but homes and
businesses were devastated.
Recovery efforts have been
stymied almost completely by damage to the single bridge linking the
island to the mainland. The bridge is open to cars and light trucks
but not to heavy equipment required for repairs, Mayor David
Carmadelle said.
A barge carrying 450,000 gallons of water
was to arrive at the island Wednesday, he said.
Jefferson
Parish officials said they thought Jefferson was just two or three
weeks from re-establishing a commercial pulse. They said they
envisioned Jefferson becoming the base from which New Orleans will
be built, a function currently served by Baton
Rouge.
Jefferson Parish educators set Oct. 3 as a target date
for opening some schools, perhaps on a "platooning" system in which
relatively undamaged buildings host separate waves of early-morning
and late-afternoon students.
Bridges, museums
damaged
While educators struggled to recover their
systems, transportation authorities began to get a sense of
Katrina's damage to scores of bridges carrying highways over South
Louisiana's watery landscape.
The U.S. 90 bridge over the
East Pearl River is open only to emergency vehicles, said Gordon
Nelson, assistant secretary for the state Department of
Transportation and Development.
The Rigolets bridge a few
miles west is stuck and can't be opened for boats, he
said.
In addition, the Bayou Liberty bridge between Thompson
Road and Bayou Liberty Road west of Slidell is closed, he
said. Storm damage varied widely at cultural institutions around
the area.
"We're learning that the destruction was even
greater than we thought," said Ed Able, president of the American
Association of Museums in Washington. He said museum officials were
to meet in Baton Rouge to discuss museum security.
Most of
the animals at the Audubon Zoo survived. But there were losses when
a generator that aerated water failed at the Aquarium of the
Americas, said John Hewitt IV, director of husbandry and a senior
vice president at the Audubon Nature Institute.
Most of the
animals in the giant shark tank and the Caribbean reef tank were
lost, he said. Sea otters, penguins, a giant anaconda and a white
alligator were apparently saved.
A 45-foot metal sculpture,
"Virlane Tower," by Kenneth Snelson and valued at $500,000 was
reduced to "a twisted mess in the lagoon," Able said.
Bush
assailed In Washington, two top Democrats assailed President
Bush's handling of the post-Katrina response. Senate Minority Leader
Harry Reid, D-Nev., demanded to know whether Bush's Texas vacation
impeded relief efforts.
U.S. Rep Nancy Pelosi, D-Cal., the
House Minority Leader, said Bush was "oblivious, in
denial."
GOP congressional leaders met privately, reportedly
to consider an unusual joint House-Senate investigation into why the
government's response to Katrina was days late.
The White
House is asking lawmakers to approve another $51.8 billion in relief
for Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Congress is expected to
approve the package as early as today to keep the flow of relief
uninterrupted.
With reporting by Ed Anderson, Meghan Gordon,
Laura Maggi, John Pope, Manuel Torres, Jim Varney and the Associated
Press
With fewer fires and fewer arrests, New Orleans seemed
surprisingly calm Wednesday, about as normal as a city overwhelmed
by dead bodies, filthy floodwater, smashed glass and heavily armed
military patrols could be.
"Right now New Orleans may be the
single safest city in the United States," New Orleans Police
Superintendent Eddie Compass declared, expressing a view not
necessarily embraced by many of the estimated 10,000 people still
living in the shattered city. "Right now, we're getting back to
normalcy."
As evidence, Compass noted that there had been
only three arrests overnight, a light crime-fighting evening by any
standard and one that barely swelled the population of 171 inmates
at New Orleans' makeshift jail in the Amtrak station.
The
NOPD and the thousands of out-of-town soldiers and law enforcement
officials may face a sterner test today when officials are expected
to shift Mayor Ray Nagin's mandatory evacuation order into a higher
gear.
Compass promised to use the "minimum force necessary"
to remove residents, and privately many top officers predicted the
process would be achieved without violence. The possibility that
those who remain behind could wind up padding the frightening death
toll from the storm means remaining in the city is not an option,
the superintendent said.
But those residents who want to
remain -- and officials acknowledge there are many -- are
apprehensive about the evacuation even as they prepare for
it.
"My house survived the storm and then this morning these
Blackhawk helicopters came down and blew out all my windows," said
Elisa Miller, 32, of the city's Faubourg Marigny section. "All I can
assume is they want to scare us into leaving, because they sure
weren't coming to rescue me."
Miller said she would leave
today now that police have told her she can get out on a bus with
her dog.
Here and there the holdouts who had hoped to ride
out the hurricane and the recovery were packing crates and getting
ready to leave. So far, they said, officials moving through their
neighborhoods have been kind and professional, while hinting that a
later block-to-block search would have a harsher tone.
Search
and rescue teams combing the city are leaving behind a new kind of
graffiti, a giant, spray-painted "X" with the open sections showing
the unit that made the search, the date, and the number of people
believed to be living in the marked building. The overwhelming
majority of houses show "0" in the bottom open section, but here and
there are notations such as "8 in place" or "3 in place," indicating
another visit will be necessary.
What was not necessary
Wednesday was a return to the firefighting headaches that came
earlier this week. While scattered fires did break out, and
helicopters hovered above some neighborhoods dangling balloons laden
with river water, officials said the count was far below what they
have seen.
Since Hurricane Katrina, firefighters have battled
57 major fires in the city, New Orleans Fire Superintendent Charles
Parent said. With the addition of 300 firefighters from New York
City and 500 more from Illinois, Parent said the city is adequately
staffed and using a New Orleans driver so the out-of-town units
don't get lost.
Firefighters are not the only infusion to
city services. Scores of police units, representing forces from
Connecticut to California and from Michigan to Texas, are rolling on
the city streets. The influx grew so great that the NOPD had to call
a halt to the process, Deputy Superintendent Warren Riley said. Now,
by assigning the newcomers to specific districts, the city has a
handle on who is working where, he said.
That marks an
enormous improvement from the two biggest handicaps the NOPD faced
after Katrina: communications and mobility.
"The 7th District
lost every vehicle it had; the 3rd and the 5th districts lost half
their vehicles," Riley said.
On the communications front, a
small piece of glass -- one of the billions of particles Katrina
sent spinning around the city -- punctured the radiator in the
department's main communications machinery atop the Entergy Tower.
For most of last week, with death and destruction spreading, all law
enforcement officials were forced to use the same channel run
through Jefferson Parish equipment, creating a walkie-talkie
cacophony. Finally, on Friday evening, an emergency repair team from
Florida climbed the stairway to the top of the Entergy Tower,
identified the problem and fixed it.
Officers are now able to
hit trouble spots quickly and with overwhelming firepower. Indeed,
when reports came out early Wednesday that cell phone equipment
repairers in Algiers were being shot at, NOPD SWAT teams and
National Guardsmen raced across the bridge, swarmed over four
buildings near the old Fisher public housing development, and
quickly arrested two men. But for all that capability -- Riley
estimated police can now handle 25 to 30 simultaneous emergencies
when on a normal day the NOPD would be stretched by four -- officers
warned that New Orleans remains a dangerous, deeply wounded
place.
"It might look good -- well, better -- visually, but
underneath it's not," NOPD spokesman Capt. Marlon Defillo
said.
Louisiana's leaders at home and in Washington, as well
as this newspaper, have been sounding the alarm about our coastline
for years, begging Congress and the Bush administration to provide
the resources needed to address decades of erosion caused by human
activity as well as natural forces.
We said the stripping
away of our coastal marshland left our area naked to the onslaught
of hurricanes. We said communities would be battered, oil and gas
networks would be shut down, and lives would be lost.
Today,
there is no comfort for us in the phrase, "We told you
so.''
The price tag for protecting this region was $14
billion. Does anyone think that price is too high now? Just last
month, however, the Bush administration was actively fighting even
modest efforts to start the flow of money, $540 million over the
next four years, provided in the energy bill. Despite White House
opposition, Congress approved that start. Last month, that seemed
like progress. This month, it seems like a cruel joke.
The
needs of this region after Hurricane Katrina are legion. We have
roads, bridges, levees, utilities and public buildings to rebuild,
as well as homes, businesses and places of worship. Lives must be
rebuilt, too, bit by bit. But we must not forget, in this maelstrom
of reconstruction, that our coast needs to be rebuilt, too.
The fact that Gov. Kathleen Blanco's team already is talking
about how coastal restoration fits into the larger picture is
entirely on target. Our coastal marshes and barrier islands are
Louisiana's shock absorbers. The fact that they are in pieces surely
was a factor in the degree of damage Katrina did. True, this storm
was a brutal monster, a strong Category 4, but scientists have been
warning that even lesser events would be punishing, given the
increasing vulnerability of our land to the Gulf of Mexico.
We need our bridges and buildings back, our livelihoods and
our lives. But we also need our coastal wetlands back; we've been
losing them for a long, long time. We shouldn't have to convince
anyone of that now.
WASHINGTON - President Bush on
Wednesday asked Congress to provide an additional $51.8 billion in
relief and recovery aid to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast, and
congressional leaders vowed to approve the request before the week
is out.
The new emergency spending package comes on top of
the $10.5 billion Congress authorized last week - and the bailout is
far from over. Joshua Bolten, director of the Office of Management
and Budget, said he expected the administration to ask Congress for
more money in a "few weeks," when the current round of financing
runs dry.
"My expectation is we will need to have
substantially more," Bolten said. "This at least puts everyone on
very solid footing."
Most of the money will go to the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, which is in charge of the relief and
recovery operation, and about half will be spent on direct payment
to victims, temporary housing, unemployment insurance and damage
assessments of homes. Last week, FEMA was spending about $500
million per day, a figure that shot up to $2 billion daily during
the weekend, as the agency signed contracts for work and ramped up
its efforts.
In the latest aid package, the Department of
Defense will receive $1.5 billion and the Army Corps of Engineers,
which is responsible for the levees surrounding New Orleans, will
get $400 million.
Lawmakers threw out a variety of figures
for the total cost of the relief and recovery operation, none more
than educated guesses as the flood waters have yet to be cleared out
of New Orleans. Senate Budget Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said $200
billion was not unrealistic. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid,
D-N.V., said the total cost could end up being $150
billion.
Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, urged
Congress on Wednesday to spend $100 billion just on New Orleans and
another $125 billion on other areas in Louisiana, Mississippi and
Alabama damaged in the storm.
"We cannot ask for piecemeal
requests," he said. "We must move swiftly to restore the economy of
the region and to improve the existence of hundreds of thousands of
Americans whose lives have been overturned in the past ten days."
A critical question for the three states hardest hit by the
storm - Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama - is how long the federal
government will continue to pick up the tab. At the request of the
governors from the three states, President Bush waived federal rules
that require state and local governments to pick up 25 percent of
post-disaster costs. The U.S. Treasury will foot the relief and
recovery bill for 60 days after the storm hit the Gulf Coast. Asked
whether that deadline will be extended, a Bush administration
official said it is too early to say.
For the time being,
Washington seems only too happy to underwrite the effort. With the
devastation from Katrina still fresh, Congress and the Bush
administration appear unconcerned about the mounting federal budget
deficit as they pursue a carte blanche approach to repairing the
hurricane damage.
Bolten said that the fiscal 2006 budget
deficit will be greater than the $333 billion expected shortfall in
the current fiscal year. But Bolten said he is "confident" that
Bush's promise to slice the deficit to $260 billion by 2009 is still
realistic.
Already, however, Katrina spending is leaving some
legislative casualties in its wake. A Republican-backed plan to
scrap the estate tax has been put on hold indefinitely. Hopes to
extend tax cuts made in 2003 are fading. Lawmakers said that they
are now looking at tax cuts aimed specifically helping hurricane
victims.
A bipartisan group of senators also urged
congressional leaders to scrap plans to cut entitlement programs,
including Medicaid, food stamps, housing and education.
"At a
time when millions are displaced and seeking federal and state
assistance, we believe it is inappropriate to move forward," the
senators wrote to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles
Grassley, R-Iowa.
Paying for disaster relief has been
Congress' most tangible response to Katrina since the hurricane hit
Aug. 29, but it is not the only one. Because Congress returned to
session this week, dozens of bills have been offered to speed the
recovery and cut through bureaucratic red tape that has slowed
rescues and emergency relief.
House Republican leaders
Wednesday said they would push legislation to help displaced
residents get their Social Security checks and other forms of public
assistance. The House wants to free students from loan repayment
obligations if they were forced to withdraw from college because of
the hurricane and increase the amount available for flood insurance
claims. FEMA is able to borrow $1.5 billion for the program, a
figure expected to be dwarfed by the tens of thousands of claims
from metropolitan New Orleans alone.
Entercom and Clear Channel, two national
station groups with New Orleans clusters, normally would be cutting
figurative throats to compete for every advertising nickel.
But with the market's economy temporarily submerged -- and
listeners' lives on the line -- they've combined to keep an
essential stream of news and information flowing to hurricane
survivors.
The joint signal has been carried in New Orleans
on Entercom's WWL AM-870, WSMB AM-1350 and WLMG FM-101.9; and on
Clear Channel's WYLD FM-98.5, WQUE FM-93.3 and KHEV FM-104.1.
Segments have also aired on Clear Channel's Baton Rouge news-talk
station WJBO AM-1150.
With power out and cellular and
land-line phones largely disabled, imagine all the New Orleans
stay-behinds whose only link to the outside world has been a
battery-powered radio.
Inside Clear Channel's Baton Rouge
headquarters, computer monitors, plywood sheets and unopened boxes
crowd hallways. Deliveries of supplies and office furniture stream
into and out of the reception area.
Beyond the anteroom,
staffers from 18 different radio stations are jammed into the
studios and cubicles that serviced just six people pre-Katrina. At
night, the conference room becomes a bunkhouse. Off-duty staffers
are also housed in RVs parked outside.
In such cramped
quarters, no conversation goes uninterrupted for long.
The
nonstop conversation in the United Radio Broadcasters of New Orleans
studio, however, has made for moments of demographic incongruity
among all the data dissemination.
Tuesday afternoon, for
instance, WWL's Deke Bellavia, a likeable sports-talk colloquialist
who'd never be confused with William F. Buckley, was paired with
WYLD's A.J. Appleberry, a smooth-pipes urbanite.
The
temporary melding of the assets of the two companies emerged from "a
battlefield discussion" that resulted in the agreement that "we make
friends and we make history," said Dick Lewis, Clear Channel's Baton
Rouge market manager.
"This is why radio will never go away
or be replaced by satellite," added Lewis. "It reinforces the value
of local radio" informing an audience that might be listening "in an
attic with nothing but their radio and a flashlight."
The
duocast is costing both companies "hundreds and hundreds of
thousands of dollars," said Lewis. "And that doesn't count the lost
revenue" from stations knocked off the air or carrying a limited
commercial load, he added.
WWL Program Director Diane Newman
rode out Katrina in the station group's offices in the New Orleans
Centre. With the wind knocking out windows, "It was like we were on
the air during 'The Poseidon Adventure,'" she said.
After
downtown became unsafe, Newman oversaw WWL's retreat to the
Jefferson Parish Emergency Operations Center, then to Baton Rouge.
Throughout, lifeline coverage never lagged. No end date for
the cooperative broadcast has been set.
"We have to stay
connected," Newman said.
Radio has provided some of the most
riveting media moments during the Katrina disaster, from host
Garland Robinette's live play-by-play of Katrina's attack on New
Orleans to Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard's desperate
call for succession to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's outrage-packed
attack on state and federal relief efforts.
If anybody had
suggested a partnership of any kind between Entercom and Clear
Channel two weeks ago, said Newman, they would've been laughed out
of the studio.
Now, she said, "I think magical things are
happening on the air here."
TV columnist Dave Walker can be
reached at davewala@yahoo.com.
It is one of many tragedies
within the greater Hurricane Katrina tragedy: The exodus and
disruption of New Orleans' fabled music community, possibly for a
very long time.
Marquee acts based in New Orleans - such as
the Neville Brothers, Better Than Ezra, Cowboy Mouth, the Radiators
and Nicholas Payton - will continue to make money on the road, even
if their hometown is uninhabitable. Major touring acts can return
once the New Orleans Arena and other large venues are
repaired.
But the working musicians who populate the
neighborhood clubs, second-line parades and jazz brunches are more
vulnerable financially; many often live gig to gig. Katrina's
floodwater has swept away cheap housing along with club and
convention jobs.
And New Orleans will be unplugged for
months, not weeks. Preservation Hall's Web site says the venerable
jazz club, open since 1961, is closed "indefinitely," even though
the French Quarter sustained considerably less damage than other
areas of the city.
Musicians must find work, and assistance,
elsewhere. For now, the backbone of New Orleans' close-knit music
community is shattered and scattered. How it will reassemble in
Katrina's aftermath is anyone's guess.
Will brass bands ever
march again through the historic Treme community, which was
inundated?
Will Vaughan's, the ramshackle little jazz joint
in the devastated Bywater neighborhood, ever resume its Thursday
night barbecue with Kermit Ruffins?
Will the street
musicians that once populated the French Quarter ever
return?
And will the Neville Brothers, New Orleans' first
family of funk, ever call the city home again?
Aaron Neville,
who appeared alongside Harry Connick Jr. and Wynton Marsalis for a
hastily organized Sept. 1 storm relief telethon, is resettling in
Nashville, Tenn., with his brother Art. Sibling Cyril is in Austin,
son Ivan in Los Angeles.
Aaron Neville has heard reports of
bodies floating in his eastern New Orleans neighborhood. He can't
imagine when he might return.
"Right now, it doesn't even
look possible," Neville said Tuesday. "They've got to clean that
place with a fine-toothed comb. People walking through that water
are getting sick. And I don't know if I want to go back, because it
could happen again. If they don't build it back above sea level,
it's still vulnerable."
Wounds and woes
Two
days after Katrina passed, Tipitina's, the city's flagship music
club, largely was unscathed on its swath of high, dry ground along
the Mississippi River. A few blocks away, the only damage to Art
Neville's meticulously restored home was to the wooden fence that
surrounds it.
But many others weren't so lucky.
Iconic jazz clarinetist Pete Fountain lost homes in New
Orleans and Bay St. Louis, Miss., as well as Casino Magic, which had
become his primary venue. Fountain rode out the storm in a
Mississippi Day's Inn, and he has since sought shelter in Winnsboro.
Singer Charmaine Neville, Aaron Neville's niece and the
featured Monday night act at jazz bistro Snug Harbor, survived a
brutal attack by marauders. As floodwater surged into Rock 'n' Roll
Hall of Fame inductee Fats Domino's memorabilia-filled home in the
lower 9th Ward, he finally was rescued by boat.
Guitar
legend Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, 81, already battling emphysema,
lung cancer and blocked arteries, now has additional woes: His home
on a Slidell bayou was destroyed. A photo depicted his trademark
black Cadillac parked in a pile of debris, including a sodden guitar
case. Brown escaped to Texas before the storm hit.
In the
short term, other regions will reap the rewards of this musical
diaspora. Trumpeters Irvin Mayfield and Ruffins, and
singer/songwriter Theresa Andersson landed in Baton Rouge. Rhythm
and blues pianist Eddie Bo was in Paris when Katrina struck, and he
is now staying in Lafayette. Clarinetist Michael White retreated to
Houston.
Keyboardist Jon Cleary is in California, preparing
for a tour with Bonnie Raitt. Guitarists Eric Lindell and Chris
Mule, saxophonist Tim Green and sousaphonist Kirk Joseph joined
forces for an impromptu gig recently in Hermosa Beach,
Calif.
Benefits planned
Several individuals and
organizations are staging benefits to assist displaced New Orleans
musicians.
Proprietors of the Howlin' Wolf club in the
Warehouse District are organizing benefits with club owners in
Dallas, Houston and Austin, Texas. Preservation Hall also has
established the New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief fund through
its Web site, www.preservationhall.com.
In Houston, a new
organization called NOAH, New Orleans and Houston, has set itself up
as an "employment and relocation aid" for musicians. Houston pianist
Paul English has invited New Orleans musicians to fill in for his
standing gig at the Magnolia Hotel. John "Papa" Gros, leader of
the hard-working funk band Papa Grows Funk - the sort of dependable,
instantly accessible band that populated New Orleans clubs
pre-Katrina - is optimistic that he and his fellow musicians one day
will return.
Gros concluded a month-long Japanese tour just
before Katrina struck. Instead of orchestrating a triumphant
homecoming at the ramshackle Maple Leaf bar, home for his band's
weekly Monday night gig, he resettled in Lake Charles, where his
kids are now enrolled in school. His band mates are in Dallas,
Montgomery, Ala., and Lutcher.
But they will reconvene this
week on the West Coast for a tour. He says Papa Grows Funk will tour
as much as possible in the coming months and establish weekly
residencies in Houston, Lafayette and Baton Rouge.
"We have
New Orleans musicians in all these places, and they all need work,"
Gros said. "If I can put money in their pockets and play some New
Orleans music, that's what I can do."
'New Orleans is
in us'
Gros is only marking time until he can return to
New Orleans.
"Hell, yes, the city will come back," Gros
said. "It's New Orleans. No matter how bad it is, the pride that New
Orleanians take in the city is so strong. As long as politicians
don't steal the money for the rehabilitation, the city will come
back.
"(The revitalization) will start in the neighborhoods.
Neighbors helping neighbors again. The neighborhood bars, the
neighborhood groceries, will come back. People who live in Uptown
take pride in Uptown. Treme takes pride in Treme. Mid-City takes
pride in Mid-City. It's their pride, their life. That's all they
know.
"And I can't wait for the songs that will come out of
this."
How many musicians eventually return once New Orleans
is back on its feet will determine the future character of the
city's music.
Harry Connick Jr. has praised his fellow New
Orleanians' "freakishly strong" spirit. And even if the Nevilles and
hundreds of their peers live in exile, Aaron Neville is confident
they will maintain some sense of community and
continuity.
"New Orleans is in us," Neville said. "That's all
we know. We might be relocated somewhere else, but New Orleans is
always in our hearts and souls and minds.
"Especially the
music."
Music writer Keith Spera can be reached at
keithspera@yahoo.com.
Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans with a double
blow when it made landfall Aug. 29. First, storm surge waters from
the east rapidly swamped St. Bernard Parish and eastern New Orleans
before the eye of the storm had passed the city about 9 a.m. Within
hours, surge waters collapsed city canal floodwalls and began to
"fill the bowl," while top officials continued to operate for a full
day under the mistaken belief that the danger had passed.
A
rough reconstruction of the flooding based on anecdotal accounts,
interviews and computer modeling shows that the huge scale of the
overlapping floods - one fast, one slow - should have been clear to
some officials by mid-afternoon Monday, when city representatives
confirmed that the 17th Street Canal floodwall had been breached.
At that point areas to the east were submerged from the
earlier flooding, trapping thousands, while gradually rising waters
stretched from the Lakefront across to Mid-City and almost to the
Central Business District.
Federal officials have referred to
the levee breaches as a separate and much later event from the
flooding to the east, and said that they were unaware of the gravity
of the problem until Tuesday, suggesting valuable response time was
lost.
"It was midday Tuesday that I became aware of the fact
that there was no possibility of plugging the (17th Street Canal)
gap and that essentially the lake was going to start to drain into
the city. I think that second catastrophe really caught everybody by
surprise," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Sunday,
adding that he thought the breach had occurred Monday night or
Tuesday morning. By that time, flooding from at least one of the two
breached canals already had been under way all day Monday, evidence
shows.
Even on Tuesday, as still-rising waters covered most
of New Orleans, FEMA official Bill Lokey sounded a reassuring note
in a Baton Rouge briefing.
"I don't want to alarm everybody
that, you know, New Orleans is filling up like a bowl," Lokey said.
"That's just not happening."
Once a levee or floodwall is
breached by a hurricane storm surge, engineers say, it often widens
and cannot quickly be sealed. Storm surge waters in Lake
Pontchartrain may take a day or more to subside, so they keep
pouring into the city - most of which lies below sea level - until
the levels inside and outside the levee are equal.
Experts
familiar with the hurricane risks in the New Orleans area said they
were stunned that no one had conveyed the information about the
breaches or made clear to upper-level officials the grave risk they
posed, or made an effort to warn residents about the threat after
storm winds subsided Monday afternoon.
"I'm shocked. I don't
understand why the response wasn't instantaneous," said Louisiana
State University geology professor Greg Stone, who studies coastal
storm surge dynamics.
"They should have been monitoring this
and informed people all the way to the top, (and) then they should
have warned people," said Ivor Van Heerden, who uses computer models
at the LSU Hurricane Center to study storm surges and provided
officials in the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness
headquarters with data indicating the potential for flooding that
could result from Katrina.
The storm approached the coast
early Monday, the easterly winds from its northern quadrant pumping
a rising surge into the marshy Lake Borgne area east of St. Bernard.
There, two hurricane levees come together into a large V-shape.
Storm surge researchers say that point acts as a giant funnel: Water
pouring into the confined area rises up - perhaps as much as 20 feet
in this case - and is funneled between the levees all the way into
New Orleans.
The water likely topped the levees along the
north side adjacent to eastern New Orleans, which average only 14 or
15 feet, according to the Army Corps of Engineers' New Orleans
project manager Al Naomi.
The surge reached the Industrial
Canal before dawn and quickly overflowed on both sides, the canal
lockmaster reported to the Corps. At some point not long afterward,
Corps officials believe a barge broke loose and crashed through the
floodwall, opening a breach that accelerated flooding into the Lower
Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish.
The floodwaters moved
quickly.
By around 8 a.m., authorities reported rising water
on both sides of the Industrial Canal, in St. Bernard and eastern
New Orleans. The Coast Guard reported sighting residents on rooftops
in the Upper Ninth Ward. "Water is inundating everywhere," in St.
Bernard, Parish Council Chairman Joey DiFatta said.
At 9
a.m., there was 6 to 8 feet of water in the Lower 9th Ward, state
officials said. Less than two hours later, most of St. Bernard was a
lake 10 feet deep. "We know people were up in the attics hollering
for help," state Sen. Walter Boasso, R-Arabi, said that morning. By
11 a.m., water was covering Interstate 10 at a low point near the
high-rise over the Industrial Canal.
Sometime Monday morning,
the 17th Street Canal levee burst when storm surge waters pressed
against it and possibly topped it, Corps officials said. Col.
Richard P. Wagenaar, the corps's site commander at 17th Street, told
The Washington Post that a police officer called him Monday morning
to tell him about it. He told the Post he couldn't get to the
site.
Naomi said he thinks the breach occurred in the mid- or
late-morning after the hurricane's eye had passed east of the city.
By that time, north winds would have pushed storm surge water in
Lake Pontchartrain south against the hurricane levees and into the
canals. Then the wind shifted to the west.
"As I remember it
the worst of the storm had passed when we got word the floodwall had
collapsed," he said. "It could have been when we were experiencing
westerly winds in the aftermath of the storm, which would have been
pushing water against it."
Naomi and other Corps officials
say they think the water in the canal topped the levee on the
Orleans Parish side, weakening its structure on the interior side
and causing its collapse. However, Van Heerden said he does not
believe the water was high enough in the lake to top the 14-foot
wall and that the pressure caused a "catastrophic structural
failure."
It's unclear when floodwalls in the London Avenue
canal were breached, but Naomi said it may have been about the same
time.
Once the floodwalls failed, water - then at about 8
feet or higher in the lake - began to pour into New Orleans from the
west, beginning the full-scale nightmare emergency managers and
other officials most feared. At 10 a.m., reporters from The
Times-Picayune saw water rising over I-10 where it dips beneath the
railway trestle south and east of the canal.
Naomi said that
he thinks Corps officials had communicated the information about the
breaches to the Baton Rouge Office of Emergency Preparedness
"It was disseminated. It went to our OEP in Baton Rouge, to
the state, FEMA, the Corps," Naomi said. "The people in the field
knew it. The people here (in Corps offices) in Louisiana and
Mississippi knew it. I don't know how communication worked in those
agencies."
Officials at the OEP could not be reached for
comment. New Orleans officials were also aware of the 17th Street
Canal breach and publicly confirmed it at 2 p.m. Around the same
time, The Times-Picayune reported 4 feet of water in one Lakeview
neighborhood.
An hour later, Terry Ebbert, head of New
Orleans' emergency operations, listed Treme and Lakeview as among
the areas hardest hit by the flooding. Ebbert said there would be
casualties because many people were calling emergency workers saying
they were trapped on rooftops, in trees and attics. In some cases,
he said, authorities lost contact with people pleading for
help.
As the day wore on, the flood crept east and south and
made its way across the city, penetrating neighborhood after
neighborhood.
At 3 p.m. Times-Picayune reporters found it
was knee-deep under the Jefferson Davis overpass near Xavier
University. A Mid-City couple stranded there said their home was
surrounded by 5 feet of water. An hour later, the I-10 dip under the
railroad overpass was under 15 feet of water.
George Saucier,
the CEO of Lindy Boggs Medical Center south of City Park, told The
Times-Picayune that water from the 17th Street breach had flowed
into Bayou St. John and overflowed its banks, then followed streets
like sluices on its way south, where it was starting to flood the
hospital's basement.
By late afternoon, people stranded on
I-10 near the Industrial Canal could see residents on rooftops
stretching across Lower 9th Ward.
As night fell Monday, many
outside of New Orleans breathed a sigh of relief believing the city
had been largely spared the worse. But thousands were stranded from
the Lower Ninth Ward, across St. Bernard and south to the east bank
of Plaquemines Parish. And waters continued to rise overnight
throughout central New Orleans. By dawn, they stretched all the way
from east to west and into Uptown, and were coursing through the
Central Business District. As TV helicopters flew over the city and
beamed out pictures of the flooding, the extent of the catastrophe
was clear.
That flooding would complicate evacuation efforts
in New Orleans for days.
Rescue
personnel of all stripes fanned across New Orleans today to continue
rescuing trapped citizens and try to persuade stubborn holdouts to
vacate the flood-ravaged city. The mandatory evacuation order issued
by Mayor Ray Nagin on Tuesday emboldens personnel to use force if
necessary to clear the city of its remaining population.
"We're getting to the point where this environment is not
safe. We're getting to the point where there are bodies floating on
the water," said Captain Marlon Defillo, the New Orleans Police
Department's chief spokesman. "If we need to use force to get people
out, we will."
That action could come as early as today, when
officials are expected ratchet up the pressure.
"I'm not
going to wrestle with someone for 15 minutes trying to force them to
get in the boat," said Eddie Compass, superintendent of the New
Orleans Police Department. "I could be rescuing someone else in that
15 minutes. But there will come a time when we will have to use
force."
Search-and-rescue missions will continue
indefinitely. Capt. Timothy Bayard of the New Orleans Police
Department, the officer coordinating the massive evacuation effort,
said all 60 of his boats were on missions Tuesday and Wednesday in
the parish's flooded areas of Lakeview, Gentilly, New Orleans East,
the Ninth Ward and Mid-City. That didn't include the scores of
volunteers who have arrived in the city in recent days with personal
watercraft.
Rescue workers also are using commando trucks and
military transport vehicles to evacuate residents from neighborhoods
where water is waste deep or lower. Other teams are canvassing dry
parts of the city on foot.
Though rescue boats have covered
more than 60 percent of the city's flooded areas, Warren Riley,
NOPD's deputy superintendent, estimated thousands are still in their
homes in the high-water neighborhoods.
Many residents are
refusing to abandon their pets. Others simply do not want to desert
their homes.
"This is a poor city," Bayard said. "For many of
these people, their home is all they've got. They don't want to turn
that loose." Soldiers in Humvees and military transport vehicles,
boat-towing wildlife officers and law enforcement from across the
country joined state and local police in convoys heading east on
Interstate 10 toward the region's most severely flood-damaged areas.
By mid-afternoon, a line of parked Texas Parks &
Wildlife trucks, each hitched to an empty boat trailer, lined the
ramp connecting Interstates 610 and 10 east. Just below, rescue
personnel and media representatives ignored or appeared unaware of
the corpse wrapped in a garbage bag lying at the top of the Franklin
Avenue on-ramp, which served as a boat launch for evacuation
missions throughout the day.
"I'm a New Orleans cliché," said
Don Vavasseur, who was boat-rescued from the second floor of his
mother-in-law's house at 4775 Franklin Ave. in Gentilly. "I stayed
for Camille, I stayed for Betsy. You live in New Orleans, it's
something you deal with."
The first dry land Vavasseur set
foot on in over a week was littered with empty water bottles and gas
cans and at least two filled body bags. Yet he seemed buoyant to
have survived so well for so long on a large supply of food, water
and Sterno in a partially submerged house. "The water on my street
got to 12 feet," he said. Yet he considered turning his rescuers
away when they arrived. "I was making grits in the morning," said
Vavasseur, 48. "I cooked red beans and rice last night."
Rita
Maragne has lived at 526 Upperline St. for 87 years and she's not
about to leave now. She told the California Highway Patrol officers
that stopped by her house Wednesday that she has nowhere to go and
doesn't want to abandon her dog, Pip, a Pomeranian. "To hell with
the mayor," Maragne said as tears welled in her eyes. "I'm not going
to drink the damn water. Why do I gotta leave? I don't have nowhere
to go."
The officers did their best to convince Maragne but
she refused to budge.
"We're going to come check on your
tomorrow, but after that you're kinda on your own," Capt. Jeffrey
Lynn said. "We're not going to be back with food and water after
that."
Maragne said she prefers it that way. She's the only
person on her block still around. She has no phone and no
electricity.
"I'm fine," Maragne said. "I've got plenty of
food and water. I've got gas for the stove. I just want to be left
alone."
Hurricane Katrina blew part of the roof and gutters
off her double shotgun house. Otherwise, the house was unscathed.
The floodwaters never reached her block, which sits on high ground a
block or two from the Mississippi River levee.
"The house is
the least of my worries now," Maragne said, turning one last time to
a reporter to ask, "Do you really think they'll make me
go?"
Rescue workers are using various means to coax the
holdouts to leave. They basically pestered Mitch Stinnett and his
wife, Candace, to evacuate.
The couple was prepared to
weather the storm and its aftermath at their Mid-City home, at 3920
Banks Street.
The day before the storm hit, they bought two
months supply of water and food. They also had healthy supplies of
kerosene, propane and charcoal for their grill, Mitch Stinnett
said.
With 4 feet of water surrounding their home, they
needed the extra supplies and rations. They used a canoe to make
daily trips to the Sav-A-Center on Carrollton Avenue to pick up
supplies and visit their neighbors.
"We were fine," Stinnett
said. "People live in swamps all the time. This is no
different."
Like so many others, the Stinnetts felt obligated
to care for their two dogs, Wu, a black pure-bred German shepherd,
and Lafitte, a black lab. They also were watching two more dogs and
seven cats that neighbors had left behind.
But once rescue
workers discovered them holed up in their home two days ago, they
constantly hounded them with visits. Stinnett said a helicopter
hovered over their house as many as eight times a day.
The
worst part of the hurricane has been the helicopters," Stinnett
said. "Our dogs were scared to death. We finally just decided we'd
had enough and got out of there."
The Stinnetts were picked
up by a convoy of rescue workers at the end of their block. The
group consisted of a hodge-podge of armed officers from various
agencies in California, New Jersey, Arkansas, Louisiana and
Kentucky. In all, the convoy included three armored vehicles and 32
men and women, including 12 National Guardsmen from the 179th
infantry division, based in Oklahoma. For some of the men, this
was their fifth trip into the swamped neighborhoods. One worker
estimated that 50 percent to 75 percent of the people refuse to
leave.
"One guy said, "I've got five gallons of water. I'm
straight,'" said the worker. "These are just die-hard New Orleans
folks. They don't know how serious this is."
Back on dry
land, Florence McCarthy chose to ride out the storm to protect her
possessions and those of her boyfriend, Albert Dale Donaldson.
McCarthy was in the backyard of her Lower Garden District home when
a squad of California Highway Patrol officers, accompanied by
Louisiana State Trooper Ronald Sander, asked her and Donaldson to
evacuate.
Neither felt they had a choice in the
matter.
"They have the guns," said Donaldson. "I've just got
a little pistol. They gave us two minutes to pack our
bags."
McCarthy and Donaldson were ordered onto a military
transport vehicle already half-full with fellow travelers. Sander
said the evacuees would be taken by military transport vehicles to
the Convention Center and then airlifted to the Louis Armstrong
Airport. McCarthy would have preferred to stay home.
"I'm
most scared of other people," she said upon hearing she'd be going
to the Convention Center. "I don't want to be alone with other
people without protection."
The scene at Felicity and
Prytania streets was subtly surreal, as at least a dozen citizens
from the surrounding square block filed past CNN's Christiane
Amanpour to board a military truck. California Highway Patrolman Don
Oxley said partial power had returned to the area. Some residents
were even offering his officers cold drinks.
Daniel Johnson
walked right through the scene on his way to his girlfriend's, whom
he said lives a few blocks away.
"I could live here a month
I've got so much food," Johnson told Oxley.
"The problem is,
the mayor of your town has said you have to leave," Oxley
said.
Johnson argued that he would only have to wait a few
days for the water to drop enough in the Central Business District
for him to drive out in his own car, which is parked in a ramp by
Charity Hospital. Oxley gently told Johnson to find his girlfriend
and pack to leave.
Oxley said he had yet to encounter a
citizen who needed to be forcefully evacuated, but he acknowledged
the sensitivity of the situation.
"There's no easy way to
tell someone that they've got to get out of their house," Oxley
said. "This is the land of the free, you know."
Just after dusk on Tuesday night, with the rumble of
helicopters and airplanes still overhead, Gareth Stubbs took his
spot in a rocking chair on the balcony of an Algiers Point house, a
shotgun, bottle of bug spray and a can of Pringles at his
feet.
It was night No. 9 of his vigil, the balcony turned
into a makeshift watch tower, with five borrowed shotguns, a pistol,
a flare gun, an old AK-47 and loads of ammunition strategically
placed next to the blankets and pillows where Stubbs, Vinnie Pervel
and Gregg Harris have slept every night since Hurricane Katrina
slammed into Southeast Louisiana.
In the bedroom off the
balcony, its lace curtains blowing through the open windows,
Pervel's 74-year-old mother pulled her rosary from her pocket, a
shotgun resting near the antique cherry wood bed and the .38-caliber
pistol her son gave her nearby. "Oh dear, what would Father John
think," Jennie Pervel laughed as she fingered the
beads.
Vinnie Pervel and Harris, who own the 1871 Victorian
house on Pelican Street, rigged a car battery to two floodlights and
aimed them into the deserted road below. With the floodlights off,
the home's gas lanterns formed golden hallows on the porch, the only
illumination other than the periodic sweep of searchlights from the
military helicopters buzzing overhead.
It's been a terrifying
nine days for the four, scrambling for food, water and gasoline for
their generator and an arsenal of weapons they feared they would
need if complete lawlessness broke out in the historic neighborhood
of renovated 19th century homes. The neighborhood having survived
the storm without flood damage, Pervel and Harris, both former
presidents of the Algiers Point Association, worried that looters
and others seeking high ground would invade the community.
Yet they have not had to fire a shot.
And that's a
good thing for them. They were not sure if any of the borrowed
weapons even worked.
But their fears were based on actual
experiences. The day after the hurricane, Pervel was carjacked as he
tried to check on his other properties in the neighborhood. Two guys
clubbed him on the head with a sledgehammer, grabbed his keys and
stole his van, which he had filled with hurricane supplies, a full
tank of fuel and his credit cards.
The next afternoon, as
Pervel and his mother, Harris and Stubbs stood on their porch, a
gunfight between armed neighbors and "looters" erupted on the corner
of Pelican and Valette streets, half a block away. The neighbors,
whom Pervel would not identify, shot two of the men. "We screamed to
Mrs. P., 'Hit the deck,' and she did," Harris said.
"We just
couldn't comprehend it, a gun battle in front of your house," said
Stubbs, a native of Wales, who lives across the street from Pervel
and Harris but has stayed since the storm with them at their "Fort
Pelican." "You would walk outside, and your knees were wobbly and
your lips would go dry."
After the violence, the men decided
they needed protection. Other residents who had stayed during the
storm were armed and taking turns checking on neighbors, some of
them elderly, who remained in their houses. It was decided that
everyone would keep an eye on his block, sharing essential supplies.
Pervel, Harris and Stubbs joined them, keeping watch on Pelican and
nearby streets.
"There's about 20 or 30 guys in addition to
us. We know all of them and where they are," Harris said. "People
armed themselves so quickly, rallying together. I think it's why the
neighborhood survived."
But Pervel, Harris and Stubbs had a
problem. They were without weapons other than a 40-year-old shotgun
with no shells. Pervel, who had stayed in contact with many
evacuated neighbors through the NOLA.com Web site and by his
still-working telephone, got permission from residents to retrieve
their guns and supplies from nearby houses.
"I never thought
I'd be going into my neighbor's house and taking their guns. We
wrote down what gun came from what house so we can return them when
they get back," he said.
One neighbor used his dog, T-Bone,
as a lookout, chaining him at night to a fire hydrant on a corner.
The dog barked if anyone approached, Stubbs said.
The first
few nights after the hurricane, Stubbs said they heard gunfire
popping all around and saw people walking with flashlights through
the streets. A tree had fallen at their corner, spilling a recycling
bin full of cans. At the sound of a can rustling, the balcony watch
group would flip the switch to the car battery, flooding the street
in light, blinding whoever was below.
"We angled the lights
so they wouldn't see us on the balcony," said Stubbs, rocking in the
chair, smoking a cigarette. With the area dry and mostly
evacuated, they saw only one New Orleans police officer in the first
four days after the storm.
"We kept hearing on the radio,
'The military is coming, the military is coming, troops on the
ground,' and we kept thinking, 'Where are they?'" Stubbs said. "We
really felt alone."
During the day, Pervel's phone rang
constantly, with residents calling from Texas, Mississippi, Florida,
asking him to check on their homes, feed their pets. The men also
made daily visits to deliver food and water to elderly neighbors. "I
asked this one 84-year-old lady if she'd eaten, and she told me all
she had was a can of Vienna sausages," Harris said. "I wanted to cry
when I heard that."
By Tuesday, they'd checked on human
beings as well scores of cats and dogs, a parrot, pet rats, two mice
and a guinea pig.
"There are several guys in the
neighborhood. They had this little task force. They knew everyone
who stayed and where we were," said a resident who would only give
her first name, Betty. "If it hadn't been to all those guys, making
a statement to the looters, I don't know what would have
happened.
"Our great fear was fire. If one started, it would
have spread so quickly throughout the neighborhood," she said. On
Tuesday, she made rounds through the neighborhood, feeding cats and
dogs left stranded on the streets.
By Sunday night, tension
in the neighborhood had started to release, Harris and Stubbs said,
as more and more military vehicles were spotted patrolling the
streets. "We really all breathed for the first time when we saw an
armored personnel carrier come through," Harris said.
On
Tuesday night, two Humvees crept down the road, flashing their
lights at the balcony as Pervel lay down on his blanket, removed his
glasses and rubbed his eyes. With the military on patrol, maybe the
balcony watch group could finally get some sleep.
Susan
Langenhennig may be reached at suzgranger@hotmail.com
Parish president: 'Just give us a couple of more
days'
By Charlie Chapple and Paul Bartels St.
Tammany bureau
St. Tammany Parish officials may soon give the
official green light for thousands of evacuees to
return.
"Please try to hold on, and just give us a couple of
more days," Parish President Kevin Davis said Wednesday after
meeting with local and federal officials at Louisiana Heart Hospital
near Lacombe.
Davis said he wants to give evacuees the OK to
return to St. Tammany, but fears that traffic congestion will slow
down utility crews working to restore power.
Officials with
Cleco and Washington-St. Tammany Electric Cooperative, which provide
electricity in St. Tammany, both reported that about one-fourth of
their customers in the parish have power.
Parish officials
apparently want that number to be higher before telling evacuees
it's safe to return.
Electricity is necessary for water and
sewer services. Without electricity, lift stations that transport
sewage to treatment plants cannot work.
Davis, along with
other parish and municipal officials, urged residents to be patient
and to stay away from their homes if possible until services are
restored in most of the parish.
Unlike Jefferson Parish, St.
Tammany residents were discouraged but not banned from returning to
their homes. Many St. Tammany residents rode out Hurricane Katrina
at home, and many who fled already have returned.
Davis
estimated that about 60,000 residents have not returned to their
homes, including almost 6,000 who are staying at more than a dozen
shelters throughout the parish.
Meanwhile, St. Tammany public
school classes still are scheduled to resume Oct. 3 for the
thousands of students who, along with their parents, were forced to
flee to higher ground as Hurricane Katrina
approached.
"That's what we're shooting for," Superintendent
Gayle Sloan said, adding that parents may want to consider
temporarily enrolling their children in schools in unaffected areas
of Louisiana or neighboring states.
"But each family has to
evaluate their own circumstances," she said. "If they think they can
manage to hold on, we will make up" the 20 lost days if parish
schools reopen Oct. 3.
In St. Tammany's largest city,
Slidell, officials said the situation is better at this point than
they had expected, given the grim immediate aftermath of the
storm.
With the exception of hard-hit south Slidell, which
was swamped by floodwaters and crippled by snapped trees and downed
power lines, most city streets were passable.
Still, even
though all the water had drained away, city officials urged south
Slidell residents either to stay elsewhere if possible or come back
for brief periods for cleanup work.
"They can start ripping
out carpets and everything," City Engineer Stan Polivick said. "They
can get in, but I don't know if they would want to
stay."
Chief of Staff Reinhard Dearing agreed. "There's too
much traffic on the streets now," he said. "It's hampering cleanup
and restoration operations."
Power has been restored to about
one-third of the city, Dearing estimated, and some of the traffic
signals on major streets such as Gause Boulevard and Front Street
were working.
The water supply "is in good shape," he said.
Only one of 12 water samples taken Tuesday tested positive for
contamination, which gave city officials hope that the boil-water
order issued by health officials could be lifted by today or
Friday.
Thus far, the water supply in only Mandeville and
Covington has been certified safe for drinking and
cooking.
Sewer service should be fully restored for most of
Slidell by week's end, officials said. Fifteen of the 90 stations
that lift sewage to the plant for treatment, which is back online,
were working Wednesday.
The pumps at three of the four
drainage stations were working. The big Schneider Canal station was
still down, Polivick said.
Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency is bringing in 400 house trailers and similar
mobile residences to a trailer park off Interstate 59 north of
Slidell to house on-the-job city workers and residents displaced by
the hurricane.
"At least 50 percent of our work force is
homeless," Dearing said.
Just south of Slidell, closer to
Lake Pontchartrain, authorities were requiring identification of
residents trying to re-enter the flooded-out Oak Harbor and Eden
Isles subdivisions and camps along the U.S. 11 Canal.
Five people died from a disease
related to Hurricane Katrina, succumbing to a bacterium that can
enter the body through open wounds after a slog through polluted
water, federal authorities announced Wednesday.
Four of the
deaths from complications of Vibrio vulnificus infections were
reported in Mississippi, and the fifth occurred in Texas, said Tom
Skinner of the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
He predicted more such deaths are likely in the
New Orleans area.
The infection, which also can result from
eating contaminated oysters, is one of several possible diseases
that can result from spending time in foul water. People with
chronic illnesses such as diabetes or weakened immune systems are at
greater risk of complications.
State epidemiologist Raoult
Ratard discouraged anyone from eating oysters harvested in Louisiana
until tainted waters have been cleared from the
area.
Although the diseases can be treated easily, people can
help ward off problems by drying off, cleaning up and paying
attention to open wounds exposed to the water, said Dr. Robert
Tauxe, chief of the CDC's food-borne and digestive diseases
branch.
"The water is a stinking mess," he said. "You don't
want to be around it."
Although the micro-organism that
killed the five storm victims comes from the same family as the
bacterium that can cause cholera, medical experts were quick to
point out Wednesday that it is not cholera.
Tests have shown
that the water swirling through the New Orleans area carries the E.
coli bacterium because of sewage in the water, but Tauxe said it is
the strain that everyone carries, not the one that can cause
disease.
Consequently, it shouldn't be a threat to people who
have safe drinking water, he said.
But because sewage is
present, it's possible that contact with the water could bring about
contact with norovirus, campylobacter and salmonella, all of which
can trigger nausea and vomiting, he said.
Many diseases could
result in the area next to a sewage-treatment plant, Ratard said,
"but if a lot of water came over and washed the area, maybe the
cleanest place would be the sewage-treatment plant."
From a distance, the aroma of barbecued chicken over
the sea of striped beach umbrellas might have signaled that a street
party in full swing.
But up close, there was nothing festive
going on Wednesday at the asphalt parking lot outside the state
Department of Social Services offices on North Boulevard in downtown
Baton Rouge.
Beneath an unforgiving sun, hundreds of
Louisiana residents forced from their homes by Hurricane Katrina
snaked through a maze of police barricades to collect food stamps --
a benefit most had never needed before.
Shirtless men mopped
perspiration from their chests with towels, and women and children
sought shade beneath newspapers and cardboard boxes discarded by
relief workers after handing out bottled water.
"It's slow
going," said Lee Turner, 47, a security guard whose eastern New
Orleans home is under water.
Like many of those lined up
outside the nondescript one-story brick building around 1 p.m.,
Turner had been waiting hours for a chance to be processed. And like
many, he had mixed emotions about the ordeal.
"Look, I
appreciate what they're doing," Turner sighed as he slumped against
a wall. "But it just doesn't seem to be as organized as it's
supposed to be. I guess they're doing the best they
can."
Some families declined to talk about the ordeal, saying
they were embarrassed to seek aid to buy food. But Blake Turner, 27,
a medical billing specialist from Harvey, said there was nothing to
be ashamed of.
"This is something that will help me hold on
for now,'' said Turner, whose home was badly damaged by wind. "It's
one thing to be uprooted temporarily. It's another thing entirely to
be forced to move and start all over."
At any given time
Wednesday, more than 500 people were waiting to be served by the
state agency, which has been handing out food stamps to evacuees
from 6 a.m. to midnight at locations in 45 parishes since last
Friday. The operation never really shuts down, officials said,
because the agency uses the six hours it's closed to electronically
process the applications.
Since the emergency effort was
launched, state officials said, more than 100,000 families have
received benefits, which can provide up to $390 in food stamps for a
family of three for one month, with an option to renew for another
30 days. The North Boulevard location alone had seen 11,000
applicants through Tuesday night, said Adren Wilson, DSS assistant
secretary for the Office of Family Support.
"This dynamic is
going on all across our state,'' Wilson said, fanning himself with
an application form. Looking at all the tired, sun-burnt faces
around him, he said applicants were being asked to stand in the
elements because most of Baton Rouge's indoor government facilities
are being used for shelters and other aspects of the recovery
effort. "Besides, this is where we're set up,'' Wilson
said.
Making sure that the operation runs smoothly are armed
members of the Louisiana National Guard's 108th Cavalry, normally
based in Natchitoches. But perhaps the most welcome sight for
late-afternoon arrivals, who groaned as they spotted the long lines,
was the smoking, barrel-shaped pit manned by Clyde Presty, owner of
Baton Rouge's Port-A-Pit Barbecue. Presty and his staff showed up
shortly after noon and began dishing up the first of 1,000 chicken
dinners, featuring baked beans and fruit salad.
"The Red
Cross invited me to feed their workers over at Cortana Mall, but for
some reason we weren't cleared to do it,'' a visibly agitated Presty
said. "So I said if they don't want it, we'll take it direct to the
people."
Together with three local church groups, Presty has
established a program called "I Am My Brother's Keeper." As long as
the need is there, he is willing to spend one or two days a week
grilling and serving food donated by others, he said.
"We can
handle 1,000 hamburgers in an hour or 5,000 hot dogs in an hour,''
he said. "You bring it, and we'll cook it."
BATON ROUGE - State
transportation officials said they are inspecting 90 "movable
bridges" in south Louisiana that were affected by Hurricane Katrina
to determine which are in most need of repair.
The state has
130 movable bridges, which can open and close to accommodate marine
and vehicular traffic.
The most severely damaged of these
bridges appear to be the East Pearl River bridge on U.S. 90 at the
St. Tammany Parish-Mississippi line, the Bayou Liberty bridge
between Thompson Road and Bayou Liberty Road west of Slidell, and
the Rigolets bridge on U.S. 90 between eastern New Orleans and
southeastern St. Tammany, said Gordon Nelson, assistant secretary
for the state Department of Transportation and
Development.
The Leeville bridge on Louisiana 1 linking oil
facilities at Port Fourchon to the Lafourche Parish mainland appears
to be stable, Nelson said.
The U.S. 90 bridge across the East
Pearl River at the state line is not operable but is open to
emergency traffic.
The Rigolets bridge "has severe mechanical
electrical problems" and cannot be opened to allow marine traffic to
pass, Nelson said. He did not know the extent of damage to the
pontoon bridge that crosses Bayou Liberty west of
Slidell.
Meanwhile, work has begun on the span across
Caminada Bay on Louisiana 1, which links to Grand
Isle.
Portions of the bridge deck have shifted, but none has
been lost, Nelson said. Access is being limited while the work is
under way, and repairs are expected to be completed in three
weeks.
DOTD will ask the federal government for a waiver of
the 100-day deadline for reporting disaster-related damage in order
to obtain federal funds for the necessary repairs, Nelson said.
Because of the huge impact zone and the extensive damage, the state
might need longer to complete its inspections and make its report to
Washington, he said.
BATON ROUGE - A "preliminary investigation'' of the
Superdome and nearby New Orleans Arena indicates that both
facilities "can be rehabilitated" from the damage caused by
Hurricane Katrina, but it will cost at least $400 million, state
officials told U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., Wednesday.
The
damage estimate was included in a letter to Vitter signed by
Superdome Commission Chairman Tim Coulon; Dome Counsel Larry Roedel;
and Doug Thornton, regional vice president of SMG, the corporation
that manages the stadium and arena for the state.
Thornton
did not break down the estimate, but said most of the damage was at
the Superdome, which served as a shelter of last resort for more
than 20,000 residents during the storm while sustaining roof and
water damage.
Thornton said he hopes to have a
decontamination team in the buildings in two to three weeks so
engineers, architects and other experts can make a more intensive
inspection of the state-owned structures.
Thornton said he
should have an assessment of the Superdome within 45 to 60 days and
a recommendation on whether it should be repaired, renovated or
rebuilt.
"While our preliminary investigation leads us to
believe these facilities can be rehabilitated, there is always the
possibility that the Superdome may require full replacement,'' the
letter said.
The officials asked Vitter to seek "federal
assistance to rehabilitate both facilities.'' Superdome officials
told Vitter that the money is needed to remove waste, including
medical waste, human waste, trash and debris, from the Dome, which
had two inches of water on its playing surface.
"It is
premature to make any determination about the outcome of the
building," Thornton said in a news conference called to refute
national news stories that the state has decided to raze the
Superdome.
He called the 30-year-old Superdome "an icon in
the New Orleans area,'' the site of the Republican National
Convention in 1988, a papal visit in 1987, six Super Bowl games and
two NCAA Final Four basketball tournaments.
He said if the
Arena can be repaired quickly, it is possible it could be back in
use in the first quarter of next year, in time for the New Orleans
Voodoo's Arena Football League season and other events.
Thornton said that there is about $600 million worth of
insurance on the Dome for wind and flood damage and that, with
federal recovery money, those dollars could cover the costs of
repairs or reconstruction.
He said the Dome and the Arena
could qualify for federal disaster assistance because the two
buildings were used to house up to 24,000 evacuees and National
Guard troops for almost a week.
The letter to Vitter outlined
these damages:
80 percent of the Superdome's roof "has been compromised,"
causing severe water damage to a very significant portion of the
facility.
A large portion of the electrical distribution, mechanical,
lighting, audio, video and other electronic systems suffered water
damage.
A large portion of the heating and air-conditioning system was
damaged.
"Major water damage to the playing surface'' and ground level
electrical boxes on the Superdome floor.
"Contamination and rupture'' of plumbing and sewer systems,
including broken and overflowing toilets.
Significant vandalism and damage to all interior spaces such as
luxury suites, administrative office areas, commissaries and
kitchens as a result of the evacuee population housed at the
facility.
Damage to exterior lighting systems and the
exterior skin of the stadium due to high winds.
Confusion surrounds case of man accused of
shooting at copter
Katrina closure prompts disorder in court
system
By Susan Finch Staff writer
BATON
ROUGE -- Jurisdictional questions left in Hurricane Katrina's wake
postponed most action Wednesday in the case of a 21-year-old man
arrested Tuesday in Algiers for allegedly shooting at a relief
helicopter.
Wendell L. Bailey was ordered returned to his
cell at the West Baton Rouge Parish Prison after Magistrate
Christine Noland of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District
of Louisiana read him the charges he faces and declared, after
learning he has no money, that he qualifies for free legal
help.
Bailey told the magistrate that he was a $10-an-hour
liquor store employee from January through March and then worked for
Sears before being jailed from April until August, when he was
released on parole.
Bailey, currently on probation, has
felony convictions for marijuana distribution and possession of
cocaine, federal officials said.
At the urging of Virginia
Schlueter, federal public defender for the Eastern District of
Louisiana court, Noland agreed to delay further proceedings on
Bailey's case at least until Monday while officials decide whether
the law requires his case be handled by the federal court in New
Orleans, which has been temporarily closed because of the storm.
From a procedural standpoint, Bailey's case is unusual.
Wednesday's hearing was set to be heard at the Houma annex of the
New Orleans-based U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of
Louisiana.
The hearing, however, was moved to Baton Rouge
after the U.S. Marshals Service expressed security concerns about
the Houma facility, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael
Magner of New Orleans.
"We did not go to Houma because the
Marshals Service did not believe they could provide security for
inmates and the court there," Magner said, adding that the Houma
facility was designed as a venue for civil cases only.
If
the Marshals Service can secure the Houma building to handle
criminal cases, Bailey's hearing will resume there Monday, Magner
said.
Meanwhile, he added, a bill introduced by U.S. Sen.
David Vitter, R- La., that could be acted on soon would allow a
quick fix for the jurisdictional problem that delayed the Bailey
case.
Vitter's bill would allow federal courts, in the event
of an emergency declared by their chief judges, to handle criminal
case pretrial proceedings in another jurisdiction, Magner said.
Major defense contractors
in southeastern Louisiana, which employ nearly 10,000 workers,
struggled Wednesday to measure the damage to their factories and to
track down employees scattered across the country with other
evacuees from Hurricane Katrina.
Northrop Grumman Corp.,
Textron Marine and Land Systems and Bollinger Shipyards Inc. all
posted notices with media outlets asking workers to contact the
companies.
Tracking down enough workers to restart operations
was proving to be as challenging as restoring electricity and
cleaning the mess left by the storm.
"The challenge is
getting the people there once we get power," said Brian Cullin,
spokesman for Northrop, which operates the military shipyard in
Avondale and the shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., formerly known as
Ingalls.
Sporadic telephone outages and congested phone lines
only intensified the challenge, said Textron spokeswoman Maureen
Collis.
The trouble raised the possibility that the Navy and
Army might have to wait longer for amphibious assault ships and
armored security vehicles that are urgently needed in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
The Navy said it was still too early to know how
shipyard shutdowns and repairs would affect delivery
schedules.
Textron's plant in eastern New Orleans, which
makes armored vehicles and speedy patrol boats, appeared to be
facing some of the biggest challenges in terms of restarting
operations.
The plant was surrounded by flood waters and
accessible only by helicopter, said Textron spokeswoman Maureen
Collis. "We are in there trying to do a thorough assessment of what
is going on. The building in New Orleans is still standing," she
said.
The company's newly opened plant in Slidell appeared to
have weathered the storm better, she said. Managers plan to reopen
the Slidell plant as soon as possible and shift armored vehicle
production to that facility while repairs are made to the main
factory in New Orleans, she said.
During the past year, the
company has received orders from the Army for more than 700 armored
vehicles, known as ASVs. Before Katrina hit, Textron was in the
midst of a major production expansion to meet the growing demand for
its main product line.
The company has temporarily relocated
its New Orleans business operations to another Textron plant in
Shreveport, Collis said. The region's big shipbuilders appear to
be making quicker progress in their recovery.
Only one of six
ships docked at Northrop's Avondale and Pascagoula yards sustained
damage in the storm, a guided-missile destroyer at the Mississippi
factory that received a 3-inch by 4-foot gash in its steel side
after banging against the wharf, Northrop spokesman Brian Cullin
said.
More than 3,000 people, mainly maintenance and security
personnel, worked at the Pascagoula yard Wednesday, cleaning up
after the factory was flooded by as much as 6 feet of
water.
Fewer than 80 people worked at the Avondale yard,
which remained isolated by restrictions on re-entry into Jefferson
Parish. Even so, the Avondale yard was nearly ready to be
reconnected to electricity generators, Cullin said. Once that
happens and the evacuation is lifted, the factory will be capable of
resuming up to 80 percent of operations.
Work levels at both
factories will be ramped up in stages, he said. Even in Gulfport,
Miss., where Katrina's punch was felt the hardest, damage to
Northrop's composite materials factory was less than expected,
Cullin said.
"We feared the worst, but it was in much better
shape than we thought. We should be able to restore production there
in weeks as opposed to months," he said.
Northrop, with
permission from the Navy, has set up a shipyard restoration command
center on one of the nearly finished guided-missile destroyers
docked at the Pascagoula yard. The Navy also has supplied generators
and communications equipment to the yards, Cullin said.
"The
Navy has been huge in terms of support of our people," he
said.Bollinger Shipyards Inc. said all of its ship-building and
repair yards in southeastern New Orleans outside of metropolitan New
Orleans were open as of Wednesday. The company's three factories in
the metro area will remain closed until power is restored and
evacuation orders are lifted, Bollinger said.
Keith Darcé can
be reached at nolapaperboy@cox.net.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who last week criticized the
federal government's relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina, toured
New Orleans on Wednesday with federal and state military commanders
and pronounced herself pleased with the state of the relief effort.
"I think we have stability. I think the aid is at an
appropriate level," Blanco said. "We see a very strong federal
effort."
Blanco repeated her initial frustrations with the
federal government and defended the speed at which she requested aid
from President Bush.
Primarily, though, the governor focused
on the positive aspects of the relief efforts. She met with doctors,
volunteers and evacuees outside the New Orleans Convention Center
and thanked police and rescue workers who have been operating out of
Harrah's New Orleans Casino since last week. At the Convention
Center, which became an international symbol of suffering last week,
the few remaining evacuees, who were outnumbered by rescue workers
and journalists, received hugs and expressions of support from the
governor.
More than 18,000 federal troops from all branches
of the military are now deployed in areas hit by Katrina, the vast
majority in Louisiana, a military spokesman said. They are helping
with what remains of the search-and-rescue efforts, setting up
medical clinics and delivering food and water. They are joined in
Louisiana by nearly 43,000 National Guard troops from around the
country as well as state and local authorities.
Federal
troops began arriving en masse on Sunday, nearly a week after the
storm struck and six days after flooding put 80 percent of New
Orleans under water. With floodwaters starting to recede downtown,
Blanco said the scene is far better than the one she witnessed last
week. "I came when downtown was full of water. It's good to be on
dry ground," she said.
The governor repeated her initial
frustrations with the pace of federal relief efforts. "We wanted
everything yesterday," she said. And she brushed off suggestions
that she did not act quickly enough in asking President Bush to send
federal troops. Blanco said she first made such a request in a
telephone conversation with the president on the morning of Aug. 28,
moments before Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of New
Orleans.
"I told him we would need all the help we could
get," she said. But she said she did not give the president a
"checklist" of the resources needed, she said.
Bob Mann,
Blanco's communications director, said the governor also tried to
contact Bush two days later, to ask for more help. Three days after
that, Blanco received a written request from the Bush administration
asking that the entire military relief effort be federalized under
the command of Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who heads Joint Task Force
Katrina. Blanc rejected that request and opted to keep the current
arrangement in which federal troops report to Honore and guard
troops are under the command of Maj. Gen. Bennett Landreneau, who
leads the Louisiana National Guard.
Blanco and military
officials took pains Wednesday to show that the arrangement is
working well, and that there is no discord between the two commands.
Before touring the city, Blanco, Lanreneau and Lt. Gov. Mitch
Landrieu attended a closed-door briefing by Honore on the USS
Iwo-Jima, where federal troops are based.
"We are a unified
command" of state, local and federal officials, Blanco said.
Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who commands Joint Task Force
Katrina, said his troops will not participate in civilian
law-enforcement activities, including the forced evacuation ordered
by Mayor Ray Nagin, and will continue to provide food and water to
anyone who needs it. "We're here to save lives -- if we have to give
them food and water that's what we'll do," Honore said.
Blanco said she hopes the federal troops will remain after
the search-and-rescue operations are over and the city's rebuilding
process begins. The governor said her staff is working on a proposed
"relocation package" -- details of which were not revealed -- that
would give people incentives to keep their businesses in New
Orleans. The package could include tax breaks, low-interest loans or
possibly cash assistance for certain small businesses that promise
to rebuild in New Orleans.
BATON ROUGE -- Jefferson
Parish government and school officials Wednesday began promoting
their damaged but hardly devastated parish as the future core of
recovery for the entire New Orleans area.
In many respects,
Baton Rouge is serving that role for the moment, and the capital is
where the Jefferson School Board held an emergency meeting, in the
building where the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education
normally convenes. But the officials described Jefferson as being as
close as two or three weeks away from flickering back to
life.
Parish Council Chairman Tom Capella said the government
will get the parish running quickly, so Jefferson can help in the
rebuilding of its harder-hit neighbors in Orleans, St. Bernard and
Plaquemines parishes.
"We are fully committed in Jefferson
Parish to rebuilding our community," Parish Council member Chris
Roberts said. "I think Jefferson Parish has an opportunity to
grow."
Jefferson schools Superintendent Diane Roussel said
she thinks the parish soon will be the hub of redevelopment for the
New Orleans region.
"The word today is much more encouraging
than before," Roussel said of the damage in Jefferson. "Folks, we'll
be up and running shortly."
"In every challenge," she said,
"there is an opportunity."
Schools to reopen soon
The School Board approved a resolution setting Oct. 3 as
the target date to reopen some schools. That came after members
heard a preliminary report of damage to the parish's 84 public
schools, which before Katrina served 50,000 students, employed 7,000
people and had a budget of $330 million.
The target puts
Jefferson well ahead of some school systems in Katrina's path. State
Superintendent Cecil Picard said Tuesday that Orleans and St.
Bernard schools may not be able to reopen at all during the 2005-06
academic year.
Some reports had Jefferson schools not opening
until January, but board members strongly refuted that
scenario.
Jefferson officials said more than 40 schools are
in good condition, 11 have minor damage that can be fixed quickly
and nine have serious damage that will take more time to fix. Roof
damage appeared to be the most common problem.
Because some
schools will not be able to reopen soon, and because the student
population likely will fluctuate wildly in the coming months,
Roussel and some board members suggested the practice of
"platooning," under which different sets of students attend a school
in different shifts.
Jefferson used that system during its
population boom in the 1960s and 1970s, when school construction
didn't keep pace with growth. But enrollment has declined
considerably in the past 20 years.
Stemming the
losses
In addition to their eagerness to begin serving as
the next base of recovery, some Jefferson officials said restarting
school soon could stem permanent losses of students and families who
evacuated the storm strike zone and now are settling, at least
temporarily, into schools in other cities and states.
Board
member Etta Licciardi, who evacuated to Arlington, Texas, for a
week, said Texas communities see evacuees as potential new
residents, so the Louisiana schools must act soon.
"Those
people want our kids," Licciardi said. "They want to keep our kids.
They want to keep our teachers."
But board member Judy Colgan
said open schools in themselves are not enough to get Jefferson back
on its feet. She said businesses need to reopen and put employees
back to work.
"The economy is what's going to drive the
return of residents," Colgan said. She urged businesses to move as
fast as possible. The Jefferson school system has enough money
reserved in its $24 million fund balance to continue paying
employees at least for the rest of this month, officials
said.
"We've always called it a rainy day balance," Chief
Financial Officer Raylyn Stevens said. "I believe this is
it."
But as long as the parish is mostly closed for business,
she said, the school system cannot collect revenue from its most
important local source: sales taxes. That's a loss of about $12
million per month.
That realization led board President Ray
St. Pierre and Vice President Martin Marino to suggest that state
and federal financial help might be promptly needed.
Roussel
said she was planning to travel to Washington to give a speech today
before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
about the needs facing Southeast Louisiana schools.
BATON ROUGE - For the first
time in the history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the
government has decided to dole out debit cards worth $2,000 each to
help displaced hurricane evacuees get back on their feet.
"The concept is that this is cash in hand that allows them,
empowers them, about what they need to do to start rebuilding their
lives," FEMA Director Michael Brown said, announcing the program
Wednesday at the state Office of Emergency Preparedness.
The
cards were expected to be distributed first to evacuees that are
currently staying in shelters. It was not clear whether they would
be issued more widely than that.
The cards will allow people
who are running low on cash after fleeing their homes and jobs to
buy emergency supplies or make minor repairs to their properties,
Brown said.
FEMA representatives at the state Office of
Emergency Preparedness in Baton Rouge did not have much more
information about exactly who would be receiving the
cards.
Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard handed a
tattered American flag to the nation's security czar Wednesday and
asked him to devote every possible resource to reestablishing a
"sustainable living condition" in the suburban community within a
month of Hurricane Katrina's landfall.
Broussard also asked
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to "build radio towers
that are fortresses" so storm victims stuck in their homes and
refugees stranded outside their neighborhoods can get
up-to-the-minute information anywhere in the nation. And he pushed
the need for ramped-up federal efforts to combat coastal erosion to
low-lying areas to protect greater New Orleans against another
catastrophic hurricane.
In recounting the private session of
about 25 parish and federal officials, Broussard said he eschewed
Chertoff's request to tour wind- and flood-ravaged Jefferson
neighborhoods Wednesday. By the time he arrived for a 5 p.m. meeting
at the parish's Emergency Operations Center in Marrero, Chertoff
would have witnessed the worst of Katrina's massacre during earlier
visits to Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, Broussard said.
"Jefferson Parish would have seemed like a cakewalk," he
said.
Broussard also related in detail a chronology that
started Aug. 26 with a parishwide evacuation order and ending with
Jefferson in a tangle of downed trees, smashed buildings and as much
as 15 feet of water in some east bank areas after the Aug. 30 breach
in the 17th Street Canal, according to the parish president and
other local officials who attended the meeting. Broussard said it
will take 21 days to remove the water from Old Metairie and
neighborhoods around Airline Highway.
Chertoff asked for
numbers of residents who may have perished in Katrina, those who
evacuated and those who stayed to weather the storm in their homes.
Broussard said he did not know such details yet, adding that
officials have not begun to search for the dead, those attending the
meeting said.
Broussard also said that in the days before
the hurricane, he asked for medical personnel from across the
country to head to Louisiana to provide support for local doctors,
nurses and pharmacists. Finally on Wednesday, 200 medical
professionals arrived from Maryland after that state's governor
volunteered their services.
To begin the 40-minute meeting,
Broussard handed to Chertoff a ragged flag he found Wednesday during
a quick trip to Plaquemines Parish and asked the national security
chief to present it to President Bush. "This flag represents the
greater New Orleans area," Broussard said he told Chertoff. "We are
ripped. We are torn. We are shredded. But we're still Americans.
Send us all you can and restore this community like you would
restore this flag."
Broussard also announced Wednesday the
creation of Operation Life-Line Depot, a parish effort to open
neighborhood elementary schools to local residents to get food,
water, hygiene products and possibly to distribute textbooks to
students who could not evacuate. Jefferson's public schools hope to
re-open in early October, the district superintendent has said.
Elsewhere Wednesday in Jefferson, residents returned to
their homes to survey damage as armed National Guard soldiers, most
from Missouri, patrolled major intersections and about 100 New York
City police fanned out to join forces with thousands of local
sheriff's deputies and municipal police to maintain order.
Some residents arrived in pickups or with U-Haul trucks to
cart out mattresses, chests of drawers, linens and keepsakes that
Katrina spared. But others turned their front-door keys to return
home for good despite a lack of electricity, water and sewerage
services and a request from parish officials for everyone to get out
by 6 p.m. today.
Provisions also were in short supply, with
most grocery stores and restaurants boarded up or locked. But one
gas station near Lapalco and Woodmere boulevards catered to a steady
row of about 50 cars at the bargain-basement price of $2.38 per
gallon, and many of those idling in line said they wanted to stay in
Jefferson to help rebuild as quickly as possible.
In Jean
Lafitte, Taddese Tewelde proudly opened the doors to the Piggly
Wiggly across from Town Hall on Louisiana 45 as electricity flashed
on in the hamlet's northern areas after noon. Though his frozen
foods, meats and produce spoiled when Katrina knocked out power last
week, Tewelde sold snacks, cleaning supplies, soda, cakes and paper
goods at pre-storm prices. His beer and cigarette cache was stolen
when he evacuated to Baton Rouge last week.
Over-the-counter
medications were shelved behind yellow police tape so they would not
be pilfered. Tewelde, who is a pharmacist, said he expected to start
selling prescription drugs again today or Friday, though lack of a
phone line meant he would not be able to process insurance claims.
And because Federal Emergency Management Agency workers had not
gotten to Lafitte by Wednesday, Tewelde expected that residents
would not have medication vouchers for his pharmacy to submit for
reimbursement, he said. "I will have to charge full price," he
said, adding that he would be torn between providing medicine to
neighbors in his tiny community and operating his business at a
potentially devastating loss.
Further down the bayou, Tracy
LaBella said he'd be shopping at the food mart in coming weeks. He
didn't care that power and telephone service still was out at his
home on the Barataria banks near the Intracoastal Canal, or that
officials planned to enforce a dusk-to-dawn curfew starting Friday
morning.
But LaBella had rigged a generator to run his air
conditioner and planned to house three adults and three kids at the
property while he rebuilds his home.
Despite the
inconveniences, life seemed to be getting back to normal, as
12-year-old Trey Brewer, who lives with his mother and LaBella,
showed off a prize that Katrina probably deposited in the coastal
waters.
"Hey!" Trey shouted. "I caught a soft-shell
turtle!"
"Yeah, he survived the hurricane," LaBella replied.
"Let him go."
Low-flying aircraft elicited screams of protest in New
Orleans area neighborhoods before Hurricane Katrina arrived, but
these days the roar of helicopter engines is a welcome
sound.
And there is a lot of roaring going on.
The
number of aircraft taking off and landing at Louis Armstrong
International Airport in Kenner jumped from about 700 per day before
Katrina to 3,800 per day during the peak of the Katrina rescue
operations, according to U.S. Transportation Department spokeswoman
Laura Brown.
In normal times, most aircraft leave the New
Orleans area quickly on specified routes designed to minimize noise
over neighborhoods. In the past few days, however, squadrons of
helicopters have crowded the skies at low altitudes to rescue storm
victims and dump water on building fires.
These craft operate
below the controlled airspace that commercial airliners fly. The
helicopters are flying under visual flight rules, in which pilots
watch out for each other, until they get close to the airport, Brown
said.
In the control tower at Armstrong, air traffic
controllers and technicians worked long shifts just after Katrina,
clearing runways and helping to bring in the first "mercy flights"
by several airlines, which brought in supplies and took out
evacuees.
Within 24 hours of the storm, a Federal Aviation
Administration truck loaded with radar and telecommunications gear
rolled west from Jacksonville, Fla., stopping at airports along the
Gulf Coast to get their radar and communications systems back
online. At Armstrong, the technicians placed a radio repeater atop
the 220-foot-tall control tower. The repeater replaced many that
were lost in the storm.
"Not only did it enable our people to
talk with each other, but it helped police and firefighters
communicate in a 37-mile radius of the tower," Brown said.
By
Sept. 1, three days after Katrina passed, the airport's primary
radar site near Slidell was back in operation. With the help of E-3
Airborne Warning and Control System military aircraft, it began
steering the fleet of rescue aircraft into
Armstrong.
Controllers and technicians have been flocking to
Armstrong from other airports, including the flooded Lakefront
Airport in New Orleans. Many of them are alumni of the New Orleans
tower, or TRACON, which handles flights within an 80-mile radius of
New Orleans.
And in a stroke of good fortune, the airport's
east-west runway, which had been under reconstruction for months,
was completed and certified by the FAA on Aug. 26, three days before
Katrina arrived.
"We're just thankful that we were able to
finish the runway before the storm hit," Aviation Director Roy
Williams said.
The runway wasn't due to be finished until
November, but the contractor, Boh Bros. Construction Co., was given
incentives to finish early.
"The rescue operation would have
been severely hampered had that runway been half-complete," Williams
said.
In all, 23,213 people were airlifted from Armstrong
between Sept. 1 and Wednesday.
Students at
schools operated by the Archdiocese of New Orleans will be offered
options ranging from attending schools in the communities to which
they have evacuated to using satellite schools to performing online
course work and homeschooling, said the Rev. William Maestri, the
superintendent of archdiocesan schools.
Whichever option a
student chooses, Maestri said, the archdiocese wants eventually to
"bring every single child back to our schools."
Maestri said
the goal is to enroll students in a safe and secure environment,
regardless of where their new schools are or whether or not they are
Catholic.
"The first (option) is enrollment in an existing,
safe school. Of course, we'd like it to be a Catholic school, but
whether it's a private school or public school, as long as children
are being educated in a safe school environment, that's what's
important to us. We are keeping track of where our students are,
with the hopes of bringing them back to the archdiocese," Maestri
said.
Maestri also said the archdiocese is looking into
setting up a series of satellite classrooms. Setting up online
courses through the state's already accredited online educational
program and a system of teleconference classes are also in the
works, he said.
"We also want to recognize parents' efforts
at home-schooling," he said.
Maestri said he believes such an
approach gives parents a "multiple-phase way of meeting their
children's educational needs, some short-term and some quite
long-term." He said the important thing is that the archdiocese will
continue to be involved in "responding to the needs of our parents
and children," he said.
"Wherever there are pockets of our
students, we want to have an educational presence there for them,"
he said. "And as the schools come back in the archdiocese, we will
be welcoming them back to our schools."
Though there are some
schools that will not be available in the immediate future, many
schools in the archdiocese "are able to function as schools right
now," Maestri said. "And so we are going to be calling on them right
now to make their resources available so we can provide a Catholic
education available for more and more Catholic children."
He
provided no details on how many schools can immediately be opened
and how many were damaged by the hurricane.
The archdiocese
was in the process Wednesday of opening a high school and an
elementary school in the Baton Rouge area, and it has received
offers to open satellite schools at other locations in the area,
Maestri said.
He thanked people in the Baton Rouge and other
areas for "the generosity and good will of so many people who have
come forward to help us."
"We think we've made a lot of
progress," he said. "Today is better than yesterday, and we hope
tomorrow will be better than today."
"We're in uncharted
waters, in that none of us has faced this kind of situation before,"
Maestri said. As if to underline that statement, an administrator of
a Metairie Catholic school complained to Maestri during a media
briefing that teachers have been guaranteed paychecks only through
September. "We didn't want to over-promise," Maestri
replied.
Maestri said "the operative word for us is the word
'hopeful' and 'committed.' "
"Many people have been talking
unfortunately about the demise of New Orleans, the lost city, never
to return. We want no part of that message," he said.
"We are
committed to Catholic education, and we are extremely hopeful that
we will get our teachers and parents and families and students back.
I think that is a very, very important thing," he
said.
Teachers and administrators are urged to notify the
archdiocese of their whereabouts by calling toll-free at
1(888)366-5024.
BATON ROUGE - A special
legislative session will have to be called to deal with mounting
legal and fiscal woes caused by Hurricane Katrina, leading Louisiana
lawmakers said Wednesday.
House Speaker Joe Salter,
D-Florien, and Senate President Don Hines, D-Bunkie, told reporters
that the session probably will be held early next year, unless
circumstances require an earlier meeting.
Hines said the
session will focus on budgetary matters, changes in state laws
dealing with legal and court matters, and possibly even changing
state election laws to extend absentee voting rights to evacuation
centers in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and other cities where
thousands of Louisiana citizens are living.
Salter said Gov.
Kathleen Blanco has not signaled when such a session might be
called, but he said it probably will have to wait until state
officials have a better handle on the effect the storm will have on
state finances.
"It may be difficult to get good information
before then," Salter said.
"It is going to be devastating" on
the state treasury, Hines said. "I don't think we have to worry
about a surplus."
Hines said it is unclear how much the state
and local governments will lose in sales taxes, property taxes and
other revenue sources.
"There are no revenues at all" coming
from the New Orleans area, he said. "We just know we are taking in a
lot less than we are spending."
Many of the expenses the
state is incurring can be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, officials said. Blanco has already asked for a
100 percent reimbursement of most costs and losses, aides
said.
"We have a rainy day fund" of $255 million that can be
tapped for emergencies, Hines said. "And it is raining now."
He said there was talk weeks ago of calling lawmakers into
special session in January to tap an expected surplus from
increasing gasoline prices to give teachers a pay raise, but that is
no longer expected to happen.
"I don't see how we can spend
$140 million on a pay raise when we are now dealing with people's
lives," he said.
With the New Orleans
economy roughed up by Hurricane Katrina, Capital One Financial Corp.
on Wednesday said it would delay buying Hibernia Corp. for a second
time and would pay 9 percent less for it.
The renegotiation
means Katrina cost Hibernia shareholders about $350 million; Capital
One said it intends to pay about $5 billon for Hibernia, down from
the $5.35 billion originally set in March. The new deal means
Hibernia shareholders stand to get about $30.49 a share, down from
$33.
The transaction had been delayed six days because of
Katrina and was scheduled to close Wednesday. But on Wednesday, both
parties announced the renegotiation. They said they now expect the
deal to close in the fourth quarter.
"What we worked out was
very reasonable, and shareholders on both sides are well-served by
the merger continuing," said Herb Boydstun, Hibernia president and
chief executive.
Speculation about whether the sale would
close had sparked heavy trading in Hibernia options and gyration in
its share price during the past week.
"While no one can
predict the impact of Katrina with certainty, I remain convinced of
the strategic value of this transaction and believe that Hibernia is
well-positioned to grow and generate significant shareholder value
over time," said Richard Fairbank, chairman and chief executive of
Capital One.
Capital One is a credit card company based in
McLean, Va. Hibernia, based in New Orleans, owns Hibernia National
Bank, which has more than $22 billion worth of loans and other
assets in Louisiana and Texas.
The new deal calls for
Hibernia shareholders to get an amount equal to $13.95 in cash plus
the value of 0.2055 of a share of Capital One. That translates to an
amount equal to $30.49, based on the closing price of Capital One
stock Tuesday of $80.50, the price used in the announcement. The
offer is down from the original, which called for $15.35 in cash
plus 0.2261 of a share of Capital One.
If the deal had closed
Wednesday under the original terms, each share would have been worth
about $33.72.
Shareholders can elect to take stock or cash,
based on availability.
In their announcement, Capital One
and Hibernia said they had assessed damage to Hibernia's facilities,
its loan portfolio and its future business prospects. The companies
said they had each run a range of scenarios "to account for the
considerable uncertainty in the aftermath of
Katrina.''
Hibernia initially had 107 branches closed and
said Wednesday that 47 have been reopened. Of the 60 branches yet to
be reopened, 21 appear to have significant damage. The bank holding
company said 5 percent of its deposits are attributable to these
branches.
Boydstun said 16 of the closed branches are in
areas where severe flooding has occurred. "We will look at each
office and how that part of the city redevelops,'' he said, in
determining whether to reopen or rebuild those branches.
The
renegotiated transaction is subject to shareholder
approval.
The companies said "the impact of hurricane-related
actions and events will be disregarded in determining whether
closing conditions are satisfied."
Stephen Schulz, banking
analyst at Keefe Bruyette & Woods Inc. in New York, said the
disclaimer "has given assurance or taken out some of the risk the
deal will not close."
Schulz said both sides benefit from the
renegotiated terms. Capital One shareholders can have the
satisfaction that the company has assessed the damage, and Hibernia
shareholders get "some confidence of the commitment to making the
deal happen."
Analyst Ed Groshans of Fox Pitt Kelton in New
York said the delay allows Capital One to assess the loan portfolio,
given the uncertainty that the loan customers will face in the next
six to 12 months, and to come up with a better valuation of
Hibernia.
"This deal is going to close,'' he said. Hibernia
shareholders strongly supported the first transaction, and "they
will vote for this also."
"Despite the lower price, this
still is a good deal for them," he said.
As the city of New Orleans trembles in the aftermath
of Hurricane Katrina, Florida developers said Wednesday that one
thing is certain: the $200 million Trump International Hotel &
Tower will be built on Poydras Street.
"We're in this with
you guys,'' Donald Trump Jr. said Wednesday. "But our sentiment
right now is that it's inappropriate to talk business (at a time)
with such a great loss of life,'' he said.
But Trump said
that The Trump Group is committed to the project and that when the
time is ripe - when rescues are complete and when the city is in
more of a recovery mode - they will willingly talk about their
developing plans.
"Of course we're still interested. We'll
talk when it's appropriate, when it's beneficial to work ourselves
back into the game," Trump said.
"Yes, it's a go,''
development partner Frederick Levin said. "It's just a question of
when.''
Levin's brother Clifford Mowe and partner Robert
Rinke, doing business as Poydras LLC, said The Trump Group showed no
reservations about moving forward, but stressed that the timetable
is now uncertain.
"There's no doubt about'' the
one-million-square-foot project, which will include retail, hotel
and condominium space, Mowe said.
The development, which will
be constructed on an empty parking lot between Camp and Magazine
streets, would be one of the largest new high-rise construction
projects in the city in more than 25 years.
"It's going to be
a delay before the project can be marketed,'' Mowe said. "But the
city is going to come back stronger than ever,'' and Mowe's team
plans to play a major role in its reconstruction.
Mowe
concurred with others that the city's primary tourism areas - the
French Quarter, Warehouse District and Central Business District -
are still basically intact.
The developers had planned to
begin marketing the property within the next few months and start
construction before the end of the year.
But Mowe said
Wednesday that the marketing effort could be pushed back as much as
a year, meaning that construction could be delayed until the fall of
2006.
"The priority is still saving people,'' Mowe said,
adding that "until we know better about the infrastructure of the
Central Business District, a more accurate timetable can't be
established on building Trump International Hotel and
Tower.
"Hopefully, the city will come back and come back
quickly," he said.
Both Levin brothers and Mowe acknowledged
they recognized that their announcement will be an important part of
rebuilding the city psychologically and economically.
Frederick Levin's law firm had donated $125,000 to relief
efforts for the city.
"We still love New Orleans, and the
Trump international Hotel and Tower will become a reality,'' he
insisted.
Though being called a hotel, the project will
actually be a condominium project, with more than 400 rooms set
aside as "condotel" units that buyers own but allow to be operated
as hotel rooms when vacant. On the upper floors, 250 more units will
be sold as traditional condos governed and eventually owned by a
condo association.
The project will include 650,000 to
850,000 square feet of living space and more than 200,000 square
feet of parking.
Mowe said the project will also include
60,000 to 80,000 square feet of retail space, although no
tenants have been lined up yet.
More importantly, the project
will provide well-paying construction jobs for a city that is
virtually empty and where many people have lost their jobs because
of the storm.
Rose: The last, hard core hunker down in surreal
city
They're telling the people they have to go. They're going
door to door with rifles now.
They came to our little hovel
on Laurel Street Uptown - a dozen heavily-armed members of the
California National Guard - they pounded on our door and wanted to
know who we were.
We told them we were the newspaper, the Big
City Daily. I admit, it doesn't look like the newsrooms you see on
TV. I suppose if we wore shirts, we'd look more
professional.
The Guard moved on, next door, next block.
They're telling people they have to go.
It won't be
easy. The people who stayed here have weathered 10 days of
unfathomable stench and fear and if they haven't left yet, it seems
unlikely that they're going to be willing now.
In a strange
way, life just goes on for the remaining. In the dark and fetid
Winn-Dixie on Tchoupitoulas, an old woman I passed in the pet food
aisle was wearing a house frock and puffy slippers and she just
looked at me as she pushed her cart by and said: "How you doin',
baby?"
Like it's just another afternoon making
groceries.
I love the way strangers call you baby in this
town.
Outside the store, there's an old guy who parks his old
groaning car by the front door from sunup to sundown. There are
extension cords running from his trunk into the store, which still
has power - don't ask me how; I have no idea - and he watches TV in
his front seat and drinks juice.
That is what he does, all
day, every day.
At this point, I just can't see this guy
leaving. I don't imagine he has anyplace else in the world but
this.
A young guy walked up and said to him: "I hear you can
charge your cell phone here?" and the old guy said "Yes, indeedy,"
and walked him into the store and showed him a plug that still had
juice.
And life goes on. Down on St. Claude Avenue, a tribe
of survivors has blossomed at Kajun's Pub where, incredibly, they
have cold beer and cigarettes and a stereo playing Elvis and you'd
think everything was in standard operating procedure but it is not:
The Saturday night karaoke has been indefinitely
suspended.
The people here have a touch of Mad Max syndrome;
they're using an old blue Cadillac for errands and when parts fall
off of it - and many parts have fallen off - they just throw them in
the trunk.
Melvin, a bar owner from down the block, had the
thing up for sale for $895, but he'll probably take the best offer
now. Melvin's Bar and Kajun's Pub have pooled their inventories
to stay in business.
"We've blended our fortunes together,"
said Renee dePnthieux, a bartender at Melvin's. "We carried
everything we could down here, and we'll make the accounting later.
What else are you gonna do? In case you haven't heard, Budweiser
ain't delivering."
A guy with a long goatee and multiple
tattoos was covering a couple of aluminum foil pans of lasagna and
carrying them up to the roof to cook them in the sun on the hot
slate shingles.
Joann Guidos, the proprietor at Kajun's,
called out for a game of bourre and they all dumped their money on a
table and sat down and let the cards and liquor flow.
A
National Guard truck pulled up and asked if they were ready to leave
yet. Two guys standing out on the sidewalk in the company of pit
bulls said: "Hell no."
DePonthiux said: "We're the last fort
on the edge of the wilderness. My family's been in exile for 300
years; this ain't s---." I just don't see these people
leaving.
Uptown, on what was once a shady street, a tribe is
living in a beautiful home owned by a guy named Peanut. There is a
seaplane in his driveway, a bass boat in the front yard and
generators running the power. Let's just say they were
prepared.
All the men wear pistols in visible holsters.
They've got the only manicured lawn in the city. What else is there
to do all afternoon, really?
Christine Paternostro is a
member of this tribe and she is an out-of-work hair stylist from
Supercuts in a city where no one shaves or bathes. Not many
prospects for her at this point.
"Everyone will need a
haircut when this is over," I offered.
While members of this
tribe stood talking on their street, a woman came running out of the
house, yelling: "Y'all, come quick. We on WWL! We on
WWL!"
Everyone ran in the house and watched a segment about
how people are surviving in the city. And these guys are doing just
that. (Although I think the airplane in the driveway is a little
over the top.)
As I was leaving, the WWL woman said to me:
"Are you staying for dinner?"
I was not, but I asked what
they were having. "Tuna steaks," she said. "Grilled."
If and
when they rebuild this city and we all get to come home, I want to
live near people like this. I just can't imagine them ever
leaving.
They make me wonder if I ever could.
To
contact Chris Rose, e-mail noroses@bellsouth.net, or call (504)
352-2535.
Teams set to pick where last season's finale left
off
By Mike Triplett Staff
writer
SAN ANTONIO - Despite all the uncertainty about their
long-term future, the Saints won't have much trouble focusing on
Sunday's opponent - perhaps their biggest NFL rival, the Carolina
Panthers.
Six of the past eight games between the NFC South
foes have been decided by less than a touchdown - including the
Saints' 21-18 victory at Carolina in Week 17 of last season, which
knocked the Panthers out of playoff contention.
"I don't
expect on Sunday for the Carolina Panthers to feel sorry for us,"
Saints receiver Joe Horn said. "In their heart, I'm sure they will.
But when that whistle blows, when that clock starts, I'm not going
to run around and catch a football and not expect for Julius Peppers
to knock my helmet off."
Panthers quarterback Jake Delhomme,
in turn, said he certainly will not underestimate the
Saints.
"We all know we play a child's game and this is a lot
more than a game, but I know these guys are going to come to play.
There's no doubt about that in my mind," Delhomme, a former Saints
quarterback, said. "That's just the professionals they have on the
team. There is no doubt No. 26 (Deuce McAllister) is going to suit
up and be ready to run the football and 87 (Horn) is going to be
ready to catch it, and then along that D-line, two guys I have the
utmost respect for in Charles Grant and Darren Howard, they are
going to be ready to play."
Saints coach Jim Haslett said
practice was "excellent" Wednesday after a sloppy start to the week
- which was expected, since the team was given a three-day weekend
to get their lives in order.
"I think they got it out of
their system and they're ready to go," Haslett said. "There was a
lot more concentration. They're more focused on what they have to
do. I'm proud of these guys."
The Panthers have gotten the
best of the Saints in recent years, winning four consecutive games
before last season's finale. But the Saints had won five in a row
before that.
The all-time series between these two teams is
10-10.
Many forecasters are predicting a big season by the
Panthers, who made an unexpected Super Bowl run in 2003 before
injuries marred their 2004 season. Carolina started 1-7 last season
before finishing 7-9.
The Saints are preparing for a physical
battle. The Panthers have one of the league's best rushing attacks
and defensive fronts. "I'm going to say this: It's going to be a
hell of a football game," Haslett said. "That's a good football
team. You watch them on film, they're well-coached, they've got some
great players. And even in preseason, I thought they were on fire.
They were as good as anyone in the National Football
League.
"Every year we play them, it comes down to the wire.
I would expect nothing different. It's going to be a heck of a game.
… If you want to stay tuned, if you want a game of the week, this
should be the game of the week. It's going to be a fun game to
watch."
DELHOMME'S REACTION: Delhomme, who is from
Breaux Bridge, said his family came out OK after Hurricane Katrina
hit last week. He has an aunt and uncle who live in Metairie, but
they were out of town.
Still, the quarterback said he was
emotionally affected.
"You just start seeing these pictures
over and over, and being down there for so long, you see these
places, and it just kind of hits you in the heart," Delhomme said.
"I know our preseason game last Thursday night, I was in the hotel
room all day. All I watched was CNN all day. It gets you depressed.
You just try to do what you can, money-wise or clothes-wise, you
just try to help out in any way, because we just play a game. These
people, this is their life."
SAINTS' EFFORTS: Ten more
Saints players visited the KellyUSA shelter on Tuesday after a
$7,000 shopping trip to Wal-Mart for things like clothing, diapers
and toiletries. Tight end Ernie Conwell replaced a man's engagement
ring for his wife.
The players in attendance were Conwell,
Horn, Michael Lewis, Kendyl Jacox, Shad Meier, T.J. Slaughter, Mike
Karney, John Carney, Willie Whitehead and Andy Akerstrom. Slaughter
and Horn previously had visited shelters.
Receiver Donte
Stallworth made his own trip to the shelter after Monday's practice
after his own shopping spree at Wal-Mart. Offensive lineman Wayne
Gandy is organizing a monetary collection in which Saints players
will help create lasting "commissaries" for the
evacuees.
Saints owner Tom Benson established the New Orleans
Saints Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund, the details of which will be
announced during Thursday's NFL season-opening broadcast on
ESPN.
INJURY REPORT: Tight end Meier (knee) and
linebacker Alfred Fincher (hand) will not play Sunday. Linebacker
James Allen (knee), receiver Az-Zahir Hakim (hamstring), tight end
Zachary Hilton (shoulder), defensive tackle Brian Young (knee) and
linebacker Slaughter (knee) are listed as questionable, but all of
them participated during Wednesday's practice.
Panthers
defensive end Peppers (foot) and linebacker Brandon Short (foot) are
both questionable, but both practiced Wednesday. TICKET
UPDATE: Although the Saints' Sept. 18 home game against the New
York Giants was moved to Giants Stadium, Saints season-ticket
holders and those people who previously purchased tickets to the
Giants-Saints game will be allowed to purchase tickets beginning
Thursday at 11 a.m. central time.
Those fans should call
(201) 372-7928 at that time. Saints season-ticket holders must
provide their account number. Giants season-ticket holders will
be allowed to purchase tickets beginning at 2 p.m. central time on
Thursday. All tickets will be issued on a first-come, first-serve
basis.
Next week, tickets will be made available to those on
the Giants' season-ticket waiting list. Then on Tuesday, Sept. 13,
at 9 a.m. central time, all remaining tickets will go on sale to the
public.
The Giants will host a donation drive on behalf of
the American Red Cross' hurricane relief efforts on the way into the
stadium. The team will match all contributions collected at the
gates.
As for the Saints' ticket-holders who choose not to
purchase tickets to the Giants game, Saints owner Tom Benson
announced Tuesday that they will be permitted to request refunds and
that specifics of the refund policy will be available in the coming
days.
Saints home games still up for grabs as San
Antonio officials make push
Divisional foes won't get both
games
By Mike Triplett Staff writer
SAN
ANTONIO - While the site of seven Saints home games is being
discussed, the NFL did provide one certainty Wednesday - the Saints
will not play any of their three divisional home games at the site
of the visiting team - meaning they won't make two trips to
Carolina, Atlanta or Tampa Bay this season.
But the league
still has not ruled out the possibility that the Saints might play
other games in the home stadium of the visiting team - as is the
case with the Sept. 19 game at the New York Giants.
The
Saints' next scheduled home game is against the Buffalo Bills on
Oct. 2. A trip to Buffalo on that weekend would be particularly
undesirable after consecutive trips to Oakland, Carolina, New York
and Minnesota. A decision on that Oct. 2 game is expected
soon.
The NFL's preference is to play the Saints' home games
in Baton Rouge, and the league has been in contact with Louisiana
officials to determine if and when the state will be able to
accommodate an NFL game.
"It's just a question of, 'At what
point is it feasible?'" NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said of playing in
Tiger Stadium. "But we are certainly interested."
The truth
be told, most of the Saints' players, coaches and management would
prefer to play as many home games as possible in San Antonio this
year, now that they are living and working in the Alamo
City.
Most of them also see the importance of playing at
least some games in Baton Rouge, where they could be more available
to their displaced fan base and perhaps help boost morale in
Southeast Louisiana.
But the most pressing concern for the
Saints is that they get to play all of their home games in some
combination of those two cities.
"I think this football team
needs to play here. This is where we're practicing; we need to be
here," Saints coach Jim Haslett said after Wednesday's practice. "Or
Baton Rouge, one of the two. Besides that, to me, I think there
should be no other decisions to make."
Haslett said he is not
upset with the amount of time the league is taking to make the
decision.
"I was on a conference call with the commissioner
yesterday, and I understand what they're trying to get done," said
Haslett, who explained that the main reason he and his players would
prefer to play in San Antonio is to have a chance to be closer to
their families without traveling every weekend. "They would like to
be around their families one day a week, because you don't see them
at all. So more than anything, I think that's the most important
thing to them."
Saints receiver Joe Horn was one of several
players who echoed the same sentiment, also adding that he would
like to play at least some games at LSU's Tiger Stadium.
City
leaders in San Antonio, meanwhile, have become even more vocal in
their desire to host the Saints for as many games as
possible.
Mayor Phil Hardberger has not actively or openly
pursued the idea - stating that the city is focused on its hurricane
relief efforts - but discussions between the Saints and city
officials have been ongoing.
Alamodome director Mike Abington
said the 65,000-seat stadium will be ready and available if the
Saints and the NFL give the word. "We have made a commitment to
them that we will accommodate them should they need us in any way
they can," Abington said.
Assistant city manager Roland
Lozano also told the San Antonio Express-News that discussions are
ongoing with the Saints.
San Antonio businessman Red McCombs
- the former owner of the Minnesota Vikings - took things one step
further, telling the Express-News that, "every effort needs to be
made to tie the Saints up for this season - including having people
stand in front of the dome singing, 'When the Saints Come Marching
In.'"
City councilman Chip Haass has been one of the most
vocal proponents for bringing Saints games to San Antonio. He said
Wednesday he has gotten some negative feedback for seeming
opportunistic, but he said the city council as a whole has made the
city's relief efforts the No. 1 concern.
San Antonio is
caring for roughly 25,000 evacuees in shelters, and an estimated
250,000 people have evacuated to Texas to stay with friends or
relatives or in hotels.
Haass said he would be "all for" the
Saints playing their home games in Baton Rouge if that can be worked
out. But he said it would be "tough for me to swallow" if the Saints
were forced to play all of their games on the road or in New York or
Los Angeles because San Antonio couldn't step up.
Fellow
councilman Richard Perez has not been active in efforts to lure the
Saints. But he agreed, saying, "We are the eighth largest city in
the country. We have a stadium that's ready to go and a population
that's been clamoring for football for a long time."
Haass
said the proposition of bringing Saints games to San Antonio is
twofold.
"One, in a greedy way, it puts San Antonio in a
primetime position to show the NFL what we can do. And two, it helps
us aid in the relief effort," Haass said. "It gets dangerous because
there are things for us to gain out of this. It gets
tricky."
Haass said he believes that at least one game will
be played in San Antonio as a reward for the city accommodating the
Saints this season. Saints general manager Mickey Loomis has also
said he believes the city deserves to host at least one
game.
Haass has been drumming up support in the corporate
community, but he said that "hasn't taken much effort on my part."
He said a number of businesses are interested in attracting the
Saints, and some of that support is charity-oriented.
He said
one person offered to buy 10,000 tickets but wanted half of the
proceeds to go to relief efforts.
Obviously, the underlying
theme in all this is that San Antonio might attract the Saints
permanently. Saints owner Tom Benson, a New Orleans native, has
longstanding personal and professional ties to San Antonio, where he
keeps a second home.
And rumors of Benson wanting to move his
team here in 2006 were floating long before Hurricane Katrina
hit.
But Haass, for one, said he has not had any
conversations about a long-term situation with the
Saints.
Even if Benson wants to move to San Antonio - as some
reports have suggested - it would not be a simple procedure. For
one, San Antonio would need to decide it wants an NFL team and can
afford one.
Although the Alamo City ranks eighth in the U.S.
in population, the total metropolitan area ranks 30th - five spots
ahead of New Orleans in the 2000 census. The town has done a
terrific job of supporting the NBA's Spurs, but two professional
teams would compete for corporate dollars.
San Antonio is
home to four Fortune 500 companies.
"I think it would all
depend on what the deal is for the city," Perez said of a potential
NFL franchise. "If it's fair and if it's not a detriment to the
city, I think they would embrace it. Certainly the corporate
community would be very interested."
However, McCombs made an
unsuccessful run at an expansion team in the early 1990s. And former
mayor Ed Garza said earlier this year that he was told by Tagliabue
back in 2003 that the NFL's interest in San Antonio was moderate at
best.
The biggest hurdle of all for an NFL team in San
Antonio would be that teams exist in Dallas and in Houston, which is
just 200 miles away. For a team to move, it requires approval from
24 of the league's 32 owners.
But McCombs told the
Express-News that he does not believe Dallas owner Jerry Jones or
Houston owner Bob McNair would block Benson from moving to San
Antonio.
"If Tom asks them, they will support that," McCombs
said. "In fact, I see (the other league owners) making it happen.
You have to remember Tom sits on the league's management council and
has a lot of clout."
Miles' decision to not name starter yet proving to be
good move
By William Kalec Staff
writer
BATON ROUGE - Oh man, here it comes.
Finally.
This six-month soap opera - occasionally overblown,
but too titillating to completely ignore - appears on the cusp of
having its curtain close as JaMarcus Russell politely fields an
oft-asked inquiry (and no, it's not about Fats Domino).
Hey,
JaMarcus, who is going to start at quarterback this Saturday at
Arizona State?
Suspense has snowballed since February, when
Ryan Perrilloux, sitting in his high school coach's office twirling
a broken strand of Mardi Gras beads, signed a letter-of-intent to
play football for the Tigers and made a couple of comments about the
team's incumbent QBs. From there, the he-said, he-said, boiled for a
couple of weeks. In May, Perrilloux said he and Russell were
PlayStation buddies. In August, Miles said they're not exactly
suitemates. Like all good soaps, a main character went through
amnesia (Perrilloux transformed from gregarious to humble during
Media Day). Besides not writing a role for Susan Lucci and adding a
torrid love octagon, this saga has primarily stuck to the generic
script.
And now … the ending (cue suspenseful
music).
"One of the three," Russell said, referring to
himself, Matt Flynn and Perrilloux.
He swears he doesn't
know, and since there's no bailiff around, we'll have to believe
him. Ugh, so close to figuring out where this pipeline of media
preseason filler ends. But wait, there's still Flynn. Perhaps he
knows something Russell doesn't. "Hadn't heard anything," Flynn
said.
So the wait continues, with Miles hinting more than
once he'll pick somebody Thursday. He said he likes Thursdays,
through a satisfied smile. Of course, Miles is not scheduled to meet
with the media Thursday so this extended hand of three-quarterback
rummy might not be revealed until 8:15 p.m. Saturday, assuming LSU
doesn't kickoff in the first half.
If the Tigers do win the
coin toss and elect to defer, add-on about 10 to 20 minutes,
depending on commercials.
And here's a quick timer-saver for
the impatient: examining body language offers no clues, either.
Russell has been rather jovial in recent conversations with the
press, while Flynn is sporting some goofy mustache, making him look
like Matt Damon with Tom Selleck's signature facial hair.
"It
hasn't been difficult at all," Flynn said of the wait. "We've gone
out there and known it's been a competition, and the uncertainty has
not been a problem. We've been focused every day and just tried to
make strides every day."
Inheriting a team loaded with
talent, dealing with the quarterback issue is the only instance
Miles really has mixed beakers this fall - an experiment so volatile
it could have easily blown up in his face. Instead, this situation
appears to be soluble. Miles kept his recruiting promise to
Perrilloux, letting the hyped blue chip compete for the job while
not letting Russell or Flynn get too comfortable.
"You never
know," Russell said. "If he would have announced a starter too
early, things could've gotten out of hand or a little shaky with
that guy as far as him knowing he has the job. …Waiting, it kept
everybody on a level ground."
Playing the extended waiting
game also allowed each quarterback not to overanalyze or lament
every poor throw, knowing one exceptional or one terrible practice
would not win or lose the prized position.
"You can't think
like that," Russell said. "Because if you're worried about not doing
wrong, then wrong is going to creep in on you," Russell said. "They
say it's stepping on eggshells. You're playing light - you're trying
to do good, but at the same time you're trying not to mess
up."
The logical argument to Miles' belated announcement is
that extending the verdict within days of kickoff prevents players,
particularly receivers, from gaining confidence in the guy under
center, to which the new coach said is only necessary if, "you pick
the wrong guy."
"It made us work every day," Russell said.
"Because you never know what (Miles) is going to say? So, it's still
on you to do your job, get your work done, and still help the other
guys at the same time."
School officials worry about lack of rooms for a night
kickoff
By Jim Kleinpeter Staff
writer
BATON ROUGE - The University of Tennessee has asked
the SEC for an early kickoff for its game with LSU at Tiger Stadium
on Sept 24, but it appears the decision will be left up to
television networks.
Volunteers coach Philip Fulmer
acknowledged that the school made the request for the benefit of
Tennessee fans that might not be able to find hotel rooms in Baton
Rouge because of the massive influx of people having fled Hurricane
Katrina and its aftermath.
Many hotels already have said they
will not displace evacuees, even for people with reservations. An
earlier kickoff would allow Tennessee fans to seek hotel rooms
outside Baton Rouge on their way home.
"The issues with the
hotels, perhaps an early game would benefit certainly our fans and
probably all the fans," Fulmer said. Kickoff time has not been
officially set, but ESPN has first choice of SEC games that weekend
and is likely to choose the No. 3-ranked Vols vs. the No. 5 Tigers,
which would make the start around 6:45 p.m. That is pleasing for LSU
fans who revere their tradition of night football.
"LSU's
position is that the kickoff time for the Tennessee game will be
determined by television," said LSU associate athletic director Herb
Vincent. "LSU wants to play the game Saturday night."
CBS has
second choice after ESPN and holds the 2:30 p.m. time slot. Other
SEC games that day include Arkansas at Alabama, Florida at Kentucky
and Georgia at Mississippi State. ESPN can make its selection as
early as Monday, but also has the option of waiting six more days
for a decision.
Charles Bloom, the SEC director of media
relations, reiterated that the start time would be determined by TV
but that the schools were in discussion about any possible
adjustments because of the relief effort in Baton Rouge.
"As
of now, the Tennessee-LSU game is scheduled to be played in Baton
Rouge," Bloom said. "The time and television network of the game is
still to be decided. There has been, and continues to be,
communication between the conference office and the two
participation institutions on the issues brought up by the aftermath
of Hurricane Katrina."
TICKET REFUND: LSU fans with
tickets to the Arizona State game who can't attend can receive
refunds of $36 per ticket. The game was moved to Tempe, Ariz.,
because of the ongoing relief efforts in Baton Rouge.
Fans
have four refund choices: - Refunds can be donated to the
Hurricane Katrina Student Relief Fun to assist students affected by
the storm. - The money can be donated to the LSU athletic
department to offset the loss of the home game. - It can be
applied toward the purchase of 2006 tickets. - Ticket-holders can
receive a check for the refund or credit card
adjustment.
Tradition Fund Tiger Athletic Foundation
donations and parking passes are not refundable.
DESERT
CONDITIONS: Temperatures have been hitting triple digits in
Tempe this week, and that fact has not been lost on LSU coach Les
Miles.
"I'm concerned that we need to hydrate in that arid
climate," he said. "The temperature will be hot; there won't be much
humidity. The water will come in and out of you pretty fast. We need
to make sure our guys are hydrated."
VACANCIES:
Arizona State is organizing its faculty and staff to provide lodging
for LSU fans making the trip to in Tempe, Ariz., for Saturday's
game. Interested fans should contact Melanie Burford at
MelanieBurford@asu.edu.
FAMILY TIE: Arizona State
quarterback Sam Keller's father has an indirect tie to Miles.
Keller's father, Mike, was an All-Big Ten linebacker at Michigan
from 1969-71 under Bo Schembechler. Miles went to Michigan shortly
afterward and lettered in 1974-75. "Sure I remember him," Miles
said. "He was in and around Michigan when I was there. He was a heck
of a guy, a real Michigan guy."
Equal parts humor, prospective keep Wave working
hard
By Benjamin Hochman Staff
writer
DALLAS - Tulane coach Chris Scelfo scampers around the
Dallas Doubletree Hotel like one of his running backs in a seam,
shaking hands with well-wishers so quickly that he doesn't look them
in the eye.
He moves quickly to meetings and practice and
more meetings, all while maybe sneaking in a snack or a hug from his
daughter. Rest is irrelevant.
Since his evacuation from New
Orleans, the only things that have slowed down Scelfo were the
puppy-dog eyes of his 11-year-old son. Joseph Scelfo wanted to play
pool Tuesday afternoon, so the coach bounced into the hotel's
poolroom.
He smiled at his son, grabbed a stick and smacked
the cue ball - which rolled a good 8 inches to the right of the
racked triangle of balls.
"At least you know I'm not hanging
out in bars," he deadpanned.
Even before Hurricane Katrina,
life as Tulane's football coach was stressful. Scelfo spent numerous
nights on his office couch instead of at his home in English Turn.
Looming on the schedule were two tough games to start the season -
at rival Southern Mississippi and playing host to the SEC's
Mississippi State. And the returning Tulane player with the most
catches was a running back. And three top defensive linemen came to
camp out of shape. And his kicker hadn't kicked in practice, resting
a nagging hip flexor.
All that doesn't matter now.
Every member of the Tulane football family had a home in New
Orleans. Now, many don't. Even Scelfo doesn't know about his house,
although he has heard about fires and looting.
"I have no
idea and don't care," Scelfo said.
His team has united here,
preparing for a move to Louisiana Tech on Monday, where Tulane will
practice and attend classes this semester. The Southern Miss game
was postponed; the Mississippi State game is in nine days.
"I'm going on one goal right now," Scelfo said. "As we do in
athletics, you ask any coach in America from high school to the NFL,
they want to be champions. Any coach - we want to win the Super
Bowl, we want to win the conference, we want to win the district.
That's not my individual goal. My team's goal is that - they want to
be champions. My goal, as the leader of the whole thing, I want to
be able to say when that final horn sounds, 'We persevered.'
"When we do it, everybody in the city of New Orleans and
everybody that was affected by this, whether they lived there or
not, if we affect one person by giving them hope to persevere, I'm
the first one on the train to heaven."
In his third attempt,
Scelfo finally broke the triangle of pool balls.
Scelfo is
like any coach, a workaholic who loves his X's and O's. He worked
for about a decade as an assistant, like so many other coaches, and
finally got a head coaching job. He signed up to lead Tulane's
football team at the end of the 1998 season.
But twice in
three years, he has been thrust into unfathomable circumstances.
Three years ago, a financial deficit almost forced Tulane football
to drop to Division III. Scelfo spent the spring of 2003 keeping his
program intact, uncertain if he would be playing Texas Christian or
Carnegie Mellon come fall.
"Coach Scelfo never flinched,"
former Wave assistant Trooper Taylor said on June 10, 2003, the day
Tulane announced the athletic program would remain in Division I-A.
"He made us understand that family goes through tough times. What
you do is you fight it head on, and do things that you can control.
Everything was out of our hands. All we could do was believe and
think that everything would turn out all right. And it did. He was
absolutely right."
"I feel he did handle it perfectly," said
Tulane receiver Damarcus Davis, now a junior. So the coach got
his chance to coach again.
But now, he's again in a
situation in which no coaching clinic or coaching mentor could
prepare him. But he signed up to lead Tulane's football team, so
here he is in Dallas, a surrogate father, a therapist, a
motivational speaker, a CEO, and, oh yeah, a coach.
"He's
got a lot of people coming at him from a lot of different angles,"
said center Joe Traina, a senior who said his apartment is probably
ruined from flooding. "He has to deal with the president of the
university, the athletic director, all the media attention we're
getting. Plus, they're trying to set up our meals, where we're going
to sleep, where we're going to practice, and at the same time he's
got to prepare for Mississippi State, put together a game plan and
have meetings about football. And logistics.
"He and Dennis
(Polian, director of football operations) have had a lot to deal
with, and I think they've handled it really well and have tried to
make the best of the situation. He's done a real good job of keeping
the team together, trying to keep our spirits high and trying to
help us use the team to get us through the situation."
Scelfo
keeps the guys laughing. The other day, he turned a team meeting
into a comedy show, asking players to tell their best jokes. And
Scelfo himself is quite the jokester. His routine is always the same
- he'll spot a player, put an arm around him, lean in like he's
going to steal a kiss, whisper a joke, slap the kid on the back and
unleash his signature boisterous chuckle. Laughter is the best
medicine, and Chris Scelfo is a pharmacist.
Sometimes, the
comedy is inadvertent. Tuesday, he and Joseph started a new pool
game, and with his mind somewhere in New Orleans, Scelfo set up a
shot, took a deep breath and pocketed the ball. Except, the ball was
one of Joseph's. The son laughed uproariously, and the father
smiled.
He also keeps the guys motivated. Getting a player's
mind off his lost home and getting his mind on a cornerback blitz
takes more than motivational lines found on a poster. Scelfo's words
have to pierce players' hearts.
Before last Thursday's
practice, which Scelfo called the best he's seen in decades, the
coach addressed his players.
"He told us that it could be a
lot worse. Just turn on the TV," said linebacker Anthony Cannon, who
also said his apartment is probably flooded. "That's our motivation.
We're not just representing ourselves and the university. We're
representing the whole city. … It got us going, and we had a great
practice."
Said Davis: "If there were any skeptical players
about Coach Scelfo, I think this situation has surely brought them
around to let them see that he does care about them, and it's not
all about the X's and O's. It's about your life first. … I'm sure
this is hard for him, but if there's any coach in America who can
handle it, it's Coach Scelfo."
Scelfo has no idea how his
team will do this season. Although the team probably will play its
games at the Independence Bowl - a decision will be made today -
even that isn't in stone.
"The only thing in stone right now,
is I'm shooting pool right here with my boy," Scelfo
said.
One shot later, Joseph sank the 8-ball. Scelfo
congratulated his son and scampered back into the lobby, back into
the uncertainty.
While the local high school
football season appears to be all but canceled in Orleans, St.
Bernard, Jefferson and Plaquemines parishes, many area
student-athletes have elected to transfer to schools around the
state and South and participate in athletics.
West Jefferson
standout defensive lineman Clarence Fultz already has transferred to
Lake Charles-Boston and actually played in the Cougars'
season-opener last Friday against Washington-Marion, West Jeff coach
Hank Tierney said.
Fultz registered for school and competed
in a game as a defensive end all in the same day, Tierney
said.
Fultz, 6 feet 3, 220 pounds, was being recruited by Ole
Miss, LSU and several other SEC schools, Tierney
said.
Additionally, West Jeff tight end Anthony Sparks is
expected to transfer to Kingswood High School in the Houston area,
said Tierney, who has evacuated to Benton, Ark., with his family.
Sparks, 6-2, 220, is another Division I-A prospect.
Tierney
is uncertain of the plans of two other Buccaneers senior prospects,
cornerback Jeremy Ivory (6-1, 180) and tackle Larry Timmons (6-5,
355).
According to recent emergency legislation passed by the
Louisiana High School Athletic Association executive committee,
students from storm-affected parishes are able to transfer to new
schools and begin athletic competition immediately.
"Some of
our players are all over Louisiana and Texas and playing already,''
Tierney said. "We are encouraging them to play because they cannot
play here. I've told all of our kids to go somewhere and play
because, if some miracle happens, they can come back and play for
us. I just feel sorry for the ones who had to stay because they have
nothing.''
The LHSAA is requiring all schools that accept
transfers from storm-affected parishes to contact the association in
writing to make sure that those wishing to participate in athletics
are registered with the state and eligible, LHSAA assistant
commissioner B.J. Guzzardo said.
Ehret coach Billy North,
like many area coaches, has had almost no contact with his players
since Katrina's Aug. 29 assault. North and his wife evacuated to
Lake Charles, where he has relatives and subsequently has rented a
house. North said he has visited the Lake Charles-area
evacuation shelters daily in hopes of finding some of his
players.
All-Metro safety Tommy Connors from Shaw and his
parents are contemplating a transfer to either St. Thomas More in
Lafayette or Destrehan, Shaw coach Scott Bairnsfather said. Connors
and his family evacuated to the Lafayette area, as did Bairnsfather,
who is staying in Opelousas, where his wife's family
resides.
"I don't know what Tommy's going to do,''
Bairnsfather said. "I told him that he should go to Destrehan. This
is his senior year, and he needs to get some film of him for the
colleges.''
Bairnsfather said he attended the Carencro-St.
Thomas More game last Friday and saw that several Jesuit players had
transferred to St. Thomas More.
O.Perry Walker coach Terry
Wilson said he was in Grambling, where he and his family had
evacuated to be with relatives. Wilson said his players are
scattered across the south, but he had no definitive word on the
whereabouts of any, including prospects Kendrick Lewis, a wide
receiver/defensive back, and Eldric Cambrice, a defensive
back.
Higgins coach Wayne Meyers was in Montgomery, which is
near Natchitoches, with his family, but had no word on two of his
top players, linebacker Arthur Green and defensive back Michael
Roussel. Meyers lives in Belle Chasse and said his house was dry
with only some possible wind damage.
At least two public West
St. Tammany high school football coaches have found out their top
players have transferred and are hoping they return if the parish's
public schools re-open the first week of
October.
Fontainebleau coach Larry Favre said the foundation
of his squad - his two offensive tackles - have enrolled in other
schools.
Cameron Zipp, a returning All-Metro left tackle,
enrolled in Neville High School, Favre said, and right tackle Kyle
Plouhar is attending a school in Oregon.
"Those two are the
pillars of my football team," Favre said.
Favre also said
his returning defensive lineman, Todd Carson is attending a school
in Texas, and the coach said he fears several of his other players
will follow suit.
LHSAA commissioner Tommy Henry said Monday
that even if a player in a hurricane-affected zone enrolls in
another school, he will be granted a transfer back to his original
school if he wants.
"In the first place, we're going to do
these kids right," Henry said. "This is not going to put their homes
back together or help put their lives back together but I'm not
going to make things harder on them."
Mandeville coach Rodney
Corkern said he is trying to reach many of his players.
"I
have no idea what is going on," Corkern said. "I've tried to call
people, and the phones just aren't working. I don't know what's
going to happen."
Corkern and Favre said they hope to resume
practice as soon as possible, but both are having trouble contacting
their players and finding out who plans on remaining with their
teams.
The next problem is regaining electricity at the high
schools so practice can be safely held.
"The field is
playable, but if we don't have ice, how can we keep the kids
hydrated at practice?" Corkern asked. "Then if a kid gets hurt, we
don't have reliable phones to call for help."
Favre said he
has been frustrated by the delay in finalizing a starting date for
school. He said he is trying to keep his players from transferring,
but up until early this week, couldn't even guarantee there would be
a 2005 Fontainebleau football game. Then he said he isn't sure all
the teams in District 4-5A will be able to compete because of how
hard the Slidell-area schools were hit by the storm.
"Are we
going to have football and not Slidell?" he questioned. "Is that
fair?"
St. Tammany Parish School Board Superintendent Gayle
Sloan said Monday she hopes the school system can re-open the first
week of October. Athletics would resume that week, too.
Jefferson, St. Charles schools still clinging to hope,
however
By Mike Strom Staff
writer
Louisiana High School Athletic Association assistant
commissioner B.J. Guzzardo said most public schools in Orleans, St.
Bernard and Plaquemines parishes are not expected to participate in
athletics this school year because of severe flood and wind damage
caused by Katrina.
Jefferson public schools are shooting for
a January return. St. Charles public schools are tentatively
scheduled to re-open next week, and St. Tammany public schools are
gearing for an October return.
The playing future of
Archdiocese of New Orleans schools also remains in question,
Guzzardo said. Schools superintendent the Rev. William Maestri and
archdiocese officials were scheduled to meet with all available
principals, administrators and teachers Wednesday in Baton Rouge to
address school issues.
Maestri appointed Hannan principal
John Serio director of schools transition for the
archdiocese.
Guzzardo said John Curtis coach J.T. Curtis told
LHSAA officials he believed his River Ridge school could re-open
within two weeks. Curtis could not be reached for
comment.
Shaw coach Scott Bairnsfather also offered positive
news in regard to Shaw's physical plant. He visited the campus in
Marrero on Sunday and found the school dry and with electrical
power.
"I went into my office and turned the lights on,''
Bairnsfather said.
"We took some damage now, but nothing
that would keep us from re-opening. I have no idea if we'll play
again this season, but it doesn't look good. Even if we could get up
and running, I don't know who we'd play.''
Guzzardo said
Maestri and archdiocese officials were considering using Shaw as a
site to platoon two Catholic high schools while other area
archdiocese schools recover and rebuild.
Brother Martin is
scheduled to hold afternoon and evening classes at Baton
Rouge-Catholic but will not field teams in any major sports,
Guzzardo said.
Season-opening football games in 20 parishes
were canceled last weekend due to damage and complications from the
hurricane. Many of those game cancellations came in parishes not
directly affected by Katrina, Guzzardo said, but resulted from Gov.
Kathleen Blanco's order to take school buses from those areas to use
in hurricane relief.
School officials also were told they
would have no security for their games.
Hornets officials said
Wednesday they have not finalized where they will hold next month's
training camp, although a site has been reserved at the Air Force
Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Hornets president Paul
Mott said his preference is for camp to be conducted in the city
that will serve as the team's temporary home this season because of
the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, which damaged New
Orleans Arena.
General Manager Allan Bristow announced last
week that the team would hold at least the first two weeks of
training camp at the Air Force Academy.
"Allan did absolutely
the right thing. He sought out to find a place based on his
relationship when he was in Denver (as general manager),'' Mott
said. "But the reality is we would use it as a fall-back
option.''
The Hornets are exploring potential sites in Baton
Rouge, Bossier City and Lafayette as their temporary home, but no
decision has been made. Mott said Wednesday he wants to have a city
selected at least 45 days before the regular season begins Nov. 2.
"If we're in Baton Rouge or some other location, then we'll have
a chance to be able to get in the market and sell tickets, but 45
days is a very short time,'' Mott said.
Mott maintains the
team's first priority is to select a Louisiana city, but if that's
not possible, the Hornets would explore offers from other cities.
Officials from Oklahoma City and Las Vegas have expressed an
interest in hosting the Hornets temporarily. "It is our goal to
be back in New Orleans as soon as we can, and (owner) George Shinn
has spoken very clearly about our desire to be back in New Orleans
as soon as the city gets back on its feet and things are right,''
Mott said.
For the past week, chief marketing officer Tim
McDougall, Mott and about 11 staff members have been working at the
Toyota Center, home of the Houston Rockets.
Most of the
Hornets' staff is working from a large conference room equipped with
computers and phones. McDougall, who used to work for the Rockets,
said he contacted the team last week and asked for use of some
office space.
"They are gracious enough to put something
together for us as a temporary space, so we can pull people
together,'' McDougall said. "We have gathered some of our core
personnel so we can establish some kind of base and get our next
steps nailed down and kind of pull ourselves back
together.''
McDougall said they had seven members from the
organization who evacuated to Houston before Hurricane Katrina
struck the Gulf Coast area.
Hornets officials have not been
able to check their offices at the Freeport McMoRan Building on
Poydras, which is across the street from the Superdome. McDougall
said they are working with city and state officials to get inside
the building to retrieve some business files.
"Right now,
we're trying to establish what are the critical-issue lists that we
need to run through and the key tasks we need to address,''
McDougall said.
PMAC OPTION: Hornets officials met with LSU
senior associate athletic director Dan Radakovich on Wednesday as
the team began to explore the possibility of using the Pete Maravich
Assembly Center for home games this season.
Radakovich
chatted with Hornets executives Sam Russo and Steve Martin in what
Radakovich termed "incredibly preliminary discussions."
"They
stopped by, and we kind of gave them our schedule and gave them a
copy of their schedule, which they didn't have with them,"
Radakovich said. "Basically, they were in town looking at some other
things, and we left it that we would talk some more next
week."
Radakovich said he could not give Russo and Martin a
tour of the PMAC because it is still in use as a medical center for
Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
A comparison on Tuesday of the
Hornets' 41-game home schedule and the LSU men's and women's
schedules and gymnastics meets revealed only 10 date conflicts
between the entities.
Radakovich said there were a few other
"soft" date conflicts that might be able to be resolved.
"We
also went into a couple of issues as far as practices were concerned
with our teams, just to see who's who and what's what," Radakovich
said. "We'll be working a lot of this through LSED (the Superdome
commission) which they have their (New Orleans Arena) contract with.
But we just had a chance to say hello. We'll wait and see what the
next step is."
Russo did not return telephone calls
Wednesday.
Mott said that while he was encouraged by initial
indications of few schedule conflicts, more logistical problems
needed to be addressed such as travel into the city and lodging for
visiting teams.
"No decision is just a matter of available
dates," Mott said. "Obviously, that's the most crucial issue. We
don't want to displace other games or events they might have
scheduled.
"It's a complex decision involving a lot of moving
parts. It all starts with knowing what conflicts you might have and
whether you can work with those. It's all very
complicated."
Schools' officials work out travel, prevent
cancellation
Staff reports
THIBODAUX - With
a charter plane from Baton Rouge secured, Nicholls State's football
game at Indiana on Saturday is on. School officials at Indiana
helped arrange the flight after the team's original flight from New
Orleans was canceled.
"I know our coaches and players are
excited about the opportunity to finally play football," said
Nicholls State coach Jay Thomas. "The game and trip to Bloomington
will offer a nice change from the experiences of the past
week."
The Colonels were to have opened the season last
Saturday at Utah State, but the game was canceled because so many
Nicholls State players are from the areas affected by Hurricane
Katrina.
The Nicholls campus, while receiving only light
damage from the storm, was without power much of last week, and the
football team only partially reassembled Sunday. Classes resumed
Wednesday.
"On behalf of Indiana athletics, our thoughts and
prayers go out to everyone who has been impacted by Hurricane
Katrina," Indiana athletic director Rick Greenspan said.
"We
certainly respect Nicholls' situation. For the last five days, both
schools have been working on the travel logistics, because the
safety and well-being of the Nicholls' student-athletes, coaches,
staff and fans is the top priority. Upon Nicholls' arrival and
throughout their stay, we plan to show them the best in Hoosier
hospitality."
LOYOLA CANCELS FALL SPORTS Loyola has
canceled its fall sports schedule - wiping out cross country,
women's soccer and volleyball seasons - and the men's and women's
basketball programs might not pick up until the spring semester, if
at all, Athletic Director Mike Giorlando said.
"Even the
status of basketball is unclear,'' Giorlando said. "Eighty percent
of our kids are now in other schools. Do we pick up where the
(basketball) schedule says when we're back in school? What are the
eligibility issues? If we can't play a whole conference schedule,
we're not going to do it.''
Giorlando said he has heard from
several other schools around the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference
offering support.
"Everyone from the GCAC, the NAIA, other
schools around the country, have been so very compassionate,
understanding. But everything is up in the air right
now.''
Large
number of available hotels could prove enticing
By Ted
Lewis Staff writer
Add the Bayou Classic to the list
of events and businesses possibly relocating from New Orleans to
Houston.
At least that's the desire of Shea Guinn, vice
president and general manager of the city's Reliant
Stadium.
"Houston would be an ideal location," Guinn said of
the annual Thanksgiving Saturday game between Southern and Grambling
State. "We are the nearest large city with all of the amenities and
a stadium to play host to the event."
Guinn, who is holding
the date open, said he has been in touch with representatives from
both schools, who will be forced to move the game now that the
Superdome has been deemed unplayable for this season.
"It's a
little too early to make a call, but obviously now we have to,"
Southern athletic director Greg LaFleur said. "The Bayou Classic
means so much to so many people, and it especially will this
year."
Grambling spokesperson Peter Forrest said Shreveport
officials also had expressed interest in hosting the game, but the
preference would likely be Houston because of the larger number of
available hotel rooms.
That also would make LSU's Tiger
Stadium less attractive because of the lack of hotel space in Baton
Rouge.
The Bayou Classic has been annually played in New
Orleans since 1974, the year before the Superdome opened when it was
held at Tulane Stadium.
Besides drawing a sellout crowd in
excess of 70,000, the event features several related activities such
as the Battle of the Bands on Friday-] night and draws thousands of
fans of both teams who don't even attend the game.
Guinn
added he thought the fact that almost 25,000 hurricane evacuees are
living in Houston facilities managed by SMG, Reliant's parent
company, would make Reliant the best venue.
"Our first
concern is doing whatever we can to help the people living on our
properties," Guinn said. "But we also know there are a lot of events
that need to be rescheduled and relocated."
They
ride out hurricane, are air-lifted from waist-high
water
By Bob Fortus Staff writer
Having
retired from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office, Fair Grounds
assistant director of security Jimmy Schanbien is familiar with the
sounds of gunfire.
Echoes told Schanbien, who rode out
Hurricane Katrina at the track with seven other Fair Grounds
employees and several firemen, that gunshots were getting closer -
and it was time to leave.
"The gunshots started Monday night
(Aug. 29, the day the storm hit),'' Schanbien said Wednesday. "They
got progressively worse Tuesday night. … Each night, the gunfire got
progressively worse.''
Last Thursday morning, the employees
and several firemen left the Fair Grounds by helicopter. The Fair
Grounds crew had painted a circle on the valet parking lot, which
was dry, for a landing spot.
"We had a group of 15 or 16 of
us who were never so happy to see the Marines with the helicopters
to get us out,'' Schanbien said. "It looked like a scene from
'M*A*S*H.'''
Schanbien said the Fair Ground employees had
stayed to help the firemen.
Before Churchill Downs purchased
the track, the Fair Grounds had agreed to let firemen use the track
as a staging area in case of emergencies, he said.
"I knew my
family was out and would be safe,'' Schanbien said. "I just thought
that it would be best that somebody from the Fair Grounds stay with
them.''
After the hurricane blew through, Schanbien and some
firemen had a chance to observe the damage.
"Most of the roof
is gone,'' he said. "On the west side of the building, a lot of the
outer stucco is gone. We kind of laughed, because none of the glass
that faces the infield was lost. The only glass lost is on the west
side.''
The group donned rain gear and went to the
backstretch for a brief inspection on the afternoon of the storm, he
said. That night, Schanbien and the others hunkered down on the
first floor by the security office, where they were able to get
power from a generator.
"We weathered the storm fine,'' he
said. "We really weren't concerned Monday night. … The biggest
concern was Tuesday, when the water started rising.''
Because
of the levee break, water on Gentilly Boulevard had risen to
waist-deep, Schanbien said. The grandstand parking lot was covered
with water, as was most of the dirt track and turf course, he said.
Some people from the streets climbed the back fence and walked on
the property in search of dry ground, but didn't cause trouble, he
said.
Besides Schanbien, Fair Grounds employees at the track
were security officers Nicole Ario, Randy James, Javahnie Jenkins
and Lamont Thompson, housekeeping employees Frank Ben and Herbert
Reaux and catering employee Ron Adams.
They slept in shifts.
Someone would sleep for a while, be awakened, and someone else would
get a turn to sleep.
"We actually had food,'' Schanbien
said. "We were able to go into the coolers.''
The coolers
were opened once a day, and people ate in the afternoon.
The
generator was turned on twice a day, powering a telephone line and
letting the group hear a radio. Staying in touch with Fair Grounds
director of security Dave Martin, who was in Lafayette, and
Churchill Downs director of human resources Shaun Collins in
Louisville, Schanbien knew what was going on in the outside
world.
"At no time did I feel our people were in any
danger,'' Schanbien said, but it would have been foolish to delay
the evacuation any longer. The firemen arranged it.
The
evacuation went smoothly. The Fair Grounds people were flown to
Interstate 10 and Causeway. A Kenner policeman, a friend of
Schanbien's, arranged a ride to the airport, where two Fair
Grounds-owned cars were parked. The firemen were shuttled to
Gonzales, and the cars returned to take the Fair Grounds employees
to Lafayette. On Wednesday, Schanbien was inspecting his Metairie
home and said a nice breeze was blowing on the
balcony.
Schanbien praised the dedication of the firemen and
his co-workers. On the afternoon of the storm, firemen left the
track to get boats - a wise decision in light of the levee
break.
"I never saw a harder-working group of firemen,''
Schanbien said. "One guy got the gas out his truck to put in boats.
The crew at the Fair Grounds, nothing would have been done if it
wasn't for them.''
As of Wednesday, Churchill Downs had
located 267 of the approximately 500 people who work at the Fair
Grounds and its 10 off-track betting outlets or in the video-poker
operation, Churchill spokesperson Julie Koenig said. Employees can
contact the company via a toll-free number (877-244-5536) or the
Internet (www.fairgroundsracecourse.com).
Also, Koenig said,
Churchill is continuing to talk to representatives of the Louisiana
Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association about plans to
shift some New Orleans racing dates to Louisiana Downs for a short
meeting, possibly in December. Details about the meet haven't been
worked out, Koenig said.
DeShazier: For fans' sake, Tagliabue needs to
take control
Saints should play in Baton Rouge for all right
reasons
By John DeShazier Sports
Columnist
Make it work.
That's the only plea Saints
fans make to NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who will determine
where the Saints will play their home games this season. He already
has fumbled by determining that the regular-season home opener for
New Orleans will be played in East Rutherford, N.J., which probably
isn't called home by very many Saints fans.
Make it work in
Baton Rouge the best that it possibly can be made to work there,
because Saints fans need access to their team, and because they need
to be able to feel that they can wrap their arms around it. That
can't happen with New Orleans playing in San Antonio, East
Rutherford or anywhere else right now.
"I have expressed my
desire to the NFL to play games in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to the
extent circumstances allow," Saints owner Tom Benson said in a
statement Tuesday.
Circumstances are sticky, but it can
happen if the parties work hard enough.
The terms, on LSU's
behalf, are on the table. The university will allow the Saints to
play at Tiger Stadium, but can't or won't produce the cash to make
it happen, having already asked its base to loosen its purses to pay
for several other, much-needed improvements to the school's athletic
facilities.
"We'll do everything we can to be good Louisiana
citizens, extend a great invitation," Athletic Director Skip Bertman
said. "But we can't ask LSU fans … to subsidize any Saints
activity.
"We think it would be good if the Saints stayed
here. We'll do whatever it takes, except spend money."
We can
argue that in addition to offering use of the facility, LSU should
go even further, or deduce that the school already has been more
than helpful by simply offering use of its facility, no strings
attached, no profit sought.
But that's wasted breath and
time.
What isn't, is hoping that the league will find a way
to make it work, will find a way to allow the Saints to play the
majority of their seven remaining home games in front of people who
can drive in and out on game day, who need to shower them with love
in person instead of through a television.
There are 31 NFL
owners not named Tom Benson, 31 other millionaires who also call
Tagliabue their boss whether they mean it or not, which means there
are 31 other revenue sources to tap into to help make it
work.
Granted, those men didn't become millionaires by giving
away money. But the Saints need their help like never before to pull
this off, and if they're not sensitive to the needs of a fraternity
brother, his franchise, its fans and a region that has been ravaged
by Hurricane Katrina, then you have to wonder what crisis within
their ranks can move them to action.
We hear, and understand,
that Saints players want to play at least some games in San Antonio,
which graciously has opened its doors to allow the Saints to operate
from there, and that playing in Baton Rouge will be a logistical
nightmare on Saints weekends. We should not, though, let those be
overriding factors.
Yes, we want players to be happy and
comfortable so they can better concentrate and play. And we don't
want Baton Rouge to become a parking lot, or the lack of hotel space
to put the area under too much stress. Its seams are already
stretched to the point of tearing because of the New Orleanians who
have relocated there, temporarily or permanently.
But the
fact is these are extreme circumstances. Few have the luxury of
being comfortable. As has been the case with citizens who escaped
Katrina and currently are bunking at the homes of friends or
relatives, we all have to squeeze together, pack in tighter, work
together, learn to function without all the amenities we've grown
accustomed to having on demand.
There's more space available
in San Antonio, less of a headache trying to get game-day operations
on track. But San Antonio and the Alamodome aren't home for the
Saints, or as close to it as are Baton Rouge and Tiger
Stadium.
Tagliabue is a smart man. He knows
that.
Let's hope he also knows it'd be best for the franchise
to be the Baton Rouge Saints rather than the San Antonio Saints.
He's the man that can pull all the strings to make it work, and he
should do it. Now.
If
the past 10 days proved anything, it proved world-class golfer David
Toms doesn't have to swing a club to make money.
No sooner
had Katrina struck, LSU's gift to the PGA Tour came out swinging -
for cash, for clothes, for available living space, for jobs, for
almost anything - all aimed at lightening the burden of an estimated
20,000 hurricane evacuees in the Shreveport area.
Still in
its infancy, you might say the 2-year-old, Shreveport-based David
Toms Foundation eagled the first hole, raising close to $400,000
from an initial e-mail response, suggesting it might be only the tip
of the iceberg.
"David jumped in right away and has been
hands-on from the start,'' said Adam Young, the Foundation's
executive director. "He spent Labor Day touring the shelters,
passing out Wal-Mart gift cards, asking people what they needed most
- jobs, school for the children, contact with loved ones, whatever
they had in mind. The feedback he received has been a tribute to the
kind of person David is.''
The way Toms looks at it, hope is
priority No. 1.
"These folks, young and old, have been
uprooted by a catastrophe,'' Toms said. "Some are facing an
uncertain future. If some of them are inclined to relocate to the
Shreveport area, we're hoping to help in anyway we can - with jobs,
with schools, with homes. If they want to relocate elsewhere, the
same thing goes. We're here to assist in any way. We've helped some
with gas cards. The ultimate aim is to get these folks out of the
shelters somewhere down the line and help them start a new
life.''
Another focus of the foundation is to make sure the
money raised ends up in the right hands.
"We're working
closely with charities in the Shreveport-Bossier area,'' Toms said.
"We're working with churches. We are working with apartment
complexes. We're constantly checking the job market to see what's
available. We've had some early success in getting people
employment. It's an ongoing step-by-step process.''
The PGA
Tour has jumped in big-time. At last week's stop in Norton, Mass.,
Toms, speaking from his hometown, made a personal appeal that kept
the hurricane-relief e-mails buzzing.
At public and private
courses around the country, Labor Day events turned into
fund-raisers. At Owl Creek Country Club in Louisville, where Toms
gave a clinic in 2000, a year before he won the PGA Championship,
members came up with $2,074.
Before the David Toms Foundation
became a reality, Toms teamed with PGA Tour member and fellow
Shreveport resident Hal Sutton in building a children's
hospital.
At the foundation's dedication, Toms said, "If we
can help get a family off the street, get a child away from an
abusive home or help a child learn life skills, then we're creating
hope and making a difference in the community.''
Fitting
words in the post-Katrina world.
Toms' wife, Sonya, is an
active member of the Tour Wives Association involved in charities
throughout the country. On Saturday, Toms will take his first
break from hurricane relief with a quick trip out west to watch his
LSU Tigers open the season at Arizona State, a game he was planning
to watch in Tiger Stadium.
But he won't be far from the
phone.
He's been trying to locate Herb Tyler, Tigers
quarterback from 1995-98.
"Someone told me Herb was in a
shelter,'' Toms said. "If he is, I want to see what I can
do.''
As for those wanting to help in the relief effort,
David Toms says: "Just dial 318-798-KIDS.''
My first thought is - Who cares? As a city tries to
keep its head above water in polluted Lake New Orleans, who truly
gives a rat's rump about the New England Patriots and Oakland
Raiders taking the first step along a road that ultimately leads to
Super Bowl XL in Detroit?
Certainly not the elderly man
waiting to be rescued from his rooftop some 10 days after Hurricane
Katrina huffed and puffed and blew our region down. Or the countless
folks squeezed into temporary shelters. Or the thousands of
displaced citizens scattered around the country.
Hey Katrina,
kiss my grits.
If we could put our hands on you, we'd ring
your Category 4 neck.
You have made us angry and frustrated
and scared not knowing what tomorrow will bring. You have forced us
to take stock and rebuild our shattered lives, one baby step at a
time.
This is where tonight's game at Gillette Stadium - and
subsequent NFL games - comes into play.
If only for three
hours, New England and Oakland can bring relief from this
life-altering experience.
It'll be a pleasure to watch Tom
Terrific under center for the Patriots. I'm curious how their
offensive and defensive units will perform without former
coordinators Charlie Weis and Romeo Crennel, who have moved on to
become head coaches at Notre Dame and with the Cleveland Browns,
respectively.
I wonder how Randy Moss will look in a Silver
and Black uniform.
Even Al Davis will be a welcome sight for
these sore eyes.
I can hear "Mr. Tunnel Vision,'' Bill
Belichick, at his post-game press conference when asked if he had
contributed to the Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund:
"Hurricane? What Hurricane? I've been bunkered in the past
few weeks trying to win a football game.''
And win, he
will.
Other projected winners in Week 1 (home team in
caps):
Saints over CAROLINA - Please, smile kindly on these
underdogs. A nation watches and prays.
Denver over MIAMI -
Broncos spoil debut of Nick Saban.
WASHINGTON over Chicago -
Redskins show no "Lovie'' for Bears.
BUFFALO over Houston -
Quarterback J.P. Losman struggles in first NFL start, but Bills
prevail.
PITTSBURGH over Tennessee - Super Bowl-bound
Steelers get off on right foot.
KANSAS CITY over New York
Jets - Chiefs win high-scoring affair.
JACKSONVILLE over
Seattle - Jaguars defense rises to the occasion.
Cincinnati
over CLEVELAND - Romeo, Romeo, where for art thou team, oh,
Romeo.
MINNESOTA over Tampa Bay - Daunte Culpepper slices up
the Buccaneers' defense.
DETROIT over Green Bay - Steve
Mariucci's team is vastly improved.
SAN DIEGO over Dallas -
Chargers "Brees'' past Cowboys.
Arizona over NEW YORK GIANTS
- Cardinals could be the sleeper in the NFC.
St. Louis over
SAN FRANCISCO - Rams have their way by the bay.
INDIANAPOLIS
over Baltimore - Colts and Peyton Manning get by stern
test.
ATLANTA over Philadelphia (Monday night) - Falcons win
rematch of last year's NFC championship game.
As for
tonight's game, before Katrina, I might conclude by saying bet the
house on the Patriots. If only I had one to bet.
People at all
levels of government will have to answer for what they did and
didn’t do in the days before and after Hurricane Katrina. The
Federal Emergency Management Agency has earned scorching criticism
for its day-late-and-billions-short response to the ghastly crisis
in New Orleans. And maybe it was only a matter of time before
officials at FEMA and its parent organization, the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security, began looking for others to
blame.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently
maintained that the hurricane destroyed state and local governments’
ability to respond to emergencies, and he blamed that breakdown for
the calamity that has overtaken New Orleans. Other federal officials
say Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s reluctance to share command of the
state’s National Guard troops with Washington has hampered the
rescue effort by sowing confusion about who is in charge.
But
accusing other government agencies of protecting turf is an awfully
convenient dodge, a way of running from the stink of death that
enveloped parts of the city over the past week. And if Blanco is
gun-shy about giving more power over New Orleans’ recovery to the
likes of FEMA Director Michael Brown, whose previous employer was
the International Arabian Horse Association, can anyone fault
her?
Let’s be clear: Officials in New Orleans and elsewhere
in Louisiana are hardly blameless in this tragedy. Official
preparations for the storm centered on an evacuation plan designed
to hasten the flow of private vehicles out of the city. This system
worked well, and many more lives would have been lost without it.
But as is now obvious, the plan did not take sufficient account of
those who would not or could not evacuate on their own.
No
federal presence was evident as the storm in the Gulf gathered
strength and chugged toward us. If Blanco and Mayor Ray Nagin
thought in the days before landfall that the federal government
wasn’t pulling its weight, they should have said so loudly and
frankly.
In Louisiana, public officials constantly tiptoe
around one another’s fragile egos and delicate
sensibilities.
Once New Orleans was in ruins, of course,
Nagin called upon the Bush administration to stop holding press
conferences and start saving lives. On national television Sunday,
Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard accused FEMA of turning
back Wal-Mart trucks containing drinking water and nixing the Coast
Guard’s plans to provide diesel fuel. Broussard went so far as to
accuse the federal bureaucracy of murder.
None of this means
Louisiana can handle the post-hurricane crisis alone. Quite the
contrary; the tragedy of Katrina would be too much for any one state
to bear, much less a state as poor and vulnerable as ours. FEMA and
other federal agencies responded quickly and effectively to past
catastrophes, and this one should have been no different.
For
that reason, it was a relief when Blanco hired James Lee Witt, who
enhanced FEMA’s reputation when he headed the agency during the
Clinton administration, to advise her on the reconstruction process.
No one will benefit if the local, state and federal agencies
responsible for responding to disasters end up tripping over each
other. Clear lines of command might well speed up the recovery, and
putting someone of Witt’s expertise in charge of the process ought
to help.
Inevitably, there already have been calls in
Congress for an independent commission to examine the relief effort.
Such a study might help emergencymanagement agencies in the future
figure out how not to respond to a catastrophic
hurricane.
But an independent commission won’t address what
ought to be everyone’s immediate priority: getting New Orleanians to
safety and getting the reconstruction under way. New Orleans needs
the unified, able, dynamic leadership that FEMA officials so far
have been unable to offer. The need for a cooperative spirit among
leaders of the metro area has been talked about for years. That has
happened in fits and starts in the past. Now, though, everyone has
to come together to work for the good of the entire community.
Remaining N.O. residents told
to leave because of risk of fire, disease
By Bruce
Nolan Staff writer
Mayor Ray Nagin on Tuesday ordered
all remaining New Orleans residents out of the city to escape
sporadic fires and the growing threat of disease from standing water
contaminated by toxic chemicals and rotting
corpses.
Meanwhile, an Army Corps of Engineers official said
it could take 80 days to pump out the billions of gallons of water
that Hurricane Katrina poured into the New Orleans area Aug.
29.
Low-lying Chalmette might be the last to emerge, while
eastern New Orleans will take about 24 days to dry out, said the
Corps' Dan Kitchens at the Louisiana emergency operations center in
Baton Rouge.
The water level in most parts of Orleans Parish
has receded 6 inches to a foot, Nagin said after a helicopter
fly-over Tuesday morning. That means that some submerged areas, such
as the lakefront campus of the University of New Orleans, have
drained substantially, he said.
The Corps said two of the
city's 148 drainage pumps were online, supplemented by dozens of
smaller pumps brought into the city.
Hanging in
there
Nagin's evacuation order apparently could sweep
several hundred hardy residents out of the French Quarter.
Although nearly empty, the Quarter remained high and dry -
and home to pockets of insouciant die-hards who have supported each
other in a defiant celebration of the city's determined, carefree
spirit.
But in a short meeting with reporters on the steps of
City Hall, Nagin said the city is increasingly unsafe, its crumpled
public safety systems unable to protect its
residents.
Another major fire broke out Tuesday, gutting a
mansion in the Lower Garden District. Authorities fought it the only
way possible: Helicopters ferried huge buckets of water overhead and
doused it from above.
Oil spills
More than fire
threatened the city, however. Foul water presented a growing
danger.
Mike McDaniel, the state secretary of environmental
quality, told CNN floodwaters had swirled through wrecked sewerage
plants and were fouled by natural gas and petrochemical leaks all
over south Louisiana.
He said crews found an oil spill of
68,000 barrels at a Bass Enterprise storage depot in Venice, and
another of 10,000 barrels from the Murphy Oil facility in
Chalmette.
"Everywhere we look there's a spill. It all adds
up," he said. "There's almost a solid sheen over the area right
now." Besides the petrochemicals and human waste, officials said,
the water was surely polluted by a variety of other pollutants,
including pesticides and a catalogue of industrial
solvents.
And there was another dreadful component: the
bodies of uncounted dead humans and animals that rescuers have seen
in a week of frantic life-saving efforts, but pushed aside to do
higher priority work.
Officials said they did not know
whether ejecting billions of gallons of foul pollutants would
trigger a massive environmental disaster in the state's
wetlands.
City Council may meet
Against that
deteriorating backdrop, New Orleans City Council President Oliver
Thomas said he hoped to call the first post-Katrina council meeting,
perhaps Thursday at Louis Armstrong International
Airport.
And as the water levels began to fall, utility crews
continued repairs to the area's damaged electrical
grid.
Stores and gas stations in Covington and other parts of
St. Tammany opened one by one, either powered by generators or as
repairs reached them.
Power returning
Parts of
the Central Business District and the Warehouse District had power
Tuesday, said Dan Packer, president and chief executive officer of
Entergy New Orleans.
He said he hoped to have the entire CBD
up in a few days. Authorities worked to get hotels up and running to
house hundreds of workers who will be faced with the daunting task
of helping rebuild the city.
Algiers could have power by
Thursday, Packer said.
Bell South said it had restored
telephone service to about half of 1.7 million customers knocked out
by Katrina, but that it will be most of the month - longer in New
Orleans - before service is fully restored to most areas.
Joe
Chandler, a BellSouth spokesman, said he was "not going to
guess."
"It depends on when the flood waters leave and crews
can get back in."
Work crews will begin repairing the
Interstate 10 bridges between New Orleans and Slidell as soon as
next week, said Gordon Nelson, assistant secretary of operations for
the state Department of Transportation and
Development.
Eastbound lanes of the twin spans might be open
for two-way traffic in four to six weeks, he said.
Schools
scrambling
Educators struggled to restore their systems
as well.
The state Department of Education said public
schools in St. Bernard Parish, which was completely flooded, will be
closed for the remainder of the year. The same is feared for most of
New Orleans.
In St. Tammany, educators were hoping to open
for classes Oct. 3, said Superintendent Gayle Sloan. Six of nine
schools in Plaquemines Parish may open this year.
Jefferson
Parish officials were still checking their 84 schools Tuesday.
Twenty-four were determined to be useable or had sustained
"isolated" damage, the system said. Six were badly damaged ,and 54
remained to be checked.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans said
it hoped to have its schools open by January, using existing schools
and temporary or satellite campuses out of the city, the Rev.
William Maestri said.
Bush to seek aid
package
In Washington, President Bush said he intends to
seek $40 billion for the next phase of hurricane relief, not only
for New Orleans, but also for the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf
Coasts, where Katrina demolished cities including Gulfport, Biloxi
and Pascagoula.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.,
said the total bill may surpass $150 billion.
Bush resisted
demands for an inquiry into what went wrong in federal relief in
first few days after Katrina hit. He said it was more important to
focus on human rescue for now.
"I think one of the things
people want us to do is play the blame game," he said.
He
said it is important to understand what went wrong to improve
federal, state and local coordination in the event of a terrorist
attack.
Bush said Vice President Dick Cheney would visit the
disaster area Thursday to assess relief efforts and cut any red tape
keeping rescuers from survivors.
With the worst of last
week's horrifying days of despair and looting apparently behind New
Orleans' police officers, officials began withdrawing them from the
city for rest. Many are psychologically traumatized by stress and
exhaustion, Police Superintendent Eddie Compass said. Many will be
sent to Atlanta and Las Vegas for city-paid "rest and
relaxation."
Staff writers Paul Bartels, Jeff Duncan, Gwen
Filosa and Jan Moller and The Associated Press contributed to this
report.
BATON ROUGE -- Students likely will
not be able to attend public school in Orleans or St. Bernard
parishes for the rest of the school year, state schools
Superintendent Cecil Picard said Tuesday.
Other school
districts, such as those in Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Charles and
St. Tammany parishes and the city of Bogalusa, can be up and running
in either weeks or months, he said at a briefing at the state Office
of Emergency Preparedness.
About 135,000 public school
students in four parishes - Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard and
Plaquemines - were displaced by Hurricane Katrina, along with 52,000
private and parochial school students, according to the state
Department of Education. These students willbe required to attend
school, for at least part of the year, outside of their home
districts.
"We're going to have to really take a hard look
at complete reconstruction of the Orleans Parish school system,"
Picard said. But Interim Superintendent Ora Watson said earlier
in the day that she hopes that at least a few schools in Algiers
could be opened this school year to accommodate families that might
return to the area, which has not been flooded.
"When they
bring children back to the West Bank, they will need schools," she
said at a meeting with other Orleans Parish officials. Watson noted
that some parts of Uptown also are dry and that families returning
there will need schools for their children.
Picard said that
there are about eight schools in Algiers that were not substantially
damaged by the storm, but added that he did not expect even those
schools would be ready by year's end. If people return to the West
Bank, a small school district of maybe 7,000 or 8,000 students could
be set up to accommodate those children sometime after January, he
said.
Even getting to that point will depend on how quickly
the area can be made habitable, Picard said. He noted that the state
must deem the area safe - including ensuring that there is no
environmental contamination from the floodwaters - and basic
amenities like electricity and water must be available.
While Picard's department can funnel state education dollars
for students in Orleans, without residents to pay property taxes
there will not be enough local money to cover the cost of the
children's education, he said.
Districts in Louisiana that
will be taking in storm-displaced students and those outside the
state are being asked to enroll them as quickly as possible, Picard
said.
In some places, that will mean setting up special
schools specifically for children who have been evacuated, such as
at the Lamar Dixon Exposition Center in Gonzales, Picard
said.
In the town of Zachary in East Baton Rouge Parish,
which has a separate school district, Picard said he has authorized
the superintendent to rent a former retail building that can be used
to accommodate the relocated children.
The state still is
pondering whether displaced students will have to comply with the
state's standardized tests requirements, such as passing the LEAP
exam, or other requirements imposed by federal law. Picard said that
he expects to get waivers of certain federal requirements for
students who are not being educated in their home parishes.
N.O. mayor begs remaining residents to leave the
city
Nagin stays optimistic, defiant
By Jeff
Duncan Staff writer
Every day seems to bring another
catastrophe for New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.
Eight days after
Hurricane Katrina and ensuing floods devastated the city, Nagin said
he doesn't recognize the town he's called home for 49
years.
Its streets are flooded. Its buildings are burning.
Almost all of its 480,000 residents are evacuated or dead.
"I remember when the sounds of New Orleans were jazz and
people laughing and having a good time," the mayor said while
addressing reporters during a press briefing Tuesday at City Hall.
"Now the sounds of New Orleans are helicopters and Army vehicles.
It's almost surreal."
But even while ordering a mandatory
evacuation of all "nonessential" residents because of health and
safety concerns, the mayor saw reason for hope. With helicopters
whirring overhead and floodwaters lapping at the steps only a few
feet away, Nagin said he's more optimistic than ever that New
Orleans will recover.
"We will build a better New Orleans,"
Nagin said. "My message to the people of New Orleans is, 'Hang in
there. This is something that has happened for a temporary period of
time. We've secured the city, and you're in a better place while we
start to build the new New Orleans.' "
Still, Nagin said, the
recovery will have to wait. Widespread gas leaks and fires,
contaminated floodwater and disease-bearing mosquitoes have rendered
the city unsafe.
He begged the city's remaining residents to
leave, estimating that 5,000 to 10,000 people are still trying to
hold on and make ends meet in the city.
"I understand people
want to stay in their homes," Nagin said. "But it's a very volatile
situation in the city. … It's not the food and the water; it's the
conditions."
Wearing a golf shirt commemorating the USS Iwo
Jima aircraft carrier given to him by Army Lt. General Russel
Honore, the Army commander overseeing the military rescue and
recovery operations, Nagin addressed reporters shortly after making
a helicopter flyover to survey the flooded and hurricane-ravaged
city.
He and city officials detailed a list of positive
news.
Pumps No. 1 and No. 5 have resumed operation, and breaches in
the levees at the 17th Street and Florida Avenue canals have been
fully repaired. Water in the city is starting to recede, he said.
Parts of the city are now dry that previously were underwater. He
mentioned the Lakefront Campus at the University of New Orleans as
an example.
Crime has declined dramatically since thousands of National
Guard and active-duty federal troops arrived in the city late last
week. Deputy Police Chief Warren Riley said there were 20 arrests in
New Orleans last night and 150 arrests this week for various
offenses.
Parts of the Central Business District and Warehouse District
have power, said Dan Packer, president and CEO of Entergy New
Orleans. He said he hoped to have the entire CBD lit up in the next
couple of days. Algiers could have power in the next 36 hours,
Packer said.
Search and rescue missions will continue
indefinitely. Capt. Timothy Bayard of the New Orleans Police
Department said all 60 of his boats were on missions Tuesday morning
in the parish's flooded areas of Lakeview, Gentilly, eastern New
Orleans, the Ninth Ward and Mid-City.
Even though rescue
boats have covered more than 75 percent of the city's flooded areas,
according to Riley, Bayard estimated thousands are still residing in
their homes despite the high waters. Still, city officials said the
boat trips will continue as long as there are residents in
need.
"There are some New Orleanians out there holding onto
life with their last breath," Nagin said. "I'm not going to allow,
as best I can, another person to die in the city."
Nagin also
remained defiant, rebuffing recent criticism from federal
authorities and media representatives who have tried to shift the
blame for the slow response for support to the local and state
levels.
"I welcome that," he said. "I welcome the criticism.
My question to them is, 'Where were you? Where the hell were you?'
"
Nagin said he witnessed the storm's devastation firsthand
and toured the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and Superdome,
where people were living in what he called "subhuman"
conditions.
"I saw babies dying and old people so bad off
they screamed, 'Just let me lay down and die.'
"(The critics)
can talk that. Bring it on. I'm ready for it."
The final
death count could rise to 10,000 before the final bodies are
recovered, Nagin said. He said the disaster claimed lives in three
phases: the initial impact of Hurricane Katrina and its destructive
winds, the massive flooding after the levees broke, and the
deplorable conditions that followed.
"The Convention Center
was a totally different animal," Nagin said.
Officials have
confirmed that 59 people died in the hurricane and its aftermath.
Many of the bodies were recovered in the Convention Center, where
thousands of evacuees fought starvation and dehydration, and were
victims of violent crimes while waiting days for transport. Nagin
said many of the victims were tourists or out-of-town
workers.
"They (somehow) got caught up in that madness," he
said. "When the final story is written, it will be the worst
national disaster in the history of this country."
Jeff
Duncan can be reached at jduncan@timespicayune.com or (504)
826-3405.
By Paul Rioux and Manuel Torres St.
Bernard/Plaquemines bureau
Dozens of National Guard soldiers
wearing hip-waders slogged through oily floodwaters Tuesday in
villages along the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish,
searching for Hurricane Katrina's dead.
Battling the heat
and pervasive stench from the sewage-contaminated waters, the
soldiers spray-painted a green zero on house after house to indicate
no bodies were found inside.
As rescue efforts shifted to
recovery, parish officials were encouraged that the number of dead
had not budged since three bodies were found Monday.
Parish
President Benny Rousselle said he expects the death toll in
Plaquemines will be much lower than the hundreds or even thousands
of fatalities feared in neighboring Orleans and St. Bernard
parishes.
"We were the first parish to call for a mandatory
evacuation, and the people took it seriously,'' said Rousselle, who
ordered residents to pack up and leave 48 hours before the Category
4 hurricane churned ashore. "That translates directly to fewer
fatalities.''
Property damage was another matter, though, as
officials said more than 70 percent of the parish was inundated by
10 to 20 feet of water. Most of the devastation is in the southern
portion of the parish, where officials said they have to wait until
the waters recede to discover what land the Gulf of Mexico may have
reclaimed.
Belle Chasse sustained relatively minor wind
damage, with shingles or pieces of siding missing from some homes
and an occasional downed tree or utility pole. But the damage gets
progressively worse as Louisiana 23 winds down toward the Gulf of
Mexico.
A drive south along the four-lane highway Tuesday, a
lovely road trip on any other sunny day, resembled a gradual descent
into deeper levels of hell.
At orchards and nurseries around
Naomi and Myrtle Grove, many structures covering the plants were
blown away and spoiled fruit lined the road. Some homes were missing
roofs.
A few miles down, more than a dozen barges were
beached atop the Mississippi River levee. Nearby, the storm washed
away a section of the highway's southbound lanes. But Katrina's full
rage was not evident until Port Sulphur, where all but a handful of
structures suffered severe damage. The storm pounded through a
portion of the parish's western levee there, and the surge deposited
about six homes on the highway, one straddled on top of a vehicle.
Trees were covered with clothes, plastic bags and children's
toys. A kitchen stove reached 15 feet, marking how high the water
got. The sight was a macabre reminder of the littered trees along
parade routes during Carnival. Several cars were overturned or on
their side. Spilled oil floated on the water everywhere, soiling
everything.
Only St. Patrick's Catholic Church seemed to
have escaped the storm practically untouched, with not even its
windows broken. But the rectory and other nearby buildings were
severely damaged.
In the southern portion of town, a
bulldozer pushed debris to the side of the road. A few hundred yards
farther, the highway disappeared under a dark soup of dirty water,
muck and oil.
Parish employee Angelo Laimia, standing on the
airboat that ferried him to restore drainage pumps, said the picture
was much the same downriver in Empire, Boothville and all the way to
Venice, the parish's southernmost community.
"All the
buildings are flattened out,'' Laimia said. "Boats everywhere.''
Photos taken by parish officials who flew over the area, and
posted at the parish's Web site (www.plaqueminesparish.com), showed
several large structures flooded but still standing in the fishing
villages. Most homes appeared to be either destroyed or displaced.
The images showed the Buras water tower collapsed over a
government office. Two large boats rested on the road at the foot of
the Empire high-rise bridge.
But amid the despair, signs of
a more ordinary time remained. Along a farm south of Myrtle Grove, a
hand- painted sign pleaded to the emergency response vehicles
passing by: "Slow please. Elk will spook.''
Around Cedar
Grove, a Plaquemines sheriff's deputy used his patrol car to corral
an emu off the road. The birds are known for their quick temper, and
asked whether he was trying to fetch it, the officer was
unequivocal. "Hell no. That thing could cut my a-- off,'' he said.
It remains unclear when parish residents will be able to
re-enter the parish to resume their lives. Rousselle said he wants
to wait until the sewer system is repaired and grocery stores are
restocked, possibly sometime next week.
"By the time people
come back, we'll have Belle Chasse cleaned up so they won't even
know we had a storm,'' he said. "Rotten food in refrigerators will
be their biggest problem.''
But it may be several months or
longer before residents can return to the east bank or areas on the
west bank south of West Pointe a la Hache, he said. Parish officials
are encouraging residents in those areas to look for jobs where they
are living now.
Parish crews have been working their way
downriver, blowing holes in the levees to let floodwaters drain and
repairing the damage before high tide to prevent water from flowing
back into the parish.
Rousselle said authorities evacuated
200 to 300 residents who tried to ride out the storm in the parish,
which has a population of 27,000.
"We believe we have
evacuated everyone who stayed,'' Rouselle said. "Now we're looking
for the ones who didn't make it.''
Two of the three bodies
recovered so far were found at Pointe a la Hache; the other was in
Empire, said Maj. John Marie of the Sheriff's Office. He said the
dead were loaded onto a refrigerated truck and taken to the
Jefferson Parish morgue.
Plaquemines Parish School Board
member Paul Lemaire feared a friend who had never evacuated during
previous storms would be found among the dead. And so he was
overjoyed when he saw the man fixing a flat tire punctured by debris
on Louisiana 23.
"He said he decided to leave at the last
minute because he had a bad feeling about this one,'' he said.
Lemaire, 42, said his house in Port Sulphur had been swept
away and replaced by a neighbor's home resting on his foundation.
An employee at the parish's wastewater plant, Lemaire didn't
hesitate when asked whether he planned to rebuild his home.
"I was born here, I was raised here, and I'm going to die
here,'' he said. "This is home.''
Federal agents arrested a young Algiers man early
Tuesday after agents said he shot at a military rescue helicopter,
U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said.
The arrest marked the first
federal action against the lawlessness that preyed upon New Orleans
in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Wendell L. Bailey, 20,
was arrested outside the building from which, federal prosecutors
said, he had fired a .22-caliber handgun at the helicopter, which
was flying in darkness.
A criminal complaint filed against
Bailey on Tuesday accuses him of the federal crimes of trying to
damage an aircraft and being a felon in possession of a handgun. If
convicted on both charges, Bailey could be sentenced to 30 years in
prison.
Letten held Bailey's case up as the first federal
arrest and promised more would come.
"He will be prosecuted
very aggressively, federally," Letten said at the Emergency
Operations Center in Baton Rouge, flanked by U.S. Attorney David
Dugas of Baton Rouge and by officials of the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives.
U.S. District Judge Sarah
Vance, of the Eastern District, signed the arrest warrant. Bailey
was booked at the temporary detention center set up by state
officials in the storm-torn downtown of New Orleans, and is due in
federal court in Baton Rouge today.
Special ATF agents
patrolling Algiers saw gunfire coming from an apartment window.
Two young men then walked out of the building and were heard
chatting about shooting at a helicopter. "They won't be back now,"
one of them said, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District
Court on Tuesday.
Inside the apartment, ATF special agents
found a .22-caliber Rohm revolver and a .32-caliber Smith &
Wesson revolver hidden beneath a mattress -- along with a box of 9
mm ammunition.
Letten said that under federal law, Bailey's
home address cannot be released. He said he did not have the
specific address at which ATF nabbed Bailey. The second young man
who was with Bailey was interviewed by ATF agents but was not
arrested.
Bailey has prior convictions for dealing marijuana
and cocaine, Letten said. Bailey admitted to ATF agents that he was
a felon on probation and he told them where the firearms were,
Letten's office said.
At the time of the shooting, Letten
said, a number of civil and military aircraft were in the air
helping with evacuation, search and rescue and delivering supplies.
State Attorney General Charles Foti Jr., the former criminal
sheriff in Orleans Parish, plans to open up a second detention
center in New Orleans, likely using an existing facility that was
built to be a jail, Letten said.
Fires erupted Tuesday around New
Orleans, casting a smoky pall over a city with a security situation
clearly improved but still clotted with corpses and pockets of
residents scavenging in a ruined landscape.
Embattled
firefighters, shorthanded and dealing with low- or non-existent
water pressure, relied on helicopters to battle fires burning at
times simultaneously in various parts of the city. In the early
morning, crews struggled to contain blazes in the 7th Ward near
McDonogh No. 35 Senior High School, and another farther uptown in a
neighborhood behind Trinity Church. As the day progressed, a third
broke out in Gentilly and a fourth in Bywater. Police said a fifth
fire burned in eastern New Orleans. No injuries were
reported.
The copters made endless trips over the flaming
landscape to the Mississippi River, where they dipped giant
2,000-gallon bags into the river and then carried them to the fire.
Each trip took about two minutes, but, handicapped by bad visibility
and wind, it was difficult to pinpoint the long, white streams of
water. Consequently, firefighters said they were unable to
extinguish fires quickly, and could only hope to contain
them.
In addition, firefighters drove tankers that had been
filled on the West Bank. Crews were reluctant to draft the filthy,
standing water in the city for fear of spreading contaminants,
authorities said. With each new fire, one or two vehicles are either
stranded in water or knocked out of commission, their engines
befouled by the bad water, New Orleans Fire Superintendent Charles
Parent said.
The helicopters have been used in fighting
wildfires, but on the urban level combining them with tankers was a
novel tactic. "We're writing the book as we go along," Parent
said. He believes some of the fires may be attributable to arson,
but that the more likely culprit is "human error."
Meanwhile, in staging areas throughout the city where the
floodwaters showed signs of receding, crews from throughout the
country began the grisly task of recovering bloated
bodies.
"The bodies are floating in the East," New Orleans
Police Department Deputy Superintendent Lonnie Swain said after a
boat trip to that still isolated section of the city. "I didn't see
that many personally, but the units I've talked to that have been
working out there today tell me there's been quite a few of
them."
NOPD Capt. Timothy Bayard, commander of the force's ad
hoc marine units, declined to give specific numbers but reiterated
his prediction that the body count would be, "in the
thousands."
Immediately after Hurricane Katrina blew through,
police scuba divers took to the waters in the search for survivors
and the dead but became so violently ill that the tactic has been
abandoned.
"We're facing some serious de-con issues," said
Jack Wise, a battalion chief with the Los Angeles City Fire
Department, who has joined in the relief effort.
"Let me tell
you how good it is first," Wise went on, stressing that the rescue
of the living continued. Indeed, late Tuesday afternoon, on the
downriver side of the canal, an airboat brought out a family of
seven, including three children, one in diapers. But Wise
conceded the task is increasingly grim and that New Orleans is
rapidly approaching a tipping point between rescuing the living, and
merely recovering the dead.
"They're not floating everywhere,
but, yes, they're there and we've gotten about 50 today," he said,
noting his 14 boats had surveyed only small grids so
far.
With New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin insisting on a total
evacuation of the city, some residents reported increased pressure
from soldiers to pack up and get out, and security checkpoints began
to proliferate as military teams asserted themselves in the face of
lingering pockets of resistance.
"Why leave?" a bicyclist
asked as he poked through refuse along Convention Center Boulevard
looking for unopened bottles of water. A Drug Enforcement Agency
team on Elysian Fields Avenue encountered two young men who
explained their continuing presence in the city very simply: They
"live here."
"No one lives in this city anymore," one of the
heavily armed agents shot back.
Some of those who do,
continue to prey upon survivors, police said. Although incidents of
looting and lawlessness decline each day, there are still pockets of
criminals spreading terror. NOPD officers said they were
concentrating operations in eastern New Orleans late Tuesday, where
the 7th District has set up shop at the Crystal Palace banquet hall
and is relying on aerial intelligence from federal teams and
interviews with evacuees to identify trouble spots.
NOPD
Superintendent Eddie Compass, a CNN camera team in tow, appeared
Tuesday at the force's fluid staging area at the Harrah's Casino and
said the situation in the city was unquestionably
better.
"It's been heartbreaking, this tore us up," he said
when asked about New Orleans' ordeal since Katrina. "We need more
but we're getting more and it feels good to have help, thank God.
Now I've got to get a hepatitis shot."
BATON
ROUGE - With electrical problems and some floodwaters still standing
in the Superdome, state officials Tuesday said the future of the
building has not been determined.
But they did say this:
Damage to the structure could hit $400 million, and it's unlikely
the facility could be used for at least a year.
Superdome
Commission Chairman Tim Coulon said the Dome will hire engineers and
other consultants to assess the structural stability of the stadium.
That will be done in the next few weeks, Coulon said.
Besides flooding, the Dome lost part of its roof as more
than 20,000 evacuees huddled there in the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina.
"We have to do a damage assessment first,'' Coulon
said. "It is premature to write the Dome off. But there has been
substantial damage.''
Although a precise figure will not be
available for weeks, damage may total $400 million, Coulon
said.
"There is still some standing water in some areas in
the Dome,'' he said. "Some water has gotten into the new
scoreboards. . . . I don't see the Dome being used at all for at
least a year.''
Coulon refused to say whether he or state
officials prefer to demolish the Dome or try to renovate it. The
engineering study and assessment will help determine the course, he
said.
Doug Thornton, a regional vice president for SMG, the
company that manages the Dome and the nearby New Orleans Arena for
the state, said the Dome's interior was trashed during the
evacuation and must be decontaminated before engineers look at the
structure.
"It may take us two to three weeks to get it
cleaned up,'' Thornton said. He said it may take another 45 days to
determine how sound the structure is.
"Seventy percent of
the roof is leaking,'' Thornton said. "Evacuees broke into the
suites, commissary areas and into offices looking for food,'' he
said.
Thornton said the arena fared better.
Water has
soaked some of the facility's carpeting, tiles and other areas, but
he said it is possible the arena, which plays host to the New
Orleans Hornets and several concerts each year, could be back in
operation "in the first quarter of 2006.''
Coulon said the
Dome - new or renovated - will be part of a redeveloped and
revitalized New Orleans.
"It will be part of an
entertainment-sports complex which will be a major component'' of a
rebuilt New Orleans, he said.
But, he added, compared to
flooded streets and homes, homeless residents and possibly thousands
of deaths, the stadium is "a second- or third-tier item.''
In
a related matter, New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson said Tuesday
that to "the extent circumstances allow,'' he would like to keep the
team in Louisiana this season and play its home games at Tiger
Stadium in Baton Rouge.
WASHINGTON - President Bush
and congressional leaders promised Tuesday to investigate why the
initial federal response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina
was, by wide agreement, slow and inadequate.
Bush, who is
readying a $40 billion aid package to supplement the $10.5 billion
approved by Congress last week, also met with Education Secretary
Margaret Spellings to discuss ways to help school districts around
the country that are taking in thousands of students displaced from
their own schools by the hurricane.
"We must try to restore
some sense of structure and normalcy to their lives as quickly as
possible," Spellings said. "And that includes helping schools
accommodate these new students, who will need books, clothes and
other supplies."
Bush said now is not the time "for the blame
game," but at some future date, he would personally oversee an
investigation into how Katrina rescue efforts were handled by
federal, state and local officials.
Bush said he is working
with his Cabinet to develop a comprehensive plan for both immediate
and long-term housing for the estimated 1 million people displaced
by Katrina and to ensure that people can collect their Social
Security checks and other benefits no matter where they are
living.
He is sending Vice President Dick Cheney to the Gulf
Coast region Thursday to evaluate recovery efforts.
Brian
Richardson, spokesman for Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said the
nine-member Louisiana delegation is working together on legislation
to spell out that people can collect Medicare, or Medicaid benefits,
even if they don't have the normal paperwork required to qualify,
and that schools can accept children even if they don't have a
permanent address.
Richardson also said the Louisiana
delegation wants to make sure more stringent requirements to gain
bankruptcy protection don't go into effect in October, as scheduled,
for those affected by the hurricane.
Sen. David Vitter,
R-La., said Louisiana lawmakers also are looking for ways to ensure
that Louisiana gets the financial aid it needs for upgrading New
Orleans levees, for providing more financing for flood control and
hurricane protection and for efforts to ease the loss of coastline
and wetlands that make southern Louisiana so vulnerable to serious
flooding from storms.
Congressional leaders vowed to work
across party lines to help hurricane victims, and Senate Minority
Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., suggested the cost easily could reach
$150 billion. He called on the Senate to cancel plans to take up
legislation to repeal the estate tax, and Republican leaders pulled
it from the agenda.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., who
angered Louisiana officials by suggesting last week that it didn't
make sense to rebuild New Orleans before pulling back from the
statement, said he is committed to a "bipartisan, bicameral"
approach to the serious challenges facing New Orleans and other
devastated communities.
But there was still plenty of
partisan wrangling.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi,
D-Calif., said she asked Bush, during his meeting with congressional
leaders, to fire Michael Brown, the embattled chief of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency. "The president thanked me for my
suggestion," Pelosi said afterwards.
Asked by a reporter
whether Brown is still doing a "heck of a job," as the president
said last week, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said: "There
are people working round-the-clock with FEMA - the secretary, the
FEMA director, and many others. … And we've got to do everything we
can in support of their efforts to make sure people are getting what
they need."
Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, a
Democrat, said he wants wholesale changes.
"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," Broussard said on CBS Tuesday.
On a
separate issue, President Bush said he agreed with the Rev. Jesse
Jackson that those displaced by the hurricane should not be called
refugees. "The people we're talking about are not refugees," Bush
said Tuesday to a group of representatives for community and
faith-based organizations. "They are Americans, and they need the
help and love and compassion of our fellow citizens."
Rescuers finding it hard to bring residents to
safety
Many prefer to stay in flooded homes
By
Brian Thevenot Staff writer
Roosevelt Kyles came out
of the front door of his flooded lower 9th Ward home, a Ziplock back
full of medicine in his mouth and a dingy shirt in his hand, trying
to keep both out of the chest-high water.
Kyles already had
turned down two offers to take him to safety, the first time
ignoring the teary pleas of his wife, who left without him. Across
the street from his home, a bloated body floated near three homes
that had gas leaks bubbling up through the floodwaters.
Kyles
tried to turn down yet another offer Sunday, negotiating with
volunteer rescue workers to give him water instead of a ride to
safety. He had run out of water and couldn't take the many medicines
he needed to survive. Volunteer worker Paul Washburn, 23, who
had come in Saturday from Colorado, gave him an ultimatum: No water,
unless you get in this boat.
"This is your final
opportunity,'' Washburn said from the bow of one of the two boats on
a rescue mission.
"OK. Let me get my pants,'' Kyles finally
relented, before disappearing back into the house.
After
heaving him onto the boat, Washburn grilled him about his many
health conditions and recent surgeries and handed him bottles of
warm Gatorade and water to drink. Kyles at one point seemed annoyed
at the questions.
"Don't preach at me, man. I took my
medicines a while ago,'' Kyles said.
The rescue operations
that continued in the lower 9th Ward took a grim and bizarre turn
this week as volunteer boats slowly navigated polluted waters
listening intently for screams over the roar of passing helicopters.
Some victims, like Kyles, didn't want to be saved at all, apparently
in the belief that they could survive until the floodwaters receded.
"It's not going to be a week - that water won't go down for
a month,'' Washburn had shouted to Kyles through his screened
porch.
Just before picking up Kyles, the team of two rescue
boats had seen another man in a wrecked tan apartment
complex.
"We're coming to get you! Wait there!" yelled New
Orleans Police Officer Mike Stalbert of the 3rd District
Taskforce.
"I don't want to go," the man yelled back, before
disappearing behind the graffiti-covered second-story walls,
refusing to listen to any more of the rescuers' pleas.
The
scene baffled one of the boat's drivers, Howard Johnston of Baton
Rouge. "Anybody who would just sit there and hid like that has to
be a little off," he said.
Yet refusals of rescue efforts
have not been at all uncommon.
Whether out of shell shock,
mental disease or a desire to protect what's left of their property,
many trapped flood victims have refused help, rescue workers have
reported.
Cut off from the flood of worldwide media reports
about Hurricane Katrina, many also seem to believe the waters would
recede and their lives go back to normal.
Attempting to ease the stress that led to the suicides
of two New Orleans police officers last week, city officials have
been making a concerted effort to tend to the mental health of
rescue and law enforcement workers who struggled to save lives and
establish order in the city ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.
As
many as 150 city workers who battled not only the storm's wrath, but
intense heat, no electricity, contaminated flood water, spotty phone
service and no running water for more than a week since the storm's
landfall will receive expenses-paid trips to Las Vegas or
Atlanta.
Boosting morale is particularly urgent for the
Police Department, which also has been hit by a number of officer
resignations over the past several days, city officials
said.
"One of our roles is trying to be of help to officers
and their families," said Howard Osofsky, chairman of the Department
of Psychiatry at LSU Health Sciences Center, who is leading an
effort to address the mental needs of the department. "From what
I've seen in general, the Police Department has held together pretty
well. But they've been through a lot."
Deputy Police Chief
Warren J. Riley said Katrina wreaked just as much havoc on the
personal lives of his officers as it did on residents. The minds of
many are clouded with the knowledge that their homes have been badly
damaged or ruined, he said. Some have lost loved ones or don't know
their whereabouts. And that was before the suicides of Paul Accardo,
a department spokesman, and patrol officer Lawrence
Celestine.
Suffice it to say that everyone could use some
time off, Riley said.
Charles Parent, superintendent of the
increasingly busy New Orleans Fire Department, said he is requiring
his units to return to headquarters between fires for rest and
reinforcements.
At a press conference in front of City Hall
on Tuesday, Mayor Ray Nagin thanked Las Vegas Mayor Oscar B. Goodman
and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin for mobilizing quickly to roll
out the red carpets in their cities for New Orleans emergency
workers in need of rest.
"We called them, and within 24 hours
we had a network in place," said Nagin, who added that Southwest
Airlines provided planes to fly personnel on all-expenses-paid
trips.
Nagin said workers visiting Las Vegas are being
offered free restaurant meals, tickets to shows and hotel rooms,
along with $200. Atlanta evacuees are getting similar treatment,
including a $100 daily stipend.
Riley said that 150 New
Orleans police officers are now taking time off in one form or
another. All personnel are given full medical and physical
examinations before they're cleared for vacation, Nagin
said.
The mayor added that doctors even "gave me a physical
and checked my crazy butt out."
Riley said his department,
though reduced in numbers, is stronger than before.
"We have
control of our city," he said. "Morale is beginning to build."
Water lapped at the front doors of million-dollar
mansions and rippled across the hoods of BMWs and Mercedes sedans in
Old Metairie on Tuesday as a handful of homeowners in one of
Jefferson Parish's toniest areas returned to gauge damage from
Hurricane Katrina and from a levee breach that turned their
neighborhood into a putrid swamp.
"Usually you just get the
low-lying areas," that flood, Councilman-at-large John Young said,
as he paddled a flat-bottomed boat down Northline. "These people,
this might be the highest-priced street in the state.'
That
price tag, which often pays for a few inches of elevation to protect
against flooding, however, did not save dozens of homes from
destruction as limbs from oaks, crape myrtles and cypresses lay
across the watery road and gashed through many roofs along Northline
and Stella and Iona streets.
Most residents evacuated this
hamlet before the storm hit or got out soon after. Dotting the
landscape were orange Xs sprayed-painted on doors and windows by
National Guard troops in recent days to indicate that no dead had
been found inside. And most residents had not returned Tuesday,
possibly because of the difficulty navigating the 4-foot-deep oil
slicked water, strewn with downed power lines, floating trash cans
and upended trees.
At the end of Northline, a scruffy man
leaned over a second-floor balcony watching dragonflies zip across
the still water.
"I came here from Jackson, Miss., to help
my mother and father. They're 80-something years old," said Henry
Handelman, 55. "They got out on a helicopter (last) Tuesday, but I'm
going to walk out of here."
Handelman said he stopped in Old
Metairie to check on his parents as he headed to Tallahassee, Fla.,
to volunteer for the Red Cross's Katrina volunteer relief effort. He
stayed with them until a medevac team whisked them out of the house,
then on to Austin, Texas, last week. But Handleman said he intended
to remain in his childhood home until the waters receded.
"I'm doing some soul-searching here," he said. "When I
rebuild this house, I'm going to put it on stilts just like Grand
Isle. It's going to be the silliest looking thing out
here."
"We will rebuild," Handleman said.
Just down
the road, the makeshift levee of sand and riprap erected in four
days last week by Jefferson workers and contractors stood strong
across Airline Highway, dividing the roughly 5-foot-deep flood that
extended into Jefferson and Orleans parishes as far as the eye could
see.
The levee was build swiftly to protect East Jefferson
from Lake Pontchartrain waters that spilled through a breach at the
17th Street Canal last Tuesday, though it could not keep the flood
out of Old Metairie or neighborhoods, near Airline Highway east of
Causeway.
The Army Corps of Engineers continued its work
Tuesday, dropping 3,000- pound sandbags and laying tons of dirt on
the Orleans Parish side. A small pump pulled lime-green water from
the neighborhoods swamped by the levee breach and spewed it back
into the canal near the lake. But Corps and New Orleans officials
did not give the go-ahead Tuesday to switch on the enormous 17th
Street Canal pumps that would drain water from the flooded parts of
Jefferson, according to Walter Maestri, the parish's emergency
management director.
Maestri said he did not know when
federal or city leaders would allow pumping to start. "We tried to
get a hold of the city, and the city's basically in exile right
now,'' he said.
Meanwhile Jefferson imported small pumps to
move the floodwater through the West Metairie Canal, but Maestri
said they were inadequate to provide relief to submerged parts of
the parish.
As workers continued to fill the breach, Kenny
Rodriguez, 67, of Metairie ventured to his home near Hammond Highway
after waiting in his car for 4½ hours to re-enter the parish, the
second day Jefferson officials allowed residents to return briefly
to survey the damage. Rodriguez said the scene, minus the lakefront
restaurants of Sid-Mar's and Brunings that were reduced to rubble by
Katrina's winds, "brings me goose bumps.''
Asked whether he
intended to rebuild his house and his family's nearby seafood
market, Rodriguez replied, "Oh yeah, they got to.''
Already
back in business Tuesday was Drago's, the Fat City oyster house.
Though none of the 140 sacks of oysters that were in the
restaurant's refrigerator before the storm survived the recent
electricity loss, its owners used propane to heat 1,300 meals of
pasta, chicken and sausage since Monday for relief workers and
returning neighbors.
Tommy Cvitanovich, who runs a restaurant
with his parents, said the donation was the least his family could
do after a storm that ravaged so many restaurants, especially in New
Orleans, but left his with only temporary loss of power and
water.
Back in the nearly dark kitchen, Joe Shine said
whipping up grilled chicken and pasta with alfredo sauce was his
therapy after weathering such a dangerous storm at his Metairie
home.
"I feel great to be back at work,'' he said. "It
occupies my time so I don't have to worry about everything else.''
More than 500 people rode out Hurricane Katrina at
Louis Armstrong International Airport, but the number quickly rose
to 5,000 in the storm's aftermath as evacuees showed up at a shelter
where food and water were scarce, airport officials said
Tuesday.
Eight days after the storm, more than 2,500 people
are still sleeping at the airport, although most of them now are not
evacuees but uniformed military or law enforcement
personnel.
The number of takeoffs and landings has jumped
from the pre-storm average of 700 per day to as many as 3,800. Most
of those are helicopters. Planes and buses filled with refugees also
are moving out.
Now a relief and staging center, the terminal
a week ago was jammed with tired, hungry and frustrated refugees -
and only 11 Jefferson Parish sheriff's deputies to keep
order.
Many of the refugees were injured, and more than 20
died, despite the efforts of a Federal Emergency Management Agency
medical team that set up an emergency room in the Delta Air Lines
terminal lobby and sent the sickest patients out the door first to
hospitals elsewhere. The rest were frustrated, thirsty and hungry,
according to airport employees who rode out the storm.
"The
rescue helicopters were bringing people in, but the buses were
dropping off people, too, and a lot of folks just showed up because
we were high and dry," airport spokeswoman Michelle Duffourc
said.
The result was bedlam. The cream-colored terminal
floors were caked with black mud, and the evacuees were stressed and
angry as they awaited transport out of the New Orleans area by plane
or bus.
Aviation Director Roy Williams said FEMA failed when
it prematurely halted "mercy flights" by airlines that flew donated
supplies into Armstrong and flew refugees out. Williams said FEMA
stopped flights by American, Southwest, Northwest and United
airlines on Thursday, four days after the storm, when it was ramping
up its own evacuation effort.
"I think their response was far
short of adequate," Williams said, adding that some refugees were
forced to stay in the fetid conditions longer than
necessary.
FEMA spokesman David Passey said he had not heard
the allegation before and would have to investigate before he could
respond.
Williams said FEMA still is not telling him how many
flights will be coming to the airport.
"I've heard that there
is a conference call every day to talk about this, but I'm not on it
and no one I talk to is on it. You would think they would ask
someone for an estimate of how many more aircraft we can get on the
field, or how many people are in the terminal, but it's like they're
managing this by remote control."
Williams said the airport's
heroes include Joseph Taylor, manager of CA One/Pampy's, Armstrong's
food and beverage oncessionaire. With a dozen employees and
relatives, Taylor cooked up food and served it during the harrowing
days after Katrina struck Aug. 29.
"It's part of his job
description, but when things got bad no one would have blamed him if
he had pulled his people out," Williams said.
Other heroes
among the 50 or so airport-related staffers who rode out the storm
were the sheriff's deputies who managed to keep order despite long
hours under chaotic conditions, Williams said.
The airport's
future is in flux. Passenger traffic from commercial flights pays
Armstrong's bills, but those flights are out of the question for the
time being. The airport has outstanding loans of $200 million, which
are paid by airline landing fees and rents, and passenger-derived
revenue from parking and concessions.
Williams said the
airport is eligible for federal grants that could help it pay its
operating costs of about $50 million a year.
Before Katrina,
airport officials had hoped to break the 10 million passenger mark
during 2005. It did so for the 12-month period ending in
August.
The last time that happened was in August 2001, a few
days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Almost 50 Slidell and Pearl River area residents made
homeless by Hurricane Katrina's devastation were evacuated during
the weekend on two big tour buses with the promise of a new start in
the Midwest.
The promise - guaranteed jobs and free
apartments for up to six months - was made by Ed Blinn, a Marion,
Ind., businessman who owns three used car lots and almost 100
apartments.
Some 47 people who had been staying in five
crowded, squalid school gymnasiums took him up on the offer and
boarded the buses Blinn hired to journey down the nation's
midsection and back.
They arrived at their new home,
temporary or otherwise, late Monday afternoon and Blinn put them all
up at a local hotel, he said in a telephone interview.
With
his help and that of Red Cross volunteers and social service
agencies, the displaced persons are settling into some of his vacant
apartments and others - and into their new lives.
So, why did
Blinn, 39, safe and sound with his family 900 miles away take it
upon himself to embark upon this mission of mercy?
Blinn was
aware from the numerous televised news accounts of the devastation
and the plight of so many thousands of men, women and children
driven from their homes in the New Orleans area.
But he also
has a friend in Slidell, Roper Construction Co. owner Jimmy Roper.
He's the uncle of Dr. Mike Roper, a close friend of Blinn's. For the
past few years, the Blinns and Ropers have gone hunting together
every year in South Dakota.
"I have a friend in Slidell - so
that's why I decided to go," he said. "Hell, we're like
family."
Blinn also was impatient with the slow pace of a
hurricane relief effort that city officials and others in the Marion
area were talking about to help the stricken area far to the
south.
That group met late Friday and spent a lot of time
talking without coming to a firm decision on what to do, he
said.
"I just felt that with the bureaucracy, it wasn't going
to get done," he said. "They said their next meeting was Tuesday and
I knew I could make it happen, or thought I could and so I
did."
Accompanied by his 14-year-old son, Evan, Blinn hired a
driver for each of the two buses capable of holding 30 to 35
passengers. The buses left Marion at about 8 p.m. Saturday and
arrived in Slidell at mid-afternoon Sunday.
They then went
shelter by shelter to John Slidell Park, three schools the names of
which he couldn't remember and ultimately to Creekside Junior High
School near Pearl River.
At each stop, he told those stranded
at the sweltering facilities about his proposal and his six-month
"guarantee" of jobs and a place to live rent-free, and gave them 20
minutes or so to make up their minds.
Not surprisingly,
despite their desperate situations, many didn't want to leave behind
what had been their home for many years.
However, travelers
ultimately included a family of three who initially wanted to stay,
then changed their minds and chased down one of the buses after it
began driving off and jumped on, Blinn said.
"I would have
liked to stay a little longer and get a few more people," he said.
"I could've spent another day."
But time was running out, the
rescue group was informed of an 8 p.m. curfew, "and these people
were weary enough" and faced a long drive back to
Indiana.
Blinn said he didn't know how many of his temporary
charges eventually would decide to return to Louisiana or to stay in
their new homes.
"I don't know if any of them will (want to
return)," he said. "But if they do, I'll help them get back. We're
friends now."
But bond rating firms cast wary eye on government
debt
By Robert Travis Scott Capital
bureau
BATON ROUGE - Louisiana's government faces enormous
financial challenges as a result of Hurricane Katrina, but the state
will be able to pay its bills and is not facing bankruptcy, top
state officials say.
Parishes and other local governments in
the storm-damaged areas are under even greater financial stress, but
the state is prepared to help where necessary, state Treasurer John
Kennedy said.
With estimated damages that could top $22
billion, Katrina is the worst storm ever to hit the United States,
according to the New York bond rating firm Standard & Poor's,
which has placed the state, local governments and several agencies
in the area on CreditWatch, indicating they may have problems in
making future debt payments.
Katrina ravaged several wealthy
parishes previously populated by more than a million people and
thousands of businesses that paid sales and income taxes and fees
contributing to the annual state budget. No state official has
predicted how much of the economy can be restored or how soon that
could happen, drawing into question how the state budget might have
to be altered to keep it balanced, as required by law.
"The
state is going to meet its obligations," said Jerry Luke LeBlanc,
who as commissioner of administration acts as the governor's budget
chief. As for bankruptcy, "we're not even close," he
said.
Still, LeBlanc said, the impact on the state's tax and
revenue base is unknown, making it impossible to predict what
measures will have to be taken to keep the state's accounts in
order.
"The breadth and scope of this is larger than anything
that anyone has ever dealt with," LeBlanc said. "The costs are going
to be staggering."
State officials already have spoken with
Wall Street bond rating agencies to discuss the state's ability to
pay debts, and economists are trying to get a sense of what the
impact might be, he said.
Greg Albrecht, an economist with
the state's Legislative Fiscal Office, is attempting to estimate
that impact. He is trying to figure how many people are now
unemployed, not all of whom will get jobless benefits.
"It's
not just how many people, but for how long," Albrecht
said.
Once Jefferson Parish has its lights back on and people
begin to repopulate, it will become a staging area for Orleans
businesses and citizens to remake the city, he said.
"I
don't think the state's just going to fall over the edge," Albrecht
said. "I think the bounce-back will be quicker than we might think
at first."
When devastating hurricanes have struck other
states, those economies eventually were boosted by money and jobs
generated by federal aid, insurance compensation and the process of
rebuilding, both LeBlanc and Kennedy said.
"In all those
cases, the economic and revenue picture exceeded the levels prior to
the incident," LeBlanc said.
New Orleans will not hold any citywide conventions
until the end of March at the earliest because of damage to the
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, the building that is considered
the engine of the New Orleans tourism industry.
"We have
canceled all conventions utilizing the Convention Center through the
end of this year, and we expect in the next day or so to cancel
those through March 31," said Stephen Perry, president of the New
Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau. "The Convention
Center has severe damage."
Hurricane Katrina damaged the
facility's roof, allowing water to leak into the building. And after
so many people gathered there last week looking for refuge in the
aftermath of the storm, the inside of the building is "not
inhabitable" for meetings and all the surfaces need to be replaced,
Perry said. Electricity has been restored to the building, but there
is no air conditioning or water.
Center officials estimate it
will cost in the "high tens of millions" to repair the building.
Perry said he is working with Louisiana's congressional delegation
to get federal funding to repair the building because it is such a
key economic driver and will help restore employment in the
region.
"We expect to have it back online next year, better
than ever, if we get federal assistance," Perry said. Earlier this
year, officials had hired a consultant to consider ways to freshen
up the center.
There is no word on whether the Phase IV
expansion of the Convention Center will go forward. The addition is
supposed to expand the facility by nearly 50 percent, to 1.6 million
square feet, making it the fourth largest in the country. After
being mired in litigation for 20 months, the contract to build Phase
IV was signed in August.
"There has been literally zero
discussion on that. Until we get through this week, that's on the
back burner," Perry said.
Meanwhile, the Greater New Orleans
Hotel and Lodging Association is trying to survey damage at New
Orleans hotels and is hoping to have power restored at hotels before
other buildings. The idea is that the hotels can house emergency
management crews, construction workers and electricity technicians
and keep hospitality workers employed, Perry said.
For now,
New Orleans will be out of service during the prime convention
months of the year. Some of the largest conventions scheduled to be
held in New Orleans in the coming months are being
rescheduled.
"We have received about 40 inquiries from
meetings that were scheduled to take place in New Orleans," said
Erika Yowell, spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors
Authority.
The LVCVA is sharing leads with other private
convention centers and hotels with large amounts of meeting space in
Las Vegas to try to nail down the business. In the meantime, Las
Vegas has confirmed bookings for meetings of the National
Association of Convenience Stores, the Distribution Business
Management Association and the Association for Career and Technical
Education, Yowell said.
Other large groups that had been
scheduled to meet in New Orleans will go to other cities.
The
American Society for Microbiology, which was scheduled to meet in
New Orleans in September, will instead meet in Washington, D.C., in
December, according to the group's Web site.
The National
Business Aviation Association, whose 2001 convention in New Orleans
had to be rescheduled because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,
will meet in Orlando, Fla., instead of New Orleans because of
Hurricane Katrina.
"We are planning to go back whenever the
city is able to accommodate our event," Vice President Dan Hubbard
said.
The Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau is working
with "about a dozen major conventions" that had been scheduled to
come to New Orleans. To create more openings in its convention
calendar, Dallas is trying to move conventions on its calendar up a
few days or back a few days.
But the Dallas CVB, led by
Phillip Jones, former secretary of Culture, Recreation and Tourism
for Louisiana, has offered to swap years with New Orleans for groups
that meet in both cities. For example, if a group was scheduled to
meet in December 2005 in New Orleans and December 2007 in Dallas,
Dallas would take this year's meeting to give New Orleans time to
rebuild.
Perry said the convention business will be painfully
slow in coming months because New Orleans doesn't want to bring
convention customers back until the city is able to receive them.
But he is optimistic the convention business will rebound stronger
than ever because the Convention Center and downtown hotels will be
updated as part of the rebuilding process, and he is encouraged
because convention groups have indicated they want to return,
despite the risk of hurricanes and the violent images they saw on
television in the wake of the storm.
"They are telling us,
'When you are back up, we cannot wait to come back to New Orleans
and put our meeting there and help you,' " Perry said.
Jones
said he believes that groups will respond in different ways to what
they've seen on television. "I think it will have a negative impact
on some groups, and others will want to support New Orleans in the
same way that many groups wanted to meet in New York after 9/11," he
said.
Jones said he thinks New Orleans can bounce back but
that it will be important for the convention and visitors bureau to
send out signals that the city is safe and will re-open.
"The
core of the historic district of New Orleans, which serves as the
cornerstone to the tourism industry, is intact, so you can rebuild
around that. The question is, how soon?" Jones said. "People need to
be reassured that the tourism industry will rebuild in New Orleans
and in Louisiana, and when the rebuilding is complete, New Orleans
will remain one of the top tourism destinations in the
country."
For now, that may be tough. The convention bureau's
building in New Orleans was damaged by the storm and is now occupied
by the Colorado National Guard. Convention staffers are spread
between Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu's office in Baton Rouge and in
cities around the country. Fortunately, the convention bureau was
able to retrieve its computer database Tuesday to begin reaching out
to convention customers.
The delayed acquisition by
Capital One Financial Corp. of Hibernia Corp. is scheduled to close
today, but on Tuesday speculation remained whether the new deadline
will be met.
Capital One, which had planned to buy Hibernia
on Sept. 1 for $5.35 billion, delayed the closing for a week after
Hurricane Katrina took out the bank company's operations center in
New Orleans and flooded branches in the metropolitan area. Many
branches have been shuttered for more than a week.
In a
joint announcement the day before the deal was scheduled to close
last week, the two parties said they "had mutually agreed" to
reschedule the planned closing to today "as a result of the
devastation and disruption caused by Hurricane Katrina."
The
announcement sparked heavy trading in both stocks as traders
reported that they began to have doubts about the deal. Hibernia
shares fell much of the week but Capital One shares
gyrated.
Capital One did not return a call Tuesday and a
Hibernia spokesperson said no announcement was
planned.
Hibernia president Herb Boydstun said Monday he
could not comment on the delay announced a week ago.
"There is a contract that both sides are called on to do
certain things," he said. "I don't think it is appropriate for me to
talk about this transaction."
He said the two banks would
issue a press release laying out what they would do to rebuild the
bank.
On Monday, Boydstun said the bank had reopened 47
branches and was reopening four to five branches every day or two.
Hibernia is one of the largest businesses in New Orleans. It
owns the Hibernia National Bank, which has branches in Louisiana and
Texas that hold more than $22 billion worth of loans and other
assets.
Analysts said Capital One faces more risk in buying
Hibernia as a result of the storm. Hibernia likely will suffer
significant short-term damage, including loss of deposits, the
inability of customers to pay small business loans and mortgages and
actual damage to bank property.
Ed Groshans, banking analyst
at Fox Pitt Kelton in New York, said he thinks there is a 50-50
chance the deal will close today.
"They will close the deal
but not tomorrow," he said Tuesday. Groshans said the signing will
take place in a week or two because of the logistics of getting the
parties together at this time.
He said he thinks shareholders
will not be affected, so long as the deal takes place today or soon
at the previously announced terms.
For each share of Hibernia
stock, shareholders are to receive an amount equal to $15.35 in cash
plus 0.2261 of a share of Capital One stock based on an average of
the stock price for the 5 days prior to the closing. That means each
Hibernia share would be worth about $33.72, based on the math, if
the deal closes today.
Hibernia stock has been trading below
that level. On Tuesday it closed at $31.40.
Normally, before
such a merger, the two prices would be very close. Because the
prices have not been close, that has created speculation that the
deal will be postponed again or renegotiated.
However, some
have pointed out that the gap has narrowed, which implies the
professional traders started to think the deal would be done today.
Hibernia stock was up 84 cents Tuesday while Capital One's was down
$1.54 to $80.50.
"I don't think the long-term finances have
changed so they could renegotiate," Groshans said.
While he
said "there will be pain getting the infrastructure of the bank in
New Orleans up and running," Hibernia will benefit from the
revitalization of the community and the rebuilding by its customers
and it will recoup losses with insurance settlements and payments
from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Capital One of
McLean, Va., has said that 54 percent of Hibernia shareholders had
chosen to receive Capital One common stock, 33 percent had asked for
cash and 13 percent did not make a valid election. The maximum
amount of cash Capital One will pay is $2.38 billion
Hurricane Katrina claimed another corporate casualty
Tuesday when Entergy Corp., the state's only Fortune 500 company,
announced it has relocated its New Orleans corporate headquarters to
Clinton, Miss., a suburb west of Jackson.
A spokesman for the
region's biggest electricity supplier said the move is temporary and
that the company will return once New Orleans is secure, utility
services are restored to the Central Business District and Entergy's
high-rise headquarters building is repaired of any structural damage
from the storm.
"You know the lyrics to the song: 'Do you
know what it means to miss New Orleans,'" said Arthur Wiese Jr.,
Entergy vice president for corporate communications.
"We've
been in New Orleans more than 80 years. It's home, and we want to
come home as soon as we can," he said.
In the meantime,
Entergy Chief Executive Officer J. Wayne Leonard and the company's
other senior executives will occupy about three floors of space in
buildings that used to serve as the corporate headquarters for MCI
WorldCom Communications.
Leonard, who has emerged as a major
figure in New Orleans' corporate culture in recent years, spent
Tuesday visiting Entergy crews working in storm-damaged areas of
Mississippi. He is scheduled to visit crews working in Louisiana
today and meet with Gov. Kathleen Blanco.
The company
received relocation offers from numerous cities in several states,
including New Jersey and New York, Wiese said, but executives wanted
to confine the move to states where the company operates regulated
electricity utilities: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and
Texas.
They considered Baton Rouge, but with tens of
thousands of metropolitan New Orleans residents and many businesses
already relocating to the capital, finding adequate housing and
office space isn't possible, Wiese said.
Suburban Jackson
offered both, and the central Mississippi location already is home
to Entergy's nuclear power plant division and the emergency
operations center that will oversee the repair and reconstruction of
the company's damaged power grid.
Clinton, Miss., is a
three-hour drive from New Orleans, making it easy for Entergy
headquarters workers to travel home over the coming months to check
on home repairs, Wiese said.
He would not speculate about
when the headquarters might move back home.
"Nobody can
predict what the atmosphere will be like in the city. You have to
assure that it will be a peaceful city again. Everything has to
settle down. We're not in control of all the factors," he
said.
Keith Darcé can be reached at
nolapaperboy@cox.net.
About 130 Entergy Corp. utility
workers spent Tuesday scouring dry parts of New Orleans for
potentially dangerous natural gas leaks in homes and businesses,
using high-tech devices to sniff out the fuel.
The company
warned that parts of the city with gas might lose service as crews
repair damaged lines.
That could be a burden to people who
have stayed in New Orleans. For many, gas was the only utility
service still working more than a week after Hurricane Katrina, and
the fuel may be their only means for cooking food and boiling
water.
Though various people have attributed fires in the
city to gas leaks, Entergy regional gas operations manager Rusty
Burroughs said there's no evidence so far that gas leaks caused any
of the major blazes.
"They appear to be mostly arsons," he
said.
While workers looked for gas leaks, thousands of power
line workers continued to fix toppled utility poles, restring wires
and restore electricity to more homes and businesses in the
region.
About 475,000 utility customers remained in the dark
in southeastern Louisiana late Tuesday afternoon, according to
Entergy and Cleco Corp. Entergy supplies electricity to parishes
south of Lake Pontchartrain, and Cleco supplies power parts of St.
Tammany and Washington parishes north of the lake.
After
working in Algiers, the gas utility crews began moving Tuesday into
the French Quarter, the Central Business District and parts of
Uptown between St. Charles Avenue and the Mississippi River,
Burroughs said.
The crews carried flame ionization units to
detect trace amounts of methane, the main component of natural gas,
and combustible gas indicators to measure whether gas leaks are
large enough to explode.
The crews worked during daylight in
areas being patrolled by security forces, Burroughs said. "They are
in areas where they generally feel safe," he said.
Entergy
cut off gas service to all of the Lower 9th Ward and eastern New
Orleans on Sunday because of the likelihood of widespread leaks in
the areas due to serious storm damage and flooding.
Entergy
workers also planned to cut gas service to smaller areas of the
city, in part to maintain the flow of gas to pumps moving
floodwaters out of New Orleans, Burroughs said. Generators that
produce electricity for the pumps are fueled by gas.
In the
coming days, workers will begin moving toward Mid-City and the
lakefront, using military Humvees and boats to explore flooded
neighborhoods, Burroughs said.
Anyone discovering a gas leak
in the city should report it to Entergy by calling 1 (800)
368-3749.
Keith Darcé can be reached at
nolapaperboy@cox.net.
Because of Katrina, in the world of college football,
there are some things we don't know. We don't know if Tulane
would have upset Southern Miss.
And we don't know if Les
Miles would have launched his career as the football boss of the LSU
Tigers with a victory over North Texas.
Despite Katrina,
here's what we do know.
Oklahoma will not win the national
championship.
If Tennessee does, the Vols will have to play a
lot better than they did against Alabama-Birmingham. The
Louisville Cardinals, blessed with the kind of regular-season
schedule to run the table and play for No. 1, learned the perils of
having a target on their backs.
Boise State, coming off a
perfect season with visions of a BCS bowl down the line, learned a
little about life in the SEC from the Georgia Bulldogs.
Notre
Dame fans learned life may be better than expected under rookie
coach Charlie Weis.
Florida fans, still trying to put Steve
Spurrier in their rear-view mirror, learned the new man in town,
Urban Meyer, may be just the guy to make them forget with the second
coming of Fun-n-Gun.
Meanwhile, at such big-time addresses as
Southern Cal, Texas and Ohio State, the Trojans, Longhorns and
Buckeyes came out of the gate firing impressive salvos against an
outmanned enemy.
First question: What happened to the
Sooners?
It wasn't that the Okies, carrying a No. 7 preseason
rating, lost to TCU, 17-10. It was that they lost at home for the
first time in four years. Four Sooners turnovers paved the way for
the Horned Frogs' biggest upset in 44 years, going back to a 1961
win over No. 1 Texas.
To make matters worse, running back
Adrian Peterson, Heisman Trophy runner-up last season as a freshman,
came out of the loss with an ankle
injury.
Tennessee?
Unlucky for Oklahoma, a 17-10 final
was fortunate at home for the Vols, rated as high as No. 2 and a
double-digit favorite to spank visiting UAB.
It wasn't until
an incomplete pass into the end zone in the final minutes that the
home crowd could exhale. Think about it. This was pretty much the
UAB club Tulane upset, 59-55, last season in Tad Gormley Stadium
behind QB Lester Ricard's 417 passing yards and a school-record six
TDs.
Louisville?
Here was another double-digit
favorite that went into Lexington and was left to sweat out a 31-24
win. For a half, Kentucky Wildcats faithful suffered through what
they expected. The Cardinals had taken a 28-7 lead and seemed to be
on their way to a runaway. That's when the Wildcats' defense, in the
hands of former LSU coach Mike Archer, turned tiger and held
Louisville without a second-half TD for only the second time since
Bobby Petrino arrived three years ago.
UK quarterback Andre
Woodson coughed up the football on his way to a tying score, and the
Cards ran out the final minutes. This is a Louisville team that
averaged nearly 50 points a game last year in its final season as a
member of Conference USA. It is a Louisville team in its first year
as a member of the Big East that will be favored in its final 10
games.
At season's end, it could be an 11-0 Louisville team
demanding a spot in the BCS championship game.
Notre
Dame?
Let's say this: Weis, offensive coordinator on three
New England Super Bowl champions, did nothing to tarnish his
reputation being part of Bill Belichick's brain. In his Golden Dome
debut, Weis' Fighting Irish went into Pittsburgh and ran up 502
yards in a 42-21 upset over a club ranked No. 23. Can it last? We'll
soon find out. The Irish play Michigan on
Saturday.
Ordinarily, you might say Notre Dame-Michigan in
Ann Arbor would be the game of the week, but not in this case. Not
when two candidates for No. 1, Texas and Ohio State, are playing
Saturday in Columbus, Ohio.
If Mack Brown's Longhorns prevail
in Columbus, they'd become a warm choice to return to the Rose Bowl,
this time to play for the BCS title.
Privateers basketball teams to attend, play at
Texas-Tyler
Site of 'home' games Yet to be
determined
By Ted Lewis Staff writer
UNO
may be closed for the semester, but the Privateers will still play
basketball this season.
The school's men's and women's teams
will be housed and attend classes at the University of Texas-Tyler.
The Privateers will play a full schedule beginning in November,
although the site of home games is yet to be determined.
"The fact that there will be basketball teams playing with
'New Orleans,' on their shirts is very important," UNO men's coach
Monte Towe said Tuesday. "We are proud to represent a great city
that may be destroyed, but is going to bounce back. Showing that
spirit is what UNO and the people of New Orleans are all
about."
Towe and women's coach Amy Champion have been
bringing in their players from scattered locations this week. Some
will begin classes at UT-Tyler today.
"It's progress," Towe
said. "We've gotten our teams together and also they will be able to
go to school. That's the best situation we could hope for right now.
We had to get some sense of normalcy back."
UT-Tyler is a
school of 6,000 located about 90 miles east of Dallas, which
competes in Division III.
The connection with UNO comes from
assistant athletic director Kathy Keene, whose brother, Chris Bizot,
is the school's tennis coach.
"We are extremely gratified by
the kindness shown us by UT-Tyler in our time of need," UNO athletic
director Jim Miller was quoted in a release from UT-Tyler. "This
unfortunate event should convince all college athletics
administrators of the truth in the passage, 'except by the grace of
God go I.'
"It could happen to any of us."
Towe said
all of his players had committed to coming to Tyler, but the process
had not been easy.
"It was like recruiting them all over
again," he said. "There were some long, serious discussions. These
young men are hurting and they're worried about the possessions they
had to leave behind in Privateer Place. These are young kids and
something of this magnitude has been really tough on them because I
can't answer all of their questions."
Two of UNO's men's
players, Bo McCalebb and James Parlow, are from New Orleans. Towe
said both players' families were safe, but he was sure they had lost
their homes and that his own home, near the Lakefront, probably was
still underwater.
"That's the least of my worries," said
Towe, who with his wife, P.D., was in St. Augustine, Fla., attending
a fund-raising event when Katrina stuck. "That will take care of
itself in time. We've got players who don't have homes
anymore."
What disturbed Towe was the reported contacting of
some of his players, most prominently McCalebb, by "intermediaries"
from other schools inquiring if they were interested in
transferring.
McCalebb, a junior guard, was sixth in the
country in scoring last year with 22.6 points per game.
"I'm
not going to get into the specifics," Towe said. "But it did happen
and that's something we don't need happening right now. No. 1, he
was already enrolled in school. If we weren't going to have a
season, that would different. But this was wrong."
Towe said
he understood that Lakefront Arena did not suffer major damage
despite its location, but he did not know if any home games could be
played there this year.
"We might stay here, we might use the
Pontchartrain Center or we might use a combination of places," Towe
said. "This is something you take one day at a time. Right now the
important thing is we're here together right now."
The UNO
men are scheduled to open their season Nov. 19 at home against
Belhaven College. The women open that same day at
Centenary. "It's going to be a challenge," Towe said. "But I am a
believer that the cup is always half full. It's a unique opportunity
to showcase the ability of our team under adverse conditions. If we
can hold up, we can still accomplish our goals for the
year."
NOTE: The UNO volleyball season has been
canceled. The Privateers were 4-0 under first-year coach Dana
Launey. The status of other Privateer sports has yet to be
determined.
New
LSU coaching staff, postponed season opener have opponent
searching
By William Kalec Staff
writer
BATON ROUGE - It's hard to study what you can't
see.
Despite playing in front what is sure to be the most
cordial "home crowd" in the history of LSU football, Arizona State's
coaching staff hasn't been completely void of hardships in
preparation for Saturday. Because the LSU-North Texas opener was
postponed due to Hurricane Katrina, Sun Devils coach Dirk Koetter is
without a template from which to game plan.
"That's where the
Internet comes in handy," Koetter said. "We kind of have to go on
what we get. You are never quite sure. We have to weigh all the
factors out and study the film that best resembles what they are
going to do."
Finding defensive tape of Bo Pelini's schemes
from Oklahoma and Nebraska shouldn't be a problem, but deciding
whether to dissect offensive film from Coach Les Miles' Oklahoma
State teams or previous LSU teams directed under rehired offensive
coordinator Jimbo Fisher isn't as clear cut.
Back in the end
of June, Miles was asked describe the level of autonomy given to
each assistant coach.
"All the freedom guaranteed by the
Constitution of the United States," he said, maintaining a poker
face fit for cable television.
"You can do a lot of
scouting," Koetter said. "We have a lot of film from Oklahoma State
last year. The problem is, LSU's coach doesn't have either one of
his coordinators from last year. I don't think studying LSU film or
Oklahoma State film is the best thing to do."
LATER
KICKOFF: The start of the LSU-Arizona State game has been moved
up 30 minutes from 7:45 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. ESPN is still broadcasting
the game nationally.
FULL OF FATS: LSU quarterback
JaMarcus Russell has been bombarded with interview requests from
local, national and international media about housing Fats Domino
after the famous singer/musician escaped his 9th Ward residence and
evacuated to Baton Rouge.
"I've had guys as far as London,
England, get in touch with our people to get in touch with Fats
Domino," Russell said.
Russell went on to say that the
interviewer from England was difficult to understand because of his
accent, comparing him to Steve Irwin, the Crocodile
Hunter.
TAKE TWO: After shutting down production for a
week because of power outages and other factors related to Hurricane
Katrina, The Les Miles Show returns to Walk-On's Bar and Bistreaux
this Wednesday at 7 p.m.
TICKET SITUATION: Within the
next 48 hours, LSU athletic officials plan to make an announcement
about purchased, unused tickets for this Saturday's game against
Arizona State that was moved from Tiger Stadium to Sun Devil
Stadium.
For those able to travel, original game tickets can
be exchanged for seats in Tempe, Ariz., although ticket-holders must
first contact the LSU athletic ticket office by 2 p.m. today to
register.
Saints face logistical obstacles in both Baton
Rouge and San Antonio
By Mike Triplett Staff
writer
SAN ANTONIO - With the tides shifting between Baton
Rouge and San Antonio every day, the best bet is that the Saints
probably will play some of their home games at both places this
season.
There are hurdles that need to be overcome in both
cities - particularly in an overcrowded Baton Rouge, which already
is stretched with its hurricane relief efforts. But Baton Rouge also
appears to be the favored destination of the NFL, of certain members
of the Saints' organization and of public opinion.
On
Tuesday, Saints owner Tom Benson pledged his support of playing
games in Baton Rouge as well - in the wake of several reports that
he was pushing hard for all the games to be played in San
Antonio.
"The entire New Orleans Saints organization would
like to extend its prayers and best wishes to all of our fans
throughout Louisiana and the Gulf South region," Benson said in a
statement issued after a conference call between Saints and NFL
officials. "We are currently working with the NFL and expect to be
in a position shortly to announce the sites for our remaining 2005
home schedule.
"I have expressed my desire to the NFL to play
games in Baton Rouge, La., to the extent circumstances
allow."
That last part is the key, however, as logistics may
prove difficult in Baton Rouge. For one thing, hotel rooms are in
short supply, in addition to the kind of security and emergency
forces necessary for an NFL game.
And although LSU and
Louisiana government officials have supported the idea of the Saints
playing in their home state, there are still financial concerns that
need to be met.
LSU does not need to profit from the games,
but the budget is an issue.
"We'll do everything we can to be
good Louisiana citizens, extend a great invitation," LSU athletic
director Skip Bertman said. "But we can't ask LSU fans, who
subsidize the athletic department, to subsidize any Saints activity.
I'm talking about maintenance, expenses that kind of thing. Some
amount of money has to be paid.
"We think it would be good if
the Saints stayed here. … We'll do whatever it takes, except spend
money."
Bertman said most of the details will need to be
worked out by politicians and that so far nobody from the LSU
athletic department has spoken with anyone from the Saints. But a
source familiar with the discussions said LSU is working out some
"deal points," such as financial feasibility, who would provide
security and who would be in charge of ticketing. The discussions
were characterized as preliminary.
Speaking of ticket sales,
Benson put to rest some concerns about season-ticket refunds in his
statement.
"Saints ticket holders unable to attend games,
wherever played, should also be assured that they will be permitted
to request refunds. Specifics of the refund policy will be
publicized in the upcoming days," Benson said.
He concluded
his statement by saying, "The New Orleans Saints look forward to the
start of the NFL regular season this Sunday and to having the club
be a source of pride and joy in these difficult days. As we move
forward together, the Saints look forward to serving as a leader in
the rebuilding and revitalization of our great community. Towards
this effort, the Saints have established the 'New Orleans Saints
Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund.' Further information for those
individuals/companies interested in contributing will be announced
shortly."
State's concerns
Some state and team
officials have been openly concerned in recent days about Benson's
plans for the Saints, both short term and long term. But those fears
have seemingly been eased somewhat.
Sen. David Vitter said in
a statement Tuesday that he "had a very good, reassuring
conversation with Tom Benson about the need for all of us to join
together in rebuilding Greater New Orleans, including its jobs and
business base. In that conversation, Mr. Benson assured me of two
things:
"1. He is eager to maximize the number of Saints home
games that could be played in Tiger Stadium consistent with first
meeting the medical, housing, and other needs of evacuees in the
region.
"2. He is eager for the Saints to return to New
Orleans as soon as possible and for his organization to be part of
our rebuilding effort and long-term future."
The Saints'
executive vice president of administration, Arnold Fielkow, also
told The Times-Picayune on Monday night that he believes the team is
making a commitment to Louisiana.
Fielkow, who had expressed
concerns to several media outlets that Benson was leaning strongly
toward playing games in San Antonio, said the team is "hopeful of
playing several games in Baton Rouge this season" and that "it is
the collective hope of our organization that Saints football will
return to New Orleans as soon as possible."
NFL spokesman Joe
Browne also expressed the league's support for playing games in
Baton Rouge, saying he hopes the Saints eventually will be able to
play home games there, according to The Associated
Press.
Where the Saints will play their home games ultimately
is the decision of NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue.
The
Saints were not thrilled with the commissioner's decision to move
their first home game to the home site of the visiting team, the New
York Giants, on Monday, Sept. 19 - though the team understands it
will be used as a prime-time showcase for the league's hurricane
relief efforts.
The Saints have not been given any assurances
that they will avoid playing games at the site of other visiting
teams this year. That leaves San Antonio as the most feasible
site, at least early on - and the favorite choice of the Saints, for
reasons that have nothing to do with the owner's desire to move his
franchise to the Alamo City.
The Saints are headquartered
here, and many players, coaches and staff members will move their
families here for the next four months. Playing home games in San
Antonio's Alamodome would mean less travel and perhaps even a larger
available ticket sales base than in Baton Rouge.
Several
players and Coach Jim Haslett admitted this week that they would
like to play at least some of their home games in San
Antonio.
Said Haslett: "I would like to have them here
because we are practicing here, but I think we owe it to the fans of
New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, all the people in Baton Rouge, all the
way up to Lafayette and Shreveport … to play a couple games back in
Baton Rouge, if we can."
Mum on move
The city
of San Antonio is not officially campaigning for the Saints' home
games, in an effort to not appear opportunistic in the wake of a
tragedy. Mayor Phil Hardberger has said more than once that the
city's concentration is on helping the more than 10,000 evacuees now
sheltered here.
But behind the scenes, San Antonio officials
reportedly have been seeking corporate sponsors and trying to put
together an incentives package for the Saints, including guaranteed
sellouts in the 65,000-seat Alamodome, which hosted the Saints and
Vikings in a 2001 preseason game.
Alamodome director Mike
Abington said there have been official and unofficial contacts with
the Saints over the past week and that he is preparing to make the
stadium available if the Saints and the NFL make the
request.
"It's hard to say (what will happen). They have not
given us any firm commitment. We have made a commitment to them that
we will accommodate them should they need us in any way they can,"
Abington said. "It's quite an operation to put on an NFL game,
especially on short notice, but we're working on all the details
right now in anticipation of knowing something. Kind of like waiting
for a baby to be born."
Abington, a Louisiana native from the
Shreveport area, said while the town would love to host NFL games,
he is not making a sales pitch and he "won't allow myself to lose
sight of why all this is happening."
Benson's interest in
moving his team permanently to San Antonio - where he has
longstanding personal and professional ties and keeps a second home
- has long been rumored. Those rumors have heated up in recent days,
with reports of sources saying he wants to move the team there for
good next season.
But sources have been saying both on and
off the record in recent days that they don't believe Benson has
made such a decision - especially with so much uncertainty
surrounding his native New Orleans.
The fear that New Orleans
may not be ready to host the Saints or financially able to afford
them is legitimate. And the Superdome may never again host an NFL
game.
But then again, perhaps federal relief could aid in
rebuilding the city and the Dome, which also served - albeit
tragically - as a relief shelter.
Any discussions of Benson
moving the team would be too preliminary at this point. Even if he
wanted to move his team to San Antonio, it would take approval of 24
of the 32 league owners, and the proximity to the Houston and Dallas
markets would become an issue.
LSU's Whitworth ready to give people 'something
to be proud of'
Offensive tackle hasn't missed a start, and he
won't stop now
By Jim Kleinpeter Staff
writer
BATON ROUGE - When it comes to handling pain, LSU's
Andrew Whitworth has few equals.
The 6-foot-7, 325-pound
senior offensive tackle is right in the mix when several other
300-pound plus bodies collide, then collapse in a heap, with him
often on the bottom. There are blindside hits, players rolling up
the back of his legs and a constant steady pounding of bodies.
Still, he hasn't missed a starting assignment or a practice in four
years, and once the Tigers' season starts, he will be on a quest to
become the first Tiger to play in 50 games.
But Whitworth,
like all Louisianans, is suffering a different type of pain these
days, one shared by people throughout the state, the region and the
nation. Dislocated fingers and turf burns the size of bumper
stickers are nothing compared to the pain in his gut right now from
watching Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. He will be carrying that
pain Saturday when the No. 5-ranked Tigers play Arizona State (1-0)
in what has become LSU's season opener.
"(It's) definitely (a
pain like no other), it affects you so closely," Whitworth said.
"All the guys on the team, to hear a guy say he hasn't been able to
talk to his mom in two days or he can't get a hold of his brothers
or sisters, it affects you everywhere.
"It's a completely
different feeling. It's your homeland that was torn up, something
you represent day in day out. Your first reaction is sadness and
anger and a lot of guys were worried. It's hard to watch the
TV."
Just as he pulls on his uniform for every practice and
game -- 39 consecutively -- Whitworth has faced his pain head on.
Like many Tigers, he volunteered last week, visiting with evacuees,
playing with their children and packing an 18-wheeler full of
supplies.
With a game looming this week, he feels extremely
partial to carrying the banner for the state and its
people.
"We've got to go out there and put this on our backs
and give these people something to be proud of," he said. "I think
there's no doubt that a lot of people from this area, a lot of
people from this state, follow college football and follow LSU most
importantly, and I think there's no way we can say that we're not
going out there with this on our minds, and this being an
inspiration for us to have a chance to make this state proud of
something. From all of the people I've talked to that have been
through this, they can't wait for some sense of
normalcy."
There's been nothing normal about Whitworth's
durability, but maybe there is something in the water at West
Monroe. That's where Whitworth and former Tiger teammate Rodney Reed
both starred. Reed finished his career with a school record 48
straight starts. Between the competition for playing time, injuries
and early entry into the NFL, that's a stratospheric number, one
Whitworth will break if he starts every game this season.
The
closest he came to missing a start was at Ole Miss in 2003 in one of
the mot important games that national championship season. With the
SEC West Division title at stake, Whitworth got food poisoning the
night before the game and needed intravenous fluids right before the
game and at halftime. But he played every snap of LSU's 17-14
victory.
Whitworth said he's not sure what the secret
is.
"That's always been me," he said. "I want to practice and
play and be out there. I'm stubborn, whether it's good or bad I
don't like to ever admit being defeated. That's my style. I've been
blessed with good luck."
Said defensive tackle Kyle Williams:
"I hate to say luck because the guy has been so durable. He's so
tough, he's been able to play through pain and a lot of things guys
wouldn't be able to. Food poisoning, dislocated fingers, it all
mounts up. Everybody gets those over the course of four years. The
guys who are able to start 39 games in a row are the guys able to
turn away from that and say, 'Hey, we've got a football game to play
and we're not as good when I'm not in there.' Andrew has done that.
His toughness has been unbelievable."
Team
officials looking to meet with those at LSU concerning
deal
By Jimmy Smith Staff writer
BATON
ROUGE - There seems to be very few scheduling conflicts that would
prevent the Hornets from playing home games in LSU's Pete Maravich
Assembly Center this season.
LSU has yet to release its
2005-06 men's and women's basketball schedules, but in comparing the
Tigers' nearly finalized schedules with the Hornets' schedule, there
are just 10 dates, of 41 home games, in which the Hornets would be
unable to use the PMAC, either because of LSU men's or women's
basketball games or gymnastics meets.
The Hornets are seeking
other "home" venues in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which has
left their home facility, New Orleans Arena, damaged, in addition to
the vast destruction of the city's infrastructure.
"We pretty
much have our schedule set," said Herb Vincent, LSU's associate
athletic director for internal affairs. "I don't know if it's
finalized."
The Tigers are scheduled to open their season in
mid-November.
According to LSU's tentative team schedules,
there would be just one possible date conflict in November, when the
Hornets are scheduled to play six home games.
There's just
one conflict in December (out of six Hornets' home dates), two in
January, when the Hornets play eight home games; four in February
(seven home games), one in March (nine home games) and one in April
(five home games).
Hornets officials Sam Russo and Steve
Martin traveled to Baton Rouge on Tuesday from the team's temporary
headquarters in Houston to meet with officials of the downtown
Rivercenter arena, a building managed by SMG, the same company that
runs New Orleans Arena. Russo and Martin, who could not be
reached for comment Tuesday, are also planning to schedule a meeting
with LSU officials to discuss the possibility of playing in the
PMAC.
The NBA informed teams last week that it's likely the
Hornets could play some, or all, of their regular-season home
schedule away from New Orleans this season.
Vincent said
Tuesday he was unaware whether a meeting between the Hornets and the
university had been scheduled.
"We'll try to accommodate
them," Vincent said. "I guess the position we're taking is we're
willing to listen to whatever terms any of these teams or entities
have.
"If LSU can serve a role by solving these problems,
we'll certainly do it. We certainly want to be cooperative. But it
would be speculative right now to guess at what any organization
wants. We have some issues here ourselves. We're not seeking out
anybody. We're just waiting to hear from them."
Home games set for Independence Stadium; other options
abound
By Benjamin Hochman and Fred
Robinson Staff writers
DALLAS - Chris Scelfo calls it
"Tulane Tech."
Beginning Monday, that's where the coach's
football players will attend class and practice. After a whirlwind
of conference calls, 11th-hour maneuvers and numerous Advils, Tulane
administrators pieced together an unprecedented arrangement for the
football team - sending it to Louisiana Tech - and the other
athletic teams - dividing the teams onto four Texas campuses for at
least the fall semester.
The football players, currently in
Dallas, are expected to travel to Ruston on Thursday to register for
classes, and then return to Dallas that night for practices Friday
morning. The Wave will remain at the DoubleTree Hotel through the
weekend and travel to Ruston on Monday - the same day classes start
at Louisiana Tech - and will begin classes one day later.
As
to where Tulane will play, Scelfo said Tuesday afternoon, "We've got
it done," in reference to nearby Shreveport's Independence Bowl
Stadium, which the city has offered free of charge. Scelfo said the
team might try to play one game at Louisiana Tech's Aillet Stadium
to show gratitude to the school.
But Tulane athletic director
Rick Dickson said he won't know for sure until today. Dickson said
Tuesday's goal was to coordinate all other Tulane athletes into hubs
of Dallas and Houston before sending them to four other schools -
Texas Tech, Rice, Southern Methodist and Texas A&M. On Tuesday
afternoon, Dickson began addressing the home stadium issues.
Tulane's first game is Sept. 17, when it will host Mississippi
State.
Dickson said the city of Mobile has offered
Ladd-Peebles Stadium. And Dickson said Florida State athletic
director Dave Hart called him and pointed out possible arrangements
for Tulane to play some of its games on the Seminoles'
campus.
"(Hart) said, 'Tallahassee would love to have you,
and we'd rally around you,' " Dickson said. "Any of those kinds of
things we'll at least consider.
"Convenience-wise, finding
one home venue would be great. But this isn't just about
convenience. We've got to make it work. I've got to give
consideration to places that are going to advantage us as much as
possible."
Dickson said it is possible all of the team's
games won't be played in the same stadium.
"If we're able to
create some kind of a venue for our own fans, that's a priority. For
all of our programs to operate, now that our traditional ways of
generating revenue and support are stripped away, I've got to come
up with the next best ways to generate revenue and
support."
Tulane volleyball and soccer will be at Texas
A&M and will play their fall home games on the College Station
campus. The men's basketball and women's swimming and diving teams
will also attend classes on that campus, 78 Tulane student-athletes
in all. Bill Byrne, the Texas A&M athletic director, said his
school can accommodate the men's basketball team to play its home
games on campus.
Tulane's women's basketball team, along with
Tulane baseball, will be at Texas Tech. Athletic Director Gerald
Myers said, "The baseball team could play here at the same facility.
I think the same thing could be done with women's basketball. We're
willing to do that. … We would work to accommodate the women's team
to play games here in December. I don't know the conflicts. But
we'll work that out. For example, on a Saturday game, we could play
a doubleheader. We could play on a Sunday. We can work it
out." Tulane's men's and women's tennis teams will compete and
attend classes at Rice in Houston, and the men's and women's golf
teams will do the same at Southern Methodist in Dallas.
But
the move of the football team and its 88 student athletes has been
the most trying and complex for Dickson and his staff. "We're
happy to help out. All of us in Louisiana have to work together to
get through this disaster," Louisiana Tech athletic director Jim
Oakes said. "This is just a small part. I think a bigger deal is
being made of (what Tech is doing) than what it really is. I think
it's going to be very interesting with the two football
teams."
Tulane's football team will be housed at Caruthers
Dormitory, which has about 300 rooms. The former student dorm had
been closed down and was scheduled for demolition - the bulldozers
were ready, Oakes said. The school repaired the building's air
conditioning system and took in evacuees from the
hurricane.
"It's not plush, but it's livable," Oakes said.
The athletic director said Scelfo was happy with the accommodations
on his visit to the campus Monday.
The Thomas Assembly
Center, the school's basketball arena, which houses all of Louisiana
Tech's athletic department's personnel (except for football), has
two big banquet rooms and the Hall of Fame room. One side of the
Waggoner Room will be used as the locker room for Tulane's football
team, and the other side will be used for equipment and storage.
Dressing rooms in the arena will be used as shower facilities for
the players.
The Hall of Fame room will be used for the
coaches' offices.
Tulane will use the two weight rooms, the
one inside the Thomas Assembly Center and the Karl Malone weight
room at the football fieldhouse. The training room inside the Thomas
Assembly Center also will be turned over to Tulane.
Tulane
will use two practice facilities. The main practice field at the Jim
Mize Track and Field Complex has two fields. Across the street, a
field that is used for soccer also will be available for Tulane when
Tech is using the main practice field.
"What Louisiana Tech's
doing for us," Scelfo said, "is unbelievable."
Cicero:
It will take 'major commitment' to bring back Dome
By
Ted Lewis Staff writer
Sports should be a major part
of the rebuilding of New Orleans, but it will be a daunting task,
Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation president Jay Cicero said
Tuesday.
"There is so much of the infrastructure that made
New Orleans a first-rate sports venue that will have to be rebuilt,"
Cicero said. "And we're not just talking about the
Superdome.
"The hotels, restaurants and other amenities that
will have to be there as well, not to mention the financial support.
It's a little overwhelming to think about."
Cicero's group
has served as the host committee for the Super Bowls and Final Fours
that used to make regular appearances on the New Orleans sports
calendar.
The Sports Foundation also has lured several major
events to the area such as the 1992 Olympic Track & Field
Trials, which were held at Tad Gormley Stadium and the recently
completed AAU Junior Olympics that brought more than 10,000
competitors to the area. New Orleans Arena already has been
picked as the site of an NCAA men's basketball sub-regional in 2007
and a women's basketball regional in 2008.
The Sports
Foundation is not associated with the Sugar Bowl, but it also would
have a difficult time maintaining its place in the national
championship rotation if only because of the financial obligations
involved. The future of the Bayou Classic between Grambling and
Southern also is up in the air.
Already the Sugar Bowl was
faced with the task of increasing its payout to $18 million per
team, a 36 percent increase, under the new contract that begins with
the 2006 season while losing some revenue sources to Fox, which
takes over the TV rights for the Sugar Bowl plus the Orange Bowl and
Fiesta Bowl starting next year.
Efforts to reach Sugar Bowl
executive director Paul Hoolahan and other bowl officials have been
unsuccessful.
Cicero said the first task would be determining
how much of a priority rebuilding the Superdome would be.
Stateofficials are saying the facility is unusable for at least a
year and could take $400 million to refurbish.
"We've got to
restore housing and jobs," Cicero said. "Certainly the Superdome is
an icon. But it's going to take a major commitment to bring it
back."
As for the Sugar Bowl's immediate future, both the
Peach Bowl and Alamo Bowl have made offers to host the game this
season. "We just want to do whatever we can to help," said Alamo
Bowl executive director Derrick Fox. "College football will not let
the Sugar Bowl die."
However, Fox said that after this season
several bowls could be eyeing the Sugar Bowl's place in the BCS
rotation. One likely strong suitor is the Cotton Bowl, which
already has a relationship with Fox TV and could move from its aging
facility to the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium in 2009.
"That's
part of the world we live in," said Fiesta Bowl executive director
John Junker. "It's far too early and the circumstances are far too
tragic to even talk about it at this stage."
However, the
commissioners from 11 BCS conferences are sure to discuss the issue
when they meet Sept. 18 in Chicago. SEC commissioner Mike Slive
also said it was premature to discuss the future of the Sugar
Bowl.
"Right now our concern has to be helping the people of
New Orleans and surrounding states put their lives back together,"
he said. "There will be time later to talk about the Sugar
Bowl."
Mayor says Katrina may have claimed more than
10,000 lives
Bodies found piled in freezer at Convention
Center
By Brian Thevenot Staff
writer
Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks stepped
through the food service entrance of the Ernest N. Morial Convention
Center Monday, flipped on the light at the end of his machine gun,
and started pointing out bodies.
"Don't step in that blood -
it's contaminated," he said. "That one with his arm sticking up in
the air, he's an old man." Then he shined the light on the
smaller human figure under the white sheet next to the elderly
man.
"That's a kid," he said. "There's another one in the
freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut."
He moved on,
walking quickly through the darkness, pulling his camouflage shirt
to his face to screen out the overwhelming odor. "There's an old
woman," he said, pointing to a wheelchair covered by a sheet. "I
escorted her in myself. And that old man got bludgeoned to death,"
he said of the body lying on the floor next to the
wheelchair.
Brooks and several other Guardsmen said they had
seen between 30 and 40 more bodies in the Convention Center's
freezer. "It's not on, but at least you can shut the door," said
fellow Guardsman Phillip Thompson.
The scene of rotting
bodies inside the Convention Center reflected those in thousands of
businesses, schools, homes and shelters across the metropolitan
area. The official death count from Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana
was 71 as of Monday evening, but that included only those bodies
that had been brought to a make-shift morgue in St.
Gabriel.
Nearly a full week after Hurricane Katrina, a rescue
force the size of an invading army had not yet begun the task of
retrieving the bodies Sunday. What's more, officials appeared to
have no plan.
Daniel Martinez, a spokesman for FEMA working
on Interstate 10 in eastern New Orleans, said plans for body
recovery "are not being released yet."
Dozens of rescue
workers questioned Monday said they knew of no protocol or
collection points for bodies; none said they had retrieved even one
of the many corpses seen floating in neighborhoods around the city
as they searched for survivors.
Scores of rescue workers this
week repeated the same mantra, over and over: We can't worry about
the dead; we're still trying to save the living.
But as
rescue teams across the city said they had checked nearly every
house for survivors, the enormity of the death that lay in Hurricane
Katrina's wake came into sharp focus even as the plans for taking
care of the dead remained murky.
Mayor Ray Nagin, addressing
the potential body count for the storm for the first time, said the
storm may have claimed more than 10,000 lives.
In a news
conference Monday morning, Deputy Chief Warren Riley said his
department was "not responsible for recovery."
"We don't have
a body count, but I can tell you it's growing. It's growing," he
said.
As the rescue missions covered more and more ground but
yielded fewer survivors, New Orleans Police Deputy Chief Steve
Nicholas said that the time has come to start dealing with the
dead.
"I know we're still rescuing people, but I think it's
time we start pulling out the bodies," he said.
The highest
concentration of casualties from Hurricane Katrina likely will come
in the Lower 9th Ward, St. Bernard Parish, areas first inundated on
Aug. 29 with floodwaters that engulfed second story homes in
minutes. New Orleans also will likely see mass casualties, New
Orleans Police Capt. Timothy Bayard said.
"We're going see a
lot more bodies out of New Orleans East than we anticipated," he
said.
In just one subdivision, Sherwood Forest, survivors who
showed up to the Convention Center on Monday said police told them
roughly 90 people in the subdivision had died.
In St.
Bernard, 22 bodies were found lashed together. Officials surmised
the drowning victims had tried to stay together to keep themselves
from being washed away in the storm.
Lt. Governor Mitch
Landrieu said "more than a thousand" people had died in St. Bernard.
"When the death toll comes out, it's going to be a jolt for
everybody," he said. "I'll be surprised if the casualties in St.
Bernard are less than a thousand."
Even Uptown near the
river, one of the few spots of dry land, a body lay in front of a
white wooden shotgun double at 4732 Laurel St. The body of an older
woman lay under a gray blanket, pinned down at the corners by brick
and slate, adorned with a plastic-wrapped flower bouquet. Above her,
a yellow cardboard sign quoting John 3:16 had been taped to the
window.
Alcede Jackson Rest in Peace In the loving
arms of Jesus
Given the length of time many had been
dead, and in the water, some of the bodies already might be
unrecognizable, and some may never be recovered.
Many trapped
by flood waters in shelters found their own ways of dealing with
those who died in their midst.
Near an elementary school at
Poland and St. Claude avenues, Dwight and Wilber Rhodes, two
brothers, said they had tried to save a middle-aged man and woman at
the Convention Center who appeared to have drowned.
"We
performed CPR on them, but they were already dead," Dwight Rhodes
said. "So we took the food out of the freezer and put the bodies
in."
Of the four bodies that lay just inside the food service
entrance of the Convention Center, the woman in the wheelchair
rattled Brooks the most. When he found her two days before among the
sea of suffering in front of the Convention Center where one of the
last refugee camps evacuated, her husband sat next to her. He had
only one concern when Brooks and some of his comrades carted her
away.
"Bring me back my wheelchair," he recalled the man
telling him.
One of the bodies, they said, was a girl they
estimated to be 5 years old. Though they could not confirm it, they
had heard she was gang-raped.
"There was an old lady that
said the little girl had been raped by two or three guys, and that
she had told another unit. But they said they couldn't do anything
about it with all the people there," Brooks said. "I would have put
him in cuffs, stuck him in the freezer and left him
there."
Brooks and his unit came to New Orleans not long
after serving a year of combat duty in Iraq, taking on gunfire and
bombs, while losing comrades with regularity. Still, the scene at
the Convention Center, where they conducted an evacuation this week,
left him shell-shocked.
"I ain't got the stomach for it, even
after what I saw in Iraq," said Brooks, referring to the freezer
where the bulk of the bodies sat decomposing. "In Iraq, it's
one-on-one. It's war. It's fair. Here, it's just crazy. It's
anarchy. When you get down to killing and raping people in the
streets for food and water … And this is America. This is just 300
miles south of where I live."
Maneuvering through streets
clogged with splintered trees, soggy trash and pieces of wrecked
houses, thousands of Jefferson Parish residents returned Monday to
communities rendered almost unrecognizable by Hurricane Katrina, the
worst natural disaster to hit the region in modern
history.
What they found -- and what the remainder of the
parish's half million residents will soon discover -- was damage
that varied dramatically from one neighborhood to the
next.
Entire blocks in Metairie were ravaged completely by
floodwaters, while others remained high and dry. The storm's furious
winds peeled roofs off homes in Marrero and flipped large trucks
onto their sides in Gretna and Terrytown, but some residents in
those communities were left with nothing more than a few broken
branches littering the yard.
At one end of the spectrum, in
the economically depressed Lincolnshire neighborhood of Marrero, was
Martha Grinstead, who said Katrina had thrust her and her son into
"a living hell." Floodwaters three feet deep ruined most of the
family's belongings in their Rue St. Phillippe house. Wind ripped
all the shingles off the roof, leaving it pocked with holes.
Rainwater soaked the ceiling tiles and attic insulation until they
grew heavy and collapsed, leaving the living room, kitchen and den
covered in a grey-black soggy muck.
"It's a lost cause,"
Grinstead said. "I brought home a new generator, but I'm not opening
it up for this. ... My family is looking for a home for me in Lake
Charles."
While Grinstead and others pondered if rebuilding
was worth it, Lisa Coller of Harvey raked the yard, powered up her
lawn mower, and cut the grass.
Coller had returned to the
middle-class Woodmere subdivision to find nothing worse than a
damaged shed and some debris on the lawn. "I have to do
something," she said, adding that she wanted to make her house
"presentable."
Yet even Coller and others with little
property damage found the parish they call home profoundly
transformed.
Almost nowhere on Monday could parish residents
turn for conveniences they once took as a matter of course: Few
restaurants were open for lunch. There were no hardware stores for
equipment needed for repairs. Few streetlights operated to control
traffic on avenues once again busy with vehicles.
Scores of
convenience stores had windows shattered and shelves stripped bare
by looters desperate for food and water. Many home appliance sellers
and other businesses were plundered by a greedier brand of thieves.
Also, most of the parish still did not have electrical
power, and an order to boil water remained in effect after lines
were heavily damaged.
Underscoring the changed human
environment was a Harvey family's tragedy after they left a
gas-powered generator running in their house overnight. Officials
said a man in his 50s died of carbon monoxide poisoning, and six
more were critically injured in the incident -- the third in the
past week.
If you return, "do not run generators in your
house," said Deano Bonano, deputy chief administrative officer for
the parish. Monday was the first day the public was allowed
through security checkpoints at the parish line, and long lines of
vehicles driven by evacuees had lined up Sunday night, anxious to
see what fate awaited them. But earlier plans to limit entry to
parish residents were suspended by the State Police. A widely
predicted traffic backup of 12 to 15 hours never materialized, and
traffic moved relatively smoothly.
"People actually got to
see their homes, damaged or not, to the point where they could
digest what their challenges were at the home site, so they could go
on and make an intelligible decision about what to do next," said
Parish President Aaron Broussard, who stuck with his Labor Day
re-entry plan despite stinging criticism from other parish officials
and state and federal relief coordinators.
The rebukes
continued Monday, as Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, Joint Task Force
Katrina commander, said that allowing Jefferson residents to return
was complicating the ongoing search and rescue missions in Orleans,
Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes. "We're still trying to find
them (storm victims),'' he said. "If it (traffic) does escalate to
the point where we can't continue doing search and rescue, we will
bring that to the appropriate level of government to make a
decision.''
Broussard has asked people to make their return
visits through Wednesday, but then to leave as quickly as
possible.
"I would urge people to assess the damage, pick up
what they need and get out for three weeks, when Jefferson Parish
becomes a place that you would want to stay," he
said.
Traffic began backing up along Airline Highway on the
East Bank and U.S. 90 on the West Bank Sunday morning, with many
families opting to sleep in their cars in hopes of getting in the
parish early.
Kevin LaVie of Metairie left Baton Rouge with
his mother, Carol LaVie, and two sons Sunday at 12:30 a.m. and came
to a stop in traffic at 2 a.m. on Airline Highway, where the family
tried to get a few hours sleep until their vehicle started moving
steadily by 7 a.m.
The family arrived at Carol LaVie's house
on Fairfield Street in Metairie an hour later.
Inside, the
stench of standing water was countered only by the intense humidity.
The foot or two of water that had entered her home managed to open
the refrigerator door, floating the vegetable crisper across her
living room.
Out in the backyard, Carol LaVie surveyed the
dark brown water and frogs in her swimming pool, noting that just
before the storm it had been a perfect crystal blue.
Finally,
the emotion of returning home caught up with her.
"It's OK, I
got y'all," she said, her voice cracking and tears flowing as her
son threw his arm over her shoulders. "My other son was killed in a
plane crash when he was 34, so this is not the worst that can
happen."
As the returning crowds leaned into the massive
cleanup that will continue in coming days and weeks, the odor of
bleach and other disinfectants mixed with the stench of mold and
rotten food that had permeated the air in recent days.
Wendy
and Chris Clouatre opened the door of their Marrero home to squishy
rugs, a mildew smell and water lines a couple inches off the floor
on their walls and furniture.
"It was really nice when we
moved here," said Wendy Clouatre as she surveyed her now bubbled
floors, which had been covered by a few inches of water before it
receded from the neighborhood on Louis 1 Avenue. "It's all ruined. I
don't even want to go through this anymore. I just wish I could just
leave it like it is and go."
On Veterans Memorial Boulevard
in Kenner, workers at Rouse's Supermarket began the undesirable task
of disposing of the store's mass of spoiled food.
They wore
surgical masks to try and filter out the overwhelming stench of
rotting chicken and curdled milk, which was scooped up by an
earth-moving machine and onto the back of a waiting dump truck bound
for a landfill in Sorrento. General Manager Dave Daroca girded
himself for a nasty cleanup -- not from the hurricane, but from
local residents who had looted the store.
Shelves were bare
beneath an aisle that said, "Baby Food, Diapers, Feminine Needs,"
and on the liquor shelves all that remained were a few types of
booze no one apparently wanted: rye whiskey, vanilla vodka and
vermouth.
"Tell me you need food or some necessities, and I
can deal with the pain," Daroca said. "But you see people coming out
with cases of beer."
Perhaps the luckiest business owners
were the Radas, whose snowball stand, Big Will's Snowballs, survived
not only Katrina's winds and waters, but also managed to keep its
electricity.
Inside the Williams Boulevard stand, Tim Rada
described how he's been filling coolers and bottles with tap water
from St. Charles Parish that he says is safe and then freezing it to
help make about 1,000 snowballs the business sold since reopening
four days earlier.
"People come to the window, and they're so
amazed to find us open, they can't even speak at first," said his
wife, LaDean. "Then they're like,'Give us anything.'"
Laurel
Landry didn't have to re-enter with the masses Monday. An ICU nurse,
Landry had been tending to patients at East Jefferson General
Hospital since the Saturday before Katrina hit. And when Landry was
finally released from duty Monday, she returned to find the storm
had battered her once lovely Woodlake Drive home.
The house
flooded, the chimney was cracked, and mold was already creeping
along walls and ceilings. Landry's face said it all - shock,
disbelief, sadness, exhaustion - feelings seemingly shared by
many.
"My house was so nice,'' Landry said in a hollow voice,
her hands shaking so uncontrollably that it was hard for her to keep
a grip on her cell phone.
Mark Waller, Steve Ritea, Matt
Scallan and Sheila Grissett contributed to this story.
Thousands return to Jefferson;
more rescued in St. Bernard
By Bruce
Nolan Staff writer
Tens of thousands of residents of
Jefferson Parish crept through miles-long traffic lines Monday for
their first look at the homes they had not seen in a week. At the
same time, rescuers pulled the last few survivors of Hurricane
Katrina out of flooded St. Bernard Parish and marked the homes that
entombed the dead.
The return to Jefferson Parish, even to
retrieve a few personal items, was the region's first taste of
normalcy after a week of historic privation and horror.
In
St. Bernard, however, officials said they were still pulling people
out of flooded homes.
Incredibly, many resisted rescue
efforts and wanted to remain. Sheriff Jack Stephens said he ordered
deputies to handcuff and "forcefully remove"
holdouts.
Stephens said water was receding somewhat.
Authorities said some pumping was under way, and some flood water
drained away as surrounding waterways fell to normal
levels.
As that work continued, teams from the Federal
Emergency Management Agency used global positioning devices to log
the homes they would have to revisit to collect bodies already
spotted.
As the effort to alleviate human misery continued,
state officials reported they had repaired the lethal breach in the
17th Street Canal that destroyed much of the city. They said they
expected to turn next to two similar breaches several miles east in
the London Avenue Canal.
Entergy officials said they had
repaired damaged electrical substations serving the Ernest N. Morial
Convention Center and much of the Central Business District. Their
work bore the imminent promise of the return of lights and power to
the heart of the city. But they could not energize the system
until buildings in the area were checked to be sure they could
receive power safely, Entergy spokesman Chanel Lagarde
said.
But as the engineering rescue inched forward, all
around lay waste and devastation, and the certainty that the
stagnant waters of Lake Pontchartain that captured parts of Orleans,
St. Bernard, Jefferson, St. Tammany and Plaquemines parishes a week
ago now embraced unnumbered thousands of rotting corpses bobbing in
flooded attics, decomposing on rooftops or sunk in the darkness of
their homes.
The retrieval, identification and burial of
those thousands loomed as the next challenge facing
authorities. No one would attempt a reliable estimate of the
dead. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's estimate there may be 10,000
fatalities has gone unchallenged.
Army Lt. Gen. Russell
Honore told ABC News aerial reconnaissance indicated fewer than
10,000 people remained in the city. As engineers and relief
workers labored at their tasks, President Bush made his second visit
to Louisiana and Mississippi since Friday.
He toured a Baton
Rouge refugee shelter with Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who seemed to keep
her distance from Bush. She and other officials, like Nagin and
Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, have blistered the slow
federal response to the Katrina disaster.
In an appearance at
Bethany World Prayer Center, Bush promised state and local officials
he would fix anything not going right. "This is just the beginning
of a huge effort."
Bush ordered that flags at all U.S.
facilities around the world be flown at half-mast until sunset today
in mourning for Katrina's victims in Louisiana, Mississippi and
Alabama.
Not counting the tens of thousands who evacuated by
car before the storm, the state Department of Social Services said
113,000 refugees were being cared for by Louisiana and eight other
states.
Texas housed 53,000 people, more than any other
state, including Louisiana, which was caring for about 50,000, the
department said. The remainder were scattered as far as Utah and
Arizona, the department said.
And Katrina kept
killing.
Authorities found that carbon monoxide from a
generator inside a home in Harvey's Woodmere subdivision killed a
man and critically poisoned six others, who were rushed to a
hospital.
Broussard's decision to allow residents to return
to their homes Monday through Wednesday, if only for a quick
assessment, remained controversial among relief
officials.
Honore, the soldier in charge of Joint Task Force
Katrina, the massive military relief effort for the metropolitan
region, said the Jefferson visitation stressed the area's few
working highways and complicated relief efforts, but not to the
point that he would demand a stop to it.
The tens of
thousands of homeowners threaded carefully past armed soldiers and
local law enforcement officers at blacked-out
intersections.
They re-entered dank and fetid homes smothered
in the stench of mildew and rotting food. Store owners surveyed
looted shelves and assessed the chance of re-opening.
In many
places a sense of community was palpable.
As two friends
greeted one another in a Metairie street, sharing an embrace and
tears, a car approached them, slowed, and a stranger lowered his
window to offer encouragement. "We just got to pray for one
another."
Damage varied wildly in Jefferson. In Metairie and
on the West Bank, thousands of homes were ruined by flood, while
others remained high and dry.
"It's a lost cause," said
Martha Grinstead, whose West Bank home in the Lincolnshire
subdivision was soaked, its floors covered in soggy muck. She said
her family was looking for a new home for her in Lake
Charles.
Yet nearby in Harvey, Lisa Coller mowed and raked
her yard.
Each family surveyed its personal wreckage and made
its own plans.
Wendy and Chris Clouatre pushed open the door
of their Marrero home and gathered documents, toys, dolls, pictures
and warm clothing for winter. They said they expected to be gone a
long time.
"We'll move back here, fix it up and sell it,"
said Chris Clouatre. "It's heartbreaking, man."
No such
chance to visit was available to New Orleans homeowners, except
those in relatively unaffected Algiers.
And while homeowners
in hard-hit Slidell were not officially barred, St. Tammany Parish
President Kevin Davis begged residents to stay out to give repair
crews a little more time to clear streets and relieve pressure on
sewerage systems and medical facilities.
His warning also
acknowledged another elemental dimension of this natural disaster:
Many homes, he warned, might harbor poisonous water
moccasins.
Even so, power reappeared along the U.S. 190
commercial corridor in Covington and major retailers such as
Wal-Mart, Lowe's and Home Depot began to reopen.
With
reporting by Ed Anderson, Matt Brown, Gwen Filosa, Meghan Gordon,
Sheila Grissett, Jeff Meitrodt, Matt Scallan and Mark Waller.
Neighbor is a casual kind of word. Most of the time
we use it just to refer to someone who lives on our street or block,
someone we greet in passing most of the time but also someone we'd
call upon if there were an emergency, knowing full well that they
will help.
We have an emergency. And, thank God, we also
have neighbors. They are in places like Dallas, Houston and San
Antonio. They've never clapped eyes on the men, women and children
streaming out of the devastated New Orleans area. But they are
opening their doors and their hearts to us.
Thank you can be
a casual kind of phrase, too. We say it when someone hands us our
receipt or allows us to merge into their lane of traffic. This week,
though, it seems like those two little words can hardly carry the
freight of gratitude that we feel. Our lives have been broken, and
so have our hearts. But the kindness and generosity of people in our
neighboring states still moves us deeply, even in our pain.
The many, many humanitarian acts can hardly be tallied. They
are happening everywhere. From the insurance company that tracked
down a Louisiana man to tell him that a Fort Worth attorney had
found his lost wallet at a gas station line in Mississippi to a
Dallas pharmacist with a house full of evacuees who spent her first
day back from maternity leave trying to get prescriptions and
insurance information tracked down for an elderly Slidell couple.
Churches are organizing drives to gather water and food. The
students of Bishop Lynch Catholic High School in Dallas began a
schoolwide drive Friday before the administration had even decided
how to respond. Their decisiveness speaks volumes. It's also exactly
what's needed to address this national catastrophe.
The same
spirit that moved Americans to stand in line for hours to donate
blood following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is alive and
well and is moving people to tremendous deeds. We may be a little
too tired and traumatized to fully express how much we appreciate
every kind word, every helping hand, every donation, but we feel it
nonetheless.
Some of us will truly become the neighbors of
the people who are opening their arms to us. Some of us have nothing
to go back to -- no homes, no jobs, no places of worship, no
schools. Our neighborhoods, such a keystone for New Orleanians, are
under Lake Pontchartrain. But the fact that many people in the rest
of the country are welcoming us is balm to aching souls. The influx
of new residents will change communities everywhere, and change is
challenging for human beings. But Judy Porter, a religion teacher at
Bishop Lynch, sees only the good in that. "It could make us better,
kinder, nicer, a city of love and great food and jazz music," she
said.
Supreme
Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist's death adds more confusion to
an already unsettled political scene. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor,
the court's key swing vote, announced her retirement earlier this
summer. Hearings on John Roberts, President Bush's nominee to
replace her, were at hand when Hurricane Katrina roared onto the
Gulf Coast and caused death and havoc in New Orleans.
However unusual the circumstances, Justice Rehnquist's
legacy is not in question. While his colleagues respected his sense
of humor and his orderly management of the court's affairs, most
Americans will remember him for pushing the nation's highest court
in a more conservative direction -- and particularly for his efforts
to limit federal power.
The authority of the federal
government relative to that of the states and the private sector
grew immensely during the New Deal and the civil rights movement,
and Mr. Rehnquist sought in his legal work to reverse that trend.
Early in his career, he criticized efforts to forbid racial
discrimination, particularly in situations in which the federal
government enforced such measures over the objections of states. His
arguments back then, critics have long contended, provided legal
cover for attempts to curtail African-Americans' fundamental
liberties.
Despite its sketchy heritage, the concept of
states' rights has come to look more and more attractive as a way
toward a compromise solution to some of the most contentious social
issues that now divide the country. Justice Rehnquist himself seems
to have endorsed this use of his views. The conservative son of
straitlaced Wisconsinites sided against federal law enforcement in a
recent case involving a California law allowing the use of marijuana
for medical use. (However, Justice Rehnquist was in the minority.)
The revival of federalism as a legal concept has also been
incorporated into public discourse. The view that as much power and
responsibility as possible should be devolved from Washington to
state and local governments is now political boilerplate.
But Hurricane Katrina is a graphic depiction of the limits
of this idea. Federalism surely doesn't mean that a poor community
should be left to its own devices when stricken by a calamity, and
it doesn't excuse the lousy, lamentable response of the federal
government to New Orleans' crisis over the past week.
The
existence of two simultaneous Supreme Court vacancies is a rare
event, one that could well divert attention from the catastrophe
that is still unfolding on the Gulf Coast. For a number of news
organizations, the chief justice's death turned news about Katrina's
aftermath into a secondary story. This is a worrisome sign. Gov.
Kathleen Blanco, Mayor Ray Nagin and other elected leaders -- along
with anyone else who cares about the fate of New Orleans and the
rest of the state -- must keep pressing for relief, no matter how
contentious the battle over Chief Justice Rehnquist's replacement.
As Merlin Ruiz gathered the last of his family's
belongings from their muddied 14-foot flat boat at the edge of Salt
Bayou south of Slidell, the look of resignation on his face could
only hint at the harrowing four-day escape he and others had been
forced to make from flood-torn St. Bernard Parish.
A few
packs of tuna fish and cases of bottled water crammed into a plastic
bag were the only remnants of a Violet home inundated by floodwaters
and a waterside camp devastated by powerful winds. Arriving in St.
Tammany Parish Saturday morning was a welcome conclusion to a
journey from a place filled with what Ruiz called "the stench of
death."
His family's odyssey, which he recounted from a
shelter in Slidell, began Aug. 28, hours before Katrina's strongest
winds ripped through St. Bernard Parish. Realizing they would not be
safe in their one-story home and lacking the money to evacuate,
Ruiz, his wife, Sharon, and their daughter, Triniti, made their way
in a pickup truck to meet a friend at a food processing warehouse
near the old Kaiser aluminum plant at the Chalmette slip. Inside the
warehouse, about 50 people endured the heart of the storm the next
morning, which ripped apart the roof and gutted the walls of the
building.
"Buildings all around us were being peeled like
there was a can opener," Sharon Ruiz said.
As flood waters
began racing into the warehouse, the family scrambled to safety on a
piece of heavy-duty foam from a massive freezer at the complex.
Gathering what they could of generators and frozen meals from the
warehouse, the family floated for more than five hours on the
makeshift raft until the water rose high enough for them to float to
a stash of flat boats near the warehouse.
From there, Merlin
Ruiz and others drove, paddled and swam to secure a series of boats
that would provide the only pipeline for getting out of the
submerged parish. Ruiz drove his truck, which was on higher ground,
a few miles down the Mississippi River levee to get a larger boat
from his friend Wayne Landry. Because fences still blocked travel
along the levee, Ruiz used bolt cutters to break
through.
With the armada of flat boats and larger boats with
more deck space, Ruiz and at least 15 others completed a daring
series of rescues in Chalmette as the winds still raged into the
night. The devastating sights throughout the city - a dead woman
floating in a ditch, babies left dead on rooftops - only heightened
the urgency of their task.
"It's heart-wrenching that we
couldn't get everybody," Merlin Ruiz said. "You do it for a day and
you swear you don't want to go back out. It's terrible, and I know
they're still out there."
After bringing more than 200 people
to the relative safety of bigger boats or the St. Bernard Parish
Courthouse, the Ruiz family on Tuesday took the larger boat, filled
with meals from the food warehouse, to investigate their hometown of
Violet.
Flooding was just as severe, with water even inching
up to second-story rooftops. The caravan of boats from Chalmette
continued rescuing people from rooftops and attics in Violet, taking
them to a friend's house on the river levee.
But despite
delivering food and water, pandemonium soon set in and the friend's
house became overrun by citizens-turned-looters and other desperate
people. The smell of dead fish, animals and presumably, people,
turned the air foul, the family said, and the word from the few
St. Bernard Sheriff's deputies they saw was to get out as fast as
possible.
"They said you were going to die from the disease
in the water if you stayed," Triniti Ruiz said. "It smelled so bad
you couldn't walk out of the cabins of your boat or you'd
suffocate."
Conditions on the canals in Violet devolved
quickly.
"If you went somewhere without a gun, there was a
possibility you weren't coming back,'' Triniti Ruiz said.
The
boat caravan, now numbering five vessels, some with as many as 10
families aboard, decided to leave Violet and head to Bayou Lacombe
on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Rumors had spread that no
help was coming, but that a preacher from Jackson, Miss., was going
to be in Lacombe to take people to safety.
Having eaten only
meager portions of tuna fish and bottled water, not knowing how long
they would be trapped in St. Bernard Parish, the Ruiz family and
others decided to brave the trip by going through the canals of
Violet to the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet to the Intracoastal
Waterway, into the Rigolets and, finally, into Lake Pontchartrain.
Because of the extensive flooding, everything looked like one body
of water, making it difficult to navigate the series of bayous and
inlets.
Even Merlin Ruiz's years of experience in the bayous
was put to a stern test. "If you didn't know where the bayou was,
you would really tear your boat up," he said.
The family
had to ditch the larger boat near the entrance to the Rigolets
channel as shallow waters and low bridges obstructed the path.
After the two-day trip from Violet, the convoy arrived at
Bayou Lacombe, where sheriff's deputies said they had never heard
about a Mississippi man helping flood victims. The caravan relocated
to Salt Bayou off Rigolets Avenue south of Slidell, where some of
families met up with relatives and others were sent to different
shelters.
The Ruiz family had to leave their three dogs,
Beauregard, Chico and Angel, inside the boat. When the family
returned Sunday to check on the boat, the dogs were
gone.
Ruiz's son is serving in the Marines in Iraq, but they
were able to contact his fiancée, who was rescued from St. Bernard
and taken to Houston. They hoped to leave Louisiana by early Monday
morning - possibly to never return.
"I'm going to salvage
what I can of my house, sell it off and I think I'm going back to
Texas for good," Merlin said. "With these hurricanes, there's too
much loss, too many people you can lose."
John DeShazier: Benson has responsibility to city
of N.O.
Timing is everything.
Apparently Tom Benson is
lousy at it. And NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue should tell him so,
and strongly suggest to the owner of the Saints that he has a
responsibility in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Tell him his
job is to lift the spirits of New Orleanians the best way he can.
Tell him he'll get the new stadium he covets and a Super Bowl, but
the only words that should originate from his mouth are ones
lamenting the loss of life and property. Tell him his franchise will
support the only city it ever has called home, that it's the least
he can do for a ravaged region which, during times of feast and
famine, faithfully has supported his team.
Instead, you hear
that Benson might be interested in making the Saints a Texas
team.
If true, under ordinary conditions that would be a
slight. If true, under current conditions, it's about as callous an
idea that ever has been thought, let alone mouthed.
If true,
what it means is this: At a time when New Orleans needs each one of
its able-bodied and deep-pocketed citizens to stand and show the
world they believe in the city, and will do their part in
resuscitating the economy that helped make them prosperous, Benson
might be more interested in walking away.
Benson never has
been bashful about using San Antonio as a relocation prospect, which
gives the rumor credence. And, most rumors have some foundation in
fact. They might morph a little during the retelling, but there is
truth lying somewhere amid the shifting.
The best thing
Benson could have done was to say early on that he had New Orleans'
back. Instead, he left the door open to rumors.
Yes, Benson
is a businessman. He's not running a charity. He is, and should be,
concerned about whether the people will return, whether an economy
that wasn't rosy to begin with just grew a lot more thorns than
petals.
But to suggest he owes nothing to a region that has
shown its commitment hundreds of times over through its willingness
to buy tickets and attend games even during times the only reason to
attend was to commiserate with fellow gluttons for bad football,
would be ludicrous.
New Orleans and the Gulf Coast have been
too good to him to have this kind of news rear its head while they
tread water for survival, literally and
figuratively.
Instead, he publicly should be expressing
compassion for all that has been destroyed, and looking to a
brighter future, one that'll include the new facility he has lobbied
so hard for and, from Tagliabue, the promise of a Super Bowl to aid
in the recovery.
New stadium? Yes, because while there may be
restoration in store for the Superdome, there simply is a stench and
stigma attached to her now that cannot be washed away.
The
horror stories emanating from citizens that were housed inside the
grand facility during Katrina, when it was used as a shelter, are
the kind that will waft around inside the building forever. A
patched roof and paint job won't do when, according to reports, rape
and murder and mistreatment was a common, toxic mix.
But it
reeks that in the shadow of catastrophe and atrocity, the
possibility that one of the few pleasantries that still can be
grasped might pack and go even if it is being discussed.
This
isn't at all the time for that.
But for Benson, timing rarely
seems to be a strong point.
By Bill Walsh Robert Travis Scott and Jan
Moller Staff writers
BATON ROUGE - Even as teams of
engineers worked to patch ruptured levees in New Orleans, a
political breach opened between Gov. Kathleen Blanco and President
Bush over who is in charge of the post-Hurricane Katrina recovery
effort.
One flashpoint came over the weekend, when Blanco
said she rebuffed an attempt by the White House to seize control of
the mounting military presence in Louisiana, including thousands of
state National Guard forces under her authority. Then Bush made an
unusual return visit to the state Monday, just days after surveying
the damage - a trip that members of Blanco's staff said caught them
by surprise and caused a certain level of consternation.
"We
had no idea the president was coming," said Blanco's communications
director, Robert Mann, adding that the governor was forced to cancel
a trip to visit evacuees in Houston so she could meet with Bush.
The high-level tug-of-war came as recriminations mounted
over the pace of the response to the devastation, particularly in
the New Orleans area, where survivors were still being rescued
Monday from floodwaters a week after the storm hit land.
In
the face of fierce criticism, the White House launched a public
relations counteroffensive over the weekend to deflect blame, some
of which bounced to state and local officials. The effort, The New
York Times reported, was being orchestrated by Bush's political
director, Karl Rove, and communications director, Dan Bartlett.
In an interview Monday, Bartlett said there was no
coordinated strategy to shift blame to Louisiana
officials.
"Quite the contrary," he said. "There was a spirit
of cooperation in the room today" when Bush and Blanco met.
In the game of political maneuvering for control between
Blanco, a Democrat, and Bush, a Republican, the biggest chess pieces
are the 13,268 National Guard troops from 29 states under the
governor's command - with another 7,845 on the way - and the 7,000
active-duty troops who began arriving Monday under command of the
regular Army and the president.
On Monday, two parallel
command structures were in place. Major Gen. Bennett Landreneau,
head of the Louisiana National Guard, had control of all of the
guard forces massed in the state. U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore
was in charge of the active-duty forces, including soldiers from the
82nd Airborne division and the 1st Calvary.
Blanco said that
when the plain-spoken, cigar-chomping Honore showed up in New
Orleans late last week, she thought that her worries about a lack of
federal troops and resource were over. Honore quickly became a media
darling and the take-charge face of the federal government in New
Orleans, barking out orders to surprised National Guards members who
aren't even under his control.
Blanco said she liked Honore's
style, but was surprised that he arrived with only a few aides in
tow.
"He didn't bring any resources," Blanco said. "I just
kind of expected, based on my conversations with the White House,
that we could be getting a surge of equipment, and we did not."
Friday night, the White House moved to take charge of all
the troops in Louisiana. At home, Blanco received a memorandum of
understanding from the White House asking her to cede control of the
National Guard. According to her staff, Blanco was asked to sign and
return the document right away. Blanco consulted with her legal
counsel, Terry Ryder, and then refused the request.
"They
wanted to take over my National Guard," Blanco said in an interview.
"A governor has to have the final say on what's going to
happen."
Bartlett said the request was made for efficiency's
sake to streamline the chain of command and improve the efficiency
of the recovery. He dismissed suggestions that it was done because
Blanco is a Democrat.
"We were in the same discussions with
(Republican Mississippi Gov.) Haley Barbour," Bartlett said. "This
was not about politics." In what some saw as a not-so-subtle
snub, Blanco over the weekend hired a former Clinton administration
disaster response chief, James Lee Witt, as an adviser.
The
parallel command structure in Louisiana isn't without precedent.
After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, federal troops dispatched to Florida
to help in the relief and recovery effort were kept under federal
control. The governor, meanwhile, retained authority over the
National Guard forces. The only major glitch, according to an
official from the Florida National Guard, was when the 82nd Airborne
Division from Ft. Bragg, N.C., showed up with weapons. Under federal
law, only state forces have policing authority, so the weapons were
sent back to the base and the soldiers were given humanitarian and
relief duties.
When it comes to domestic security, state
forces generally take the lead. At a G-8 summit last year in
Georgia, state authorities were given control over federal forces,
according to John Goheen, a spokesman for the National Guard.
"The reason is that Guard commanders generally have a better
working relationship with local authorities," Goheen said. "Guard
forces can also perform law enforcement functions. That mission was
seen as a harbinger of the future."
Despite the dust-up
between Blanco and Bush over command of the boots on the ground, top
military commanders at both the state and federal level said they
were satisfied with the separate forces.
Landreneau called
the military command "very integrated" and said there was no
advantage to putting all troops under his control. Adm. Timothy
Keating, commander of active-duty forces in North America, agreed.
"From our perspective," he said Monday, "it would not have provided
an advantage over the current situation."
Brig. Gen. Mike
Fleming of the Florida National Guard, who oversaw rescue and
recovery efforts through four hurricanes last year, has been called
into Louisiana as an adviser. Fleming said the twin command is
workable if adequately coordinated. He said some important personal
ties bind the separate state and federal military commands: Honore,
known as the Ragin' Cajun, is a Louisiana native and has known
Landreneau for years. Honore's son serves in Iraq for the Louisiana
National Guard, which is under Landreneau's command.
While
the military chiefs may have been in step, the political leaders
clearly weren't.
Early Monday morning, Blanco was in Baton
Rouge preparing to fly to Houston to meet with thousands of
Louisiana refugees when she received news that Bush was on his way.
Blanco Chief of Staff Andy Kopplin called the White House and got
word from Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card that the president was
planning to return to Louisiana in a few hours to follow up on his
Friday visit.
The White House notified the media Sunday
about the trip. But Blanco aide Bob Mann said Blanco was assured
Sunday by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that Bush was not
coming. FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said agency Director Michael
Brown knew about the Bush visit but that many lower-level officials
didn't, and that was probably why the Blanco administration wasn't
notified.
Bartlett said "there was outreach" to the
governor's office, "e-mails sent, messages left."
"We
apologize if there was any confusion," he said. A Bush visit to
Louisiana at a time when Blanco was out of the state would have been
a major embarrassment for the governor. It could also have sent the
message that Bush, who has been criticized for not moving quickly
enough to help Louisiana, was in charge on the ground.
Blanco abruptly canceled the trip to Houston. Bush
downplayed suggestions of a state-federal spat.
During a
visit to the Bethany World Church in Baton Rouge, which was doubling
a shelter for evacuees, Bush said, "Laura and I have come back down
to Louisiana ... to let the good people of this region know there's
a lot of work to be done, and we're going to continue working with
the local and state people to get it done."
Bleary-eyed and stubble-faced, Jefferson Parish
President Aaron Broussard nonetheless talked a mile a minute to
returning residents Monday, urging them to drive slowly and painting
a grim picture of what life would be like if they stayed at their
homes.
"Please don't lose your patience," he said to
motorists waiting in line to enter the parish for the first time
since Hurricane Katrina struck a week earlier. "There are so many
bad things that can happen if you lose your
patience."
Broussard, a career politician and normally one of
the smoothest elected officials in the New Orleans area, had been up
since 4 a.m. honing the points he wanted to make to the heavy
traffic that would begin two hours later. There are places worse
than hell, he told reporters in the basement of Jefferson's
emergency operations center: Orleans and St. Bernard parishes first,
then Jefferson.
"From here, hell doesn't look so bad," he
said.
Unlike many people in parish government, Broussard has
been in the lower depths of hell before. He was mayor of Kenner when
a catastrophic flood washed over southeast Louisiana on May 8, 1995.
On July 9, 1982, just eight days after Broussard was sworn in as
mayor, Pan American World Airways Flight 759 stumbled on takeoff
from New Orleans International Airport and smashed into an east
Kenner neighborhood, killing 154 people, including eight on the
ground.
"We were picking up bodies out of the trees, and it
was very kind to call them bodies," he said. "I've been to this
rodeo before." It's not a place he wants to be. Seven straight
days of hurricane stress left him weary to the bone, frustrated by
what he said is resistance from people who tell him he can't do the
things he needs to do.
"I feel like a salmon swimming
upstream, but I'm going to get there," he said.
He said he
asks himself the same questions he asked himself in 1982, when he
was first thrust into the role of rebuilder in chief for his
community: "How can I do this without killing myself?"
Later
in the day, he pushed aside the question.
"Ten days after the
Pan Am crash, we had cleaned up the site and buried the bodies," he
said. "I want to return this parish into a place that people will
recognize in three weeks. I know that's ambitious, but I'm going to
do everything I can to make that happen."
To make it happen,
Broussard has railed against what he calls the Federal Emergency
Management Agency's slow mobilization in the post-Katrina wasteland
of Jefferson Parish. On national television, he broke down in tears
Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" and later said "the bureaucracy has
murdered people."
For now, he said, he sees the world as made
up of either ducks or eagles.
"A duck doesn't do anything but
paddle around and quack. An eagle soars. I've got a lot of eagles
around me, but there are an awful lot of ducks, too," he
said.
He bucked the advice of virtually all of his advisers
and other lawmakers when he allowed residents to return to Jefferson
beginning Monday, although only long enough to see the damage to
their homes and leave again.
Critics said the plan
inconvenienced and slowed emergency workers who were still searching
for hurricane victims and trying to restore power to Jefferson. But
Broussard insisted that residents see for themselves the
devastation, to convince them to find new jobs and register their
children for school elsewhere.
The experience has been so
wrenching for Broussard, who has held one office or another for the
past 31 years, that he ponders whether he should run for re-election
in 2007, he said. What if another disaster strikes and he has to do
this again?
Then, however, he dismissed thoughts of
retirement, saying he was just wondering aloud in a time of enormous
stress.
"I'm not going to talk about what's going to happen
in 2½ years," he said. "Wait 'til this is over. It's only the first
quarter. No one interviews (New Orleans Saints quarterback) Aaron
Brooks in the first quarter and asks what he's going to
do."
I suppose we should introduce
ourselves: We're South Louisiana.
We have arrived on your
doorstep on short notice and we apologize for that, but we never
were much for waiting around for invitations. We're not much on
formalities like that.
And we might be staying around your
town for a while, enrolling in your schools and looking for jobs, so
we wanted to tell you a few things about us. We know you didn't ask
for this and neither did we, so we're just going to have to make the
best of it.
First of all, we thank you. For your money, your
water, your food, your prayers, your boats and buses and the men and
women of your National Guards, fire departments, hospitals and
everyone else who has come to our rescue.
We're a fiercely
proud and independent people, and we don't cotton much to outside
interference, but we're not ashamed to accept help when we need it.
And right now, we need it.
Just don't get carried away. For
instance, once we get around to fishing again, don't try to tell us
what kind of lures work best in your waters.
We're not going
to listen. We're stubborn that way.
You probably already know
that we talk funny and listen to strange music and eat things you'd
probably hire an exterminator to get out of your yard.
We
dance even if there's no radio. We drink at funerals. We talk too
much and laugh too loud and live too large and, frankly, we're
suspicious of others who don't.
But we'll try not to judge
you while we're in your town.
Everybody loves their home, we
know that. But we love South Louisiana with a ferocity that borders
on the pathological. Sometimes we bury our dead in LSU
sweatshirts.
Often we don't make sense. You may wonder why,
for instance - if we could only carry one small bag of belongings
with us on our journey to your state - why in God's name did we
bring a pair of shrimp boots?
We can't really explain that.
It is what it is.
You've probably heard that many of us
stayed behind. As bad as it is, many of us cannot fathom a life
outside of our border, out in that place we call
Elsewhere.
The only way you could understand that is if you
have been there, and so many of you have. So you realize that when
you strip away all the craziness and bars and parades and music and
architecture and all that hooey, really, the best thing about where
we come from is us.
We are what made this place a national
treasure. We're good people. And don't be afraid to ask us how to
pronounce our names. It happens all the time.
When you meet
us now and you look into our eyes, you will see the saddest story
ever told. Our hearts are broken into a thousand pieces.
But
don't pity us. We're gonna make it. We're resilient. After all,
we've been rooting for the Saints for 35 years. That's got to count
for something.
OK, maybe something else you should know is
that we make jokes at inappropriate times.
But what the
hell.
And one more thing: In our part of the country, we're
used to having visitors. It's our way of life.
So when all
this is over and we move back home, we will repay to you the
hospitality and generosity of spirit you offer to us in this season
of our despair.
That is our promise. That is our
faith.
Chris Rose can be reached at
noroses@bellsouth.net.
WASHINGTON - A loose barge may have caused a large
breach in the east side of the Industrial Canal floodwall that
accelerated Hurricane Katrina's rising floodwaters in the Lower
Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish, Army Corps of Engineers project
manager Al Naomi said Monday.
Naomi said the barge was found
on the land side of the floodwall, leading corps officials to
believe it could have crashed through the wall and sent a huge
amount of water - which was already pouring over the top of the wall
- into the neighborhoods immediately downriver.
"We have
some pictures that show this very large barge inside the protected
area. It had to go through the breach," Naomi said. "The opening is
a little bit wider than the barge itself. One would think it's the
barge that did it."
If it did strike the floodwall, Naomi
said, the barge would have "precipitated a tremendous collapse" that
would have quickly flooded the Lower Ninth Ward and then St. Bernard
Parish. The breach is "ultimately in my opinion what got (St.
Bernard) Parish flooded," Naomi said.
There are two large
breaks in the floodwall, said Ivor Van Heerden, deputy director of
the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, who did an aerial
survey of flood damage Sunday. The larger of the two, possibly
caused by the barge, is about 800 feet long. The second is 500 feet.
The areas adjacent to the Industrial Canal were among the
first to flood Monday morning. Katrina's storm surge pumped water
from the east into a V-shaped area between St. Bernard and eastern
New Orleans hurricane protection levees, then funneled it up the
Gulf Intracoastal Waterway into the Industrial Canal.
There
the water spilled over the levee, flooding eastern New Orleans, and
overtopping the Industrial Canal walls before the floodwall was
breached, Naomi said. The Corps got a report from the Industrial
Canal's lock master before dawn that water was pouring over both
sides of the waterway. Reports from people in the area at the time
indicate that the flood waters rose very quickly starting around 8
a.m.
Naomi also said it's too soon to tell how the 17th
Street Canal and London Avenue Canal levees were breached, causing
the catastrophic flooding in New Orleans.
Corps officials
have said the levees - concrete walls rising out of a low concrete
and earthen base - probably collapsed after water flowed over them
and scoured the interior side, weakening the structure.
But
some data indicate Katrina's storm surge may have been too low in
that part of Lake Pontchartrain to overtop the levees, researchers
say.
Van Heerden said that preliminary data indicated the
storm surge along the west side of Lake Pontchartrain and along the
causeway reached about 8.5 feet. The levee heights in the canals are
about 14 feet.
Joannes Westerink, a hydrologic engineer at
the University of Notre Dame who is working on a computer model of
Katrina's flooding of New Orleans, agreed the storm surge in the
lake was weaker than expected and may not have been high enough to
top the levees.
"I would doubt it too," Westerink said of the
overtopping scenario. He said that typically a storm surge has wave
action on top of it that accounts for 2 feet, then wave crests can
reach higher, although waves tend to be small in a canal.
"A
very wild guess, I'd say you've got a couple of feet over the surge,
so that's 11 feet. That would not be enough to top it," he
said.
Westerink cautioned that he didn't know enough about
the specifics of the storm surge in that area, wind velocities or
other factors to be definitive.
Naomi said Corps officials
believe Katrina's winds, coming from the north as the eye moved east
of New Orleans, probably caused a buildup of surge along the
lakefront and in the canals not recorded at gauges in the center or
west of the lake. Then as the hurricane moved north and the winds
shifted to the west, they put pressure on the levee walls and led to
the collapse. The breaches occurred on the eastern sides of both the
17th Street and London Avenue canals.
There was some evidence
of scouring on the eastern side of the 17th Street canal breach, he
said, one factor in the Corps theory that the levees were
topped.
But Naomi said no one knows what caused the levees to
fail and that it might have been a structural flaw.
"I don't
think it is necessarily a design issue. There's miles and miles of
other floodwall that did not collapse," he said. "There may be some
localized issue maybe in a foundation that caused the problem,
(something) that we were not aware of. There will be an autopsy. We
may find one reason for one canal, another reason for another canal.
Just because they both broke doesn't mean it was the same reason. It
could be three or four different reasons that all produced the same
result."
Naomi said that there were small pontoon barges in
the 17th Street canal to the north of the Hammond Highway Bridge.
They are still unaccounted for. There were no barges in the London
Avenue canal. He discounted the possibility that one or more of them
could have caused the 17th Street canal breach.
"The barges
were used mainly as a platform for workers to stand on," he said.
"Some of them are not much bigger than a couple of desks put
together. It would depend on the velocity . . . But it would be very
difficult for those barges to get to that location. It's possible,
but I don't think so."
Leonardo Ramirez, a construction
worker and Metairie resident who lives on the Jefferson Parish side
of the levee near the breached area, said that he thought he heard a
barge hitting the levee early Monday, although he did not see it
happen. "At quarter to six in the morning, we heard a huge bang, and
then we heard another," he said. "It was so loud. It scared
us."
Churches
surrounding the New Orleans area for 250 miles are standing by to
provide beds and warm meals to the thousands displaced by Hurricane
Katrina, NAACP President Bruce Gordon said.
The NAACP is
working with Federal Emergency Management Agency to transport
evacuees from shelters to church facilities from Shreveport to North
Carolina, Gordon said Sunday at the state Office of Emergency
Preparedness.
He said the churches are prepared to provide
shelter for as long as 60 days. "We asked the churches how many they
could take, how many beds do they have? We will work with FEMA to
move that number," Gordon said. "We are prepared to
move."
The NAACP, working initially through the National
Baptist Convention, has lined up churches in Shreveport and Houston
and smaller cities throughout the Southeast region to North
Carolina, he said.
The churches are not offering permanent
placement, but a respite from the cramped and crowded quarters in
massive shelters, including the Astrodome in Houston. The housing
that the churches will provide will at least offer more comfortable
conditions, Gordon said. "It seems now that while the
transportation puzzle is not completely solved, the housing
resources situation is more challenging," Gordon said.
He
said although the NAACP began its efforts by working with the
Baptist delegation, it is hoping all denominations will help provide
housing for evacuees.
Any church that has available shelter
or facilities should contact the NAACP's 24-hour hotline at
1-866-997-2227 or visit www.naacp.org on the Internet, he
said.
Gordon also called for a separate victims' relief fund
to be set up by the federal government, similar to what was created
after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"The benchmark
for recovery should be 9/11. This disaster is no less significant,
no less dramatic than that event," he said. "This may not have been
an act of terrorism, but it was a natural disaster's form of
terrorist. We must put all our resources into rebuilding these
communities."
"The citizens of New York did not have to carry
the burden" of rebuilding, and nor should New Orleans and Gulf Coast
communities, Gordon said.
"This is our worst nightmare for a
community," he said. "But the people from New Orleans love where
they live and they will rebuild. From New Orleans to Biloxi, the
people born and raised in this region will have the opportunity to
contribute to that effort."
Algiers was largely spared from Hurricane Katrina and
subsequent floodwaters, but New Orleans City Councilman
Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson said other parts of her district did not
fare so well, noting that water was still standing in parts of
Faubourg Marigny, St John, Treme and the Bywater.
Clarkson,
in Baton Rouge on Sunday, said many city workers died after the
storm, unwilling to leave their jobs. "We lost a lot of city
workers. The workers would not leave and we had to save some from a
25-foot wall of water," she said.
She lauded Mayor Ray
Nagin's efforts over the past week.
He is "the greatest hero
in all of this," she said. "He and his team of city workers --
police, firefighters, Sewerage and Water Board -- are all heroes. He
organized his team and kept them focused on target. They saved most
of our city's people."
For five days, Clarkson rotated
between City Hall and a makeshift command center she and Nagin
manned at the Hyatt Regency. Her adventures included sprinting up 23
flights of stairs to escape a band of gun-toting individuals who
were trying to enter the Hyatt.
"It was most heartbreaking to
see this beautiful city, a major port of the American economy with
strategic oil reserves for the entire Northeast, and wonder where
the hell was the world," Jackson said, as she fought back tears.
"They showed up for 9/11 but where were they (for New
Orleans)?"
Clarkson said she spent much of the first few days
following the storm trying to save lives.
"I didn't leave
because I was trying to put people who were desperate with people
who had resources to help," Clarkson said.
In Algiers, she
said, the sewerage system is operational and police and National
Guard patrols have established security. Clarkson said that Algiers
did not take on water, and that she did not see any homes that were
completely destroyed, although many suffered wind damage. She added
that the community has running water and safe drinking
water.
But she fell short of encouraging people to
return.
"We cannot afford to divert resources from people who
are still being saved from rooftops," Clarkson said. "But I want the
people to know that the people of Algiers are
fortunate."
Clarkson said the scariest moment came when
individuals began storming the doors of the Hyatt, believing there
was food and water inside; Clarkson said there was little of either.
"The mayor grabbed my arm and had me run up 23 flights of
steps (from the fourth floor)," she said. "Of course, he got there
10 minutes before me."
Clarkson said she will continue rescue
operations from her Algiers headquarters and begin to plan what
promises to be a long recovery. She said anyone needing emergency
and rescue help only should call her at 392-2092.
"I never
imagined this would happen," Clarkson said.
Arthur
Dumaine sat shirtless on the front porch of his son's empty,
powerless house in Terrytown Monday, still in shock after narrowly
escaping the hurricane-spawned flood in New Orleans and unable to
call family or friends to report that he was alive a week after the
storm.
Meanwhile, in an evacuation shelter in El Campo,
Texas, Dumaine's son Guy agonized over the fate of his father. Guy
Dumaine, who has no history of blood pressure problems, experienced
such profound stress that his pressure escalated, his nose bled, he
coughed blood and he had to go to a hospital.
When officials
allowed Jefferson Parish residents to return on Monday to check on
their properties, the influx finally provided a chance for the
father and son to connect.
Lynn Smith, who lives across
Ridgefield Street in Terrytown, found her home mostly undamaged when
she returned to clear out the rancid food in her refrigerator and
gather documents, clothes and medicine. She also found the stranded
69-year-old man.
Arthur Dumaine had hung a sign from his
son's mailbox that said, "Help, please, alone, 69 years, sick, need
cell phone." Landlines and cell phones hadn't been working in the
neighborhood.
Smith handed her cell phone to Dumaine, who was
still wearing the swim shorts and sandals he had on when he made a
harrowing escape from deep waters in his New Orleans
house.
Dumaine finally could call out. And his family finally
learned what happened to their father.
Dumaine tried to ride
out the hurricane alone at his house in Lakeview, about a block from
the 17th Street Canal levee that broke open and submerged much of
New Orleans.
Dumaine said he didn't evacuate his house on Old
Hammond Highway because he recently was treated for heart problems
and felt too fragile to travel. But his ultimate exodus from the
city was more taxing, physically and emotionally, than the
evacuation traffic jams and desperate search for accommodations
could ever have been.
"I said, 'I'm just going to take my
chances,' like a damned fool," the retired lawyer said.
On
the morning that Katrina raged, he said, he heard a tremendous
cracking that he thinks was the canal floodwall succumbing to the
storm surge. The first floor of his home filled up in minutes,
forcing him upstairs with no food, water, supplies or openings to
the outside, he said.
He was trapped there for 36 hours,
until he decided he had to reach the roof so that rescuers could see
him.
"I said, 'I can't last another day here, or I'll die,'"
he said.
So he held his breath, dived into his flooded first
floor, swam to a plate glass window, smashed it with an onyx ashtray
and escaped his house, cutting his leg on the glass as he floated
out.
Once outside, he climbed onto his roof, and rescuers in
a private boat quickly spotted him, he said. They took him to the
Coast Guard station on the Bucktown side of the ruptured canal. From
there, he rode in a helicopter to Meadowcrest Hospital in Terrytown,
not far from his son's home.
Dumaine stayed at the hospital
until he had to leave Thursday because the hospital was evacuating,
he said. With help from police, he reached his son's house. He found
a key and went in, living on the food, water and companionship of
neighbors who stayed for the storm.
But they could not offer
phone service.
"My son evacuated," he said Monday. "I don't
know where he's at. I just wanted to use the phone. I wanted to let
my sons know I'm alive."
So Smith, part of the daytime-only
infusion of Jefferson residents, handed him her cell phone, and
Dumaine heard his son's voice for the first time in a
week.
"God bless America, and God bless you," he
said.
"I've got to come get you," Guy Dumaine told his
father. "You can't stay there. Do you have food and
water?"
Guy Dumaine, 37, said Monday that he was trying to
figure out how to retrieve his father and bring him to Texas. Either
he would drive back or see whether a relief agency would transfer
his father to a shelter in Houston where the family can get
him.
"I've been worried, so worried about him," Guy Dumaine
said. "I thought he was dead, really. We begged him to leave" before
the storm.
"To hear his voice," Guy said, "I thought it was a
ghost."
One man died and six people were
severely poisoned with carbon monoxide from operating an electric
generator inside a Harvey home, Jefferson Parish officials said
Monday.
The identities of the victims were not available. The
survivors were taken to West Jefferson Medical Center. Robert
Wilson, assistant chief of the Marrero-Ragusa Volunteer Fire
Department, said he saw four generators in the home at 2316 Alex
Korman Blvd., in the Woodmere subdivision.
Wilson said the
dead man was in his 50s and, judging from the condition of the body,
might have died as early as Friday. Because carbon monoxide
poisoning impairs mental functions, he said, the other occupants of
the house might not have realized the man was dead.
Deano
Bonano, deputy chief administrative assistant to Jefferson Parish
President Aaron Broussard, said sheriff's deputies originally
thought that all seven people in the home were dead. But emergency
medical technicians found signs of life and sent the survivors to
the hospital.
Parish officials said there have been several
other deaths caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. Portable
generators should never be placed inside a home or any other
enclosed area, they said.
Electricity has been restored to
some areas of Jefferson Parish, but Orleans, St. Bernard and
Plaquemines parishes remained in the dark Monday.
Portions of
Orleans Parish, including the Central Business District and the
Crescent City Connection, have "energized'' substations prepared to
distribute power as soon as buildings in the area are ready to
accept it, Entergy spokesman Chanel Lagarde said Monday.
That
could soon mean the lighting of the Crescent City Classic, a rainbow
of hope for New Orleans, which was plunged into darkness more than a
week ago when Hurricane Katrina brought the city to its
knees.
As for areas north of Lake Pontchartrain, Cleco said
Monday that about 8,600 St. Tammany Parish customers and Washington
Parish were on their way to having their power restored, with
Franklinton already online.
Parts of East Jefferson and
Kenner have had their power restored, and the entire parish should
be up and running in two to four weeks, Lagarde said.
No one
in New Orleans had power Monday, but "we are making good progress,"
said Entergy's manager of engineering, Danny Taylor, surveying the
city from the back seat of a helicopter - one of many hovering like
mosquito hawks over flood-soaked neighborhoods.
Entergy's
first priority is answering the New Orleans Sewerage & Water
Board's goal of restoring pumping capacity in the Lakeview area,
where floodwaters were still licking rooftops Monday, Taylor said.
With that accomplished, water will begin to flow into the 17th
Street Canal and then into Lake Pontchartrain, he said.
Sen.
Mary Landrieu, D-La., said water was being pumped out of Lakeview on
Monday through a 36-inch pipe at the 17th Street
Canal.
Bucktown and nearby neighborhoods should have power
"some time next week," Lagarde said. "They can expect to see crews
working and power being restored."
Power starts at the
generating plants, Lagarde said. And "there's enough electricity
being generated in southeastern Louisiana to meet the needs of
customers" in that area, he said.
Once Entergy's transmission
grids are up and connected to the plants and distribution lines are
clear of vegetation, substations will begin to distribute power to
homes and businesses, Taylor said.
Hospitals, police and fire
departments are priorities, Lagarde said.
It will take
several months to restore power to all of Orleans, St. Bernard and
lower Plaquemines parishes "because those areas are inaccessible at
this time," Lagarde said.
Entergy has restored power to
340,000 of its 800,000 customers, he said. In the next two weeks,
Cleco plans to restore power to 80 percent of about 80,000 customers
it serves in sections of St. Tammany and Washington parishes, Cleco
spokesman Robbyn Cooper said Monday.
Lawrence St. Blanc, a
staff member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission, said power
might be restored as soon as today to the Ernest N. Morial
Convention Center in New Orleans.
"If we have any luck, we
may have that baby up tomorrow,'' he said.
For those in their homes, the cubes are 'like
gold'
By Matthew Brown Staff
writer
"Y'all have ice? We want ice!"
The call came
from the second-floor landing of a Marrero apartment building, its
brick facade crumbled into the parking lot, where truck driver Wayne
"Slim" Christen and four others had taken up residence after
Hurricane Katrina.
A week after the storm turned their
neighborhood into a ghost town, a week in which the temperature
topped 90 degrees day after brutal day, Christen and his friends
ranked ice right up there with food and water: an essential, a
necessity.
"You've got to have it," Christen said.
The
body can last only a few days without water, slightly longer with no
food. Theoretically, it could function in perpetuity without
ice.
But storm victims - suffering under the hot Louisiana
sun, the sweltering nights with no air conditioning and only the
hope of a breeze - know better.
In the words of Algiers
resident Nicholas Beninate, "Ice is like gold."
Water keeps
you alive, Beninate explained, but ice keeps you sane.
"Ice
by itself, ice in water - anything cold," he said. "It gives you a
burst of energy. Inside the houses at night, it's 105 degrees. Ice
is the thing."
In Katrina's immediate aftermath, ice was
almost impossible to find across much of the metropolitan area.
Before the storm even hit, most bags of ice had been snatched up by
people hoping to keep their perishable food cold until the power
came back. The little that was left was plundered by looters or by
authorities who requisitioned supplies from grocery stores and other
outlets.
Recently, it has rolled in by the truckload, to the
point where some areas now are overflowing with
ice.
Ice-filled tractor trailers lined up in a Belle Chasse
parking lot - far in excess of what Plaquemines Parish Sheriff Jiff
Hingle said is needed for the small numbers of residents still in
his parish. He said a single ice machine delivered by state Sen.
Craig Romero, R-New Iberia, probably would have been sufficient to
meet his needs.
But in neighboring St. Bernard Parish,
largely cut off from the world for most of the last week, Maj. Jimmy
Pohlmann of the Sheriff's Office said there was no ice at all for
the past week. The first ice arrived Sunday, when a relief
contingent crossed the Mississippi River on a ferry and forded
3-foot deep floodwaters to deliver two trailers of ice. The
contingent delivered only one trailer each of food and
water.
Even in parishes where ice is suddenly plentiful,
however, getting to it can be a problem. In Jefferson Parish, the
Federal Emergency Management Agency set up a single distribution
center for ice on each side of the river, at the Transit Facility at
Saints and David drives in Metairie and at the Alario Center in
Westwego. For those without vehicles - or the fuel to power them -
those distribution sites might as well be on the moon. Some people
hitch-hike to the sites. Others carpool or try to convince those
with cars to pick them up some ice for them.
Beninate, a
short-order cook at an Italian restaurant before Katrina struck,
said he got his first 10-pound bag of ice six days after the storm
hit. As he rode his bike home with the bag sitting in his basket,
people began running after him shouting, "Where'd you get the
ice?"
For Christen and his four friends at the Marrero
apartment building, the mood appears to swing according to the
contents of the coolers on which they prop their feet. When they've
got ice - and their beers, sodas and waters are cold - the friends
are all smiles and laughs. When the ice runs out, they are glum and
depressed.
In the first few days after the storm, police
largely turned a blind eye or even supervised looting for basics
such as food and water. Christen and his friend Bryan Bowden, at the
Timberlane Apartments in Marrero, said they got their supplies from
the nearby Breaux's Market on LaPalco Boulevard.
Christen
said he was grabbing a bag of ice at a Walgreens when his supply was
cut short, as police started cracking down.
"We were getting
food and water and ice," he said. "Things we needed. The cop came in
and said he was going to arrest us. I said to the cop, 'Are you
going to arrest us for taking a bag of ice?'"
Their supply
cut off, the Timberlane crowd had to wait several more days until a
friend drove to Vacherie, in St. James Parish, to get more
ice.
The friend bought them two bags. But by the time he
arrived, it had melted to one, Christen said, and that was gone by
the end of the night.
Over the weekend, they hit the jackpot:
six bags, 10 pounds each. It was from a relief group that set up
shop at a decrepit shopping center on Ames Boulevard for a few
hours. They filled up two coolers with ice to spare, cranked up
some country music on a portable stereo, chilled some drinks and
acted like they were on top of the world.
"You sure you don't
want something? Beer? Coke? Kentwood water?" Christen asked a
visitor. "I've finally got ice and I'm not jealous with it. I'll
share with anybody."
The heroin junkie writhing in pain from his
hurricane-forced withdrawal would have to wait. Ride Hamilton had a
more pressing emergency: stitching up a guy's ear with fishing line
and a sewing needle. Earlier, he was forced to evacuate another
patient when her puncture wound became infected with gangrene.
Hamilton, whose Cheyenne Indian name is Two Fires, isn't a
doctor, a medic or nurse. His credentials, for the past week anyway,
consist of the Sioux Falls Fire Department shirt he got from a
thrift store and the red cross he drew with a magic marker and taped
to his car window.
"I thought I was just going to run
supplies, but with my uniform, a lot of people have been asking for
medical help," he said. "I'm just using common sense and what I've
seen in the movies."
Hamilton, a French Quarter artist, is
one of a small army of urban survivalists, citizen aid workers and
self-made inventors spawned by Hurricane Katrina's devastation of
New Orleans. They can be seen all over the dry parts of the city,
creating makeshift living compounds, trolling for supplies and
propping up the dazed, wet and wounded.
Determined to stick
it out in a city without electricity and running water, they have
commandeered backyard swimming pools for bathing, made trips to
looted supermarkets to feed neighbors and siphoned gasoline to run
generators. A few without generators have strung together stolen car
batteries to provide a little light. Others, like Hamilton, have
learned how to do a little of everything. Even practice
medicine.
The site of Hamilton's aid and triage center is
Johnny White's bar on Bourbon Street. The business has stayed open
since the storm hit, and when Hamilton began dropping off supplies
in his battered Ford Escort, word spread that it had become a
community help center.
"The uniform gets me through all the
checkpoints, so I'm usually able to get people what they need," he
said. "Plus, I'm the only sober one here. That helps."
Another French Quarter bar, Molly's at the Market, also has
become a big gathering spot. The booze is plentiful and happy hour
is full of regulars. Other than the lack of air-conditioning, the
only noticeable difference from normal times is owner Jim Monaghan
doling out precious ice cubes one at a time.
"But the
biggest thing we've done is open the doors every day," Monaghan
said. "Just the fact that we're here has helped soothe some wounded
souls."
Officials have discouraged staying in the drenched
and battered city. Deputy Police Chief Warren Riley said Monday,
"Anyone here, we'd like them to leave. We don't know who's the
good-quality citizen and who's the criminal. It certainly would make
it easier on us if they would leave."
But thousands of
people are determined to stick it out by any means
necessary.
Philip Melancon isn't just surviving, he's trying
to keep up as much of his normal routine as possible. Yes, he's been
forced to hand-wash his clothes in an ice chest of Purex and soap.
And he's been using downed power lines in place of rope to patch the
roof of the Walnut Street condominium complex he owns.
But on
Monday morning, the professional musician was playing a rollicking
boogie-woogie on his baby grand piano, delighting the Oklahoma
National Guard troops stationed near his street. Earlier, he made
one of his periodic grocery runs, giving most of the food to elderly
neighbors who stayed behind.
"We shop at Whole Foods, and
the prices are finally where they should be," he said. "We just walk
in and take what we need. Everybody taking food there has been very
polite, very orderly."
Similar scenes of New Orleanians
banding together can be seen everywhere.
On Philip Street in
the Lower Garden District, Earl Bass, 51, hit the jackpot when he
was able to borrow a generator for half a day. He hooked it up to
his freezer to make a supply of ice. But he also found time to
sublet it to a neighbor, who needed to run an air compressor to fix
the flat tires on his truck.
"This is a time of crisis.
Everybody's got to help each other out," Bass said.
In the
especially heart-crushing situation of 59-year-old C.N. Keene, an
entire neighborhood came together to ease the loss of his wife.
Vera, 65, was killed in a hit-and-run accident as she set off to
forage at Jewel Food store. Keene went and covered her with a
blanket at Magazine Street and Jackson Avenue, vowing never to
return to the intersection.
And he didn't. Three days later,
with Vera still shrouded where she had died, a man from the
neighborhood assembled a burial team, Keene said. Vera was laid to
rest, at least temporarily, in a nearby vacant lot. Most of those
who attended the funeral service were strangers.
"All I know
is that some guy named John did the ceremony," Keene said. "He told
me everybody walking up and down the street stopped to pay their
respects."
The death of his wife has enlisted Keene, against
his will, in the city's community of hangers-on. He said he can't
leave Vera's body until her daughter is able to retrieve it at the
end of September.
"She gets released from prison on Sept.
25," he said. "She's somewhere in Texas. That means I'll have to
stick it out until then."
By
Meghan Gordon and Chris Kirkham St. Tammany
bureau
Despite whole neighborhoods covered in debris and mud
caked where receding waters dropped it, small reminders of life
before Hurricane Katrina have emerged in St. Tammany Parish, to the
appreciation of people who lost nothing more than electricity and
people trying to save the few belongings they have
left.
Big-box stores such as Lowe's, Home Depot and Wal-Mart
opened several locations in the parish and pledged to extend store
hours. Traffic in some main corridors flowed with ease as
streetlights returned. And a few gas stations and restaurants
reopened their doors a week after the storm.
With timelines
for restoring electricity and phone service still uncertain Monday,
citizens have pitched in to help their neighborhoods start to return
to normal. The new garbage hauler in some neighborhoods has become
the good Samaritan who uses his own truck to haul away the putrid
remains of returning evacuees' fridges. Instead of calling the
tree-cutting services swamped with power company work, residents
have pooled their chain saws and gasoline to clear entire
blocks.
Most of the businesses have been coming back to life
along the U.S. 190 corridor in Covington, which was one of the first
areas where CLECO crews restored power. As more and more gas
stations open, the six-hour lines residents saw Thursday and Friday
have dwindled to waits of 15 to 20 minutes.
Supplies have
flooded into the parish, including chain stores with renewed
supplies, charities and people looking to make a buck who have
backed up their stuffed panel trucks to passing traffic. Some of
their homemade signs bear the proof of price gouging, as several
prices are crossed out, each one replaced by a higher
number.
Lines at Lowe's south of Covington are now short or
nonexistent, as Wal-Mart and Home Depot have taken in more
customers. The most popular items at Lowe's and Wal-Mart on Monday
were box fans, gasoline containers and shop vacuums, which all
appeared to cost the same as they did before the storm.
The
day after the storm hit, Herb Williams and his family waited for
three hours at Lowe's before giving up and heading to Lafayette for
supplies. But on Monday, their trip lasted only 20 minutes as they
stocked up on window air conditioners for the house.
"The
customers have been wonderful - good attitudes and some of them have
lost everything," said Linda Wilder of Jacksonville, Fla., who
allowed a few people at a time into the Lowe's on Gause Boulevard in
Slidell.
"They're polite, courteous. I can't say enough
about Slidell."
At the Waffle House near Covington, don't
count on ordering hash browns "smothered" and "chunked" with a
half-dozen toppings. Just being able to order the basics - waffles,
eggs, grits and burgers - has given residents a short break from
"meals ready to eat" in shelters and the camp food they cook up in
their carports and back yards.
Mandeville resident Joey
Drouant, who had just finished a meal with some friends, joked that
"it was nice eating something that wasn't my wife's cooking."
Other Covington restaurants are beginning to reopen as
employees return from evacuation or from tending to their
homes.
The Papa John's franchise near the Rouse's supermarket
off U.S. 190 opened its doors Monday morning to a bustling crowd of
customers. The store was operating with a shoestring crew, but one
manager said he hoped to have delivery service available
soon. Jamie Law, owner of Sunshine Garden Health Food store in
downtown Covington, kept the organic grocery open to anyone who
didn't mind her doing a bit of cleaning on the side. When she
returned to her store, which had roof damage from a fallen tree, she
remembered feeling despair.
"It's a surreal experience. In
the beginning we just thought, 'Oh my God, this might just do us
in,'" Law said. "We're hoping that we can light the phoenix, rise
from the ashes and create a greater community."
Many
Covington and Mandeville residents have found that the greatest
solace throughout the week of cleanup has been meeting neighbors
they hardly said hello to before the storm.
"I think the
people of St. Tammany Parish are taking the cleanup into their own
hands," said Diane Hudson, who lives in the Meadowbrook subdivision
in Mandeville. "We think we'll get moving again pretty
quickly."
And yet despite all the progress in the battered
parish, nothing could console some residents who continued trying to
comprehend the magnitude of their losses.
"I don't think it
will ever get normal," said Terry Norvell, 52, who stood crying
outside her flooded Palm Lake home in Slidell. "I've never seen
anything this bad before in 28 years here."
ST. GABRIEL -- Down a shell
road in this town near Baton Rouge, the left side of a nondescript
warehouse has become the headquarters for one of the most solemn
tasks related to Hurricane Katrina: identifying the
dead.
Standing on easy-to-clean, black plastic sheeting
designed to reduce the risk of contamination, dozens of federal and
state experts expect to spend months using such tools as
fingerprints, DNA technology and dental X-rays to examine about 140
bodies a day in an around-the-clock process.
"It'll be a
dignified, respectful process. It goes A to Z; we don't leave
anything out," said Stephen E. Allen Sr., emergency operations
officer with the federal Department of Homeland Security. He spoke
Monday at a news conference at the morgue while workers, wearing
polo shirts and khakis, lined up outside.
Because so many
bodies are being pulled from polluted water, each will have to be
decontaminated before being examined by epidemiologists,
pathologists, dental experts and FBI fingerprint specialists, who
will work under a succession of white canopies that look as if they
could have come from funeral homes. After the bodies are identified,
each victim will be made available for burial.
"The function
of this facility is to care for the victims and provide solace to
their families," said Dr. Louis Cataldie, medical director of
emergency operations for the state Department of Health and
Hospitals.
But families will not be allowed at the site. It
will be closed to outsiders once the first bodies start arriving,
possibly as early as Monday night. A separate plan is being devised
for contacting relatives.
Although officials said the work
probably will take months, Cataldie, the commander of the operation,
declined to speculate how many bodies will be brought to the center.
The only count so far, released Sunday, was 59.
"I don't
speculate and will not speculate," he said. "I don't want people to
be alarmed. I don't want inflated numbers. My gosh, it's horrible
enough."
Earlier Monday, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin
estimated that the death toll could reach 10,000.
Identifying
recovered bodies will be made somewhat easier because the storm did
not destroy records from the Louisiana State University School of
Dentistry, Cataldie said.
Morgue personnel will deal only
with hurricane-related deaths, which he described as deaths that
"would not have occurred had there not been a hurricane."
In
addition to drowning victims, he said that category could include
hospital patients on ventilators that stopped when the electricity
failed.
Among those working with the morgue here will be
Orleans Parish coroner Frank Minyard, who said he has set up a
temporary office at the Interstate 10/Interstate 610 split that will
be a collection point for bodies recovered south of New
Orleans.
Autopsies will be performed only in cases in which a
crime is suspected, he said.
HOUSTON-A star-struck Phyllicia Winchester stood
behind the barricades with her family as talk show host Oprah
Winfrey and her entourage left the Reliant Astrodome on Monday
afternoon.
A few minutes before, the 16-year-old spied Jada
Pinkett Smith. The Rev. Jesse Jackson had just left the building.
And at one point Monday, she was close enough to touch U.S. Sen.
Hilary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, who was in town visiting storm
survivors with her husband, former President Bill
Clinton.
She hadn't seen Macy Gray but heard the singer was
on the grounds volunteering, and Dr. Phil McGraw held an impromptu
talk show at the dome Sunday, she said.
The visits have been
a welcome diversion for Winchester, a high school junior, who is
afraid of what she'll find when she and her family returns to her
home in Harvey this week to survey storm damage.
On Monday, a
virtual who's who of political, social and pop culture idols flooded
the Reliant Park Complex, which houses the Astrodome, the Reliant
Center and the Reliant Arena, where more than 20,000 New Orleans
area residents are being sheltered.
The day started with a
security sweep and a bomb-sniffing dog at the Reliant Center, where
Clinton and another former president, George Bush, announced the
Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund to assist hurricane victims. The two
compared the fund to the tsunami relief effort they spearheaded
earlier this year.
Their entourage included Hilary Clinton,
Barbara Bush, U.S. Sen. Barak Obama, D-Illinois, and former New
Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League.
It was sensory overload for Karen Wilson of Treme on Monday
morning when Morial entered the cavernous hall where she and
thousands more residents were staying. She clung to Morial like a
long-lost friend.
When President Clinton entered the room,
Wilson said she was moved to tears.
"They hugged me! Both of
them," said Wilson, smiling. "I was just amazed. It made me feel
happy. It made me feel good."
Some, like Wilson, a hug or a
simple touch from the celebrities was enough. Others, like 7th Ward
resident Linda Jeffers, forced visiting celebrities and politicians
to listen to stories about missing relatives, slow emergency
response and their fears of never being able to return
home.
Jeffers, who is known in the dome by the straw hat she
wears, made it a point Monday to get Jackson's attention as he
stepped on the ground floor with state Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton
Rouge.
Before touring the facility, Jackson and Fields said
they were concerned about Louisiana residents being shipped away to
states outside of the South. The two spoke about establishing "tent
cities," opening up cabins and lands at Louisiana state parks for
evacuees and, lastly, creating temporary residential areas at closed
military installations, such as England Air Force Base in
Alexandria.
Jeffers, who heard relocation offers to Michigan,
Minnesota, Kansas and West Virginia on Monday, said she wanted to
make sure that Jackson would fight to bring Louisiana residents
home.
"They are sending us to places that we know not of,"
said Jeffers, who cornered Fields until he provided his contact
information. "Who do we know in Kansas?"
Jackson, however,
was all but forgotten when Oprah Winfrey arrived at the
dome.
By far, Winfrey received the day's warmest reception by
evacuees, who were kept at bay by the Houston police officers who
escorted her around the dome. But the security officers did not keep
Winfrey from reaching out and touching several evacuees during her
visit.
"She said my daughter was the prettiest storm survivor
there is," said Karen Matthews, hugging her daughter, Kaytrell.
Matthews said Winfrey also asked about Kaytrell's father,
who hasn't been seen since the storm.
Matthews said that
seeing people like Winfrey gives her hope. "It makes me feel
overjoyed to know that people care," she said.
Winchester
agreed, adding that she was thrilled to meet Jada Pinkett Smith on
Monday at the Astrodome.
"She didn't come down here with her
nose up in the air," Winchester said of her favorite actress, who is
married to actor Wil Smith. "She was hugging and touching. She was
signing autographs. It was breathtaking."
With Hurricane
Katrina's pestilent waters still covering large parts of St. Bernard
Parish, emergency crews on Monday continued the grueling work of
searching for the living -- all the while marking the corners where
the dead lay.
Rescuers were still finding survivors inside
their homes, where they had been trapped --many with little or no
water and food -- since up to 20 feet of water gushed in Aug. 29.
"Some of them did not want to leave," said Col. Richard
Baumy of the St. Bernard Sheriff's Office.
Sheriff Jack
Stephens has ordered deputies to "forcefully remove" anybody
resisting the parish's mandatory evacuation order, handcuffing hardy
survivors if needed. Officials have said the soup of stale water,
chemicals and decomposing bodies flowing in the parish poses a
serious health risk and no residents will be allowed back in until
further notice.
Meanwhile, Federal Emergency Management
Agency crews continued the somber task of identifying the location
of bodies to be recovered once the waters recede.
"Once the
water goes down, we'll know how many bodies we have," Baumy
said.
The FEMA crews are marking the sites of corpses using
global positioning system technology. There's no official count of
the dead, which officials estimate may reach into the hundreds. So
far officials have reported 31 people found dead at St. Rita's
Nursing Home in Poydras and 22 other bodies found tied together in
Violet. Officials believe they bound themselves by rope in a
desperate effort to survive the storm.
But the main task
remains finding survivors.
Estimates of the total number of
people evacuated from St. Bernard since the storm range from 5,000
to more than 7,000, about a tenth of the parish's population. But
officials said most survivors have already been found and taken out
of the parish.
With the flow of St. Bernard refugees slowing
to a trickle, the parish stopped using large gas-guzzling ferry
boats and turned to smaller U.S. Coast Guard patrol vessels to carry
the rescued from "Camp Katrina," a makeshift shelter at the St.
Bernard Port slip, to the Algiers Point ferry landing.
The
water continued to recede, much of it draining through natural
channels and some of it being pumped out. But officials said it will
take weeks and possibly months, to clear the layer of muck - in some
places several inches thick - left behind.
It was unclear
Monday whether waters have receded enough to allow cleanup crews to
reach an oil leak at the Murphy Oil refinery in Meraux that has
spread into parts of east Chalmette. The Department of Environmental
Quality identified the source of the leak at a tank inside Murphy
Oil's 125,000-barrel-a-day refinery. State officials said the
company is aware of the leak and will be responsible for
cleanup.
State Rep. Nita Hutter, R-Chalmette, said the oil
must be cleaned up before the parish can turn on the pumps to drain
that area of Chalmette. Otherwise, he said, the pumps could be
ruined.
Hutter and other parish representatives met with
U.S. Corps of Engineers officials Monday to press for "other
actions" to drain water still trapped by St. Bernard's levees at
levels surpassing 5 feet in the northern parts of the parish.
Hutter said she could not discuss details on the options
being discussed. Parish officials last week said they were asking
the Corps to open a gap in the Lake Borgne Basin levee to help drain
the water. Hutter said that remains among several options being
debated, and that Corps officials plan to visit St. Bernard on
Wednesday as they evaluate the parish's proposals.
"Everything is on the table," said Hutter, whose one-story
home in Chalmette took enough water to reach the rain gutters.
It shows difference between the haves and the
have-nots
By Greg Thomas Real estate
writer
Alfanao Tony of Meraux stood at the counter of the
Baton Rouge Hampton Inn wearing a starched white shirt. His eyes
filled with tears as he explained that anonymous donors from Baton
Rouge had paid his hotel room bill for five nights now.
The
financial help has been critical for an 86-year-old man who has no
home, nowhere else to go and wants to avoid shelters.
"I'll
sleep in my car before I go to a shelter," Tony said. "At my age, I
couldn't take that."
The scene at Baton Rouge area hotels
illustrates the socio-economic gap among Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
Some are being put up in hotels by the companies they work for.
Their jobs are secure, and they will eventually operate out of
temporary offices in Baton Rouge.
Others, like Tony, have
limited means and are struggling on their own to find shelter in a
market where housing is increasingly scarce. They don't know when
they can go home, when the money will run out or where they will go
when it does.
Tony spent two nights on the fourth floor of
his apartment building awaiting rescue after the storm.
He
had $1,000 in his pocket when he headed toward Mystic, Texas, but he
found no rooms and eventually made his way to the Hampton Inn, where
"the staff have been just wonderful."
He's down to less than
$200 and doesn't know what will happen after that.
Anna
Dennis of Kenner had nine family members crammed into two rooms at
the Hampton Inn. They, too, were running out of money, but were
given a break on room charges.
Her husband, Warren, was at
the local Hilton Garden Inn with his adoptive father, Wilbert
Denies, 83. Denies has been a foster parent for decades and three of
Warren's adopted brothers were staying with them: two teenagers and
a 41-year-old man with an emotional disorder. "He just doesn't talk,
and hasn't since he was a child," Anna Dennis said.
Warren
Dennis has been hitting the road early every morning to find an
apartment, but to no avail.
The one lead they had on an
apartment got them excited, but when they went to meet the leasing
agent they found a man with a truck unloading his furniture, saying
the apartment was his.
"I've been trying to keep my
breakdowns to every other day,'" Anna Dennis said.
The Dennis
family has been to FEMA and the Red Cross and is trying every avenue
they can think of to find housing. Meanwhile, Anna Dennis sent her
two daughters, Alyssia, 6, and Alexandria, 5, to live with an aunt
in Texas. The daily phone calls always are emotional, with the
daughters crying to be back with their mother and father.
But Anna Dennis doesn't know when that will
happen.
"I've got to have my daughters back, but I just
didn't want them to see all of us going through this," she
said.
Many Realtors in the Baton Rouge area were inundated
with calls for apartments or rental space of any kind, but most
families found that large businesses had already snapped up most of
the inventory.
URS, an engineering firm, did just that. The
company lined up 28 apartments for its critical employees. One of
those units is going to information technology manager David
Scripter, his wife Cheryl and their three young children.
The
Scripter's Lakeview home is under water and feared totally
destroyed. Cheryl Scripter said she felt bad - and a little guilty -
for the people who are still in New Orleans and the hundreds more
who can't find a place to stay in the Baton Rouge
area.
Celeste Nillen-Cade, a teacher St. Robert Bellarmine
School, is among those hunting for housing in Baton Rouge.
Nillen-Cade was driving around town with the ashes of her husband in
the trunk of her car. He died of a heart attack last
month.
Along with her stepdaughter, she was crammed into a
one-bedroom apartment with an expanded step-family, eleven
altogether, many sleeping on the kitchen floor.
She headed to
the Embassy Suites, where her brother works, to use the hotel
computer to find housing.
"I'm thinking about Oklahoma City.
I have my teacher's certificate, and if things can't work out here,
I don't think I'll come back," Nillen-Cade said.
Kathie
Jacobs, vice president of sales and marketing for Hampton Inn Hotels
& Suites of New Orleans, which operates five hotels in metro New
Orleans, was walking the lobby of the Baton Rouge hotel Sunday,
checking on the customers she has grown to know by first name. She
said the company is working hard to get the Elmwood Hampton Inn up
and running, with hopes of moving back in as soon as power and water
is restored. They were feeding Baton Rouge guests free hot dogs and
other easy-to-prepare foods.
Jacobs was upset that many Baton
Rouge residents were expressing their anger at "the New Orleans
invasion."
But she also pointed out the generosity of the
community. Some area residents have been coming to the front desk
anonymously and offering to pay at least one room night for a New
Orleans family. Others have been dropping off diapers, formula and
other necessities
And employees of Hilton Corp. were calling
and putting room nights for New Orleans evacuees on their credit
cards.
"They just call up and say, 'I want to sponsor a
family,''' Jacobs said.
Christoper Perry, a concierge at the
Hampton Inn on Convention Center Boulevard, went through the
survival ordeal of other city folks, including spending two nights
on his roof before being rescued. He's helping out at the Hampton
Inn and eager to get back to clean up the city and get things up and
running.
"I just want to get home and help out," Perry
said.
Energy companies on Monday continued to inspect and
repair almost 900 oil and gas platforms that were in the path of
Hurricane Katrina when it roared through the Gulf of Mexico a week
before, shutting down oil and gas operations and leaving platforms
toppled or listing.
Regulators on Monday reported a slight
increase in the amount of oil and gas being pumped in the country's
largest oil- and gas-producing region. Some companies that reported
little or no damage said they could not resume pumping because power
had not been restored to pipelines that transport oil and gas
ashore.
Some areas of the Gulf off southwest Louisiana and
Texas were relatively untouched, while companies reported platforms
listing in areas south of Grand Isle.
The Minerals Management
Service, which regulates oil and gas operations offshore, estimates
almost 350,000 barrels of oil per day is flowing from Gulf
platforms, which normally produce 1.5 million barrels
daily.
Natural gas production is also cut back. The Minerals
Management Service estimates only 42 percent of the gas that
normally flows is being produced.
But production is
rebounding. The agency said that since Sunday, oil production has
increased 5 percent and gas production 2 percent.
The
estimates are based on reports by 67 companies, which represent
about 63 percent of the companies operating in the
Gulf. ExxonMobil's operations south of Grand Isle suffered
damage, said
Mark Boudreaux, media manager in Dallas, and
the company is evaluating a temporary move of its Gulf support base
from Grand Isle to Port Fourchon. He said the majority of the
equipment is stable.
The company shut in wells eastward along
the Louisiana coast, Boudreaux said, and is bringing wells in Mobile
Bay, which produce primarily gas, back into operation.
On
Monday, Exxon was producing two-thirds of its normal oil and gas
yield.
Shell Oil did not release figures but said some of its
deepwater platforms, which produce significant amounts oil and gas,
are running in the western Gulf.
In the eastern Gulf, where
the storm ripped through, progress is slower. The company is still
evaluating damage at its deepwater Mars, Ursa and Cognac platforms
and at its west Delta field. At other platforms, the company is
inspecting and repairing damage to platforms and onshore processing
facilities.
Boudreaux said Exxon's Baton Rouge refinery is
running at maximum capacity, refining 500,000 barrels of oil per day
into gasoline and other products. Exxon's Chalmette refinery remains
shut because of flooding, he said.
BP said most of its damage
was in the shallow waters of the Gulf. The company's signature
Holstein Spar was back in production Monday, said spokeswoman Annie
Smith, but 10 platforms in shallow waters offshore southeast
Louisiana were toppled or listing.
The only place the company
was affected was south of Grand Isle where the storm went over, she
said. "All of the deepwater came through fine."
However, the
company still has a significant amount of production shut in, she
said, because power has not been restored to the pipeline
system.
Specialists working for
the New Orleans Notorial Archives have been stymied in trying to
enter the city and rescue some of the most historic documents in the
city's history, from original land grants to slave sale records and
title records.
Federal troops have refused to let them
through checkpoints into the city.
The Notorial Archives
hired Munters Corp., a Swedish document-salvage firm that freezes
and then freeze-dries records to slowly remove moisture from them.
But Munters' refrigerated trucks were turned away by uniformed
troops as they tried to enter the city, said Stephen Bruno,
custodian of the archives.
The trucks were headed to the
Civil District Courthouse on Poydras Street, where many of the
city's real estate documents are housed, and to the Amoco building
at 1340 Poydras St., which houses historic documents such as a
letter from Jean Lafitte to Washington demanding for his
expenditures during the Battle of New Orleans.
Eddy Pokluda,
head of national sales for Munters in Dallas, said the company tried
to get one person in to make an assessment of the damage but was
turned away, even though days earlier they had arranged with New
Orleans Police Department to have an escort into the city.
"I
don't think people realize the importance of these records. It's
imperative we get in there and see if these can be saved,'' Pokluda
said.
"These records are a historic treasure trove (that)
would go to the Vatican or Smithsonian and be under armed guards and
in vaults," Bruno said. "This is extremely frustrating.''
"Of
course, the most important thing is the people and the bodies, but
now we're really considered about the records,'' he
said.
Most governments have digitized their real estate
records, and Bruno was just about to hire a firm to transfer many of
the documents in the archive to the computer.
But at the
Notorial Archives, most abstractors still do hand searches of the 12
million stored documents.
"We're still in the horse-and-buggy
days," Bruno said.
Bruno was quick to point out that
homeowners shouldn't worry about others making claim to their
properties. Further, "there won't be any (real estate) transactions
until this problem is solved. Sure, a lot of people are going to
want to sell and a lot of speculators are going to want to buy." But
without access to the records by abstractors, "It isn't going to
happen,'' Bruno said.
From a second-story balcony overlooking a wrecked Canal
Street, Patrick Quinn and the last of his senior hotel managers laid
out their plan for reopening the Astor Crown Plaza Hotel.
First, they will bring in a bigger generator to get lights
and air conditioning working in the 512-room, four-star property at
739 Canal Street.
Then they will bring a crew into the city
to clean the hotel, and they will line up vendors to deliver
supplies. Finally, and perhaps most critical, they must get
fresh water flowing through the hotel's plumbing. But there is no
way of knowing when the city will restore water service.
"One of the toughest things for us will be that there will
be some things beyond our control," Quinn said.
If
everything works as planned, the Astor could be housing soldiers and
federal emergency workers within weeks, he said.
"It's going
to be hell, but we'll just take it one step at a time," said Bruce
Perone, the hotel's food and beverage director.
It was
perhaps surreal to have discussions late Saturday night about
revitalizing a hotel when the mere survival of people still trapped
in New Orleans was in question nearly a week after Hurricane
Katrina.
But Quinn's optimism offered evidence that at least
some of the city's leading business people are determined to return
and lead an economic resurrection.
Every half hour or so, a
truck passed along the neutral ground of Canal Street below the
balcony carrying four heavily armed soldiers. Just before midnight,
gunfire erupted a block and a half up the street from the hotel when
a security truck focused a spotlight on a building. Overhead,
helicopters buzzed over the French Quarter, illuminating the
deserted streets below. The only other sound came from humming
generators feeding electricity to the handful of downtown hotels
still occupied.
Even insects seemed to have abandoned the
city.
The night sky was filled with a canopy of stars
normally made invisible by the city's glare.
But amid the
grim reality gripping New Orleans, Quinn and his managers could see
the seeds of rebirth.
Quinn, one of the most successful
hoteliers in the city, opened a string of high-end properties over
the last 16 years that fed off a booming tourism and convention
business.
But tourists and conventioneers likely won't be
returning anytime soon.
"One of the biggest issues six
months and a year from now will be the customers come back," Quinn
said.
"Conventions are going to be terrified of booking here
during hurricane season," Astor General Manager Peter Ambrose said.
So Quinn is turning his entrepreneurial sights on what likely
will be the city's biggest industry for the coming years:
reconstruction.
Despite the massive challenges, he held out
hope his businesses and his hometown.
"I've never even
thought about the alternative of rebuilding," he said. "I've seen
places like Pensacola and Destin devastated by hurricanes, and a few
years later they were back.
"A lot of people go through
adversity, and they put it away and move forward," he said. "New
Orleans is a great town, and it needs to survive."
Quinn
might be focused on the future, but the remnants of his staff at the
Astor won't soon forget the last seven harrowing days. Ambrose
and Perone saw the forecasts promising a menacing storm aiming for
New Orleans, and they heeded the warnings.
The managers
started preparing Friday. They filled dozens of garbage cans with
2,000 gallons of water. They made 8,000 pounds of ice and stuffed it
into kitchen freezers. They increased their stockpiles of food. And
they collected medical supplies.
They didn't want any
guests, but they knew they would come.
By Sunday night,
nearly 2,000 were hunkered down at the Astor. Many simply showed up
at the front door, desperate for safe lodging. The guests
included 20 people in wheelchairs, an elderly man with a feeding
tube, a woman who gave birth by Caesarian section the night before
the storm hit, and a 400-pound man with a bad heart who was confined
to his room.
As conditions in the hotel deteriorated last
week, the staff recruited guests to help cook and clean. A minister
in the group organized daily prayer services.
Once the storm
moved through, managers started moving guests out, an evacuation
that took days. "We saved a lot of people's lives, I swear to
God," Perone said.
He and Ambrose said they won't leave the
Astor unless authorities force them out.
"This is our
livelihood. This is what we do," Perone said. "We came here to
protect our futures."
Staff writer Keith Darcé can be
reached at nolapaperboy@cox.net.
River Parish schools scrambling to fill holes in
schedules
Coaches seek replacements for teams from Orleans,
Jefferson parishes
By Lori Lyons River Parishes
bureau
Just west of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane
Katrina, life slowly is returning to normal.
Electricity is
back on, phones are starting to ring, displaced people are returning
to their homes. But the surest sign that life goes on is the fact
that high school football will be played in the River Parishes on
Friday.
St. James will host Terrebonne at 7 p.m. Friday, and
Lutcher will play at St. Amant at the same time.
"We know
it's not the most important thing," St. James coach Rick Gaille
said. "But it does give some sign that normalcy for everybody could
be right around the corner."
As of Monday, no other River
Parish school had scheduled games for Friday night. Riverside coach
Mickey Roussel was trying. Lutcher, East St. John and Riverside
practiced.
"We tried," Lutcher coach Tim Detillier
said.
Throughout the River Parishes, officials were trying to
get life back to normal and school administrators were working to
reopen schools.
Meanwhile, coaches were trying to salvage
their seasons. Most were busy working the phones, trying to find
opponents for dates that once were set aside for schools from
Jefferson and Orleans parishes, which likely will not have
seasons.
"I know what we've got this week," Detillier said.
"We'll talk about next week next week."
St. James Parish
schools were to reopen today. St. Charles parish teachers are to
report Monday and plans are to reopen schools sometime next week.
St. John the Baptist Parish also has set a tentative start date of
Sept. 12.
Detillier held a brief practice Monday with
approximately 80 percent of his players in attendance. Roussel said
he was missing six players.
"Some kids still don't have
power," Detillier said. "Some just didn't know. We're just trying to
return to some normalcy."
At East St. John, a telephone chain
was put together Sunday night and a team meeting was held Monday
morning.
"We had a couple missing," Coach Larry Dauterive
said. Among them was 6-foot-6, 315-pound offensive lineman Jamarr
Thompson, who played Friday night for Evangel Christian Academy in
Shreveport.
"They evacuated and were told that a church in
Shreveport was taking in people," Dauterive said. "It happened to be
Evangel's church. But he came to my house last night. He's
back."
As of Monday, Dauterive had five games on his
schedule, including one against St. James next week. He also plans
to play East Ascension in Gonzales and Assumption. He also can play
West Monroe in Monroe if Assumption will agree to move its game back
a week.
But Dauterive has no idea about the status of West
Jefferson and Ehret, both located on the West Bank of Jefferson
Parish.
"We just want to get on the field," Dauterive said.
"We're going to have practice every day at 9 a.m. We need to get our
stamina back."
West St. John coach Laury Dupont also wants to
get his team back to work. But the facility is still without power
after the school's transformer blew during the storm. Dupont was
planning to make a trip from his home in Thibodaux to Edgard today
to assess damage to his facilities, and he was meeting with his
coaching staff today following a meeting of parish principals and
supervisors.
"We're going to try to play," Dupont said. "I
would like to try to play. I can't say we will. But if there is any
way possible, we will."
The good news for the Rams is that
their schedule remains largely intact. All of their district
opponents are located to the northwest and escaped Katrina's
wrath.
Hahnville coach Lou Valdin was scrambling Monday
morning, his first day back in the office since the storm. He
scheduled a meeting for 4 p.m. Thursday and, in the meantime,
attempted to fill his schedule.
"I know I've got three games
- East St. John, Destrehan and Assumption," Valdin said. "I don't
know what the deal is with West Jefferson or Ehret. I'm scrambling
for games. But a lot of teams have already rescheduled."
"The
Hahnville Tigers will have a season," Valdin said. "We may be road
warriors, but we'll be playing. Right now, it's not about winning
and losing. It's about playing."
Stadium escapes damage, but many workers displaced by
storm
By Jim Kleinpeter Staff
writer
BATON ROUGE - LSU officials are confident that all
seats in Tiger Stadium's renovated west upper deck will be available
for the Sept. 24 game with Tennessee despite construction delays
caused by Hurricane Katrina.
The $60 million project suffered
only "minimal damage" during the hurricane but the aftermath has
drawn away workers from that project and the football operations
center. But Herb Vincent, LSU's associate athletic director for
internal affairs, said every ticket holder should have a seat when
the No. 3 Vols come to town, unless the game is moved.
"The
impact affected us not physically but more from a work force
standpoint," Vincent said. "We have all the confidence in the world
that by Sept. 24 we'll have a full house."
That was the date
originally targeted during preseason for the new capacity in the
81-year-old stadium, somewhere between 92,300 and 92,400. About
1,500-2,000 seats were not going to be ready for the first two
scheduled games against North Texas and Arizona State. But the North
Texas game is in the process of being rescheduled and the Arizona
State game has been moved to the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Ariz.,
because LSU is being used as an evacuation site for medical refugees
from New Orleans. The possibility exists that the Tennessee game
could be moved but that game is still more than two weeks
away.
Gen. Ron Richard, CEO of Tiger Athletic Foundation,
which is financing the project, said he was pleased that the stadium
came through the hurricane with only some minor water damage. The
day after Katrina struck, the massive cranes working on the project
were back up and some of the Yates Construction workers and
subcontractor crews returned to work, but many of the workers were
from areas hit hardest by the storm.
"Worked slowed down and
it was justifiable," Richard said. "A lot of the subcontractors and
people who work for Yates live in Mississippi, Slidell, New Orleans,
Houma and Thibodaux.
"There's been a general slowdown because
some of these companies are no longer in existence and some of these
people are still searching for loved ones. Some have returned and
some have not. The good news is we've seen an increase in the work
force."
Richard said the pace has picked up and that more
than half of the work force is back on the job. The final section of
treads and risers has been fitted into place so from the outside the
deck looks complete. Work is continuing on the club level and press
box. Large sheets of visqueen seal the back of the club section
where next season large glass windows will provide club members with
a panoramic view to the west and the Mississippi River.
"The
upper deck looks good," Richard said. "The upper concourse has some
work to be done in the restroom and concession area, and that's all
done by subcontractors. The plumbing, the electrical, the sprinkler
system. . . The complexity of this is huge and to shut it down and
build it up again is difficult."
Richard said one of the
restrooms in the upper concourse still needs some
work.
School officials have said all along that work would
continue through the season and that the project probably would not
be complete until after the season. The club section will be without
carpet and other finishing touches.
"We're setting up a time
schedule and relooking at it from tomorrow all the way up to the
Tennessee game," he said.
Work on the football operations
center has also been delayed by the loss of workers, but the first
floor is functional. The team has moved into the locker room and the
training room and weight room are up and running. Before the
hurricane, coaches were scheduled to move into their second floor
offices Friday, but Vincent said he wasn't sure if that was still
scheduled to happen.
By Benjamin Hochman and Fred
Robinson Staff writers
DALLAS - The Tulane football
team will practice and attend classes at Louisiana Tech this
semester, a source close to the situation has confirmed.
The
rest of Tulane's athletic teams will be split onto four other
campuses - Rice, Southern Methodist, Texas Tech and Texas A&M,
where the men's basketball team will call home.
The Tulane
athletic headquarters - including the office of Athletic Director
Rick Dickson - will be in Dallas, where the football team is
currently practicing at SMU.
Tulane will not hold classes
this semester, because of damage done by Hurricane
Katrina.
On Monday afternoon, Tulane coach Chris Scelfo,
Associate Athletic Director Scott Sidwell and Director of Football
Operations Dennis Polian visited the Louisiana Tech.
The
football team will play its home games, however, down the road in
Shreveport at the Independence Bowl.
"That would be
logical," Dickson said on Monday.
"We're offering (Tulane)
the stadium free of charge," said Ken Antee, the chief
administration officer for the city of Shreveport. "We'll put the
games on for them from an operating standpoint - ticketing,
security, EMS. We can seat 50,000, and have the capability to add
another 2,000 seats. The good thing is you can get 25,000 in there
and it looks full."
Louisiana Tech's Joe Aillet Stadum is
only available for three of Tulane's six scheduled "home" games. The
Independence Bowl does not have any college games scheduled during
this season.
Antee is confident in the facility, saying, "We
spent $35 million renovating Independence Bowl Stadium that was
completed four years ago. Everything from the ground up; everything
except the seats is brand new."
Antee said to "put on" a game
in the past cost the city $15,000 to $20,000.
"But we'll get
it back through the concessions contract," he said. "We're not
looking at making money off of this, we want to help in any way we
can."
Louisiana Tech has not begun classes. The school is on
the quarter system and classes begin Sept. 12.
And, the
school has an approximately 600-bed dormitory available. The
Green Wave's first game was postponed, so the next game on its
schedule in Sept. 17, when it hosts Mississippi State. Dickson said
playing the game in Starkville, Miss., is "a last consideration."
O'Keefe hopes LSU will host Tennessee at Tiger
Stadium
By William Kalec Staff
writer
BATON ROUGE - Les Miles will make his technical "home"
opener, two times zones and a different kind of heat away from Tiger
Stadium.
After insisting all week that LSU would do whatever
it could to keep this Saturday's contest against No. 20 Arizona
State in the familiar muggy confines of Tiger Stadium, logistical
concerns created by Hurricane Katrina forced the game to be moved to
Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Ariz.
For the past week, several
LSU athletic facilities have been transformed into medical centers
and shelters for evacuees of Hurricane Katrina. That coupled with
the lack of hotel space for Arizona State players, game and
conference official, plus the ESPN crew, were factors in the
switch.
Original tickets issued for the Arizona State-LSU
game at Tiger Stadium are valid for exchange and admittance at Sun
Devil Stadium on Saturday, but those wishing to do so must contact
the LSU ticket office -- (225) 578-2184 or (800) 960-8587 -- by 2
p.m. Wednesday.
After Arizona State covers the cost of
hosting the event, proceeds will be donated to relief effort funds.
Both schools signed a home-and-home agreement for 2005 and 2008.
Though this year's game is being moved, the Sun Devils will keep
their 2008 home game but are committed to make a return trip to
Baton Rouge in the future, LSU athletic director Skip Bertman
said.
"No athletic director would want his football coach to
open up on the road with a top 20 team and lose home-field
advantage," Bertman said. "Chancellor (Sean O'Keefe) and a group of
athletic department people worked for a long time trying to solve
every problem. But in the end there were some concerns that we just
couldn't control."
LSU is scheduled to begin its actual home
campaign Sept. 24 against No. 3 Tennessee -- the latest Tiger
Stadium opener since 1977 -- but that is contingent on a steady,
positive progression of events across North Stadium
Drive.
"It's hard to tell," O'Keefe said, about the Tennessee
game. "At this juncture though, all the signs, all the trends are
moving in the right direction."
Alternative regional sites
were considered for this Saturday's contest.
"We thought of
everything," Bertman said. "From going to the University of
Mississippi, which is vacant this Saturday, to Shreveport. But there
were reasons why we decided on this trip and they are pretty solid.
I don't think anything would have been better than this
trip."
Moving the game, however, takes away a major payday
from LSU, which like most Division I-A athletic programs relies on
football profits to support its non-revenue sports. LSU is still in
discussions with several Sun Belt Conference schools to maneuver
dates so that it may host North Texas on Oct. 29 after last week's
postponement.
"There is no question the budget works out to
seven games," Bertman said. "There is no question about
it."
Bertman said it's possible the athletic department could
make up some of that difference should Tiger Stadium host some or
all of the New Orleans Saints' seven home games, but O'Keefe earlier
stated that the franchise only made contact with the university
Sunday and that talks are preliminary.
After a week of
uncertainty, several LSU players expressed relief in final knowing
the site of their opener.
"Every time I watched -- at least
an SEC game -- I'm like, 'WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYING THIS
WEEKEND!" LSU wide receiver Skyler Green said. "So it's going to be
an exciting game. I think if we go and have a lot of our fan base,
it will be a good game."
Hornets brass heads to Baton Rouge in search of
place to play 'home' games
President reiterates team is
committed to N.O. for the long term
By Jimmy
Smith Staff writer
BATON ROUGE - Two members of the
Hornets' front office will make their way to Baton Rouge from
Houston today to begin scouting possible locations for the team to
play "home" games this season.
Team president Paul Mott said
Sam Russo and Steve Martin will begin discussions with LSU and local
officials about the availability of the Pete Maravich Assembly
Center or the River Center. The River Center is managed by SMG, the
group that also runs New Orleans Arena, the club's permanent
home.
In the face of uncertainty regarding the future of the
city's other professional franchise, the Saints, Mott reassured
citizens Monday that Hornets owner George Shinn's primary objective
is to stay and play in New Orleans for the long term.
"George
has made that very clear," Mott said. "We have a community to help
rebuild, an identity there, and a city that appreciates us. The
feeling is mutual. We're fortunate to have a hometown that cares
about us.
"If we can stay in the state this season, and help
the community get back on its feet, it works all the way
around."
There have been rumors of a potential Hornets
relocation to Las Vegas, perhaps permanently, though that doesn't
make financial sense for the NBA. The league eventually could place
an expansion franchise there with a conservative price tag of a
half-billion dollars, which would be split equally among the 30 NBA
owners.
Las Vegas will host the 2007 NBA All-Star
Game.
Officials in Oklahoma City and San Diego also have
offered arenas to the Hornets, displaced for at least the beginning
of the regular season by damage from Hurricane Katrina.
Mott
said the Hornets also will look into the possibilities of playing
games in Bossier City, where the team has an exhibition game
scheduled Oct. 25 against the Miami Heat, or the Cajundome in
Lafayette, where the team played an exhibition game last
year.
Monroe or Hammond are other in-state
possibilities.
"I can't speak for the league," Mott said
Monday from Houston, where he has joined marketing director Tim
McDougal and others working out of temporary quarters at the Houston
Rockets' Toyota Center. "But my guess is the league wants us to find
a suitable, temporary solution that allows us to properly conduct
the NBA season and do it in a way that doesn't kill our business.
They, as we, would like to re-establish business in New Orleans when
we get back on our feet."
Mott said no direct contact has
been made with LSU officials, but expects Russo, the team's business
manager, and Martin will do that after they arrive.
"We're
hoping that in a relatively short time, the picture will become
clearer," Mott said. "Perhaps by next week."
Team officials still trying to resolve 'home'
sites
By Mike Triplett Staff writer
SAN
ANTONIO - The Saints officially began their San Antonio residency
Monday with an afternoon practice under a blazing sun at the city
school district's Spring Sports Complex.
This is home for the
next four months, now that the team has decided to set up its base
of operations here for the season, allowing players and members of
the organization to move their families and put their kids in school
if they so choose.
Practice was a little sloppy, players and
Coach Jim Haslett admitted, but they said the effort was good after
a three-day weekend. The Saints said they were eager to get back
into a routine, even if this will be a season like no
other.
The Saints still do not know where they will play
their final seven home games. But they do know the season-opener is
at Carolina on Sunday.
"We're pretty excited to get the
season started," quarterback Aaron Brooks said. "We know it was a
tragic thing happening, but at the same time, we know that this week
is the week that we have to prepare to get ready for the
game.
"I think the fans want to see us go out and get
prepared for this game against Carolina more than
anything."
Players learned Sunday night and Monday morning
that they would be spending the season in San Antonio. It didn't
come as much of a surprise since there were few other realistic
options.
A few players expressed a desire to play their home
games here, too, so they wouldn't have to travel every weekend. Most
said they wanted to play as close to their fan base as
possible.
And they all said they didn't want to feel sorry
for themselves after seeing up close for the first time this past
weekend what the residents of their city and the Gulf Coast have
endured.
"Other than us staying here for a while, I don't see
myself as a victim," said receiver Donte Stallworth, one of several
Saints who planned to visit area evacuee shelters Monday night and
Tuesday morning. "Other people lost everything, they don't know
where they're going to get that next meal, their next drink of
water. That's what's going to keep me focused. I'm not going to
worry about my situation as much.
"I was talking to my
brother and I told him that's motivation for me. The people of New
Orleans are looking at us."
San Antonio and Baton Rouge still
seem like the most likely candidates for the Saints' final seven
home games - they will play their first scheduled home game against
the New York Giants at Giants Stadium on Monday night, Sept.
19.
Haslett and General Manager Mickey Loomis said they would
prefer to play in Baton Rouge during a Sunday night press
conference. But sentiment appears to be mixed at the upper levels
of the organization.
After reports surfaced and a source
inside the organization indicated that team owner Tom Benson was
pushing hard for San Antonio - possibly beyond this season - the
team announced its firm commitment to New Orleans in the press
conference.
"Although we are practicing here in San Antonio
and we're trying to locate a place for our home games, we are still
the New Orleans Saints, and our commitment to our city is stronger
than ever," Loomis said, also announcing the formation of the New
Orleans Saints Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund. "We have many goals to
accomplish, and one of them is to become a leader in the
revitalization of New Orleans. We want to be on the forefront of
making our city stronger. Our team is representing the state of
Louisiana and the city of New Orleans, and we'll take that
responsibility seriously."
Benson walked past reporters
during Monday's practice and declined comment, but he said that he
was "about up to here right now," raising his hand to his
neck.
Benson, a New Orleans native with longstanding business
and personal ties to San Antonio, has not commented about the team's
future in the past week. He said he might be ready to comment within
a few days.
Benson's brother Larry, who lives in San Antonio,
where he is involved with the family's auto dealership business,
said Benson's spirits have been "pretty good, surprisingly." But he
said he had no indication of Benson's plans for the
teams.
Benson has been in touch with NFL commissioner Paul
Tagliabue, and also plans to meet with him in the near future.
Tagliabue will ultimately make the decision.
LSU chancellor
Sean O'Keefe said the Saints made preliminary contact with a member
of the university's Board of Supervisors on Sunday. But he said he
was not sure if the school would be able to accommodate the
Saints.
"It depends on the terms and conditions," O'Keefe
said. "We still don't know what the parameters are. I can't tell you
whether I approve or object to anything. Preliminary discussions
just started, first contact has been made. What we'll agree to do is
share a cup of coffee, start talking and we'll see where the
discussion goes."
Publicly, San Antonio is not campaigning
for the Saints games, but some officials are working behind the
scenes to try and make it happen.
FAMILY STORIES:
Reunited father and son, Lester Vallet Sr. and Jr., were at Monday's
practice and happily announced that they located Lester Sr.'s wife
in Lafayette. The current and former members of the Saints'
facilities staff were reunited when members of the team visited the
KellyUSA shelter in San Antonio on Sunday, where Lester Sr. had been
evacuated. Lester Sr. has been staying at the team hotel but will
leave to pick up his wife in Lafayette today.
Saints
receiver Michael Lewis, a native New Orleanian, visited his family
members this past weekend but could not convince his grandparents to
leave their home in River Ridge, where they have no power. But he
did give them the keys to his home in LaPlace, and they agreed to
spend their nights there.
Mississippi native Fred McAfee was
thrilled and stunned to see his 5-year-old niece, Jaihana, being
rescued from her New Orleans home on ABC's Nightline, along with her
mother and grandparents. McAfee said he immediately called his
brother, who was in Philadelphia, Miss., as did another family
member. McAfee said his brother had been worried sick about his
family, with whom he has been reunited.
BATON
ROUGE - Apparently, Les Miles is a Thursday kinda guy.
With
most state media outlets and a sprinkling of national correspondents
present at the coach's inaugural weekly Monday press conference,
Miles deferred another three days on announcing whether JaMarcus
Russell or Matt Flynn will be LSU's starting quarterback. When asked
whether he already knew which player would line up under center
Saturday night in Tempe, Ariz., Miles let out a coy smile but
refused to reveal his hand.
Other position battles seem to be
temporarily solved. Redshirt freshman Brett Helms beat out incumbent
Will Arnold at left guard, according to an updated depth chart.
Sophomore Chevis Jackson held off competition from senior Mario
Stevenson and will start at right cornerback.
FOND
MEMORIES: While disappointed not to be in Tiger Stadium this
weekend, senior receiver Skyler Green wasn't too upset over the
switch out to Arizona. Back in 2003, Green recorded his first
collegiate punt return for a touchdown in Tucson during a blowout of
Arizona. After the return, Green high-fived a couple of Tiger fans
leaning over the rail of their end zone seats and was penalized 15
yards for unsportsmanlike conduct.
"I won't be high-fiving
anybody," Green joked.
HEALTH UPDATE: Miles said
linebacker E.J. Kuale, who injured his ankle in mid-August, probably
will not be available against the Sun Devils. Curtis product Jason
Spadoni will start in his place.
Saints to be part of ground-breaking MNF
doubleheader
N.O. to kick off 'home' opener in New Jersey at 6
p.m.
By Mike Triplett Staff writer
SAN
ANTONIO - The Saints will lead off an unprecedented "Monday Night
Football" doubleheader against the New York Giants on Sept. 19, the
NFL announced Monday.
The game was originally scheduled to be
played in New Orleans on Sept. 18 but was moved to Giants Stadium in
the wake of Hurricane Katrina's destruction. The game also was moved
to Monday night because the New York Jets are hosting the Miami
Dolphins in Giants Stadium on that Sunday.
The NFL plans to
use the Monday night showcase to highlight the national hurricane
relief effort, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said in a
statement.
The Saints' game will kick off at 6:30 p.m and be
televised nationally on ABC until 8 p.m.
At that time, the
regularly scheduled Monday night game between the Dallas Cowboys and
Washington Redskins will be shown on ABC, while the remainder of the
Saints-Giants game will be switched to ESPN - except in New York,
Louisiana and selected hurricane-affected areas, where the Saints
game will continue on ABC.
Fund-raising efforts will be
intertwined with the broadcasts of both games.
"We appreciate
the leadership of ABC and ESPN in helping us turn this particular
Monday night into far more than a prime-time football doubleheader,
making it part of the overall Gulf Coast relief effort," Tagliabue
said in the statement. "The New Orleans Saints know the importance
of rising to help meet the Gulf Coast's extraordinary challenges,
and we salute them, too."
The Saints were neither excited nor
openly critical about the league's decision to play their "home
game" in New York's home stadium. Coach Jim Haslett off-handedly
remarked that the commissioner "put us behind the 8-ball." By the
end of this month, the team will have traveled to Oakland, Carolina,
New York and Minnesota in consecutive weeks, while also moving its
entire operation to San Antonio.
"But everything that's gone
on with the city and with this football team the last two weeks,
that's probably one of the least of our concerns is playing on the
road an extra game," Haslett said. "We actually play pretty good on
the road."
Information on ticket sales is expected to be
announced by the Giants in the near future.
The Saints will
still get the home team's share of the revenue from the game, though
some exact details will still be worked out in the financial
department. Both teams plan to donate a share of the revenue to
relief efforts.
Memphis loses game, but Doucette feels like
winner
Tight end's family arrives after in town escaping
catastrophe
By Ted Lewis Staff
Writer
MEMPHIS, TENN. - University of Memphis senior tight
end John Doucette didn't cry at the end of the Tigers' tough 10-6
season-opening loss to Ole Miss in Memphis on Monday.
He'd
already shed his tears Saturday. Tears of joy.
That was when
Doucette's 5-year-old nephew, Hasharon Lindzey, called out, "Hey,
Big John," letting him know that his family had completed a
harrowing journey from the rooftop of their home in New Orleans, to
two days of horror in the Superdome, to a late-night escape, and
finally to Memphis where they arrived with no money and only some
donated clothes.
"That's when I finally broke down," the St.
Augustine graduate said. "It lifted my heart right out of my
body."
Doucette's parents and five others, including his
pregnant sister Yoshe Mitchell, rode out Hurricane Katrina on Monday
night in their home near Elysian Fields, but when the water started
rising Tuesday, they had to be rescued, only to be taken to the
Superdome.
"My mama said all they could do was get in a
corner and try to protect the women and children," Doucette said.
"It was like living in the cave days."
Somehow, Doucette's
father got his family out Thursday night, found a car and made it to
Crowley, where other family members had taken shelter.
They
decided to join Doucette in Memphis the next day.
"This week
has been hell for me," said Doucette, who had one catch for 11 yards
Monday. "I tried to stay focused on football, but outside of
practice, my head was everywhere.
"People were calling me
telling me everything was going to be OK. But they weren't the ones
I wanted to hear from."
Doucette's family, now living with
him, was at the game Monday.
Today, they try to sort out what
to do with their lives - relocate to Memphis or wait until they can
return to New Orleans. "We don't know what the house is like or
anything," Doucette said. "I think they're going to stay here with
me."
Doucette, along with two other New Orleanians, noseguard
LaVale Washington from St. Augustine and linebacker Mike Snyder from
John Curtis, served as Memphis' captains Monday.
"That meant
a lot to us," Doucette said. "This was a special day for
me.
"The only thing that would have made it better would have
been winning."
Wilson's World
Across the field
Monday, Ole Miss running backs coach Frank Wilson was celebrating,
and not just the fact that he had been on the winning side his first
game as a college coach.
Fifty-six members of Wilson's family
made their way last week to Oxford, Miss., where they are settling
in until they can return to New Orleans.
Some of them were in
attendance Monday,
"There's light at the end of the tunnel,"
said Wilson, the former O. Perry Walker coach and athletic director
for Orleans Parish public schools before he joined first-year coach
Ed Oregeron's staff in January. "After all we had been through this
week, it was great to lose myself in the moment."
Wilson
credited the Ole Miss family for taking in many of his family
members, some in houses, some in apartments. About half of them are
children who will begin school next week.
"It was a lot of
work getting them settled and then getting ready for the game," said
Wilson, who lost his home in Slidell in the hurricane. "But when I
was at work, I just concentrated on that and tried to forget
everything else.
"It was so disheartening to see things at
home. But I just prayed and went on working."
Wilson wasn't
the only Ole Miss coach whose family evacuated to Oxford. Seven
members of Orgeron's family spent the week in Oxford before
purchasing generators Saturday and returning to Lafourche
Parish.
Driving to the Heisman
For much of the
summer Jennifer Rodrigues has been the toast of the sports
information directors' world. Her NASCAR-themed promotional
campaign for Memphis running back DeAngelo Williams has gained
favorable attention from many major media outlets.
But this
week, Rodrigues, a Slidell native, had to split her concentration
between getting things ready for the ESPN-televised game and
worrying about the whereabouts of her grandparents, Milton and Ruth
Chauffe. They were last heard from Tuesday from their home in
Jefferson near Ochsner Hospital.
"It's been a hard week,"
Rodrigues said. "Until Wednesday we didn't know about my other
grandfather and my uncle and aunt. "Finding out about them took a
load off."
Rodrigues' parents, Milton and Laura Chauffe,
evacuated to Memphis before Katrina hit. They returned to Slidell on
Friday to find their home in Kingspoint, the one in which Rodrigues
grew up, had taken at least five feet of water.
"Everything
has been so stressful," Rodrigues said. "I focused on my job, but
sometimes it hit me that this was just a football game and there
were people I loved that I couldn't find."
After the game,
Rodrigues said she was as drained as she had been in her
life.
"I'm done for today though," she said. "Now I can
concentrate on my family."
Cheering to keep from
crying
For the first time in six years, Ronnie and
Barbara Wimprine of River Ridge weren't planning on attending a
Memphis home game, son Danny having graduated after last season with
a host of school passing records.
But Hurricane Katrina has
had a way of changing things for just about everyone.
The
Wimprines have spent the past week there after being diverted from
Calgary, Alberta, where Danny, who prepped at John Curtis is now in
the Canadian Football League.
So Monday, they were tailgating
with hordes of other Tigers fans, both sporting booster shirts given
to them because they wanted to be appropriately dressed.
"If
we couldn't go home, there's no better place to go to than here,"
Ronnie Wimprine said. "We've made so many friends here over the
years because of Danny.:
"Coming out here today helps us
forget things for a while, although you do get tired telling your
story over and over again." For Barbara Wimprine, it has been an
emotionally wrenching week, even though they know their home is
relatively unscathed. "I've had my moments," she said. "I start
thinking about friends we know who have lost so much, and it's all
boo-boo."
"The other day I ran into some people from Slidell
in the grocery store, and we all just started crying
together."
Making the time more bearable for Barbara Wimprine
is that Memphis is a second home. Daughter Joanne lives
here.
"I can't count the people we've heard from this week,"
she said. "You can't walk five feet out here today without somebody
wanting to hug you.
"It's wonderful to know you have
friends."
The Wimprines won't stay in Memphis for
long.
Ronnie is the owner of Elmwood Construction, which
specializes in insurance repair, and he has spent the past week
gathering generators, building supplies, extra gas and a truck to
take to take back to Jefferson Parish on Thursday so that he can get
his crew of 16 to work as soon as possible. Barbara Wimprine is his
bookkeeper.
"First we've got to help everyone get their
homes squared away," he said. "And then as soon as the power is up,
we'll start on jobs.
"This is what I do for a living. The
policemen, firemen, medical people and so forth have their jobs to
do and this is mine."
Home away from
home
Conference USA commissioner Britton Banowsky spent
much of last week helping Tulane and Southern Miss make living
arrangements in Dallas and Memphis.
"It was wonderful to be
able to make a difference by lending a helping hand," he said. "We
were able to rally support for Tulane and Southern Miss and we felt
like it was really appreciated.
"It was really phenomenal to
see it happen. Everybody offered to do whatever they could
do."
Banowsky admitted there were times when it seemed like
keeping the Tulane football season alive, plus the Green Wave's
other fall sports, seemed almost impossible.
"There were
moments when it didn't look like we could go forward," he said. "But
the deeper we got into it, it became clearer that it was more
important to go forward because it represented so many of the things
we need right now.
"The Tulane student-athletes are
remarkable."
Moving on
Other than the three New
Orleanians serving as captains and a moment of silence before the
game, there was no recognition of Katrina's effects on the teams and
in Ole Miss' case the affected state.
That was quite a
contrast from the scene in Starkville, Miss., on Saturday, where
Mississippi State and Murray State teams walked onto the field
before the game and lined up on sidelines before Bulldogs athletic
director Larry Templeton and Coach Sylvester Croom addressed the
crowd via a taped message on the scoreboard video
screen.
Also, while the Tulane players attended last
Saturday's SMU-Baylor game in Dallas, the Southern Miss players and
staff, who are staying in Memphis through this week, opted to watch
the game from a hotel ballroom.
"They've been going though
two-a-days again," Banowsky said. "Their coaches decided they didn't
need to be out baking in the sun any more than
necessary."
Local PGA Tour golfer Kelly
Gibson is trying to help out in the relief effort.
He joined
the Coast Guard at relief kitchens in Metairie and visited the site
of the breach in the 17th Street Canal that spilled water from Lake
Pontchartrain into Orleans Parish.
Unable to use a cell
phone, Gibson conveyed this message via text message.
"I am
at a Coast Guard area where the canal broke … It just rained all
over my stuff … I slept in a car where it was 90 degrees at 2 a.m. …
I met the commander of the Coast Guard … We are being guarded by
(soldiers) carrying M-16 rifles … We're trying to feed 300 workers
and military personnel by the end of the day … Please help me raise
awareness for the relief fund. It is beyond belief the destruction
over here.''
Gibson's last text message arrived at 5:56 a.m.
Monday.
Remainder of schedule, except game vs. TU, to be
played as planned
By Tammy Nunez Staff
writer
Though many parts of the north shore are projected to
be without electricity Saturday night, there will be a tower of
lights shining down on Strawberry Stadium at Southeastern Louisiana
University. The Lions' football game against Alcorn State will be
played as scheduled at 6:30 p.m., according to Coach Dennis
Roland.
There are details to be worked out, such as lining up
security and gate officials, but Roland said Monday that the
university is ready to host the game and should proceed with the
remainder of its schedule as planned, with the exception of the
Tulane game. The Tulane game was scheduled for Oct. 1 at Tad Gormley
Stadium, but the location likely will change, Roland
said.
But for now, the season is on, whether the team is
ready or not. The Lions missed a week of practice and its season
opener Sept. 1 against Jacksonville. The team still is reeling from
the emotional fallout from Hurricane Katrina.
"About 15 of my
players lost homes," Roland said. "They've been through so much in
the last week."
It has been a harrowing week. Roland, who is
undergoing chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, tried to get
treatment, but he and the full waiting room of patients were turned
away from their chemo because of a lack of medication. He will try
again Wednesday. "I feel bad for the people who were scheduled
to get their treatment last week," Roland said.
Keithshone
Dantzler, a freshman linebacker from Brother Martin, almost didn't
make it back to campus. Dantzler traveled to New Orleans before the
storm hit to check on relatives and lost contact with his ride back
to Hammond - so he was left behind. Later in the week, he had to be
pulled from a rooftop by a rescue helicopter and waded through
waist-deep flood waters to reach a hospital. "I was just amazed
he made it back," teammate Hutch Gonzales said.
Gonzales, a
senior receiver, huddled in a church an eighth of a mile down the
road from his house in Covington as Katrina battered his home
-within viewing distance from the church's front doors. His house
faired OK, but teammate Craig Louque returned to his home to find a
bare frame.
Still, about 95 percent of the team returned for
Sunday's 4 p.m. meeting. The school regained electricity Thursday
and began preparations for hosting Alcorn State.
"If there
was something our team could go out and do and help people, we'd do
it, but there's nothing else we can do. We know there are a lot of
people hurting," Roland said. "But maybe if we can play, we can give
people a chance to have a distraction and maybe give them some
pride."
Gonzales said missing another game would have
severely set back the new faces in the program.
"I think a
lot of people (on our team) were thinking about the Alcorn State
game," Gonzales said. "Being able to have it is really important
because we have some players who have very little experience,
especially Trey (Willie, the new quarterback). He's been in games
before, but he hasn't been able to really pick up four quarters of
the speed of the (game)."
Then there is a deeper benefit to
playing Saturday, Gonzales said. Football has become an escape.
"I'm ecstatic," Gonzales said. "I was miserable not being
able to play last week. … (But Sunday) we heard those pads popping
and it was like normal football again."
New Orleans staggers to its feet for next step on
long road
By Ron Thibodeaux and Gordon Russell Staff
writers
In a city in dire need of some divine intervention
from the most catastrophic week in its history, the first
post-Katrina Sunday in New Orleans was infused with the sounds of
military helicopters and sporadic gunfire instead of lilting hymns
and Gospel readings.
On the seventh day of this disaster of
biblical proportions, the last evacuees from the fetid conditions of
the Superdome and the Convention Center rested with New Orleans in
the rearview mirror of the buses taking them to clean, safe havens
far away.
In the city they finally left behind, churches were
empty, bells did not peal, Sunday services were not held and the
Saints, the football version, were said to be pondering their own
evacuation, possibly a permanent one, to San Antonio,
Texas.
Entergy workers made their first foray into New
Orleans to begin the gargantuan task of assessing the damage to the
city's electrical system. Their arrival was a glimmer of
encouragement in the vista of despair that confronts those charged
with rebuilding the city.
Meanwhile, in adjacent Jefferson
Parish, authorities braced for a Labor Day invasion of evacuees
expected to return for a first look at their homes.
Search
and rescue operations continued and during the late afternoon,
helicopters using Interstate 10 as a landing pad were pulling people
from rooftops in Mid-City and other parts of town.
Law
enforcement agencies fielded about 1,000 distress 911 calls Saturday
from people still trapped in attics of buildings surrounded by
water, State Police said Sunday.
For the city's police
officers in particular, Sunday was the first day to get something
like a breather after working around the clock for the past eight
days.
"Today is the first day you will see a smile on some
of the officers' faces," said NOPD Capt. Marlon Defillo, who was
taking a break on the neutral ground of Loyola Avenue with Detective
William Charbonnet. "This has been a tremendous challenge for
members of the police department, but they've held their ground.
They've given their hearts and souls."
New Orleans Police
officers sent up a cheer at one point Sunday at a report that their
colleagues had engaged in a shootout with an armed group on the
Danziger Bridge in eastern New Orleans, with several of the
suspected marauders - but none of the police officers - being hit.
Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said police shot eight people,
killing five or six of them.
Defillo said police morale had
hit a low point around Wednesday or Thursday in terms of the stress
on officers, who had to try to keep the city safe without a working
communications system amid increasing anarchy . While it was
harrowing, reports that hundreds of police officers abandoned ship
are false, he said.
"There was a report that 60 percent of
our officers bugged out and hadn't been seen since Monday night. It
is totally untrue," Defillo said.
What happened, according to
Defillo, was that the NOPD's communications system crashed in the
wake of the storm, making it impossible for officers to contact one
another.
"We had to work on the buddy system, two guys
staying together," he said. Defillo acknowledged that "there were
some people who bugged out" but he didn't have an estimate of their
numbers.
Defillo himself was feeling better after shaving for
the first time in a week and taking an impromptu bath in the green,
leafy water of a backyard swimming pool. He was wearing a clean pair
of acid-washed jeans and a polo shirt that he "found."
The
scene was more intense in flood-ravaged St. Bernard Parish, where
rescue efforts still lag behind those of New Orleans. Sheriff Jack
Stephens authorized his haggard deputies to shoot to kill looters or
anyone else who poses a threat.
Small gangs of heavily armed
career criminals are roaming the parish's isolated eastern half and
looting buildings, Stephens said.
"These are the same
a------- who have been testing us for 20 years," Stephens told his
SWAT team at a security briefing. "Today is the day they are going
to listen to us or we're gonna take 'em out."
As National
Guard troops and utility workers launched their patrols through the
abandoned neighborhoods of New Orleans on Sunday morning, federal,
state and local authorities intensified their finger-pointing at one
another over the breakdowns in last week's rescue
efforts.
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff
struggled on NBC's "Meet the Press" to explain why federal agencies
were so slow to react to the crisis and sought to deflect at least
part of the blame toward the evacuation plan confected by city and
state officials.
Later in the same program, a ragged
Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard broke down as he told the
national audience how a colleague's elderly mother died in her home
Friday after waiting four days for rescuers that never
arrived.
With thousands of federal troops finally assisting
in what had been an ineffective, disorganized operation, 19,000
people were removed from the Convention Center in less than 24 hours
and the final evacuees from the Superdome boarded a bus for
somewhere, anywhere.
Hundreds of people continued to mill
around the outside of both facilities, arriving on foot in hopes of
getting a ride out of town. Col. Henry Whitehorn, superintendent
of Louisiana State Police, estimated that 2,000 people, many of them
with serious medical problems, were still housed inside the terminal
at Louis Armstrong International Airport.
A busload of 160
people that the state Legislative Black Caucus arranged to deliver
to Alexandria ended up at a shelter there, not in facilities at the
former England Air Force Base as the lawmakers had
intended.
Angry that thousands of Louisianians are being
bused out of state because of an apparent lack of shelter space, the
black caucus members had called on the federal government Saturday
to make Louisiana's military installations
available.
Jefferson Parish officials prepared Sunday for a
huge influx of residents expected to return today to see what
Katrina did to their homes. Hours after the storm hit, Broussard had
decreed that evacuated Jefferson residents stay away only for a week
to give parish authorities a fighting chance to get control of the
destruction and bedlam there.
Many parish officials are
skeptical about the decision to let residents return even this soon,
but Broussard stood by his decision, saying residents need to see
for themselves how bad things are so they can move on with their
lives.
"I am the only elected official who is in favor of
doing this, but people need to understand that they're not coming
back to Wally Cleaver's neighborhood," he said Sunday. "I am doing
this to jumpstart the economy, not the economy of Jefferson Parish.
That is destroyed. I want to jumpstart the economies of the
residents of Jefferson Parish, who need to find new jobs, new places
to live."
Long lines are expected today at checkpoints where
parish authorities will verify that returnees live in Jefferson
Parish before letting them in.
The 1 million-plus number of
homes and businesses that lost power in the area was down to
643,000, Public Service Commissioner Jimmy Field said. LSU
researchers testing the floodwaters for contamination levels also
reported that they had taken the first water samples from canals
draining into Lake Pontchartrain and expect to have the results in
about two days.
Entergy was able to send a 12-member
assessment team, flanked by National Guardsmen, into the city to
inspect storm damage. "The main thing we were trying to find out
is what needs to be done to restore power to the Central Business
District," utility spokesman Chanel Lagarde said.
In St.
Tammany Parish, Cleco reported it has restored power to 5,000 of its
80,000 customers, beginning with hospitals, other essential
locations and sites along the parish's main traffic
arteries.
In San Antonio, where New Orleans Saints owner Tom
Benson had been conspicuously silent about the impact of Katrina on
his football team's hometown and its residents, reports surfaced
that the team's management is considering pulling out of the city
and relocating, perhaps permanently, to San Antonio, where Benson
has a business interests and a ranch outside of the city.
Five Blackhawk helicopters
flew in formation overhead. A Chinook plucked a trapped resident
from a balcony. But 74-year-old Gloria Galway wasn’t budging from
her second-floor apartment in the B.W. Cooper public housing
complex, despite six feet of water lapping at her building and a
rescue boat ready to take her in.
"I got food, water, my two
dogs and my Bible," Galway told the rescue team. "God will take care
of me."
After pleading with Galway for five minutes, Hamilton
"Ham" Peterson said, "I’m going in."
He trudged through the
water, climbed to Galway’s apartment and told her, "God sent us to
get you."
Galway emerged with her dogs, purse and cane,
joining hundreds of other New Orleans residents who were ferried
from the homes and apartments Sunday, hemmed in for six days by
disease infested water. The unprecedented search-and-rescue
operation took on an increased urgency as police, soldiers, game
wardens, and other volunteers met with occasional resistance and
even gunfire. But most of the time, they found grateful victims.
An Army soldier said it looked and felt like war, except it
is being fought from a flotilla of boats with drivers and volunteers
from around the country.
Thrown together in the back of an
Army Humvee at the operation’s Poydras Street staging area,
Peterson, a federal railroad inspector from Washington, D.C., Jenny
Krall, a Charlotte, N.C. firefighter, and Texas game warden Luett
McMahen, were jolted just before the Claiborne Avenue boat launch by
a powerful front-end collision. Army driver Jerry Lance had just
plowed into a car that was blocking traffic, pushing it 100 feet
toward the water.
A group of cops and soldiers cleared the
obstruction once and for all by flipping it to the side of the
road.
From there, teams were divided into airboats, flat
boats, Army pontoons and skiffs to fan out across the Uptown
neighborhood. Each boat had a game warden and a driver, a police
sharpshooter and one or two rescuers.
The New Orleans police
officers who worked the operation – most of them from the narcotics
unit – had all shaved their head the night before, including two
female detectives.
Of the shaved heads, Det. Darren Hartman
said, "We figured we’d do this to be comfortable and to boost our
morale. This is our family now."
On the way to the Cooper
development, better known as The Calliope, a few residents waved off
the rescuers. Capt. Timothy Bayard, who is commanding the operation,
said the orders were to pick up only those willing to go.
"If they want to die, there is nothing I can do,’’ Bayard
said. "I can’t fight them, they may tip the boat. But if I get an
order later to pull them out by force, I’ll do it."
A
flatboat with Peterson, McMahen and a reporter met no resistance at
3508 Thalia St.
"How many do you have?" Peterson yelled to
the woman leaning out of the second-story window.
"We have
the two of us, four kids and grandma," 35-year-old Michelle Gibson
yelled back.
One by one, Gibson and her husband walked the
children downstairs, through the knee-deep water and into the boat.
"I told mama the police were gonna save us," 7-year-old
Arteniasha said. "But I wasn’t gonna get in no
helicopter."
The group was ferried to waiting ambulances and
military vehicles parked on the Claiborne overpass, ready to
evacuate. A second boat followed with the girl’s father and older
sister.
Peterson, who once lived in New Orleans and now
lives in Washington, said as soon as he saw the tragedy of Hurricane
Katrina unfold on television, he knew he had to be part of the
rescue effort.
Once he arrived, he slipped away from the
paper and desk job they assigned him because he wanted to be on the
frontlines. Part of his motivation, he said, was the loss of his
father and mother-in-law on Flight 93 in the terrorist attacks of
9-11.
"It is all about family and the absence of family and
the preciousness of family,’’ he said. "Whether it is the World
Trade Center or this neighborhood, when I saw the mamas and babies
suffering on TV, I knew I had to come and I knew I had to be on the
ground helping people."
Peterson, who once served a stint as
a Washington, D.C., cop, carried a revolver. But Calliope rescuers
met no armed resistance Sunday. Just confounding pockets of
resistance to being saved.
Bayard vowed the operation will
continue until everybody is out. "Because the next operation will be
pulling out bodies,’’ he said. When Peterson helped deposit
Galway next to the bus that will take her to a shelter, he helped
her with her meager belongings. Then he handed her one last item he
grabbed from a table as he rushed from her apartment: Galway’s
deteriorating paperback Bible.
Officials were told Katrina posed serious danger
to city, one says
By Mark Schleifstein Staff
writer
Dr. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane
Center, said Sunday that officials with the Federal Emergency
Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, including
FEMA Director Mike Brown and Homeland Security Secretary Michael
Chertoff, listened in on electronic briefings given by his staff in
advance of Hurricane Katrina slamming Louisiana and Mississippi and
were advised of the storm's potential deadly
effects.
Mayfield said the strength of the storm and the
potential disaster it could bring were made clear during both the
briefings and in formal advisories, which warned of a storm surge
capable of overtopping levees in New Orleans and winds strong enough
to blow out windows of high-rise buildings. He said the briefings
included information on expected wind speed, storm surge, rainfall
and the potential for tornadoes to accompany the storm as it came
ashore.
"We were briefing them way before landfall," Mayfield
said. "It's not like this was a surprise. We had in the advisories
that the levee could be topped.
"I keep looking back to see
if there was anything else we could have done, and I just don't know
what it would be," he said. Chertoff told reporters Saturday that
government officials had not expected the damaging combination of a
powerful hurricane levee breaches that flooded New
Orleans.
Brown, Mayfield said, is a dedicated public
servant.
"The question is why he couldn't shake loose the
resources that were needed,'' he said.
Brown and Chertoff
could not be reached for comment on Sunday afternoon.
In the
days before Katrina hit, Mayfield said, his staff also briefed FEMA,
which under the Department of Homeland Security, at FEMA's
headquarters in Washington, D.C., its Region 6 office in Dallas and
the Region 4 office in Atlanta about the potential effects of the
storm.
He said all of those briefings were logged in the
hurricane center's records. And Mayfield said his staff also
participated in the five-day "Hurricane Pam" exercise sponsored by
FEMA and the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency
Preparedness in July 2004 that assumed a similar storm would hit the
city.
FEMA's own July 23, 2004, news release announcing the
end of that exercise summed up the assumptions they used, which were
eerily close to what Katrina delivered:
"Hurricane Pam
brought sustained winds of 120 mph, up to 20 inches of rain in parts
of southeast Louisiana and storm surge that topped levees in the New
Orleans area. More than one million residents evacuated and
Hurricane Pam destroyed 500,000-600,000 buildings. Emergency
officials from 50 parish, state, federal and volunteer organizations
faced this scenario during a five-day exercise held this week at the
State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge.
"The
exercise used realistic weather and damage information developed by
the National Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the
LSU Hurricane Center and other state and federal agencies to help
officials develop joint response plans for a catastrophic hurricane
in Louisiana."
That plan assumed such a hurricane would
result in the opening of 1,000 evacuee shelters that would have to
be staffed for 100 days, and a search and rescue operation using 800
people. The storm would create 30 million tons of debris, including
237,000 cubic yards of household hazardous waste.
Mayfield
said his concern now is that another named storm could hit either
New Orleans or the Mississippi Gulf coast, as September is the most
active month of the annual hurricane season.
"This is like
the fourth inning in a nine-inning ballgame," he said. "We know that
another one would cause extreme stress on the people who have been
hurt by Katrina."
Mark Schleifstein can be reached at
mersmia@cox.net.
But the term has been invoked over and over in the week
since Hurricane Katrina struck to describe the enhanced authority
assumed by public officials, restrictions on access to some public
streets and the presence of armed federal soldiers roaming parts of
the New Orleans area.
Some public officials do invoke
extraordinary authority during emergencies, under a 12-year-old
Louisiana law. But the presence of active-duty military personnel
does not mean martial law has been declared.
The role of the
active military thus far has been to help the Federal Emergency
Management Agency with humanitarian work, search and rescue efforts,
medical assistance and supply distribution – not to enforce civil
law, a military spokesman said.
The National Guard is trying
to enforce civil law in the hurricane zone. It was pressed into
service by Gov. Kathleen Blanco. A true state of martial law
would also put the active military in a law enforcement role. That
rarely happens. Martial law was declared during labor strikes in the
early 20th century and during the Watts riots of 1965 in Los
Angeles, said John Baker, constitutional law professor at Louisiana
State University.
At all other times, the U.S. system of
government is set up to give the states and their own police the
primary responsibility to protect residents, with the federal
government being called on only as a backup when a state is
overwhelmed.
"If a governor will call and say, ‘I no longer
have the ability to secure my state, I need help,’ the president
could invoke the Insurrection Act and the military could assist in
law enforcement activities," said a U.S. Northern Command lawyer who
spoke on the condition that he not be identified. "That is not what
we are doing."
Baker said martial law is not a written law
but has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as a legal
concept.
"It’s a suspension of law, and the term goes way
back and it’s linked to what is called the law of necessity," doing
what is necessary in extreme situations, Baker said. "The question
is whether, quite apart from law, there is inherent power to those
charged with order in the community to keep it from descending into
chaos and insurrection."
What is written is the Louisiana
Homeland Security and Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act of 1993.
Under the law, the governor and some top parish officials, including
Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, have the right to
commandeer private property if necessary to cope with an emergency.
Specific officials may also suspend any law related to the
conducting of official business or any rule previously issued by a
state agency if complying would "prevent, hinder or delay necessary
action" to mitigate the emergency, the state attorney general’s
office said last week.
The law also gives certain officials
the right to compel evacuations, suspend alcohol and weapon sales
and make provisions for emergency housing, the office
said.
Mayors assume similar authority, although not the right
to commandeer private property or arrange emergency housing, the
office said. Blanco invoked the 1993 law when she declared a
state of emergency last week. Broussard himself has described
Jefferson as being "under martial law, and there’s only one marshal:
Me."
Broussard has announced that Jefferson Parish is closed
to all residents and visitors. Police have been staffing roadblocks
on highways entering the parish. Despite widespread criticism from
other public officials and utility companies, Broussard plans to let
residents return Monday for a brief time but will order them out
again until streets are clear, power is restored and the water
supply made safe for drinking.
Baker said Louisiana must take
care not to "fall into the notion that you look first and primarily
to the military to run things.
"The military are not police
officers generally; their job is to fight a war. That’s totally
different from a police function unless people want to turn this
country into other countries where you have the military running the
police force, which you did in Central America."
Forensic team faces challenge identifying victims of
hurricane
By Laura Maggi Staff
Writer
BATON ROUGE - In the first announcement of what will
undoubtedly be a growing tally of the people killed by Hurricane
Katrina and its devastating aftermath, officials said Sunday that 59
bodies were in a state morgue and had been confirmed to have died
from storm-related causes.
Health officials would not say
how high they expected the death toll to go, but Gov. Kathleen
Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin have both said repeatedly
that they expect it to be in the thousands.
Local officials
have said there are about 100 bodies at a wharf in St. Bernard
Parish, but the state has not confirmed those deaths, said Louis
Cataldie, medical director for emergency operations for the state
Department of Health and Hospitals.
Cataldie said any death
that investigators determine would not have occurred if not for
Hurricane Katrina will be attributed to the storm. "If you are on a
respirator at home and the electricity goes out, you are a hurricane
death," he said.
But people whose deaths are classified as
murder - even if it occurred during the storm or the chaotic
following days - will not be identified as hurricane deaths. Local
coroners will be brought in to investigate those deaths, said
Cataldie.
People who had identification on them when they
died - such as most hospitable patients - will be easy for state
officials to identify and notify family members, he said. But
others, such as bodies that have been fished out of the floodwaters,
could prove to be more of a challenge.
Because dental
records and other key medical information may also have been lost
during the storm, the process could rely heavily on the more
technologically sophisticated methods used by the Disaster Mortuary
Operational Response Team, an agency brought in by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency.
For example, the mortuary team,
which is often known by its acronym DMORT, can take a hairbrush
brought in by a family member to see if the DNA matches any of the
unidentified bodies at the morgue.
The morgue, which will be
run by the federal team, has been set up at St. Gabriel, a town near
Baton Rouge. Three DMORT teams were brought in to deal with the
aftermath of the hurricane, including various forensic experts,
funeral directors, death investigators and coroners, said Todd
Ellis, the leader of the local regional unit.
Local
emergency workers will be charged with collecting dead bodies and
bringing them to a collection point, where team members will collect
preliminary information, such as any identification records, and
gather personal effects.
"From that point, we as DMORT teams
will treat each of these individuals with the highest level of
dignity and respect that they all deserve," Ellis said.
The
teams will begin collecting forensic information as soon as the
bodies arrive at the morgue site, including fingerprinting and DNA
sampling, he said.
Once the facility is up and running, it
can identify - or at least attempt to identify - 144 bodies a day,
Cataldie said.
Cataldie said 10 bodies being held by the
state were those of people who died while at the Superdome, most
from respiratory failure. Nine more died at a temporary hospital set
up at Louis Armstrong International Airport. "There were a lot of
sick folks who couldn't make a journey," he said.
Twenty-six
bodies were in refrigeration trucks at the morgue facility in St.
Gabriel on Sunday, while another 22 were at a collection point at
the split of Interstate 10 and the I-610. Another 11 bodies were
identified by the Jefferson Parish coroner as being caused by the
storm, Cataldie said.
Laura Maggi can be reached at
laura_maggi@yahoo.com or (225) 342-5590.
By today, 16,000 National
Guard soldiers and airmen will be conducting operations in Louisiana
in response to Hurricane Katrina, including parishes surrounding New
Orleans.
Brig. Gen. Michael P. Fleming of the Florida
National Guard said the guardsmen, known as Task Force Pelican, are
under orders to rescue and save the lives of those still in the
city, and to secure law and order.
Task Force Pelican has
distributed more than 620,000 bottles of water and 320,000 meals,
and it evacuated 19,000 people from the Ernest Morial Convention
Center on Saturday, he said.
Buses will continue to load
evacuees at the center, but those who were stuck there have left,
Fleming said. People are hearing there are buses there, but "those
you see are new folks; everyone who was there before was evacuated,"
he said.
In the past 24 hours, the task force has worked with
all other rescue operations including the U.S. Coast Guard and state
Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to evacuate 3,000 people by
air, he said. Of that total, the National Guard used helicopters to
rescue 1,825, and 95 were critical medical patients.
In
addition to the task force members in New Orleans, units will be
assigned to 12 other parishes. "These units will meet with parish
leaders, and those authorities will know that they have their own
military leadership team working with them," Fleming
said.
Under the leadership of Maj. Gen. James Mason of the
Kansas National Guard, units will be assigned to Jefferson, St.
Bernard, St. Charles, St. John, Plaquemines, St. Tammany,
Tangipahoa, Lafourche, Lafayette, Terrebonne, Washington and East
Baton Rouge parishes.
Under federal law, active duty military
personnel are prohibited from providing law enforcement. Fleming
said the National Guard is reporting directly to Gov. Blanco for
hurricane-response operations.
Leading Task Force Pelican is
Maj. Gen. Bennett C. Landreneau.
Jefferson Parish
officials geared up Sunday for a massive influx of returning
residents who can expect to sit in long lines of cars at police
checkpoints to ensure that nonresidents don't enter the
parish.
Parish President Aaron Broussard announced his plan
on Tuesday, the day after Hurricane Katrina laid waste to the New
Orleans area, to let residents back in briefly and only to inspect
their property beginning today at 6 a.m. And he has insisted on
carrying out the plan, despite mounting opposition from law
enforcement and utility companies.
Broussard said that
residents must be allowed to see the devastation up close so they
can move on with their lives somewhere else. "I am the only
elected official who is in favor of doing this, but people need to
understand that they're not coming back to Wally Cleaver's
neighborhood," he said Sunday.
"I am doing this to jump start
the economy. Not the economy of Jefferson Parish; that is destroyed.
I want to jump start the economies of the residents of Jefferson
Parish, who need to find new jobs, new places to live" outside
Jefferson.
Many residents who tried to get in Jefferson early
were turned away at checkpoints on Airline Drive and on U.S.
90. Meanwhile, utility companies are concerned that the flood of
people returning today will block access routes for their fuel and
supplies.
"Someone needs to re-think this," one utility
company manager was heard to tell a parish official.
Sheriff
Harry Lee was resigned to cooperating with the effort, but he told
WDSU-TV that he doesn't think it's a good idea. "There's no good
law enforcement reason for doing this," he said.
Parish
Councilman John Young said he has put aside his concerns about the
matter.
"The decision has been made, and we're going to do
everything in our power to make it work," he said.
Parish
officials are urging residents who don't have to come back to stay
where they are.
The rules of entry are such that those who
try to return might face a hellish experience. Parish spokeswoman
Angela Williams said residents must have enough fuel not only to
drive in but to sit in line for hours and to drive out of the area
to where fuel is available in outlying parishes.
All
businesses are closed. Electric, gas, water and sewer service is
unavailable in many areas of the parish. "It's not going to be a
pleasant place to stay," Williams said.
Under the Broussard
plan, residents will be allowed to enter on Airline Drive and U.S.
90 today, Tuesday and Wednesday beginning at 6 a.m. At the parish
line, they must show identification bearing a Jefferson Parish
address. Anyone not in line by 6 p.m. will be denied entry on that
day. A dawn-to-dusk curfew will be in effect. Parish officials said
they removed Jefferson Highway as an entry point.
Business
owners will be allowed in on Thursday.
In an emotional news
conference Sunday, Broussard reflected on the efforts to stabilize
Jefferson Parish after Katrina passed the area on
Monday.
"The bureaucracy committed murder" by failing to
mobilize quickly enough to the crisis, he said, adding that the
mother of one of his department heads died in a St. Bernard Parish
nursing home after residents there were promised aid for
days.
"There was a plan in place for this disaster, but when
it happened all we got was promises," he said.
About
1 p.m. Sunday, the sixth day after the apocalypse of wind, fire and
flood visited New Orleans, Nancy Hirst stepped out of Johnny White's
Sports Bar and Grill in the French Quarter and trilled, "There's
buses leaving from Harrah's in a little while, if anybody's
interested."
None among the small crowd gathered outside in
the empty street stirred.
Not bare-chested John Lambert,
carrying a sign that read "Life goes on?"
Not a woman in
black fishnet stockings who called herself Jelly Sandwich ("'cause
Jam don't shake like that"). And not Diana Straydog, an Apache
Indian in flip-flops smoking an 8-inch Monte Cristo
cigar.
Overhead, the whine and thump of heavy military
helicopters reverberated through the nearly empty streets of the
French Quarter. They circled on distant missions or streamed low
overhead. Once a fleet of seven streamed over the triple spires of
St. Louis Cathedral in a deafening roar.
Armed police and
sheriff's deputies from distant states patrolled Canal Street and
walked through the French Quarter with sidearms and M-16 rifles.
But the Quarter remained a determined flicker of its old
self.
Although largely depopulated, it was not empty. And
what filled it up was what people have always filled it with, which
is what is in their hearts.
At noon, the great bells of St.
Louis Cathedral remained silent instead of tolling the hour as
usual. The only sound filling the empty Place John Paul was the
swish of Ty Watford's broom.
Watford, his companion, Ashley
McCoy, and a few friends swept leaves and branches accumulated from
Hurricane Katrina and dumped them in city trash barrels. The place
looked parade-ground perfect.
"It's our neighborhood. We're
not helpless," Watford said. "We can fix it ourselves. We don't have
to wait for anybody." Watford and McCoy rode out the hurricane
two blocks away on Dumaine Street, and three days ago they began
sweeping there, out of pride and a desire to kill the
boredom.
"You should see where we live," Watford said. "Our
street looks like nothing ever happened."
On Saturday, they
swept St. Anne and St. Peters streets flanking Jackson Square;
Sunday was for the Place John Paul.
While reports abounded of
anarchy outside the Quarter, Watford said he and McCoy never felt
unsafe. "Every time somebody passes by, they ask if we need
something. The French Quarter is as safe now as it's ever
been."
It was safe - even convivial - outside Johnny White's
on the corner of Bourbon and Orleans, perhaps the only place in the
Quarter serving, even if it was warm.
Ordinarily, during the
Southern Decadence weekend, the Quarter would be packed with gay men
and lesbians socializing in their annual celebration of gay
culture.
But after Katrina, this would have to do: Lambert,
with his son; Straydog with her cigar; and Jelly Sandwich, who said
her "Central Business District name" is Jill Sandars.
In
time, they would head a few blocks away and start the traditional
Sunday decadence parade. As usual, the rules were
bent.
Lambert, for one, spoke of having a girlfriend. "I
guess you could say it's an excuse for people to come out and be
whoever they are or whoever they want to be," he said. "There are so
many dedicated people here, and they're not going to give up. You
hear so many people outside saying they're not coming
back.
Those rescued in St. Bernard emerge with
harrowing tales
Search teams still find people who
remained
By Jan Moller and Paul Rioux Staff
writers
CHALMETTE - Terry Hendrix's family evacuated before
Hurricane Katrina struck this close-knit community with a
devastating blow, but Hendrix himself decided to try weathering the
storm at his three-story house on Riverland Drive.
On
Saturday afternoon, five days after the winds died down, Hendrix
found himself at the parking lot of what used to be a BellSouth
building, but which now has been taken over by firefighters giving
decontamination showers to people rescued from their homes.
Although floodwaters have receded more than 15 feet and the
pace of the evacuation has slowed considerably in St. Bernard
Parish, search teams were still finding people who had remained in
their homes.
"I've got 122,000 people in my district, and
everybody's been affected (by Hurricane Katrina),'' said state Sen.
Walter Boasso, R-Chalmette, who has been helping coordinate rescue
efforts.
Horrific stories continued to pour in from
survivors, who were being rescued at a rate of about 20 per hour
Sunday.
Arabi resident Patrick Lannes, who helped evacuate
17 people from the second floor of Arabi Elementary School, said he
found them eating a raw turkey that had been sitting out for four
days.
"One woman told her husband, 'Oh, honey, give him a
Coke,'" he said. "They're eating rotting meat, and they offered me
their last Coke like I was a guest just stopping by for dinner."
Fire Chief Thomas Stone said there have been 70 confirmed
deaths in St. Bernard Parish so far. He said the final toll will be
much higher, but he declined to give an estimate.
He said a
military unit that specializes in handling mass casualties will
recover the bodies.
"I don't want my people pulling out
their own family and friends," he said.
Among the dead are
31 senior citizens who died at St. Rita's Nursing Home due to
flooding, and another 22 people were discovered dead in a Violet
subdivision, their bodies bound together., Sheriff Jack Stephens
said.
But it is too soon to start an official count,
Stephens said, while rescue efforts continue. "We are not in a body
recovery mode yet,'' he said.
Search teams from as far away
as Canada - the Vancouver province sent 47 rescuers who arrived
Thursday - ride air boats through receding waters in a parish that's
become a virtual ghost town except for the rescue workers. They
conduct house-to-house searches for anyone who might still be alive.
When they have finished searching a building, they leave a
spray-painted marker to indicate whether anyone was found.
An "X'' means the house was empty. A number indicates how
many bodies were discovered. On one house, just a block from the
Bell South building where evacuees are being taken for
decontamination before being transported to the slip, a blue-painted
"6'' tells the gruesome tale of what became of those inside.
Those plucked from their homes emerged with harrowing tales.
Hendrix, 55, said he retreated to a third-floor bathroom in his home
during Katrina when the floodwaters rose to his second-story
balcony. But shortly thereafter, winds from the storm began lifting
the roof from his house. That forced him back to the second floor,
where he spent several days in three feet of water.
Although
he rode out the storm by himself, eventually the house became a
gathering point for neighbors - 18 of whom shared the cramped
quarters at one point, Hendrix said. "I was the highest point in the
neighborhood,'' he said.
As several days passed with little
or no federal assistance, state and local officials set up their own
improvised search-and-rescue operations, with the Mississippi River
serving as a lifeline to safety for residents who rode out Katrina.
People found wading through the floodwaters, which by
Saturday had become nearly black in color and smelled like a mixture
of sewage and rotten fish, are first taken to the BellSouth parking
lot to shower under a blue tarp. After that school buses take them
to "Camp Katrina'' as the Chalmette slip has been dubbed by rescue
workers. From there they are taken by ferry about five miles upriver
to Algiers Point, where the U.S. Coast Guard shuttles them onto
shelter-bound buses.
St. Bernard officials said that at some
points last week the slip was home to as many as 3,000 evacuees at
one time, but by Saturday afternoon the traffic had slowed to a
trickle. Only a few local police and volunteers were there,
surrounded by pallets of water and other basic necessities.
The unprecedented mobilization of resources has forced local
authorities to improvise.
Firefighters work from the
BellSouth building, the parish council set up temporary quarters at
the Exxon-Mobil Chalmette Refining, and the sheriff's office is
operating from the Cajun Queen riverboat that's moored next to the
Domino's sugar refinery in Arabi. The courthouse, where some parish
officials are staying overnight, is littered with boats that were
being used for rescue and transportation while the flooding was at
its worst.
State Rep. Nita Hutter, R-Chalmette, said she was
at the parish government building when the storm struck, but was
forced to evacuate by boat Tuesday when conditions there became
"intolerable.''
And the local prison was turned into a
makeshift medical center until the wounded and sick could be flown
to safety, according to Boasso.
Stephens said the rescue
operation at the slip likely saved many lives. "Had we not had this
area to stage this, there would have been literally hundreds more
people dead from exposure,'' he said.
Stephens said he faces
more life-or-death decisions each day than he did in his previous
20-plus years as sheriff.
"You save the people you can, and
then you move on," he said. "But at the end of the day, you are
haunted by visions of the people you couldn't help - the lady who
grabbed my ankles and said, 'Sheriff, can you give me a bottle of
water?' All I could tell her was, 'I'm sorry.'"
Illness and
mental fatigue have prompted Sheriff Jack Stephens to grant leaves
to 30 deputies, leaving him with a force of about 75, who have been
working up to 20 hours a day. Three dozen firefighters were sent to
Baton Rouge to rest Saturday, replaced by 30 East Baton Rouge
firefighters.
Although the parish is desperate for
reinforcements, Stephens has been turning away citizen volunteers,
saying he doesn't want to risk a friendly fire incident as deputies
begin removing the remaining residents by force if necessary.
Although Navy helicopters were shuttling medical evacuees
from the Chalmette slip, local officials were angry Saturday at the
slow pace of the federal government's relief efforts. "We never had
any communication from anybody,'' said Parish President Henry P.
Rodriguez. "Anything that has been done in St. Bernard has been done
by local people.We never had any goddamned help.''
At
Algiers Point, the ferry landing was home to about a hundred people
Saturday morning. They came from as far away as Caernarvon in lower
St. Bernard, where the floods engulfed just about every home and
those who stayed behind relied on neighbors for support - which
sometimes brought surprising levels of comfort.
JoAnn Robin
said she spent four days after Katrina camped out with 25 of her
family members in the Mandeville Canal at Elevating Boats Inc., the
company founded by former state Sen. Lynn Dean, R-Caernarvon.
Robin said she stayed at home in Caernarvon, where her block
as Katrina blew through, but decided to evacuate a few miles west to
Poydras, where they found shelter on the second floor of the Green
Store. When the floodwaters there began to rise, the family got in
boats and navigated their way to the elevated boats.
While
her home and those of her neighbors sat in water up to their
rooftops nearby, Elevated Boats had air-conditioning, a working
television and radio and plenty to eat and drink courtesy of Dean
and his family. "They treated us like royalty,'' Robin said.
Like many others, Robin said she planned to go back once the
water is gone. "There's four generations that live on the same
street together,'' on Deogracas Street. "We've never lived anywhere
else.''
It's that type of closeness that officials say may
hold the best hope for St. Bernard's rebirth.
Once
floodwaters recede, the parish likely will hire a contractor to
oversee clean-up efforts, Stephens said.
After giving
residents time to remove any salvageable possessions, crews would
bulldoze condemned homes and rip drywall and carpeting from those
that can be repaired. Storm debris would be hauled to temporary
landfills along with ruined cars, which would be crushed after
gasoline, oil and other engine fluids were removed, Stephens said.
"The key will be to get people from St. Bernard in as
subcontractors and put them to work," he said. "It's the only way to
start getting the economy going again."
Staff writer Marr
Brown contributed to this report.
Humane groups and parish animal
control agencies are hoping to stem the tide of what could become
another heart-breaking aftereffect of Hurricane Katrina: the deaths
of hundreds or thousands of pets left behind in houses and yards by
owners expecting to be able to return to their homes in just a few
days.
"We've received thousands of requests from all over the
area, asking us to go in and look for their pets," said Paul Berry,
an official with the Utah-based Best Friends Animal
Society.
Berry, a former New Orleanian, and the society have
been in the area assisting the Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter in
housing some of the parish's stray dogs and cats.
The society
has built an emergency shelter at the St. Francis Animal Sanctuary
in Tylertown, Miss.
"We're at about 600 (animals) right now,"
Berry said. The society has taken in strays and rescued animals, but
rescuing animals from homes will require a more coordinated effort,
Berry said.
Public agencies' first priority is rescuing
survivors, and "they need to search houses. Why not pull the pets
out at the same time? If they make us wait until the water goes
down, they're (pets are) all going to die and we have one more
tragedy," he said. In some cases that has been done, officials
said.
Louisiana SPCA director Laura Maloney said New Orleans
shelter workers follow other agencies and crews through
neighborhoods and rescue pets, some locked in houses. At the owners'
request, "we break in," she said.
The Jefferson Parish Animal
Shelter has not received many calls about rescuing pets from homes,
shelter director Bert Smith said. Whether they do "will depend on
the kind of calls we get. We'll try to deal with any situation as
best we can." The shelter has been operating with a short staff
and poor communications for several days, he said.
It
evacuated 215 animals last Sunday to the Washington Parish
Fairgrounds. The hurricane knocked out the area's water and
electricity Monday. "We were sleeping in our cars," Smith
said.
Shelter workers emptied the fairgrounds with the help
of Best Friends, which took 130 of the animals, and individuals who
volunteered to temporarily keep the rest, he said.
"We got
back here Friday and were called to pick up pets at the I-10 and
Causeway," where evacuees were waiting for buses to take them out of
New Orleans, he said. "There were thousands and thousands of people
and hundreds and hundreds of pets . . . They weren't letting them
(evacuees) take their animals with them."
Smith said the
human and animal misery and suffering overwhelmed shelter workers,
who picked up 55 cats and dogs and a ferret. "It was back-breaking,"
he said. The animals were taken to Jefferson Parish's west bank
animal shelter, which had water and electricity.
On Saturday,
evacuees were moved to Louis Armstrong International Airport in
Kenner, and could bring their pets. "They were allowing people to
take pets. Thank God for that, or else who knows how many animals we
would have running around and loose," Smith said.
However,
officials would not let evacuees take aggressive dogs or dogs big
enough to displace a human on the evacuation buses. "Those were
apparently abandoned," Smith said. By Saturday afternoon, very few
were still on the interstate, he said.
Smith said members of
the American Veterinary Medical Association's disaster team helped
treat evacuees' pets at the airport. Also Saturday, the Jefferson
Parish Sheriff's Office deputies reported animals stranded at the
Petco store on Veterans Memorial Boulevard in
Metairie.
Workers rescued birds, "pocket pets" such as
hamsters and gerbils, and snakes and tarantulas. The store doesn't
sell dogs or cats, he said.
With Jefferson residents being
allowed to return to their homes today, Smith said, he expects many
calls about strays and dog bites as homeowners are out trying to
clean up. Best Friends will assist by taking about 100 more pets to
the Mississippi facility.
Each will be photographed and their
pictures posted at the group's Web site, www.bestfriends.org, along
with an electronic form owners can fill out if they see their pet,
Berry said. The organization will hold animals for up to three
months, using a network among its 250,000 members nationwide to
provide foster homes.
"Fifteen thousand of those have stepped
up," to offer temporary homes, he said. The three months could be
extended for up to three more months. If an animal is not claimed,
it will be offered for adoption. The photo gallery should be
available around Wednesday, Berry said.
The Army Corps of Engineers
has shifted its efforts to damming the London Avenue canal's
entrance to Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, after completing a
dam across the 17th Street canal.
In a news release issued
Sunday morning, the Corps said it discovered several intact "but
potentially weakened sections" in the 17th Street canal levee, and
that it has delayed completing the filling of the levee breach into
Lakeview to move on to other work. The Corps didn't complete
placement of the last piece of sheet piling because officials were
not yet sure that water on the Lakeview side of the breach had
dropped to the same level as the lake.
With the dam closure,
the Corps said, the canal will be drained and the levee will be
repaired permanently.
Five pumps ordered Saturday are to be
delivered in pieces to a staging area in St. Rose, where they will
be partially assembled and moved to the 17th Street and London
Avenue canals for final assembly and startup.
Four more pumps
loaned to the Corps by St. Charles Parish were deployed to the 17th
Street canal, where they are being assembled. The Corps is
acquiring two large mobile generators to power pumps at pump station
6 on the 17th Street canal and at pump station 7 on the Orleans
Avenue canal.
The Corps also is arranging the salvage of "two
objects" found in the bar channel at the mouth of Southwest Pass on
the Mississippi River, the main shipping entrance to the river.
The news release said the objects haven't been identified
but are more than 40 feet beneath the surface. River traffic is
being restricted to vessels with drafts of 35 feet or
less.
The obstructions were found by a survey vessel of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, about a half-mile
from the end of the Southwest Pass jetty.
Mark Schleifstein
can be reached at mersmia@cox.net
HOUSTON - As she listened to the minister speak
Sunday, Sharon Craig thought about six of her grandchildren, a
daughter and a daughter-in law, all still missing since floodwaters
engulfed the St. Bernard housing complex after Hurricane
Katrina.
Craig, who is being sheltered at the Reliant Center,
said a part of her family may be missing but she hasn't lost faith
that they will be together again.
"God is good, and God is
going to take care of it for me," Craig said.
Craig was one
of many thousands of Louisiana evacuees at the Astrodome, the
Reliant Center and the George R. Brown Convention Center who were
visited Sunday by an ecumenical group of religious leaders seeking
to encourage and minister to those displaced by the
storm.
Other evacuees opted to walk or were transported to
other locations by area churches to worship.
The Rev. William
Lawson of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church compared the hardships of
the refugees to the trials of Job, the Bible figure who suffers much
for seemingly no reason at all, but eventually is blessed many times
over for keeping his faith in God.
"You didn't do anything to
cause the suffering you're going through right now," Lawson said.
"We want you to know that God hasn't forgotten you no more than he
had forgotten Job."
Evacuees also heard from leaders within
Houston's Catholic, Jewish and Muslim communities Sunday. Each
repeated similar messages of hope.
At the Astrodome, the Rev.
Michael Amesse, who evacuated from St. Jude Catholic Church on
Rampart Street in New Orleans, looked out into the crowd of
thousands and said the presence of local religious leaders has been
a comfort to many.
Amesse, who was with Roman Catholic
Archbishop Joseph A. Fiorenza, who represents the Houston area, said
he's encountered several of his parishioners. Many ask for prayer,
he said.
Rabbi David B. Rosen of the Beth Yeshurun Synagogue
told the evacuees that although they may have lost everything in the
storm, their worth didn't decrease.
Rosen illustrated his
message by telling the story of how a crisp, clean $20 bill came to
be crumpled and stomped in the dirt. People still wanted the cash,
he said, because the value was still there.
"You will never
lose your value. You are all worthy of love and respect," Rosen
said. "God loves us and he's surrounded us this day with
angels."
On Sunday, many of the residents were still sleeping
or eating with their families when the leaders came to speak at the
Astrodome. Others walked up to the stands to hear the
ministers.
At the Reliant Center, Dorothy Lewis said she
welcomed the impromptu service. Although she's lost everything, she
said, God saved her family.
"I can't go to sleep for thanking
him," said Lewis, a Carrollton resident. "I wake up in the morning
thanking him."
BATON ROUGE - The last time
Branden Rockwood saw his parents, they were arguing with a
helicopter pilot about whether they could take with them their three
dogs from the flooded house where they were staying in New
Orleans.
It was an argument his parents lost. After the pilot
refused to let the dogs on board, Rockwood's parents told their
16-year-old son that they were staying behind. He hasn't heard from
them since. He has no idea whether they are alive. "I didn't even
get a chance to tell them goodbye," Rockwood said.
Rockwood
was one of 14 children at a Baton Rouge shelter Sunday who were
separated from their parents during the evacuation of New Orleans.
The number had been higher, but on Sunday afternoon, a van full of
seven children - all younger than six - headed for the airport in
Lafayette for the short flight to San Antonio, where they were
expected to be reunited with their families.
It was a tearful
departure. The volunteers who had cared for the children for the
past five days cried and blew kisses through the window as the van
pulled out of the shelter's parking lot.
"That one's mine,"
said Jodi McKenzie, 23, a student at Louisiana State University who
took care of Zaria Love, 3.
"I love you," McKenzie told
Zaria, who cried as she waved goodbye to her temporary sitter. "It's
going to be okay."
The seven children and their families were
rescued by helicopter Wednesday from the roof of an apartment
building in the 3200 block of Third Street in New Orleans. The
children were taken first, and their parents followed within and an
hour or two, officials said.
But in the chaos that surrounded
their evacuation, the families were inadvertently split apart. The
children were taken by ambulance to a shelter in Baton Rouge, while
their parents and caretakers were flown to Kelly USA, an industrial
park in San Antonio that is being used as a shelter for hurricane
victims.
With the help of the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children - which posted the children's names and other
information on its Web site - officials were able to reunite the
families Sunday. They flew out of Lafayette because officials
couldn't book a flight out of Baton Rouge.
The volunteers who
cared for the children said they formed a bond with their
charges.
"It's sad for me, but it's wonderful for them,"
McKenzie said with tears in her eyes.
State officials said
they hope to reunite the remaining 14 children with their parents.
Rockwood said he knows where his parents are, and he fears
the worst. On Tuesday or Wednesday night, Rockwood said, most of his
13 family members were evacuated from the roof of a two-story house
in New Orleans.
Rockwood said the group - which includes his
cousins and other relatives - moved to the house when waters
engulfed their one-story homes on the same block. The families all
lived near Bienville and North Rocheblave in Mid-City.
All
but three of the family members were evacuated. Rockwood said his
parents and his uncle decided to stay behind with their three
dogs. Rockwood said he tried to talk his parents into leaving,
but they wouldn't budge. "They said they weren't taking dogs, so
they were staying,'' Rockwood said.
Rockwood said he and his
relatives spent four frightening days living on Interstate 10 with
thousands of other evacuees until he was taken to the Baton Rouge
shelter.
"We slept on cots, but if you got up to use the
bathroom, someone would steal it," he said.
Rockwood and his
13-year-old sister, Ashley, were living at the Baton Rouge shelter
with their 17-year-old cousin, Justin Lamare. They said they hope to
be reunited with their surviving family members as soon as
possible.
Until then, they have been sleeping on couches and
playing with a dozen other children who can't find their parents.
They also have been spending a lot of time watching the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina on television, hoping for a glimpse of their
parents or one of their other family members.
These are the
names and ages of the seven children who were reunited with their
families Sunday:
To see a list of the other children who
are missing, visit the Web site operated by the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children to see if they recognize the children
or have information on the whereabouts of their families. The Web
site is missingkids.com, and the organization's toll free number is
1-800-THE-LOST.
Team
inspects damage, makes plans for restoring service
By
Charlie Chapple Staff writer
A team of Entergy workers
assembled near the West Bank toll booths of the Crescent City
Connection and flanked by National Guardsmen entered New Orleans on
Sunday morning for the first time since Katrina left the city
powerless.
The 12-person assessment team went to several
locations in the city to inspect storm damage and determine actions
needed to restore service, Entergy spokesman Chanel Lagarde
said.
"The main thing we were trying to find out is what
needs to be done to restore power to the Central Business District,"
Lagarde said.
He would not disclose the specific work
locations to ensure the safety of the work teams.
Entergy
officials had been leery of sending any workers into New Orleans
because of the recent violence in the city. With conditions
apparently improving, together with protection from Guardsmen, the
company felt secure enough to send the small assessment team into
the city, Lagarde said.
But he added, "at this point, it's
unclear how long we'll be working in New Orleans because of
accessibility, security and flooding." There are still many areas of
the city where crews need to work that are not accessible, Lagarde
said, including areas that remain flooded. Security for the dozens
of crews needed to work in the city remains a concern, he
said.
Katrina knocked out power to 800,000 Entergy customers
in southeastern Louisiana. As of Sunday, power had been restored to
320,000 customers. "Most of those were in the Baton Rouge area,"
Lagarde said. "But we've restored services to customers in all the
parishes we're working."
The company has no estimates of when
power can be restored to the remaining 380,000 customers, including
200,000 in New Orleans. It will take more time to return services in
areas like St. Bernard Parish, where there is extensive flooding.
"We can't start working in those places until the water recedes,''
he said.
In St. Tammany Parish, Cleco has restored power to
5,000 of its 80,000 customers across the southern half of the
parish, spokeswoman Susan Broussard said. The company is
concentrating on restoring power to hospitals and other essential
locations, she said.
Places that have electricity include St.
Tammany Parish Hospital in Covington, Lakeview Regional Medical
Center near Mandeville, Louisiana Heart Hospital near Lacombe, the
parish courthouse and jail in Covington and city halls and police
stations in Covington, Mandeville and Madisonville, Broussard said.
The parish government complex north of Mandeville will soon have
power, she said.
The company has no estimate of when power
will be completely restored in St. Tammany. But Broussard said the
company expects power to return to North Shore Square mall, a
staging site for Cleco crews, in seven to 10 days.
A busload of people that the
state Legislative Black Caucus wanted to deliver to the former
England Air Force Base in Alexandria ended up at a shelter in that
central Louisiana city, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said
Sunday.
Angry that thousands of people are being taken out of
state because of an apparent lack of shelter space in Louisiana, the
black caucus members Saturday said the federal government should
make available military installations that come equipped with
amenities not available at places like Houston's Astrodome.
But Jackson said that when a busload of 160 people arrived
in Alexandria it was already late at night and they decided to take
them to a shelter instead. Caucus leaders later went to the air
force base to talk with officials there about eventually moving
people to the facility.
"The governor needs to make that
broad-based appeal," to get people moved, Jackson said.
A
U.S. Army representative said Saturday that military bases are being
considered for use as shelters, including England.
WASHINGTON – The nation
heard emotional appeals for help from New Orleans area officials who
appeared on the Sunday national talk shows to say they felt
abandoned by their federal government with deadly consequences for
their constituents.
"Hurricane Katrina will go down in
history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast,
but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the
worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S.
history," Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard said on
NBC-TV’s "Meet the Press."
On ABC-TV’s "This Week with George
Stephanopoulos," Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said she broke down in
tears as she looked down at the breached 17th Street Levee from a
helicopter Saturday and saw only a single crane working on repairs.
There was a lot more activity the day before, when President
Bush toured the area, she told Stephanopoulos, making it seem like a
photo op designed to show more being done than really was, she
said.
"There is such suffering and devastation," Landrieu
said on ABC. "It is mind-boggling to everyone in Louisiana,
including myself, why the president did not send forces
earlier."
On CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer," Reps.
William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, and Bobby Jindal, R-Kenner,
complained about bureaucracy preventing volunteers and other help
from getting into New Orleans to relieve the suffering by those
trapped without water and food in the Superdome and Convention
Center.
It was Democrat Broussard who used the most heated
rhetoric, accusing the federal bureaucracy of "murder" for not
rushing help in sooner, and for blocking volunteers and offers of
food and water from Wal-Mart and other sources, from reaching
trapped constituents.
He spoke about the manager of the
Jefferson Parish emergency building and his futile efforts to get
the manager’s mother rescued from a flooded St. Bernard nursing
home.
"His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and
every day she called him and said, ‘Are you coming, son? Is
somebody coming?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming
to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday.
Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming
to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on
Friday.’ And she drowned Friday night. She drowned
Friday night."
Jefferson, appearing on "Face the Nation,"
said he wasn’t sure the slow government response had anything to do
with the large number of African-Americans stuck in the Superdome
and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, as some fellow members
of the Congressional Black Caucus suggested.
"We have a lot
of working poor people who just had to make, you know, very
difficult choices, as they do every day, about how to survive
through this process," Jefferson said. "And in some cases, the
choices they had to make at the end of the month, there's no money.
You know, what do you do? Can you go out and buy a hotel room or pay
for the trip? It's just impossible, massive problems. And many of
them stayed, and consequently, they were there as victims in this
thing much more than anyone else."
The initial response from
the federal government, he said, wasn’t "so much attributable to the
fact that the folks left behind were the poorest and they were
African-American." Rather, he said, it was a case of the government
not "stepping up to do its job."
Sen. David Vitter, R-La.,
who last week said he would give the federal government a grade of F
for its handling of the hurricane problems, said that with the
arrival this weekend of thousands of troops, both active duty and
reserves, along with tons of food, water, medicine and other assets,
the rescue effort has "finally turned around."
But he said
that there is plenty of blame to be spread among state and federal
Emergency management Agency officials who at times were "too
bureaucratic, "instead of responding as they should have by dropping
the rulebooks and rushing to get as many resources into metro New
Orleans as possible." He was to appear on "Fox News Sunday," but was
a late scratch because of a quickly scheduled segment on the death
Saturday night of Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
The Louisiana political leaders appearing on the Sunday news
shows weren’t the only ones giving the Bush administration a hard
time. On "Face the Nation," moderator Bob Schieffer asked Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff about what he called the clear
lack of preparation by the federal government.
"It's a hard
question to ask because I know you're in the middle of an emergency,
but aren't you going to have to put some new people in place down
there? It seems to me that this has just been a total failure,"
Schieffer said.
Chertoff said that the country wasn’t
unprepared, but faced unprecedented challenges with such a huge
storm, followed by flooding caused by a levee breach. On the obvious
failure of the lack of food and water for people trapped in the New
Orleans Convention Center, he said state and city officials had left
the impression that all the activity was in the Superdome.
It would be a big mistake, Chertoff said, to begin the
investigations and fact-finding while so much rescue and recovery
work remains to be done. There will be plenty of time to assess
blame for failures and credit for successes, he said.
"It
would be a tragic shame if by changing our focus, we failed to focus
on what we need to do going forward," Chertoff said.
Lt.
Gov. Mitch Landrieu, who participated in rescue efforts in New
Orleans, seemed to agree with Chertoff during his segment on "Face
the Nation."
"What we're trying to do right now in the water,
on the ground (is) to save as many people as we can. And quite
frankly that discussion (of blame for the poor initial response) is
getting in the way. What we really need to be about is getting
people out of the water, getting people safe, and then in these
centers where all of our citizens are, many of our friends and
relatives and neighbors, make sure they have what they need to get
back to some semblance of life."
During her helicopter tour
of the New Orleans area with an ABC news crew, Sen. Landrieu noted
that there has been a lot of finger-pointing, including suggestions
that New Orleans made a mistake to evacuate inmates from its jail
before rescuing citizens clinging to life in their attics and
rooftops. If the inmates had gotten out, it would have made the
security situation in New Orleans far worse, she said.
And
than she let out with some pure emotion.
"And if one person
criticizes them or says one more thing, including the president of
the United States, he will hear from me. One more word about
it, after this show airs, and I, I might likely have to punch him.
Literally."
They've escaped N.O. but still have long road ahead
By Steve Ritea Staff writer
With the
tattered American flag that helped save her life hanging off her
frail shoulders, 78-year-old Shirley Williamson sat in a wheelchair
outside gate D1 at Louis Armstrong International Airport on Sunday
with no idea where her plane was headed.
As other victims of
Hurricane Katrina lay on stretchers nearby, some screaming in pain,
military medics rushed to attend to Williamson and others, grasping
for syringes and gauze pads piled up on the countertop typically
used by airline staff to assist travelers.
Outside the
window, trams that usually deliver checked bags to airline cargo
holds on Sunday carried patients on stretchers and families - many
of whom have never been able to afford an airline ticket - to
military transport planes headed for safer and more stable parts of
the nation.
"I'm never flying through this airport again,"
said Air Force Capt. Terri Leitch, a nurse who has helped care for
some of the thousands who have come through Armstrong since early
last week and stood helplessly nearby as some have died.
As
the medics attended to their patients, U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and Centers for Disease
Control Director Julie L. Gerberding toured the terminal, getting a
glimpse of the makeshift emergency room set up at the airport. The
health officials are in New Orleans to begin determining the massive
public health risks that lay ahead during the recovery from
Hurricane Katrina.
"When you put standing water with insects
and unsanitary conditions, it's a breeding ground for disease, and
you have to stay ahead of that," Leavitt said.
Twenty-four
CDC teams are in the region surveying health conditions at every
shelter. Little if any disease prevention exists in the area because
"the entire public health staff in New Orleans is gone," Gerberding
said.
Once search and rescue operations are complete, the
mental health of residents in the region must be addressed,
especially among children, she said.
Gerberding acknowledged
that there has been difficulty getting supplies to outlying areas,
but said they are working to fix the problem. Two planes loaded with
antibiotics and 37 pallets of other medical supplies are on their
way to the region, she said.
Meanwhile, commercial and
military planes and helicopters dropped off the recently rescued and
took those suitable for longer flights to Dallas, Nashville,
Shreveport and other cities with hospital and shelter
space.
"No one's ever seen anything that could ever compare
to this," said Chief Master Sgt. Rodney Christa, who is overseeing
the massive operation. "I was command superintendent in Afghanistan
two months after 9/11 and this is worse."
As he stood in a
section of the terminal filled with military cots where his troops
finally managed to get some rest, he described how rescuers were
beginning to fan out into more remote areas of the region, where he
feared there may be many more people in need of medical attention
and evacuation.
"We don't know if this is a lull or not yet,"
Christa said.
Nonetheless, things had improved dramatically
by Sunday at the airport with considerably fewer patients and
evacuees in the terminal. The stories the patients had to tell were
heartbreaking.
Williamson, who lived alone in her North
Rampart Street home for the past 35 years, described how she spent
the past six days rationing herself to a single slice of raisin
bread and one or two cookies as looters broke into every business
nearby. She feared they would begin eyeing the homes on her street
left vacant by those who fled the storm.
Although a few
neighbors came to check on her before they evacuated, none offered
to take her. "If they wanted me, they would have said it," she
said.
During daylight hours, she avoided her front yard,
fearing she would be attacked or draw attention to the fact that she
was alone and vulnerable.
Shortly after Katrina hit,
however, she had grabbed an American flag that had blown off its
perch near a neighbor's door and onto her porch.
Each day, as
the helicopters passed overheard, she waved the flag, hoping
rescuers would spot it and save her. All week she waited, until
Sunday, when they finally came. As she sat in her wheelchair with a
warm meal in her lap, Williamson said she didn't know where she was
headed but anywhere was better than where she had
been.
Nearby, Larry Hampton described how six feet of water
in his Central Business District home nearly drowned his fiancée,
Doreen Patton, who clung to a beach ball to stay afloat. Fearing
that opening the door would let in more water, they stayed inside.
Finally they realized that remaining in the house would mean certain
death, and they got out.
The couple ended up outside the
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, where Hampton and Patton watched
more than a dozen people die in the street until a helicopter took
them to Armstrong.
Just as they were boarding a military
transport plane that stacked patients three stretchers high and had
seats for those who could walk, Hampton, Patton and Williamson
learned their flight was headed for Shreveport, where they'd be
assessed at a local shelter.
Watching as they were helped
from the baggage tram to the back of the plane, American Airlines
flight attendant Patty Sinclair recalled purchasing candy and food
for evacuees she helped to board flights her airline and others were
providing to Corpus Christi, Texas, and other locations.
Even
as many moved in and out of the terminal quickly, others like
Jessica Bingham, 21, were left waiting with her two-month-old son,
Leonard, as her husband tried to make it to the airport from
Marrero.
She recalled being rescued from her foster parents'
flooded home in Metairie, only to be taken to a much worse place: a
shelter in the gymnasium at Bonnabel High School.
There were
no cots, she said, and after evacuees began urinating and defecating
on the gym floor, she and her baby joined others lying outside on
the pavement for two days as they tried to wave off mosquitoes. Her
baby began to lose consciousness until emergency workers finally
came by and took her to Armstrong, where fluids brought her baby
back to consciousness.
"There's a million horrifying and
heartbreaking stories here," said Air Force Col. Jerry Owen, as he
shepherded one wave of evacuees onto the tarmac and watched the next
batch start to arrive.
Saints to operate in San Antonio, site of home
games undetermined
But Loomis, Haslett say team's commitment
remains to N.O., state of Louisiana
By Mike
Triplett Staff writer
SAN ANTONIO - The Saints
announced Sunday night that they plan to set up their base of
operations in San Antonio for the remainder of this season,
regardless of where they ultimately decide to play their home
games.
But both General Manager Mickey Loomis and Coach Jim
Haslett said their preference is to play those home games in Baton
Rouge, if possible, and that the team's commitment remains to New
Orleans and the state of Louisiana.
"The first thing, and I
believe the most important thing, is that although we are practicing
here in San Antonio and we're trying to locate a place for our home
games, we are still the New Orleans Saints, and our commitment to
our city is stronger than ever," Loomis said.
Loomis and
Haslett addressed the media during the team's first official press
conference since arriving early Friday morning in San Antonio, where
the team will begin practicing this afternoon for next Sunday's
season opener at Carolina.
"We have many goals to
accomplish, and one of them is to become a leader in the
revitalization of New Orleans," Loomis said. "We want to be on the
forefront of making our city stronger. Our team is representing the
state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans, and we'll take that
responsibility seriously.
"We'll play this season with the
same toughness, determination and resiliency of the people of New
Orleans and we'll make them proud."
Loomis also announced
that the team is forming the New Orleans Saints Hurricane Katrina
Relief Fund, and that team owner Tom Benson and his wife, Gayle,
will make the first donation.
The statement came in the wake
of reports that Benson was strongly leaning toward moving the
Saints' home games to San Antonio this season - and perhaps moving
the team permanently to the town where he has longstanding business
and personal ties.
There also were indications of dissent in
the ranks of the organization about where the team should play its
games.
When asked directly about those reports, Loomis
reiterated his opening statement, saying, "That's the farthest thing
from any of our minds."
"Again," Loomis said, "our commitment
to New Orleans is stronger than ever. We recognize that we're
representing Louisiana and we're representing the city of New
Orleans. And I don't know how important a football game is, probably
not very, but if we can uplift anyone, if we can make any of our
fans feel good about themselves or about the state or about the
city, with just the fact that we're out there, much less playing as
hard as we're going to play, that's what's worthwhile to
us."
San Antonio made sense as a base of operations because
the city had hosted the Saints before - last season, when the team
evacuated before Hurricane Ivan. Loomis said the team's first
consideration was to move its operations to Houston, but that city
was so heavily involved in relief efforts that the team did not want
to be a burden.
Loomis said while the team's practice
facility in Metairie was not damaged too badly, several of the
players and members of the organization cannot return to their homes
anytime soon. And they needed to address such issues as where to
send their children to school.
Loomis estimated that maybe
400 or 500 people would relocate to San Antonio for the next few
months. But Loomis and Haslett said they would still prefer to
play their home games in Baton Rouge - mostly because it is closer
to the team's fan base.
The team and the NFL continue to
consider several options for those home games, including Baton
Rouge, San Antonio and the option of playing all of its road games
at the site of the visiting teams' - like the Saints will do in
Giants Stadium on the weekend of Sept. 18.
Haslett expressed
disappointment with that decision, saying NFL commissioner Paul
Tagliabue, "put us behind the 8-ball," but he said that concern
pales in comparison to the larger issues of the day.
Haslett
also said it might be easier to play the team's home games in San
Antonio this year since the Saints would not have to travel every
week. "But I don't know if you've ever seen our home record vs. our
road record," he joked. "So if they think we're playing on the road
every weekend, well probably win a lot more games."
Loomis
said hopefully a decision on those home games will be made in the
coming days, but there are many logistical issues that need to be
worked out in any potential site.
Ultimately, the decision
will be made by Tagliabue.
"No decisions have been made on
where the Saints will play their remaining 2005 scheduled home games
following their Week 2 game at Giants Stadium," NFL spokesman Greg
Aiello said Sunday. "As Commissioner Tagliabue stated on Friday, the
Saints represent Louisiana and New Orleans and we are going to work
with public officials there and with Tom Benson to maintain a focus
on the region's needs and the role of the Saints and NFL in the
recovery."
Gov. Kathleen Blanco would like the Saints to play
at least part of their season in Louisiana, said Bob Mann,
communications director for the governor. Hesaid that Tim Coulon,
the head of the Superdome Commission, is scheduled to meet Monday
with officials from the Saints and the NFL to discuss how to make
that happen, Mann said.
LSU officials are also behind the
idea, although such an endeavor could be difficult. For starters,
there is still a wealth of relief efforts taking place in Baton
Rouge. And there are two weekends on the schedule this year when the
Tigers would play at home Saturday, followed by a Sunday afternoon
Saints game.
The Saints play the Falcons on Oct. 16, one day
after LSU is scheduled to host Florida. The Saints play the Bears on
Nov. 6, the day after LSU will host Appalachian State.
The
Alamodome in San Antonio also has a few conflicting dates this year,
though only one of them (the Dec. 15, 16 and 17 NCAA Volleyball
Championships) seems to be an immovable event.
Still, city
officials seem to be conflicting as to whether they want to bring
the Saints games to town. Some have been working behind the scenes
in that direction, including one city council member.
But
recently elected mayor Phil Hardberger issued a statement earlier
this week saying, "I understand that there are a lot of people who
are interested in whether or not the New Orleans Saints will be
playing football in San Antonio. I am too. Right now, however, our
primary focus is on making our city ready to welcome evacuees from
Louisiana."
When asked about the latest developments in a
press conference Sunday afternoon, Hardberger reiterated, "I like
football, but we've got more important things to address right
now."
The Alamodome has not been used as a relief shelter,
while other events continue to take place in the arena, which could
seat 65,000 people for football games, though it is not an ideal NFL
stadium.
San Antonio also has not made public efforts to lure
the Saints permanently to their town, though that rumor swirled in
May when Benson's attorney Stanley Rosenberg, a member of the team's
board of directors, told the San Antonio Express-News that Benson
was interested in moving the team after the 2005 season, possibly to
San Antonio.
A week later, Benson dismissed the notion,
saying, "Lawyers sometimes talk too much. I'm not looking at any
markets." Similar reports surfaced Saturday after Louisiana state
Sen. Mike Michot, R-Lafayette, told The Times-Picayune that the
Saints' executive vice president of administration, Arnold Fielkow,
told him Benson was strongly leaning toward moving the Saints
permanently to San Antonio.
Fielkow, reached by phone after
arriving in San Antonio on Sunday, said the team's official word
would come at the evening press conference.
Benson, a native
New Orleanian, has not been available for comment this past week,
but he issued the following statement Friday:
"Our main
concern is with the people of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region
who have experienced the recent tragedy. We are attempting to carry
on in these difficult times and are looking out for the best
interest of our coaches, staff, players and their families. My
prayers are with each of those who have been adversely
impacted."
Lolis Eric Elie: Crisis needs attention, not
fly-bys
Why are we still standing on ceremony?
President
Bush finally arrived Friday on the ravaged Gulf Coast as a belated
acknowledgement that his previous fly-by in an airplane on the way
back to Washington was but the sickest of jokes.
Where did he
go?
He went to Biloxi, a city hit hard by Hurricane Katrina,
but certainly not the epicenter of the devastation.
What did
he do first? The president of the United States of America stood in
front of the television cameras and wasted time receiving a
briefing, a recitation of facts that the rest of the country has
known for days.
What did the governors of Mississippi and
Alabama do before they briefed the president on the facts that
everyone but Bush already knew?
They thanked him as if he has
demonstrated something other than utter and callous incompetence.
Ground zero
Did Bush go to the Superdome or
the Convention Center or any other places where the teeming masses
were yearning to eat food and drink water and breathe fresh
air?
No!
Where did he go in the days after the World
Trade Center bombing?
To Ground Zero.
The Bush tour of
Gulf Coast devastation seemed to possess little more gravitas than a
ribbon cutting.
What is Congress doing in the midst of this
crisis?
Well, to its credit, and at Bush's urging, it
approved $10.5 billion as a down payment on disaster relief for the
Gulf Coast. What is on the congressional agenda next week? Hurricane
Relief?
No.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist,
R-Tenn., has pledged to move forward with a vote to permanently
repeal the estate tax.
Where is the Louisiana
Legislature?
Have lawmakers called a special session to
redirect any nonessential expenditures to hurricane relief and
recovery efforts?
If they have met, they have done so very
secretly and very quietly.
Take action
How is
the nation to understand the gravity of our crisis if the state of
Louisiana doesn't?
I have had dozens of e-mails from friends
around the world asking what they can do. I didn't have a good
answer. Several dozen fingers in the dike of our misery would do
little to stem the tide.
But I have an answer now.
If
you live in Louisiana, call your state representative.
Call
your state senator. If you're an American living outside the state,
call your congressman. Call your senators.
Tell them
Americans are dying by the dozens.
Tell them Americans are
being raped and robbed by the score.
Tell them it is time to
act as if the nation is in crisis!
Tell them to get to ground
zero on the Gulf Coast immediately because some crazy columnist
claims to have absolute proof that Osama bin Laden blew up the
levees!
"Neighbor" is a
casual kind of word. Most of the time we use it just to refer to
someone who lives on our street or block, someone we greet in
passing most of the time but also someone we'd call upon if there
were an emergency, knowing full well that they would help.
We
have an emergency. And thank God, we also have neighbors. They are
in places like Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. They've never laid
eyes on the men, women and children streaming out of the devastated
New Orleans area. But they are opening their doors and their hearts
to us.
"Thank you" can be a casual kind of phrase, too. We
say it when someone hands us our receipt or allows us to merge into
a lane of traffic. This week, though, it seems like those two little
words can hardly carry the freight of gratitude that we feel. Our
lives have been broken, and so have our hearts. But the kindness and
generosity of people in our neighboring states still moves us
deeply, even in our pain.
The many, many humanitarian acts
can hardly be tallied. They are happening everywhere, from the
insurance company that tracked down a Louisiana man to tell him that
a Fort Worth attorney had found his lost wallet at a gas station
line in Mississippi to a Dallas pharmacist with a house full of
evacuees who spent her first day back from maternity leave trying to
get prescriptions and insurance information for an elderly Slidell
couple. Churches are organizing drives to gather water and food. The
students of Bishop Lynch Catholic High School in Dallas began a
school-wide drive on Friday before the administration had even
decided how to respond. \
Their decisiveness speaks volumes.
It's also exactly what's needed to address this national
catastrophe.
The same spirit that moved Americans to stand in
line for hours to donate blood after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack
is alive and well and is moving people to tremendous deeds. We may
be a little too tired and traumatized to fully express how much we
appreciate every kind word, every helping hand, every donation, but
we feel it nonetheless.
Some of us will truly become the
neighbors of the people who are opening their arms to us. Some of us
have nothing to go back to, no homes, no jobs, no places of worship,
no schools. Our neighborhoods, such a keystone for New Orleanians,
are under Lake Pontchartrain. But the fact that many people in the
rest of the country are welcoming us is balm to aching
souls.
The influx of new residents will change communities
everywhere, and change is challenging for human beings. But Judy
Porter, a religion teacher at Bishop Lynch, sees only the good in
that. "It could make us better, kinder, nicer, a city of love and
great food and jazz music,'' she said.
The
people of the New Orleans area "battered, grieving and homeless" are
in desperate need of something to hold onto. Something to ease their
broken hearts and nourish their spirits.
Saints owner Tom
Benson can give them that something. He can choose, and we fervently
hope he will, to play this fall's home games at LSU's Tiger Stadium.
Saints fans are among the most loyal in the NFL. For 38
years, they have embraced this team whether it won or lost, and the
losses almost always outnumbered the wins. Mr. Benson owns this
team, and it is his business. But this is our team, too, at least in
spirit. What other fans would pack the Superdome year after year
despite lackluster win/loss records? Don't these devoted people
deserve that sort of dedication in return?
This metro area
has suffered the worst natural catastrophe in the nation's history.
People who were helpless to get out of the way of the storm died in
our beloved Superdome. The Dome is wrecked, and it is a place known
for misery right now. But it can be refurbished. Its rebuilding can
be a hopeful sign to the hundreds of thousands of residents who have
been scattered across the region by Hurricane Katrina - people who
have lost not only loved ones and homes, but their entire community.
The Saints have been a source of that sense of community
since the day they first walked on the field. They bring us together
in a way nothing else does.
The NFL doesn't want the Saints
to leave. As after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the New York Giants
chose to stay in their ravaged city, the league sees the Saints as a
balm for wounded souls.
Surely the players don't want to
leave. Receiver Joe Horn spent three hours touring the Astrodome on
Saturday, signing autographs for children and giving the 15,000
displaced storm survivors something to smile about.
And it
is difficult to believe Mr. Benson would want to leave, despite
reports to the contrary. He has talked in recent months about how
much he loves New Orleans, about his desire to stay here, and we
take him at his word.
Before Katrina, Saints fans wanted
their team to stay. Now they need it to stay.
Sanders visits Green Wave, calls on athletes for
aid
By Benjamin Hochman Staff writer
DALLAS -
Football players born in Atlanta in the mid-1980s were predestined
to worship Deion Sanders.
Growing up, Izzy Route played
cornerback. He wore No. 21 Falcons jerseys. And now Route is a
college football player for Tulane, returning kicks, too, like
“Prime Time.”
So when Sanders spoke to Tulane’s football
team Sunday, Route soaked in every syllable The Man said. And when
Sanders left the DoubleTree Hotel, Route walked alongside the NFL
cornerback, throwing questions his way like easy interceptions.
But the discussions weren’t only about nickel packages and
pass pursuit. Tulane’s football players are dealing with the
realities of Hurricane Katrina – and having to play ball knowing
their homes could be ruined – so Sanders gave them more than just
chalk talk. He gave them inspiration.
“He said, 'How are you
going to respond when your time is called?'” Route said. “What are
you going to do? How are you going to step up in the big situation
when things really matter? How are you going to make an
impact?”
“I just really wanted to motivate them to hang on,
because they’re going to come through this,” said the Baltimore
Ravens’ Sanders, who was joined Sunday by former Dallas Cowboy Nate
Newton. “It’s truly touching because they’re somebody I can identify
with. I can identify with football players, I can identify with
trials and tribulations. And I can identify with dilemmas –
sometimes you don’t see an end there, but you definitely can see
your way through it.”
Last week, Sanders challenged all
professional athletes to donate at least $1,000 apiece - through
payroll deductions - to benefit the hurricane victims. His goal is
to raise $1.5 million to $3 million.
By
Benjamin Hochman and Fred Robinson Staff
writers
DALLAS - Tulane officials are considering the
University of Houston and the University of Texas-Austin as
temporary homes for its athletic program, according to Cynthia
Cherrey, Tulane’s vice president of student affairs.
While
Tulane athletic director Rick Dickson said he would like to have all
of the sports teams on one campus, administrators might have to
split up the athletes. Tulane is hoping to have its football team in
Houston, Cherrey said.
Dickson hopes to have a plan set by
today. Cherrey said, “Nothing is certain right now, but we should
know a bit more by Tuesday or Wednesday."
“The first goal is
for us to get all the student-athletes into the academic arena. And
second, we’re trying to keep them together.”
Dickson spent
much of Sunday in Houston, where Tulane president Scott Cowen and
his staff have set up offices at the Four Seasons Hotel. The
football team is currently based in Dallas, where it has practiced
at Southern Methodist University. The women’s soccer team completed
play in an Alabama-Birmingham tournament Sunday, and is expected to
fly to San Diego for a tournament next weekend. Tulane’s other
sports teams are not intact, with members at their homes or at the
homes of friends.
Green Wave players left on sideline as others’
seasons begins
Watching SMU-Baylor game tough for Tulane
athletes
By Benjamin Hochman Staff
writer
DALLAS - The football team stood as one, hands on
their weathered hearts. The stadium fell silent. The marching band
played.
“When I hear the national anthem, you think - it’s
game time,” Tulane safety Darren Sapp said. “It almost brings me to
tears when you hear it and you can’t be out there.”
On
Saturday night, Tulane’s transplanted football team watched a
football game. They sat in Section 211 of Southern Methodist’s Ford
Stadium, where SMU hosted Baylor. This weekend, Tulane was supposed
to play its season opener at Southern Mississippi. Forced out of
town by Hurricane Katrina, the team spent the weekend in Dallas,
dealing with tussling emotions.
“You work so hard,” said
Sapp, a senior. “And now you’re watching other people
play.”
The team tried to enjoy the game. Earlier, the
football players infiltrated SMU’s tailgating, bumping shoulders
with Paris Hilton look-alikes with sunglasses as big as science
goggles and Southern gentlemen with undone ties and cheap beer.
There have been a lot of moments the past couple of days where
Tulane players hid from CNN.
But practicing, shopping at
Dillard’s, playing pool and eating greasy burgers at Dave &
Busters, and watching this game can only temporarily coat reality.
Furthermore, they’re all reminders of what they could be doing, if
catastrophe hadn’t altered their lives.
“I’m watching guys
making plays and interceptions, breaking up passes and making
tackles,” said Sean Lucas, a senior safety, during the second
quarter. "I would like to be out there. You really do. I kind of do
want to leave the game.
“Watching SMU, they have home-field
advantage. It looks like this season, we won't have home-field
advantage – wherever we go. Our fans are just trying to make it now
and live day-to-day.”
It’s not just the Tulane fans. The
players have lost their homes, too.
Tight end Jerome Landry
got a text message telling him his home in Chalmette was
gone.
“We’re going to go home to what? Where is home?” he
said from the lobby of the DoubleTree Hotel, where Tulane is staying
in Dallas. “This hotel is home. … It hit me right there. That was
the worst. But the more I thought about it, everything can be
replaced. I was just ecstatic my family was safe.”
By the
weekend, every Tulane player had his family members accounted for,
including receiver Kenneth Guidroz, who had not heard from his
father. But these are new emotions. One player griped that
people tell them, “‘We know what you’re going through.’ But they
don’t.”
“What do we do now?” said Matt Forte’, a running back
from Slidell. “I don’t know where the house is – if it’s knocked
down or flooded.”
The team has bonded. Linebacker Anthony
Cannon said he is spending time with players he never talked to
before. At practice, Coach Chris Scelfo gives rousing speeches,
telling the players they’re representing a post-Katrina New
Orleans.
“It’s bringing everyone together,” Cannon said.
“There are teams across the nation where players may have quarrels
with one another. But those things don’t matter once you lose
everything. Everyone is in the same situation.”
Many Tulane
players have lost their homes. And they don’t know where their new
homes will be. They have a football game in two weeks. Saturday
afternoon therapy is a long ways away.
On Sunday afternoon,
the same time Tulane was supposed to be playing Southern Miss, some
of the team gathered for a meeting of the Fellowship of Christian
Athletes. Lloyd Arnsmeyer, the executive director of the Dallas
branch, looked the players in the eyes. “You do have life,” he
pleaded. “And you do have each other.”
Running back turned linebacker looks forward to
first start
Spadoni uses game as escape from
reality
By Jim Kleinpeter Staff
writer
BATON ROUGE - Fortune was smiling on LSU linebacker
Jason Spadoni, if only for a little while.
Last spring he was
deep on the running back depth chart and was moved to linebacker.
Two weeks ago the only player in front of him, E.J. Kuale, injured
an ankle and Spadoni, with no real background on defense, found
himself as the probable starter for the LSU season
opener.
Any excitement Spadoni had was washed away when
Hurricane Katrina struck. Spadoni is expected to start at weakside
linebacker when, or if, LSU lines up, against Arizona State on
Saturday. School officials are preparing as if there will be a game,
but a final decision will come sometime this week, perhaps
Tuesday.
All Spadoni could do was push those feelings into
the background.
"It's all an Act of God. I can't control
that," said the junior from Kenner who played at John Curtis.
"Everyone is safe. That's all that matters to me.
"I was
scheduled to start. We've got a whole bunch of other games I can
play in. Hopefully, I'll start this week. I was excited about the
opportunity to start and play, show everybody I have the ability to
play. I'll use the extra week to prepare myself mentally, and sort
everything out with my family."
Spadoni said he spends a lot
of time thinking about his family, which is safe in Houston, and his
home in Kenner near the Esplanade Mall. "I heard we got four feet of
water," he said. He enjoys the opportunity to practice and forget
for a couple of hours.
LSU coaches like the way he's
progressed. Defensive coordinator Bo Pelini said Spadoni's athletic
ability made him a natural fit, but that he has some intangibles
that have furthered his development. Spadoni didn't play defense in
high school and isn't sure if the last time was in elementary or
middle school.
"He's coming along," Pelini said. "He's got
good toughness and instincts. We feel he's just going to get better
and better."
Spadoni has shown he can play more than just
running back. He played in 11 games as a freshman, mostly on special
teams. He sat out the 2003 season because of academic difficulties
but returned to special teams play last season.
He made the
switch to linebacker during spring practice because Joseph Addai,
Alley Broussard, Justin Vincent and Shyrone Carey figured to get
more playing time at running back.
"He had a rocky transition
at first, some ups and downs," middle linebacker Cameron Vaughn
said. "Lately he's been up making huge strides. He's definitely
learning, stepping up and doing a great job."
Spadoni said
having played running back has helped him as a linebacker,
especially on running plays. When the play starts, he knows where
the back is going, because it's where he used to try to
be.
"It's exactly the same but flip-flopped," he said. "I can
anticipate where the back is going and try to get there first. The
toughest part is picking up things like a backside pass route. It's
tough to see the whole picture."
NOTES:
ASU
OFFICIALS IN TOWN: LSU associate athletic director Herb Vincent
said officials from Arizona State's athletic department were
expected to be in Baton Rouge on Sunday, specifically to examine the
team's hotel accommodations. Arizona State sports information
director Mark Brand said that those who made the trip would examine
the "whole picture."
"I don't know because I'm not with
them," Brand said. "But I would think it would be looking at the
overall security and welfare of the group that we would bring in
there."
Arizona State officials would not issue a statement
on their findings, Brand said.
TICKET INFO: Beginning
today, the LSU Athletics Ticket Office will begin assisting
season-ticket holders who have lost or misplaced LSU football
tickets or parking passes because of Hurricane Katrina.
For
tickets or parking passes to be replaced, the season-ticket holder
of record must go in person to the LSU Athletics Ticket Office and
present a valid photo ID. Fans are asked to understand that an ID is
necessary to ensure the secure issuance of tickets and passes.
Relatives or friends of the season-ticket holder of record may not
serve as a representative of the ticket holder of record.
The
LSU Athletics Ticket Office will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
today, and the remaining weekdays this week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Staff writer William Kalec contributed to this
report.
Hornets' Brown 'blown away' by devastation in
Slidell
Says Players Association soon will announce major
relief effort
By Jimmy Smith Staff
writer
Hornets forward P.J. Brown made it back to Slidell,
the community he has called home for much of his professional
life. And he's still having difficulty describing exactly what he
saw.
"It looks like someone dropped a bomb; it's
unbelievable," Brown said Saturday night from Houston, where he
traveled after riding out the storm in Lafayette with friends and
family. "What the water did, the wind. In a lot of places it's like
somebody built a house out of toothpicks and just blew it
down.
"It's crazy."
Brown's wife, Dee, grew up in
Slidell and played high school basketball at Salmen. The couple met
while playing together at Louisiana Tech in Ruston.
So Brown
is quite familiar with the area, its inhabitants and their
unyielding spirit in the face of disaster.
But he wasn't
prepared for the utter destruction he witnessed in parts of the
community as he returned to check on his home in the Turtle Creek
subdivision, and a new home that he was scheduled to move into in
two weeks in Lakeshore Estates on the banks of Lake
Pontchartrain.
The Turtle Creek dwelling practically was
unscathed, just minor wind damage. The lake house was flooded by
more than a foot of water on the first level.
"Oh man, I was
just blown away," Brown said. "People who have lived there all of
their lives are basically homeless. It was just unbelievable. That's
all I can say. It was an unbelievable sight.
"But the one
thing about those people: They haven't given up. They still have
good spirits. They're upbeat. That was the most amazing thing. You
could see despair on their faces. But they were still upbeat and
positive. They're going through a tough time. But you couldn't tell
it by the way they were talking. Those people haven't given up. And
everybody else shouldn't, either."
It appeared by Brown's
estimation those most affected by Hurricane Katrina's deadly path
lived closest to the lake.
"There are still some
neighborhoods that are OK," he said. "But by the lake, everything
took a tremendous hit. All the neighborhoods there got water. If you
were inland, you had a chance. There were a few areas there that
survived (flood waters).
"But there's still a lot of wind
damage and trees down. If you were by the water, though, you went
under."
As he toured the area, friends and acquaintances that
had stayed behind instead of fleeing told stories of rapid
deterioration of conditions that nearly took their lives and tales
of good fortune that saved others.
"People were barely
escaping," Brown said. "The water came up so quick in some areas.
One lady told me she was with a group of 50 people who gathered to
take shelter in their church. They thought that was the best place
for them to go.
"Then the water started rising. They all went
up to the pulpit and the water level stopped right there. If it
wasn't for that, 50 people would have passed.
"Another young
lady I know, she and her young child were fighting for their lives
when their neighbor came by in a boat and rescued them. She'd have
been gone if it hadn't been for that."
Yet while Brown sees
hope for his hometown, he is concerned for other nearby communities
equally overwhelmed in Katrina's aftermath. "All the people in
rural areas, places like Chalmette, Folsom, Bogalusa, Waveland, Pass
Christian ... those people got hit hard, too."
Brown, the
Hornets' player representative, said the NBA Players Association
soon will announce a major relief effort, one for which they wanted
him to fly to New York for a press conference.
"I can't make
it to New York," Brown said. "I've got too much going on to get to
New York. But we're putting something together to raise money, try
to get the 'Feed the Children' group to start canvassing down here,
and I'll do whatever I can to personally reach out.
"Right
now, I've got to get to work and clean up. It's just unbelievable.
In your wildest nightmare, you couldn't dream up something like
this."
SAN ANTONIO - After a week of watching their city's
devastation on television from afar, several Saints players finally
were able to do something for the people of their town
Sunday.
Seven players, along with General Manager Mickey
Loomis and other team employees, spent Sunday morning at an evacuee
shelter in San Antonio, mingling with people, serving lunches and
signing autographs.
Safety Steve Gleason and his girlfriend,
and long snapper Kevin Houser and his wife went shopping at Target
with a list of items requested by six families they approached. The
most popular items were clean underwear and hair
brushes.
"You watch on TV and you see information about where
to send a check and make a donation. And we did that, too. But
coming here and being with them and being a part of it is just as
important, if not more important," Houser said. "This is our city.
These are people that have supported us. We want to do whatever we
can for them. If coming out here, playing football with the kids,
and talking to them is what it takes, we want to do
that."
Wayne Gandy, Jamar Nesbit, Brian Young, Zach Hilton
and T.J. Slaughter also spent a few hours at the Hurricane Relief
Warehouse on the site of KellyUSA, a former Air Force base housing
approximately 10,000 evacuees from New Orleans. Media relations
staffers Greg Bensel, Nick Karl and Justin Macione and his wife also
visited.
Most of the Saints players left to see their
families over the three-day weekend - the team will not report to
San Antonio until 6 p.m. today. Other players visited shelters in
other areas, such as Deuce McAllister and Fred McAfee in Mississippi
and Joe Horn in Houston.
Most of the players who stayed in
San Antonio had been asking what they could do to help, so a trip to
the shelter was hastily arranged.
There was some early
frustration as the players were kept waiting outside while
organizers tried to work out the logistics of their visit, for
security reasons among others. First, some of the players' wives
went in on their own. Then Gleason and Houser "snuck in," as well,
figuring they didn't look like football players anyway, so they
wouldn't cause much of a ruckus.
"It feels pretty good to
finally be able to actually do something to help," said Gleason, who
said some of the players wondered if there might be some angst
against them because they are so well taken care of. But he said
that wasn't the case. "They were excited to see us, glad we were
just here talking to them."
Some evacuees hardly took notice
of the Saints' arrival. Others were tremendously excited, like a
woman who ran around with all seven autographs on her khaki
shorts.
Teenagers Pernell Marshall and Selus Turner wanted to
talk football with the players at length. They were glad to hear
rookie quarterback Adrian McPherson made the final roster and think
Aaron Brooks should play the first half of games with McPherson
playing the second half.
They also wanted to hear the full
list of roster cuts.
"That's my team, the Saints," Turner
said. "Sometimes they mess up …" "But then they rebound,"
Marshall added.
James Barnett, a native of Algiers who spent
six days in the Superdome before being evacuated to San Antonio, was
one of the first to rush up to the players and shake their
hands.
"I love to see that," Barnett said. "It's unity, man.
It lets us know we're all together here."
Barnett, who was
separated from his wife and daughter a month before Hurricane
Katrina hit, was one of many evacuees who praised the efforts of the
San Antonio community and organizations such as the Red Cross,
Salvation Army, United Way and FEMA. "They're like angels from
God," Barnett said. "It's like a brand new life."
One of the
Saints' family members experienced that fresh start Sunday as well.
Former ground superintendent Lester Vallet Sr., a longtime employee,
was evacuated to San Antonio, and he was taken to the team hotel to
be reunited with his son, Lester Vallet Jr., a grounds supervisor
with the team.
Vallet Sr., 82, had been wearing a Saints
T-shirt and a big Saints belt buckle given to him by former coach
Bum Phillips, which were conversation starters. And once he let
police know that he used to work for the team, they informed him the
Saints were on their way and put them together.
Vallet Sr. is
still apart from his wife, who was evacuated from their home on
North Broad before he was. But he was looking forward to being
reunited with his son.
John DeShazier: Sports provide another means of
relief
Now more than ever, the games should be played.
Not
because there's any scientific evidence to support a claim that
athletic events provide healing. But if people believe they're
medicinal, then they are, even if they're more of a placebo than a
prescription. Because, now more than ever, we are desperate for
their ability to turn our attention away, if only temporarily, from
what really hurts.
So play them because New Orleans and its
surrounding areas need the distraction from reality. They need
relief from a ringside view of death and destruction that has been
so voluminous it has become numbing. Play them because somewhere,
for someone, they may induce a smile even under these circumstances,
a memory to reflect upon at some point in the future, when lives
that have been turned inside out have had some semblance of order
restored.
This isn't a plea to ignore what has happened along
the Gulf Coast, the loss of life and property that citizens have
experienced and witnessed, the looting and violence and lawlessness
some have had to endure from others who somehow deduced firing guns
and burning buildings were preferable to seeking food, water,
shelter and a way out.
Everyone who lives in New Orleans and
its surrounding areas has been scarred to varying degrees, some to
levels that are unimaginable, depths from which they may never
recover. And while the belief may be that those who were fortunate
enough to be able to evacuate are the lucky ones, watching the
destruction from a distance provides no comfort for those who have
yet to contact family and friends, who really have no idea when they
can return home, who don't yet know if there even is a home to
return to.
There will be no forgetting this, now or ever, not
with pictures burned into memory banks as if with a branding
iron.
Not when the race to affix blame almost has
overshadowed the tragedy that a city was 80 percent underwater, has
begun to dwarf the fact that thousands of its citizens were trapped
in inhumane conditions, has trumped the fact that there will be a
time and place of reckoning for whatever errors were committed but
now, while people are trying to make heads or tails of devastated
lives, isn't that time or place.
But we need the games now,
more than ever.
As distracted as Saints and Hornets players
will be, and disjointed as their seasons will be as their governing
bodies attempt to carve something resembling "normal" back into
their routines, we need the relief that their effort will
provide.
It's not food, water, clothes and lodging, though
some players, their leagues and unions generously have contributed
or pledged their time and money to the relief fund.
What it
is, is a chance to draw their attention away from the pain.
Temporarily, sure, because once the game ends everyone will have to
return to whatever his or her life currently is comprised of, and
few in the metro area have lives that ever will be the same. But a
shot of adrenaline here and there, into an existence that has been
ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, can be mighty potent.
So
whenever and wherever possible, the games have to be
played.
Lace 'em up, strap 'em, tie 'em up and start the
timer.
The clock is ticking on the healing, and the games can
play a vital part of it for people who might not have much else to
cheer for today.
As calm settles over N.O., outrage grows in
Washington
FEMA says storm overwhelmed agency
By John McQuaid Washington
bureau
WASHINGTON - A semblance of post-storm order has
returned to ravaged New Orleans, but the political storm over the
disaster is just beginning.
Political leaders, Republican and
Democrat alike, have blasted the Federal Emergency Management Agency
and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, for
allowing New Orleans to descend into a cauldron of suffering and
anarchy for three days and nights last week after Hurricane Katrina
passed.
President Bush, himself the target of criticism for
the sluggish response, has pronounced the results
"unacceptable."
Dozens of others have chimed in with
criticisms and proposals. "If we can’t respond faster than this to
an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we
think we’re prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?"
said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican.
The
Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Committee on
Homeland Security and Government Affairs announced that they would
launch an investigation into the disaster response. Sen. Mary
Landrieu, DLa., called on Bush to go over the heads of those
directing the emergency response and appoint a Cabinet- level
official to take over. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., called for splitting
FEMA from Homeland Security.
FEMA officials pleaded no
contest. Bill Lokey, chief coordinator for FEMA, said agencies were
simply overwhelmed by the scale of the challenge. "It’s the nature
of the disaster," he said. "This is far beyond anything we’ve ever
done in this country. It’s beyond our immediate capabilities for
sure."
Lokey said rescue workers have been hampered by
floodwaters and by the fact that many of the resources they needed
were not available nearby and had to be brought in. And because the
storm damage was spread across three states, FEMA’s resources also
have been spread out, he said.
Solid answers to the question
of what went wrong may take years of study by blue-ribbon
commissions and Congress to sort out. Emergency managers will be
studying what happened for decades to come. But emergency managers
and people who study disasters said several key problems allowed the
situation to slip out of officials’ hands and
deteriorate.
Part of the problem is that the quick
mobilization of massive human and material resources takes expert
management from the top, as well as the coordination of dozens of
different federal agencies. That would have enabled a quicker entry
into the city by National Guardsmen to establish order, distribute
food and get people out.
Emergency management plans are for
the most part based on the assumption that the people involved will
be relatively cooperative.
The eruption of violence, disorder
and confusion in and around New Orleans caught many people by
surprise. A simulation that emergency management officials ran last
year of a catastrophic flood and hurricane hitting New Orleans did
not address the possibility of widespread violence and disorder,
said Madhu Beriwal, the president of EIM, the company based in Baton
Rouge that ran the exercise, which brought together emergency
managers from local, state and federal agencies.
Beriwal said
the violence issue was to be addressed at a later meeting. "There is
a truism among sociologists who study disasters that panic is not a
problem," said Rutherford Platt, a disaster expert at the University
of Massachusetts. "People are too well-informed about what to do and
expect; even low-income people get a lot of information. There are
Red Cross shelters, all these things we expect to take up the
slack."
There was also no master plan specific to the New
Orleans disaster.
Officials attending last year’s simulation
- which included tabletop exercises on the response to a fictional
Hurricane Pam that flooded the city - produced a document with many
contingency plans, Beriwal said.
But the simulation was just
an early stage of a multiyear effort to develop a comprehensive plan
- one that had been delayed by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
and competing priorities.
Homeland Security Secretary Donald
Chertoff for the first time activated a more generic national
response plan developed in the wake of the terrorist attacks that
gives him authority over all agencies involved. But it clearly
didn’t work as it was supposed to.
"Certainly what happened
was some degree of a lack of coordination between federal, state and
local folks prior to the arrival of the hurricane and immediately
afterward," said Suzanne Mencer, a former Department of Homeland
Security official who worked with state and local agencies. "It’s
that coordination piece that is always the most
difficult."
When
gunshots panicked an already desperate crowd of evacuees inside the
nearly pitch-black Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, several New
Orleans police officers instinctively pulled their guns and ran
toward the pops. Just as quickly, they realized their weapons were
useless amid the clusters of bedraggled families.
But they
weaved their way toward the muzzle flash anyway, Superintendent
Eddie Compass said, shining flashlights, groping with their hands,
guided toward the shooter by evacuees pulling on their pants legs.
When they got a bead on the gunman, they rushed to disarm him,
despite the chance of facing more deadly fire.
Throughout the
inundated city, what remained of the New Orleans Police Department
was transformed into a virtual militia operation, Compass and other
commanders said, forcing officers to freelance without radios,
supplies or clear orders. Dozens of officers turned in their badges
or fled without a word.
Some joined in with looters and
marauders, plunging an already jittery situation into moments of
complete societal breakdown.
"These events do two things:
they show your strengths and they expose your weaknesses. We had
both," Compass said.
But according to Compass, the majority
of the 1,700-person force held its ground, figuring out ways to save
lives and restore order, working to save the city despite, in many
cases, becoming victims themselves.
"The bulk of this police
department stood intact," Compass said in an interview, tears
streaming down his face. "We fought the most unbelievable war
imaginable and we survived . . . Some officers lost their houses and
they’re still out there. Some officers lost family members and
they’re still out there."
Like every other city, state and
federal agency, the police department was almost instantly
overwhelmed by Hurricane Katrina, Compass said. With the city
plunged into a near-total communications blackout, the police radio
system was reduced to walkietalkies among small squads.
As
much as possible, the squads began organizing themselves at key
points around the city, Compass said. The SWAT team tried to quell
looting, track down armed gangs and restore order. The vice squad
took over the search-and-rescue boat patrols. District patrol
officers set up satellite evacuation points as refugees began
streaming out of flooded neighborhoods. Compass bounced between the
City Hall emergency command post, the law enforcement staging area
at Harrah’s Casino and the field.
At one point, there was a
rumor that Compass had fled to Baton Rouge. He said the bad
information circulated because his car was seen heading to the
Capitol, carrying his eight-months-pregnant wife when she went into
distress.
"I’ve been rolling on calls, backing people up on
the ground, fighting off people with my bare hands," he
said.
Police protocol was tossed out the window. The force’s
usual show of crisp white and blue uniforms was largely supplanted
by t-shirts, jeans, bandanas, hip-waders, shirts with the sleeves
torn off. The department’s polished and immaculately groomed
spokesman, Capt. Marlon Defillo, armed himself with a pistol in one
hand and an semiautomatic shotgun in the other.
More than a
dozen 2nd District officers worked shifts at Napoleon and St.
Charles avenues, where droves of people were funneled toward them in
canoes, rescue boats and, in many cases, after wading through
neck-high water, Lt. Eddie Selby said.
Other than a caravan
of National Guard trucks that arrived for the mass evacuation of
Memorial Medical Center on Wednesday, Selby said, his officers had
no transportation for evacuees.
To solve the budding crisis,
officers commandeered any vehicles they could find to get people to
the Superdome and Convention Center refuge points. A yellow De La
Salle High school bus. An Audubon Zoo van. A flatbed truck donated
by a volunteer.
On Friday, two lines formed at the pickup
point: one for people in medical distress, another for evacuees
heading to larger evacuation points. In a line of people headed for
the convention center, a woman with a Wal-Mart cart pushed her way
to the De La Salle bus.
Through a bus window, she handed up a
bag of tampons, boxes of crayons and pencils for her kids, and a
brand-new looted 17-inch flat screen television.
The scene
was orderly, the officers professional, but Selby said his people
were "operating on pure adrenaline."
"We try to break them
into 12- hour shifts, but then something happens and we have to call
them back," Selby said. "A lot of us are working on three, four
hours sleep. We moved about 1,000 people a day the first three
days."
Officer Darryl Albert said a handful of volunteers
have remained at the intersection throughout the crisis, setting up
a cluster of chairs and couches in the street so they could catch
moments of rest.
"You see those volunteers loading people up
over there?" Albert asked. "Those people are there when we leave at
night and here when we get here in the morning. That man doesn’t
have to be here. If people like that are going to be out here, there
is no way I can leave."
Compass and other commanders said the
officers grew increasingly frustrated as the days passed without any
substantial backup. Officers were running around-the-clock on
wideeyed adrenaline, he said, but the lack of basic items like food,
water and clean clothes began to take a toll.
"We were
running low on everything," he said. "We fought a battle in
knee-deep water with no radios. My people were getting shot at,
walking into firefighters in the dark. I don’t know what the feds
were doing, what the military was doing, but every one of my deputy
chiefs stayed. Every one of my commanders stayed."
Compass
said he almost reached a personal breaking point when he couldn’t
find the right channels to secure two Blackhawk helicopters parked
for several days at the Superdome heliport.
"I called
(Jefferson Parish) Harry Lee and he had a Blackhawk on its way from
Knoxville, Tennessee, within an hour."
As the city plunged
deeper into crisis with each day, officers used common sense to
alter their boundaries of legal behavior. What passed for looting on
the day after the storm hit was accepted as lifesaving foraging by
week’s end. Some officers joined in grabbing supplies from breached
stores, carrying off socks, T-shirts, food and other
essentials.
With National Guard and other military troops now
rolling into the city, the beleaguered NOPD is anticipating an
infusion of food, water and generator power, along with badly needed
reinforcements so officers can take a break.
But Capt.
Timothy Bayard, the narcotics and vice commander now heading the
boat rescue operation, said he has warned his officers that the work
could be harder before it gets easier. Once rescuers pluck everyone
from rooftops and attics, Bayard said, his mission will shift to
coordinating the recovery of bodies.
"I have a lot of young
officers and I told them that the worst is yet to come. Bodies are
going to pop up out of nowhere. The stench will be overwhelming.
Bloated bodies are going to pop like balloons. The skin’s going to
tear off as soon as you grab it. You’re going to have nothing but
bones in your hand. We’ll have to kill dogs and cats because of
rabies. Hell, they might find people they know. But you’ve got to
keep going back in."
Return plan set to go forward for Jefferson
Parish
Influx expected to clog traffic
By
Matthew Brown West Bank bureau
Even though streets are
strewn with storm debris, some neighborhoods remain flooded and
almost all homes lack electricity and drinking water, Jefferson
Parish residents will be allowed to return Monday at 6 a.m., Parish
President Aaron Broussard reiterated Saturday, despite widespread
skepticism from state and other parish officials.
Parish
officials will begin allowing residents entry, providing the driver
of the car has identification showing a Jefferson address. Residents
will be able to access their homes only via Airline Drive or
Jefferson Highway in East Jefferson and U.S. 90 on the West Bank,
Emergency Management Director Walter Maestri said.
Anyone not
in the car queue at the parish line by 6 p.m. will be denied entry
that day but may return the next day. The 12-hour window of entry
applies Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
All residents are
urged to leave the parish after taking care of their homes, parish
officials said.
Residents are advised to bring a full tank of
gasoline, food and drinking water, as well as a claw hammer and
pliers to pull out carpet, disinfectant to prevent mold and
materials to secure damaged windows and doors.
An estimated
350,000 of Jefferson’s almost 500,000 residents fled before or
immediately after Hurricane Katrina struck Monday, and thousands
more are thought to have left as the week wore on.
With a
massive influx of return traffic expected Monday, parish officials
recommended residents carpool and be prepared to walk several blocks
to their homes, as only major streets are being cleared of debris.
Many side streets remain choked with downed tree limbs and power
lines. Emergency management officials also warned women not to come
alone for safety reasons.
On Thursday, the parish will reopen
to anyone, regardless of residency, Broussard said.
Despite
the open doors, Jefferson remains a site of destruction. Floodwater
stands in the southwest portion of the University City subdivision
of Kenner, at Transcontinental Drive and Kawanee Avenue in Metairie
and in two parts of Old Metairie. Broussard said he has received
criticism of his plan from other parish officials, law enforcement
agencies and the state, but he has not wavered.
"We’re under
martial law. And there’s only one marshal: Me," Broussard said. He
said the Louisiana Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act of 1993
gives him full authority to override any objections from the Parish
Council, and he said state officials have reluctantly agreed to the
plan.
Asked about that Saturday, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said
she wants "to work with Parish President Broussard. We want to make
sure it doesn’t hurt recovery efforts."
She strongly urged
residents to have patience. "I know everyone wants to go clean their
yards, check on their homes and get back to their normal
lives."
Although the state may comply with Broussard’s plan,
some parish officials have openly disagreed with him. They contend
Jefferson is not ready for its residents. Few businesses are open to
sell such basics as food, water, ice and gasoline, and the only two
aid distribution centers in operation have had hours-long lines. And
with hospitals full to capacity or shut down all together, those who
are sick or injured have few options.
"I realize people’s
houses are important to them, but personal safety comes first,"
Parish Councilman Chris Roberts said. "Yes, the parish president has
made a decision to let people back, (but) I am recommending folks to
reconsider coming back."
Roberts said that even if residents
come back with full tanks of gasoline, they could use up much of
that fuel during a 10- to 15-hour wait in traffic.
Broussard
said he is working with the Sheriff’s Office to set up traffic
control at key intersections. But he acknowledged that many
intersections would remain unstaffed, and he urged drivers to be
cautious. With electricity service down in most of the parish, few
traffic lights will be operating.
Kenner Police Chief Nick
Congemi said he is concentrating on how to manage Monday’s
traffic.
"We have major concerns, but it’s his (Broussard’s)
decision to make," he said.
The Kenner Police Department
already is stretched thin. "EMS and fire-EMS have refused to come
out after dark. Police officers are the catch-all for everything,"
Congemi said.
On the West Bank, though, Westwego Mayor Robert
Billiot said he is ready for residents to return.
Mark Smith,
a spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security, said
he doesn’t think it is safe for residents to go back, as "the
floodwaters haven’t subsided yet in parts of
Jefferson."
Asked whether he thought it might slow the
recovery effort, Smith said he thought it could hamper routes needed
by emergency workers. "It’s not a decision I agree with, but
Broussard has the right to make that decision."
Charles
Parker, 61, who rode out the storm at his Marrero home, agreed that
people need to be allowed to return to check on their houses. With
afternoon thunderstorms that "you could set your clock by" in south
Louisiana, he said houses with holes in their roofs must be patched
quickly so any rain damage doesn’t get worse.
Yet after
spending an hour in line waiting to get water from a relief center
Saturday, Parker said having tens of thousands of additional people
in a parish with limited municipal services will make the waiting
far worse.
Swathed in orange mesh vests with
clip-on ties dangling from their shirt pockets, Angneak Cannon and
Kimberly Converse were doing a fairly good impression of traffic
cops at the Exxon gas station on the corner of Bluebonnet Road and
Airline Highway Saturday morning.
Cannon, 24, had the
standard police hand gestures down pat as she barked out orders to
drivers waiting for gas in a line that started snaking around the
station’s main building at 7 a.m. Ruling the parking lot with an
iron fist, Cannon disdainfully thwarted drivers attempting to
circumvent the line, but still managed a humorous outlook on the
whole situation.
"They coming with barrels and cans,
anything. These people are crazy," Cannon said.
Cannon said
there is no limit on how much gas drivers may purchase, but added,
"Ain’t no skipping and no fighting. Not today."
Hurricane
Katrina has turned the process of finding gas in Baton Rouge into a
demented scavenger hunt with signs along the streets dolefully
proclaiming "NO GAS," and many station managers clueless about when
the next shipment will arrive. Drivers searched for blocks to find
pumps that were not draped in plastic bags, and some stations would
only allow drivers five minutes to fill tanks.
On Perkins
Road, a few miles away from Cannon’s swamped station, drivers at
Shell and Chevron stations were able to get their gas in roughly
five to 10 minutes. Jan Soule, of Baton Rouge, said this was her
first time having to fill up since Katrina hit, and she was
surprised at the ease of the experience. Soule said she was only
filling up her vehicle and didn’t feel the need to hoard gas in gas
cans.
On a quick ride through Baton Rouge along Perkins Road,
Highland Drive, College Drive, Airline Highway and several other
streets, more than 10 gas stations were without gasoline.
As
spot shortages hit Baton Rouge area service stations and gasoline
prices in Louisiana hit all time highs Friday, prices for gas for
future delivery fell 23 cents a gallon on the New York
Mercantile.
The loss of Gulf of Mexico oil production and
much of the Gulf Coast refinery production in the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina exacerbated already tight supplies nationwide,
causing gasoline shortages.
Mike Right, spokesman for the
American Automobile Association in St. Louis, said shortages were
being experienced in Baton Rogue, Jackson, Miss.; and some parts of
Tennessee -- areas which received New Orleans evacuees.
In
Baton Rouge, regular gasoline hit an all time high of $2.59 a gallon
Friday, according to AAA, up more than 42 cents a gallon higher from
a month ago. A year ago, motorists paid $1.79 a gallon for regular
unleaded in the Baton Rouge market and an average $1.84 a gallon for
diesel. As motorists elsewhere in the nation filled tanks for Labor
Day travel, they paid more than $3 a gallon in some
markets.
Right said he did not know if any stations had shut
down in the Baton Rouge area Saturday because the organization could
not get in touch with its survey team in the Louisiana
market.
"Hopefully it is a temporary situation where they are
out of product for a couple of hours,’’ he said. "The oil companies
are making a significant effort to keep the area supplied because of
demand for fuel for emergency vehicles.’’
One problem in the
Baton Rouge market is the population explosion, Right
said.
"Demand is up significantly from Friday of last week,’’
he said.
"It will be difficult to keep up.’’ In areas
directly affected by the storm, he said shortages were more
widespread and of longer duration.
As of midday Saturday 79
percent of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico remained shut down
and almost one-third of the manned platforms in the Gulf
evacuated.
Yet gasoline supplies are expected to increase
shortly.
Exxon Mobil has received approval from the
Department of Energy for a loan of up to six million barrels of oil
from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increase gasoline production
at its second largest refinery in Baton Rouge.
The refinery
also expects oil from the nation’s only deep water oil port,
Louisiana Offshore Oil Port which is located in the Gulf of Mexico
below Grand Isle.
"The issue has been getting crude into the
refinery,’’ Mark Boudreaux, Exxon Mobil’s media relations manager
said Saturday from Dallas.
Boudreaux said the refinery had
operated at reduced capacity during the storm but had never been
shut down.
"We are ramping up gasoline production now,’’ he
said. "This will help ease customer demands in regions hit hardest
by Hurricane Katrina."
Boudreaux said Exxon is working to
restore power to the pipeline and marine transportation system to
get oil into the refinery and gasoline to consumers in the affected
area and elsewhere.
There may be some price relief in sight.
Oil futures fell for the second consecutive day Friday to close down
23 cents at $68.71 a barrel in New York Mercantile Exchange trading.
Futures had soared to a high of $70 a barrel in trading
Thursday.
The price drop for crude futures may have resulted
from news that oil companies would bring additional supplies of
gasoline from Europe.
Bloomberg News reported that oil
companies were importing 130 million gallons of
gasoline.
Cannon said she and Converse typically work at an
Exxon station on Essen Lane and Perkins Road, but said they were
told Saturday that their store was one of six Exxon stations in
Baton Rouge that will be closed because there is not enough gas to
supply it.
We heard you loud and clear
Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and
said, "What is not working, we’re going to make it
right."
Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your
promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our
skepticism.
Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for
one main reason: It’s accessible. The city between the Mississippi
River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.
How
much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates
and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and
diesel-powered trucks.
Despite the city’s multiple points of
entry, our nation’s bureaucrats spent days after last week’s
hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could
neither rescue the city’s stranded victims nor bring them food,
water and medical supplies.
Meanwhile there were journalists,
including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of
the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that
crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town
to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.
Television
reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets.
Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were
the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.
Yet, the
people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to
quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been
deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was
impossible to reach.
We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be
angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been
pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been
were not. That’s to the government’s shame.
Mayor Ray Nagin
did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other
alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana
Superdome. We still don’t know what the death toll is, but one thing
is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city’s death toll
would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially
higher.
It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many
people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should
have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren’t
they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years
ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable
as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials
think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside
with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts
of food, water and other essentials?
State Rep. Karen Carter
was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent
needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency
Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown
especially.
In a nationally televised interview Thursday
night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands
of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention
Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next
morning and said, "We’ve provided food to the people at the
Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two
meals, every single day."
Lies don’t get more bald-faced than
that, Mr. President.
Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday
morning, you told him, "You’re doing a heck of a job."
That’s
unbelievable.
There were thousands of people at the
Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact
that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue
vehicles could have gotten there, too.
We, who are from New
Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great
Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We’re no less important than
those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved
to be rescued.
No expense should have been spared. No excuses
should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the
claim that New Orleans couldn’t be reached.
Mr. President, we
sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved
communities work right once again.
Quarterbacks receive harrowing tales of misfortune,
survival
By Jimmy Smith Staff
writer
BATON ROUGE - Peyton Manning stood stoically, arms
folded, in a corner of the arena floor at Southern’s F.G. Clark
Activity Center on Saturday afternoon and listened
intently.
Daniel Weber, a 53-year-old New Orleans evacuee
from the Lower 9th Ward and a resident of the Red Cross shelter at
F.G. Clark since Tuesday, was relaying his heart-wrenching tale. And
Manning, the Indianapolis Colts quarterback who along with his
brother, Eli, of the New York Giants accompanied an Air Tran 737 jet
loaded with 31,000 pounds of supplies for the relief effort, drank
in every syllable of the horror.
"I thought it was an
explosion, but it was the water blowing the doors off the hinges,"
said Weber, who lived on Reyne Street, between Tennessee and
Forstall, almost directly behind the Industrial Canal levee breach
that inundated his neighborhood Monday morning as Hurricane Katrina
battered the city.
Weber’s wife of 23 years, Rosetta Marrero,
44, wheelchair-bound because of several strokes, was in the couple’s
bedroom, and Weber said he struggled to get to her for a move into
the home’s attic.
When that failed, he said, he broke out a
window so that he could attempt to push his wife through the water
onto the roof.
"I was pushing her up," Weber told Manning,
"and it got real quiet. I said, ’What’s wrong, baby?’ She said, ’I’m
saying my prayers.’ I got real scared. "That’s when I grabbed her by
her shirt. But the water took her away. I jumped in after her but
couldn’t find her. I know she’s probably dead. I wanted to die right
then. I wanted to see God, stand there and tell him, ’Look what you
did to me?’ If I could die tomorrow, I’d get right in his face and
ask him ’What did you do?’
"She wanted to go to the
Superdome. I thought I’d be the one to go first. I thought I’d never
be without her. I never thought about life without her. I was
supposed to take care of her. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I really am. I’m
sorry."
Manning placed his hand on Weber’s shoulder. Weber
had survived 14 hours floating in the water, clinging to debris,
before a rescue boat ferried him to dry ground. He was transported
to the Red Cross shelter, where he met up with about 10 other family
members.
"We’re praying for you," Peyton told him. "Hang in
there."
"Thank you," Weber told Manning, adding, "How’s your
Dad doing?"
"There’s nothing I can say," Manning said. "He
said he laid in the water for 14 hours and said he was ready to give
up. I’m glad he didn’t give up. He obviously needs to talk. He says
all that, and then he sits down and says, ’How’s your Dad doing?’ I
didn’t know what to say to that."
Manning shook his
head.
"That’s an unbelievable story," he said. "That’s the
kind of thing nobody is hearing about. Just
unbelievable."
Wearing gray and white Red Cross disaster
relief vests, Peyton and Eli spent nearly an hour walking the
gymnasium. Ordinarily it is the home to the Southern basketball
team, but it is housing about 400 evacuees, most of them from the
Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish.
The quarterbacks
patiently listened to evacuees’ stories, signed autographs, posed
for pictures, and told each one with whom they came in contact that
their thoughts and prayers were with them.
"This makes me
feel I’m a special person," said Donald Wells, 54, who lived on
Caffin Avenue between Tonti and Miro near St. Claude Avenue in the
Lower 9th Ward. "If they’re coming to see me, there’s hope. (Rapper)
Master P, he claims he’s from New Orleans. He ain’t been here, and
he ain’t spent one dime."
At mid-week, Peyton said, he and
Eli decided to put together some sort of relief effort, wanting
initially to head to their native New Orleans until Red Cross
officials told them that many New Orleanians had been moved here
into shelters.
Working with companies with which they had
business relationships, such as Gatorade, the Mannings collected 300
cases of the sports drink and 300 cases of bottled water. The
Mannings purchased baby formula, diapers, blankets and pillows that
will be distributed to shelters throughout the Baton Rouge
area.
"We talked to the Red Cross and asked where was the
best place we could make an impact," Peyton said. "They said Baton
Rouge was the most feasible place to come because that’s where the
people from New Orleans were coming to."
"They’re calling
them refugees. But that’s not the right word. They’re New Orleans
citizens. They said morale was low right now. Basically, we said
’Eli and I are coming. How can we help?’ "
"Obviously," Eli
said, "we don’t know what they’ve gone through and how it has
impacted their life. They don’t know how their life going to be and
their future and how their life will be from there. If we can just
go out there and talk to them, give them supplies and see what they
need and talk to them and help them feel better about their
situation right now, that’s all we can do."
SAN ANTONIO – The scene is both
heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time.
Nearly
10,000 refugees have come through here at KellyUSA, a former Air
Force base in San Antonio, and the city expected 13,000 visitors at
various shelters throughout the area by dawn Sunday.
They
have traveled some 500 miles by bus or by plane, and endured God
knows what over the past seven days.
But a city has reached
out to them, striving to "make them feel like they’re at home,"
according to the man running the show here at Building 1171, Peter
Vrolyk, the local Mass Care coordinator for the Red
Cross.
"They’re doing a tremendous job out here. Tell
everybody," said Velma Broomfield, who escaped the Calliope
apartments on Wednesday, spent one night on an overpass, made it to
the Superdome and eventually was flown here. "The people are so nice
and they treat you so well."
Broomfield is with her sister,
her sister’s son and her granddaughter. She was separated from her
daughter and her daughter’s mother-in-law but hopes they wound up in
Houston.
There are several areas set up here for information
on missing persons. There are also several sets of phone banks that
provide free local and long distance calls. There are a number of
televisions, so people can keep contact with the outside world. And
they can come and go as they please once they have been checked in
and given a designated area and a wristband.
There are
thousands of cots and sleeping areas in the air-conditioned
facilities. There is a remarkable amount of medical treatment areas
and workers on hand. There is a wealth of food and fresh clothing
that has been donated. The refugees get three meals a day –
sandwiches and spaghetti and chips and granola bars were on hand
Saturday afternoon, along with plenty of water and sports
drinks.
"This is like a high class hotel to me. You get this
kind of treatment at a Hampton Inn. I don’t have this at home. Poor
people don’t get this treatment," said Karen Winkler, who lived at
the Noble Arms Independent Living Program for the mentally ill in
Terrytown , before being helped to the Superdome last
Sunday.
The conditions in the Superdome, she said, were
frightening and disorganized, though she appreciated having a
shelter for the storm.
Saints
receiver lifts spirits of displaced in Astrodome visit
By Josh Peter Staff writer
HOUSTON - He
arrived at the Astrodome without a shred of clothing or
paraphernalia identifying himself as a member of the New Orleans
Saints. Instead, he wore an orange-and-white basketball jersey with
matching shorts and sneakers.
No matter.
Joe Horn, Pro
Bowl receiver for the Saints, drew a crowd of fans as soon as he
stepped into the indoor stadium serving as a shelter for 15 ,000
evacuees who fled Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina left 80 percent
of the city under water.
"Mr. Horn. Mr. Horn,’’ one man
shouted as he ran down the concrete stairs from the floor where Horn
stood signing autographs for children, their parents and the
elderly.
"That’s my man!’’
Armed with a Sharpie pen,
Horn circulated up and down the rows of green canvas cots on metal
frames.
He cradled babies, tussled young children on the
head, clasped hands and bumped fists with the adults.
He
autographed scraps of paper, T-shirts and the inside cover of
pocket-sized bibles. And all the while, Horn offered words of
encouragement.
"Thanks, Joe,’’ said Brittany Lombard , 18 ,
when Horn approached her and four of her family members sitting in
the padded but worn-out seats of the 40-year old Astrodome. "You’re
the only one.’’
Although other celebrities and athletes have
pledged money toward the relief effort, Horn was one of the first
prominent athletes or celebrities to visit the thousands of
displaced evacuees - many of them longtime Saints fans. Lombard
watched as Horn walked away and greeted another cluster of people
wearing the pink wristbands they’re issued when they enter the
temporary shelter.
"There have been other people sending
money and stuff, but we haven’t seen their faces,’’ she said. "He’s
the only one that came in to see us.
"He’s talking to us like
another person, like he knows what we’re going through. So he’s
making a difference right there. These kids need that. They wander
around here like nobody cares about that. When they see him, it
gives them something to believe in.’’
During his three-hour
tour of the Astrodome - former home of Houston’s professional
football and baseball teams - children shadowed Horn, parents
approached, and the elderly waved from their cots. Horn, never short
on words, kept up a steady chatter with countless people as he
walked across the indoor floor covered with cots and
evacuees.
An older woman approached and told Horn she’d been
rooting for the Saints since they played in Tulane
Stadium.
"Baby, I watch you. Saw when they made you pay
$30,000,’’ she said, frowning as she recalled the fine Horn had to
pay the NFL after he celebrated a touchdown by pulling a cell phone
out of the goalpost pylon and pretended to make a call. "That was
stupid.’’
"I ain’t hurt nobody,’’ Horn said.
"Hell,
no.’’
"But I hurt him when I got in the end zone four
times.’’
The woman cackled.
Later, Horn reconsidered
the promise he’d made not to pull the same cell-phone stunt
again.
"If I can make it to the end zone against the
Panthers,’’ he said, referring to the Saints’ regular-season opening
game Sept. 11 against the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte, N.C., "I
might pull out another one. Just to call you all back
here.’’
With that, he left behind a wake of chuckles and
moved on and greeted more smiling admirers - including those who
knew Hurricane Katrina had ripped two holes in the Superdome roof
and, coupled with devastation across the city that would require
several months to clean up, would force the Saints to find another
place to play home games.
For instance, the Saints will play
their "home" opener in New Jersey against the New York Giants.
"Maybe you all will get a new stadium,’’ one man said.
"That
don’t even matter,’’ Horn replied. "Man, I’d play on dirt, and
that’s for real. I’m not just talking to talk.
"That stadium
stuff don’t matter to me. If all the fans can get where we’re at, we
can represent.’’
Instead of heading back to Tupelo, Miss., to
visit his family after Saints coach Jim Haslett gave players the
weekend off, Horn made the two-hour drive from San Antonio -
temporary home to the Saints - and arrived in Houston on
Friday.
Initially, Horn talked about handing out $100 bills
and bringing food, cots and other necessities for the evacuees. But
by Saturday morning, he opted for what he decided was a more
practical and meaningful plan.
"You can’t bring something for
every family member,’’ he said. "At the time my heart was pouring
out, so I wanted to give something. I wanted to go to a bank, come
back and pass out $100 bills. But that’s not what’s happening right
now. "They need people, they need love. Whatever we’re called -
celebrities or role models - they need to see that. They need to see
that. They need to feel me. They need to tell me stories that no
one’s heard about. Kids needed me to be around.’’
Those kids
formed a cluster around Horn as he walked across the floor of the
indoor stadium and person after person approached.
"It’s
great to see you,’’ one man said as he extended his hand.
"I
had to do this,’’ Horn said, shaking the man’s hand. "I had to do
this.’’
"I appreciate that there, man. So how you’ve
been?’’
"I’ve been blessed.’’
"That’s good. That’s
good, man.’’
"You all right?
"Oh, man.’’
Horn
heard the desperation in the man’s voice.
"Try to make sure
everybody stays together and take care of yourself,’’ he said.
"That’s the most important part right now.’’
"You got that
right. All right, Joe, you take care.’’
After about three
hours in the Astrodome, Horn made his exit - slowly. Outside the
stadium, on the way to his car, he talked to Sidney Madison, who
wore a gold-and-black Saints cap with the distinctive Fleur-de-lis.
Madison, 59, said he was a season-ticket holder since 1988 and
earlier in the week spent two days on his roof in New Orleans before
being rescued.
"If I could’ve brought big boilers, I could
have had a little crawfish boil out here on the grass,’’ Horn said.
"That would’ve been cool, wouldn’t it?"
"I’m going to call
out to the city services and say, ’Why don’t you all go and drop
some of them and have a crawfish boil.’ Mudbugs,
baby.’’
"Mudbugs,’’ Madison said. And as Horn walked off, the
man added, "It’s nice to see him. It lifts your spirits a little
bit.’’
Next Horn spotted six young men who looked to be in
their late teens or early 20s. They were sitting on a concrete ramp,
holding bananas and eating lunch that had been distributed to the
evacuees.
Horn approached the young men.
"What’s up
fellas?’’
"What’s up?’’
"You all
right?’
"Yeah.’’
"Good job, man. Much love. You all
taking care of your brothers?’’
"Yeah.’’
"That’s what
it’s all about. Man, all that other stuff is for the birds. You know
what I’m saying. All these kids walking around here need somebody.
Brothers left. Daddies left. You know what I’m
saying.’’
"Yeah.’’
"That’s what I’m going to be
thinking about when I get back. Man, all you brothers take care of
them little ones. You know what I’m
saying?’’
"Yeah.’’
"Straight up. Straight up. We’re
going to rise again , man . Louisiana’s going to be there. The
water’s going to go. We’re going to get back up in there and do our
thing. That’s why you all got to be positive, man."
"Man, I’m
just very happy,’’ he said. "I’m very upbeat now. I feel better.
Believe me, I feel a lot better.’’
But he also left vowing to
make good on his pledge: to represent New Orleans no matter where
the Saints were playing and to do everything he could to give the
spirit of a distraught and displaced community a much-needed lift.
Outraged by the
lack of available shelter space in the state, members of the
Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus called upon officials to open the
former England Air Force Base in the Alexandria area to those
displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
State Sen. Cleo Fields,
D-Baton Rouge, said members of the caucus planned to use private
donated buses and other vehicles to pick up about 5,000 people left
along Interstate 10 in New Orleans and transport them to the base
Saturday afternoon and evening.
Asked what they would do with
the people they picked up if the base is not opened, Fields
responded: "We need to open it."
Fields estimated the base
has about 800 empty rooms that could house all 5,000
people.
Some displaced residents would also be taken to a
shelter in Monroe by about 25 church vans manned by Rep. Willie
Hunter and Sen. Charles Jones, both D-Monroe, among
others.
Residents need shelter in their own state of
Louisiana, caucus members said, not far-flung states such as Utah
and Minnesota.
Caucus Chairman Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New
Orleans, also called on the American Red Cross to provide further
aid in Algiers, where he and New Orleans City Councilman Oliver
Thomas delivered bottled water to residents Friday.
"They
were shedding tears when we gave them their supplies . . .we didn’t
encounter one incident of hostility," Richmond said, rebuffing
reports that many left behind in the city are dangerous and hostile.
"I don’t think members of the military need guns as much as they
need tents."
U.S Army Col. John Smart said multiple available
military bases are being considered for shelters, including England,
but he had no immediate knowledge of that base being available
today.
Several military bases in Arkansas are receiving
citizens displaced by the storm, he said.
More than 100
children and infants separated from their parents during evacuations
from Hurricane Katrina or while moving between shelters need help
being reconnected with their parents, officials said.
Mike
Keller, who works for the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children, said about 100 children were being transported to a
shelter in Corpus Christi, Texas, where their pictures will be taken
and posted on the Internet; connections will be made with parents
who have reported losing their children.
Anyone trying to get
information or report a missing child or parent can access the
Internet at www.missingkids.com or call 1-
800-THE-LOST.
Marketa Garner Gautreau, assistant secretary of
the state Department of Social Services, said another 26 children
separated from their parents are still in Louisiana.
Visiting
one shelter housing those children this week, Gautreau said she
"went in expecting the worst" but "they were laughing, they were
playing with toys, people were holding them."
In front of the Convention
Center on Saturday, amid a crowd of refugees weeping and trading
stories of raped children and dead babies in freezers, an elderly
woman in a yellow shirt lay near death, tremors coursing through her
limbs.
Afew minutes later, she stopped shaking. And yet, in
that hell, Anita Roach raised her voice to the heavens, belting out
the gospel standards that had comforted her since childhood: through
homelessness, through friendlessness, through the death of her son
and through the flood that nearly killed her and her husband in
their Lower 9th Ward home.
"When the storm Of life is
raging, Stand by me, stand by me..."
Five days after
Hurricane Katrina, as National Guardsmen and evacuation buses
finally pulled onto Tchoupitoulas Street a block away, Roach stood
out as a beacon of beauty and strength against a backdrop of death
and despair. As she began to sing, a group of over-stressed National
Guardsmen carted away the nearby woman’s newly dead body to put it
with many others.
First they placed her body on the street
corner, then carried it through an employee entrance guarded by
machine guns and laid her to rest in a freezer.
Roach never
stopped singing, never stopped smiling, never stopped comforting a
crowd of some of the last of Hurricane Katrina’s victims to receive
even a shred of assistance. She sang from her belly with a voice
that could be heard down the block, drowning out cries for help and
the rumble of National Guard trucks. One by one, family, friends
complete strangers joined her, clapping and singing as she led them
as she had choir director at New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church
in Bridge City.
"When this world Is tossing me Like a
ship on the raging sea Thou who rulest the winds and water Stand
by me, stand by me"
Roach had arrived at the Convention
Center to find a chaotic scene, where the only food or water or
booze came from looters and people desperate to survive. Each day
brought several new promises of buses for evacuation, each prompting
a futile migration to a pickup spot where buses didn’t
arrive.
Each night brought the terror of darkness, thuggery
and mob rule. Several times a day, witnesses said, gunshots rang
out, prompting stampedes that they said had killed at least one
child. Others said a girl - age estimates ranged from 10 to 14 - had
been raped in a bathroom, her throat cut. Untreated medical
emergencies caused far more deaths, witnesses said. As in the rest
of the flooded city, no one had started counting the dead while the
living remain in imminent danger of adding to their
ranks.
"New Orleans of all places," said Jesse Jones, 57,
sitting a few feet from Roach. People’s eyes light up when you say,
’New Orleans.’ Everybody wants to come here and play, and now they
forget about us. They just sent us food and water last night. I just
can’t believe this is happening in America."
Roach’s husband,
Salvatore Hall, said the infirm had no medical attention for days.
"We’ve got people out here with oxygen tanks that have run out, and
they are lying to them saying they haven’t, so they won’t panic," he
said.
Still Roach sang. She prayed and laid her hands on the
afflicted. She thanked God to be alive. She shared food, water, hope
and comfort, and repeated the same line to the broken souls who
sought her shoulder to cry on.
"He saved us from the water,
sweetie," she told a weeping woman, a stranger who had come to her
to bum a light for her cigarette.
"He won’t abandon us in the
aftermath."
"Just please pray for my daughter," the woman
sobbed. "I ain’t seen her since Sunday."
Miraculous
event
Roach had turned to singing and praying when she
herself panicked in her attic at 2510 Tupelo St. in the Lower 9th
Ward. When the flood first came, Roach and her husband had been
sleeping.
"Then the Lord woke me up, and I stepped into the
water. When I went into the kitchen, the refrigerator was already
floating. We wanted to get into it and float on it, like a boat, but
it didn’t work."
The water had risen past the first story in
a matter of minutes, then the second. When the couple got into the
attic, it rose again to the height of their chests, forcing them
onto the roof, where the wind drove the rain into their skin so hard
it felt like a thousand tiny knives.
She cried out: "Lord!
Wake up, Jesus! Wake up! Stop the wind and the rain, Jesus. You said
in your word that you would give us what we need."
Then her
husband cracked, weeping, hysterical. He could see no way out: He
knew he could swim, but his wife couldn’t, and the current might
swallow him up even if he had a mind to abandon her, which he
didn’t.
The sight of her husband weeping brought strength
back to Roach - someone had to be strong. Then he drew on her
strength, and they concentrated on trying to help a
neighbor.
They saw their neighbor Brenda Carter on her roof
two houses away. Again, the situation seemed hopeless.
What
happened next Roach attributed to divine intervention, as it was
entirely too incredible for simple luck.
The house between
their two houses collapsed and floated across the street. Then Roach
and Hall felt their house shift, as if headed for the same grim
fate. It began listing and revolving, but it suddenly
stopped.
When they looked up, their house was touching
Carter’s, and they could walk from roof to roof. They huddled
together on Roach’s roof, at last together in their fight for
survival.
"It had to be God," Roach said. "Who else but a God
could do something like that?"
The rescue boat arrived
Tuesday night, when a whole new struggle for survival
began.
Roach and Hall walked to the Poland Avenue side of the
St. Claude Avenue bridge, a collection point for the thousands of
people rescued from the flooded Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard
Parish. They found no help there, only empty promises of a National
Guard truck to pick them up. They spent another whole day there
before a civilian volunteer took them to the Convention Center.
"Once they put us on the bridge, we had nothing. They were finished
with us," she said.
'We still got hope'
Once at
the Convention Center they heard more empty promises.
No help
materialized until Saturday morning when Arkansas Guardsmen brought
meals and water and coordinated the mass evacuation on school buses
from across the state.
Before that, the only respite had been
a helicopter drop of food, which for Roach was a depressing sight.
"They dropped food on us like we’re animals or we have some kind of
disease, not like they’re serving it to us now," she
said.
Roach’s family and that of her husband had suffered
their own medical perils. Hall’s aunt, Geraldine Valera, 71, stood
weeping at the street corner near Roach. On top of myriad health
problems, she had fallen in the back of a National Guard truck. She
winced in pain.
"You can’t even wash off your face in this
place," she stammered.
"There’s fights every night, you’re
laying on the floor sleeping, not knowing when you’re going to get
trampled."
Her husband Calvin Brown, Hall’s uncle, had none
of the medicine he needed. "I’ve seen people die. I’ve been in World
War II and Korea, and I’ve never suffered like this," he said. "I’ve
got a son who’s a captain in the Fire Department, and I’m sure he’d
come get me if he knew I was here. But I don’t know where he
is."
The singing from Roach, her husband and the crowd that
often joined in didn’t magically cure such ills, but it did go a
long way toward keeping up their spirits.
Jones sat a few
feet away, with bleary, red eyes and a mind tortured by the death of
a close friend who had collapsed in front of him. But the singing
soothed him. And more: He said it had headed off a near
riot.
"We had some rioting going on the other night, but when
she broke out in a spiritual song it just sent a wave of calm
through the whole crowd," he said. "None of our preachers, none of
our evangelists - Paul Morton and all of them - have even come here
to see this. And they’ve got buses, jets and everything. But we
still got hope."
It made Roach feel better, too. "It makes me
feel so good that I can do that for people," she said. "Like when
God calmed the sea, that I can give somebody peace," she said.
Federal troops and relief convoys
continued to pour into New Orleans on Saturday, even as buses
evacuated additional thousands of debilitated refugees who endured
the most horrific five days in the 287-year history of this
once-elegant city.
But if relief was in sight, it was not yet
at hand.
Thousands of men, women and children who fled
impoverished neighborhoods flooded by Hurricane Katrina waited
listlessly for relief at the threshold of death and despair at the
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
They said they had been
without food and water until Friday.
Corpses lay under
blankets among them. One man in the shelter said he counted seven
bodies as he waited over three days, and there were reports of
violence.
Still, the evacuees asserted their dignity. Many
made clear they resented the general characterization that those
left behind in New Orleans were thugs and looters.
As another
among them died Saturday, they eulogized the departed by singing the
gospel music that sustained them in the midst of a living
nightmare.
Army Brig. Gen. Mark Graham said he hopes his
troops and other relief workers can move the remaining evacuees out
of the convention center by today or Monday. Authorities said they
continue to gain control of a city gripped since Tuesday by rising
lawlessness.
President Bush ordered 7,200 more paratroopers,
Marines and other forces to the storm-ravaged area and made plans
for a second visit Monday to Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf
Coast, which was demolished by Katrina on Aug. 29.
"We will
complete the evacuation as quickly and safely as possible," Bush
said in his regular Saturday morning radio address to the nation.
"We will not let criminals prey on the vulnerable, and we will not
allow bureaucracy to get in the way of saving lives."
He also
signed a $10.5 billion aid package for the region.
As they
closed in on the end of the evacuation, authorities said the death
toll will likely be in the thousands, first from the floodwaters
unleashed by Katrina, and later from the ordeal of heat, thirst and
exhaustion that claimed the old and the weak. But they said
developing an accurate number was still a lower priority than
assisting survivors.
The count in Mississippi was at 147 and
would probably increase, officials there said.
At any event,
with evacuation gaining traction it was clear that a historic
diaspora of New Orleans residents is under way. The last three days
have seen a forced, perhaps permanent, scattering of tens of
thousands of New Orleanians - first among evacuees who fled the city
before the storm and later those who survived it. The loss of so
many will affect the character of the city in ways yet to be
determined.
Authorities were loading evacuees on commercial
airlines, buses and AMTRAK trains bound for destinations as far away
as Michigan and Indiana.
But there were complaints that some
refugees, hauled out of the city in desperate condition, were being
refused safe haven in some places, including some that said they
already were filled beyond capacity with storm victims. New Orleans
City Council President Oliver Thomas blasted the city of Baton Rouge
and other Louisiana communities for what he called a callous refusal
to take in refugees from his devastated city.
"They don’t
want them," Thomas said, after bursting into the press room at the
Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge. "They have put out the
word all over the state: ’Those bad New Orleans people. You don’t
want them.’ "
State Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, said the
state’s Legislative Black Caucus would charter buses to pick up
5,000 residents stranded along Interstate 10. He said they would
deliver them to the closed England Air Force Base in Shreveport and
demand that they be sheltered.
Mayor Ray Nagin criticized
Jefferson Parish for closing the door to exhausted refugees who
trudged over the Crescent City Connection to escape the ruined city
and reach high ground on the West Bank.
"We were taking in
people from St. Bernard Parish. If we had a bottle of water, we
shared it. Then when we were going to let people cross the bridge,
they were met with frigging dogs and guns at the parish line," said
Nagin during an aerial tour of the city.
"They said, ’We’re
going to protect Jefferson Parish assets.’ Some people value homes,
cars and jewelry more than human life. The only escape route was cut
off.
They turned them back at the parish line." Meanwhile
criminal justice officials said they had invented a temporary system
for handling criminal suspects arrested in the post-Katrina
chaos.
Officials transformed Union Passenger Terminal into a
booking and detention center for those accused of terrorizing
evacuees over the last four days.
State Attorney General
Charles Foti said the state would open a temporary court system,
although it surely faced daunting problems on matters like
assembling juries and witnesses.
U.S. Attorney Jim Letten
promised that federal authorities would bring charges, where
possible, against suspects.
"Make no mistake about this: The
federal criminal justice system is alive and well," he said. "The
entire criminal justice system is alive and well."
The Little Shrine, Lacombe's yellow stucco chapel
bordered by a natural spring, has a community of caretakers who
have witnessed the building's near demise many times since it was
built in 1923.
There was a span of years when squatters took
over its pews and burned relics on its steps. And last year,
Hurricane Ivan's winds sent a pine tree crashing through its
roof.
As Lacombe residents trickled back to town after
evacuating Hurricane Katrina this week, a mass of fallen trees and
telephone poles obscured their view of the cherished landmark from
its front walkway on Fish Hatchery Road.
So when caretaker
June McGee, 69, took in the scene Thursday for the first time since
she returned, she ran through all of the moments that could have
meant the end for the little church that has drawn visitors from
across metro New Orleans, and as its sign-in book attests, from
places as far away as New Zealand.
This time, fallen
magnolias, oaks and pines covered the grounds. A pine tree more than
60 feet tall crashed into a fountain, pulverizing its brick
centerpiece. Inside, glass from an overhead window was scattered all
over pews.
Another pine tree had sliced through the roof,
sending pieces of ceiling flying and an urn full of holy water
spilling to the ground. Rainwater pooled on the floor and soaked the
altar steps.
"This is horrible; this is just horrible," said
McGee, who lives a block away and opens and closes the shrine daily
for worshipers to come and go all day. "My goodness, it's bad. It's
going to take a long time before we can come back in. Oh, this is
awful."
With repairs from damage caused by Ivan recently
completed, the chapel opened for twice-weekly Mass just three weeks
before Katrina's winds tore up its meditative scenery.
The
loose group of supporters who came together to patch it up still owe
about $8,000 for the repairs.
Though the new damage saddened
McGee, she turned it around into a hopeful moment. She said that
every time the Little Shrine has almost closed for good, its
countless neighbors have gathered together to supply the money and
labor to ensure its revival.
"I think the blessed mother
really loves us," she said. "We always have close calls. I know this
is work and all, but we'll do it. People love this chapel. They come
from all over, and when you say, 'We need help,' they do
it."
American Venice, super-levee among ideas to fix
N.O.
By Bill Walsh and Jim Barnett Washington
bureau
WASHINGTON - House Speaker Dennis Hastert ignited a
fury in Louisiana last week when he said much of flood-drenched New
Orleans could be bulldozed in the wake of Hurricane
Katrina.
Although he quickly backpedaled in the face of
criticism, the powerful Illinois Republican gave voice to a growing
sentiment that rebuilding a devastated New Orleans must involve more
than raising levees and constructing new homes.
Even as
survivors were being plucked from the waters coursing through the
city's streets, policymakers, planners and engineers began floating
ideas sure to give pause to proud New Orleanians, especially those
with homes in low-lying areas. Among the suggestions: massive
land-filling, government seizing private property and, yes,
bulldozing of flood-prone neighborhoods.
"I don't think the
rest of the country will get behind something that doesn't
fundamentally change the design," said Joseph Suhayda, of Baton
Rouge, the former southeast regional director of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, which is leading the recovery effort in
the city.
"If you are going to get the financing for this and
if you are going to encourage people to go back in, you have to have
a guarantee that this will never happen again," he said.
What
Suhayda imagines is a radical facelift of a quirky and sometimes
haphazard urban landscape that many find endearing, but that also
has left the city perilously vulnerable to flooding. Katrina showed
that a single breach in the miles of levees surrounding New Orleans
could swamp this city, which is 9 feet below sea level at
places.
Suhayda envisions 25-foot high partitions
compartmentalizing sections of the city the way boat hulls are
divided to isolate leaks. If there is a breach in one, the others
would stay dry.
His most novel idea is a towering new
super-levee stretching 12 miles across New Orleans connecting levees
at each end of the crescent-like bend in the Mississippi River. The
area, capable of withstanding the strongest hurricanes on record,
would provide a "community haven" for all residents, he
said.
Suhayda's ideas are more radical than most. But for
better or worse, Katrina's devastation has awakened a steely sense
of realism that New Orleans, as it is, isn't viable.
"We must
recognize that we can't sustain residential populations in certain
areas," said former U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-Chackbay.
Not
everyone is convinced that New Orleans needs a fundamental
geographic overhaul. Former Louisiana Sen. John Breaux, D-La., said
attention should focus instead on raising the levees. He pointed out
that the strongest, highest barriers along the river
held.
"You can't just fill in (with dirt) 20 feet high and
then rebuild," Breaux said. "What is more practical is to strengthen
the levee structure."
But others see a historic opportunity
in the gruesome ravages of disaster, a clean slate on which smarter
planning could bring about changes that have been long contemplated,
if not always spoken aloud.
Levees built in the 1960s to
withstand a storm surge 9 to 12 feet high could be reinforced to
keep out a wall of water nearly twice that high. New levees could be
added where neighborhoods now lie submerged. Stronger pumping
stations could be strategically relocated and raised to higher
ground so they don't flood when the rest of the city
does.
Neighborhoods such as eastern New Orleans and Lakeview,
which are well below sea level, could be raised to 10 feet above the
water line, making them less susceptible to flooding. Homes
submerged for days or weeks could be leveled and rebuilt to tougher
building codes.
"Out of nostalgia, do you want to put a
shotgun shack back there where it floods all the time or say, 'Is
there a better way?'" said David Schulz, director of the
Infrastructure Technology Institute at Northwestern University. "In
a very perverse way, this represents a significant opportunity for
New Orleans."
Schulz sees wide-scale redevelopment as a
chance to raise New Orleans out of poverty and attract new business
to the region. He suggested a new local communications system based
on broadband wireless, rather than traditional phone and cable
lines. He envisions running fiber-optic cables to support new
"knowledge-based" businesses as an alternative to the tourism, port
and petrochemical industries that have long sustained the local
economy.
"Imagine a city 287 years old transformed using 21st
century technology," he said.
Still others see an opportunity
to get the private sector to shoulder some of the burden of
redeveloping the city, a job that would otherwise fall to the
taxpayers.
Because of New Orleans' proximity to the oil and
gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico, Flowers said the industry may be
willing to pay a tax if it meant the region would have a reliable
metropolitan anchor.
"The oil and gas companies have a big
stake in this because it's their infrastructure that gets exposed by
the loss of the wetlands and when you don't have hurricane
protection," said retired Gen. Robert Flowers, former chief of the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The last large-scale urban
redevelopment project in the United States was in New York after the
World Trade Center bombings. While lower Manhattan bears little
resemblance to New Orleans, some see an object lesson in New York
City's experience. Residents could offer up their ideas for designs
in public "listening sessions." Tauzin suggested an international
competition for a new city design.
The flamboyant former
lawmaker even had an idea of his own: "Why not an American Venice
where we no longer fear water, but channel it in a way that isn't a
threat," Tauzin said.
Any radical redevelopment carries an
enormous price tag whose multi-billion-dollar dimensions can only be
guessed at. It also begs gut-wrenching personal and political
questions: Which neighborhoods should be flattened? What happens to
the people whose homes are taken to make way for new levees or flood
walls? Will the old-world charm of New Orleans be trampled in the
name of progress?
There are practical questions, too. The
widespread taking of property and significant land-filling are
certain to trigger protests from homeowners intent on remaining
where they are and environmentalists worried about the effects of
disturbing wetlands.
The government's hand in seizing private
property was strengthened in June by the U.S. Supreme Court when a
narrow majority gave city officials in New London, Conn., power to
take homes to make way for a waterfront redevelopment. Federal flood
insurance rules may leave many homeowners in seriously flooded areas
little choice but to walk away. FEMA won't rebuild a house if, in
its judgment, it is more than 50 percent ruined.
The
difficulty could come, experts say, in areas of the city that
sustained manageable flooding but that stand in the path of a
proposed new levee, pumping station or canal.
"Clearly there
will be some contentious decisions to be made," Schulz
said.
Already, some potential clashes can be seen forming the
horizon between preservationists interested in New Orleans'
historical structures, however flawed, and engineers intent on
constructing a hurricane-proof city.
A day after levees
breached and water from Lake Pontchartrain began pouring into the
city, Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic
Preservation, issued a press release imploring donations to restore
New Orleans' many historic gems.
Moe said that the
stabilization and restoration of the city's "world famed historic
landmarks and neighborhoods should be a global concern."
Significantly, Moe made no mention of landfills or flood
walls.
Fortunately, the best known of New Orleans' landmarks,
the French Quarter, was among the regions of the city least hurt by
the flooding. Its survival is being held up as Exhibit A among those
who say that filling in low-lying areas of New Orleans is the only
surefire way of guaranteeing the survival of New Orleans in the face
of future, inevitable storms.
As the oldest section of New
Orleans, the French Quarter has weathered innumerable fires and
floods over the past three centuries. It stayed relatively dry in
Katrina because, at three feet above sea level it is among the
highest points in the city.
Refugees camp out on I-10, haunted by unspeakable
images
Two women forever bonded after fleeing the city
together
By Meghan Gordon and Sheila
Grissett Staff writers
They slouched on both ends of a
cot in the shoulder of Interstate 10, two women whose bodies were
worn down and whose memories were etched with dozens of individual
tragedies that they witnessed together in the days after swimming
out of their flooded eastern New Orleans neighborhoods.
While
helicopters dropped in and buses stacked up in the eastbound lanes
behind them, Celeste Harrison, 44, and Charlene Williams, 42, sat
still during the relatively orderly operation around them. Strangers
before Katrina, the women said that they couldn't live another day
without the other beside them.
Harrison and Williams were
among the thousands who gathered on I-10, turning it into a refugee
camp of anxious evacuees awaiting transport out of a flooded
city.
Kidding each other about their unkempt hair and dreams
of pedicures, the pair tried to push back the images of the unending
journey out of their crumbling city. Just one of the memories could
send someone spiraling down, but these women - like the
near-hopeless refugees all around them near the Causeway Boulevard
underpass at I-10 - carried with them countless troubling
visions.
For Harrison and Williams, those included a
paraplegic woman they couldn't drag from a roof, a father with a
dead baby under each arm and a 2-week-old infant crushed when her
mother lost grip of her during a stampede at the Ernest N. Morial
Convention Center.
The women held each other up and prayed
that they would board one of the buses Saturday.
Instead of
dwelling on the psychologically scarring scenes of the previous six
days, they hatched a plan to rebuild their lives together. Williams
said she had no means to start over, but Harrison said she would
take care of her new friend somehow - just like Williams said she
had done to keep Harrison and other refugees moving when they wanted
to give up.
"It was hard, but we made it," Harrison said, at
times showing a hopeful smile. "I just keep saying, 'Come on, we can
do it. We can do it.'"
By "made it," Harrison meant that they
had survived long enough for the deliveries of food, water and dry
clothes. They made it to the side of a highway where litter, mud and
human waste surrounded them. They made it to the day that buses
arrived frequently and refugees filed on without
stampeding.
Ernest Smith, 10, made it to that moment, too.
Speaking in a calm but urgent voice like that of someone many times
his age, Smith said he had been watching out for his elderly
grandparents, with whom he lived on Camp Street. He finally had food
and water, but he wasn't sure he would make it out to hug his mother
in Atlanta.
"I would tell her, 'I love you. Please come get
me, and I don't want to be out here no more,'" Smith
said.
About 50 yards away, Jerome Wise didn't know whether he
would see his wife and six of his seven children again. Wise stayed
behind at his house near Hayne Boulevard and Sheephead Street, near
the New Orleans Lakefront Airport, because his 19-year-old son had
to work a shift at McDonald's last weekend.
All Wise carried
in his single bag was a portrait of his large family.
It
showed Wise with a much fuller face and a broad smile. On Saturday
morning, he paced with a grimace, telling in reverse the chronology
of the past six days: two days along the highway, another at
University of New Orleans and four days on the roof of his
house.
"I can't go no more," he said, holding his palms up
and out in a gesture many of the refugees used to express their
dwindling hope. "Nobody wants us. Nobody wants to help New
Orleans."
But by 1:15 p.m. Saturday, the final two
helicopters whipped up the debris as medics in scrubs carried the
last injured refugees inside, including an old man who appeared limp
on a stretcher. The line to board buses had disappeared. Most
passengers had no idea which of the many refugee camps across
southeast Louisiana would be their new home.
All that
remained was a layer of disposed items where commuters once sipped
their lattes in traffic. Random pieces of refuse covered the
pavement: a right yellow slipper, an upside-down baby carriage, an
unopened can of Blue Runner navy beans.
New Orleans Saints owner Tom
Benson is leaning strongly toward moving the Saints permanently to
San Antonio following the devastation to the city and the Superdome
by Hurricane Katrina, a state senator who has spoken with a top team
official said Saturday.
Sen. Mike Michot, R-Lafayette, said
he spoke with Saints' chief of administration Arnold Fielkow by
phone Friday morning about Benson's potential plans.
Team
officials could not be reached Saturday. The team had previously
announced it was looking for a new home for the current season, and
San Antonio was one of the options.
Michot said he was told
that Benson has not made a final decision, but the owner is serious
about moving once and for all to San Antonio. "We may lose them
permanently," Michot said.
A possible move by the team is a
"huge concern" among a few state officials who have become aware of
it, but every significant political figure in the state is
preoccupied with reacting to the storm aftermath.
State
officials want to convince Benson to delay a decision so that the
state can focus on the rescue and rehabilitation effort and later
find a way to keep the Saints at home in New Orleans.
"This
is like pouring salt into the wound," Michot said.
Michot
said decency dictates that Benson should postpone any decision on a
permanent move until state officials have had a chance to talk with
him. "Give us time," Michot said. Another state official
confirmed a similar conversation with Fielkow.
Michot is the
vice chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, a key committee for
legislation related to state agreement with the Saints. He said
that in the long run the Saints might be better off staying in New
Orleans because a revived city with national support could provide a
better stadium.
Old Metairie, Airline Drive receive brunt of
flooding
By Sheila Grissett and Meghan
Gordon Staff writers
East Jefferson has escaped the
unfathomable destruction that Katrina delivered to much of the New
Orleans region, but the damage done to its pockets of urban forest
and its utility infrastructure has changed the face of Lake
Pontchartrain's south shore suburb.
It was impossible to tell
Saturday just how much water had entered homes in the lowest-lying
sections of Metairie and Kenner, because fallen power lines and
thousands of toppled trees and utility polls blocked streets in
dozens of neighborhoods.
The only significant east bank
flooding that remained standing five days after the hurricane was in
and around Old Metairie. It was blamed on water flowing into New
Orleans from the 17th Street Canal breach, then entering Metairie
along Airline Drive east of Labarre Road and at
Northline.
Northline, a picture-postcard lovely street known
for the canopy of giant oaks that shades its mansions, still held
eight feet of water and wasn't accessible, said Robert Lambert,
general manager of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway Commission. He
said that water was expected to recede when repairs to the canal
breech are finished and Jefferson Parish is able to turn on its
drainage pumps.
To the south and west, a stretch of heavily
commercial Airline Drive was covered by estimated 20 feet of foul,
black water at its lowest point beneath the railroad underpass at
Airline Drive. Buildings on both sides were flooded, including Delta
Petroleum.
But if instances of standing water were isolated,
the results of hurricane winds and tree-related destruction were
visible throughout Metairie and Kenner. The degree of damage varied
block by block, house by house -- a few shingles here, part of a
roof -- while wooden fences were lost everywhere. In the worst
cases, trees had bashed homes, but that seemed to be the exception
rather than the rule.
There was little evidence of cleanup by
residents; in fact, few residents were sighted during a tour of East
Jefferson. And there was no obvious evidence of looting. Perhaps
would-be thieves were scared off by promises of retribution
displayed by homeowners, one of which read, "You loot. We shoot." Or
perhaps it was the major police presence, especially in Kenner,
where officers in marked cruisers ran up and down the
streets.
In Kenner, the storm blasted away the entire front
of Nina's Hallmark Shop at Chateau Boulevard and West Esplanade
Avenue, leaving rows of cuddly Beanie Babies sitting tidy and
untouched on their front shelves just inches from the
destruction.
It looked to Lambert and other observers as
though some of the worst damage might have been caused by a tornado
or two skipping about East Jefferson. A house on Teton Drive in the
Woodlake subdivision in Kenner was heavily damaged, large portions
of its roof and exterior walls ripped away. But houses on either
side sat relatively undisturbed.
One resident of the
subdivision said some homes on the lower-lying streets took enough
water to destroy spas and hot tubs.
There were no large areas
of obliteration spotted in any of the accessible areas toured
Saturday, but there were pockets of major damage. The north end of
Causeway Boulevard, for example, had been littered with trucks from
a U-haul rental center. They had been picked up by the storm and
dropped onto the road.
"After the storm passed, those trucks
were completely blocking Causeway Boulevard," Lambert said. "The
storm threw them like toys."
By Saturday, only a lone truck
remained on its side in a Causeway turn lane, unusable anyway
because of the numerous downed power lines and poles on nearby West
Esplanade. West Esplanade, in fact, was blocked at several different
spots throughout Kenner and Metairie.
Katrina's winds toppled
a billboard into West Esplanade's drainage canal at Causeway, and
further west, had so damaged the storefront of Robert's Fresh Market
at Transcontinental that an old Winn-Dixie sign was the only thing
legible on the front of the store.
"The cleanup will be
massive, but the parish and Kenner have done a good job of clearing
a lot of these major streets," Lambert said. "But I think people are
going to have a hard time believing what they see when they get
back."
Susan Laporte, who spent the day Katrina hit in a
friend's Old Metairie home, may or may not return to Jefferson
Parish during hurricane season if she ever gets away from this one.
She stayed during the hurricane to be near her parents, but says she
won't stay again.
"If we get Jefferson Parish up and running
again and I stay here, I think I'd leave even for a (Category) 1
storm," she said, wiling away Saturday morning on a front porch
swing. "There was a new scare every day, and I was really scared of
looters."
She said she kept her boyfriend's pistol handy. But
it wasn't necessary.
"There's a shoe store on the corner with
the window broken out (from the storm), and there's not a shoe
missing," Laporte said.
"And that's been pretty hard for my
sister and me," she added with a laugh.
President Bush ordered more than 7,200 additional
active duty troops to the region Saturday, joining the swelling
ranks of National Guard soldiers and airmen who are streaming in
with supplies and guns.
"Many of our citizens simply are not
getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans, and that is
unacceptable," Bush said Saturday in his weekly address, a day after
he visited New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. "In America,
we do not abandon our fellow citizens in their hour of
need."
As of Saturday morning, almost 4,600 active duty
troops were in the region, according to the U.S. Northern Command,
which is overseeing the active duty military contribution to the
disaster.
Members of the 82nd Airborne division, the 1st
Cavalry Division and the First and Second Marine Expeditionary
Forces were en route to join Joint Task Force Katrina, the active
duty military group commanded by Louisiana native Lt. Gen. Russell
Honore.
The active duty troops will join a growing number of
National Guard soldiers and airmen already in the region, Gov.
Kathleen Blanco said.
By law, active duty troops cannot
conduct law enforcement operations in civilian populations. The
security role - troops on the street helping police restore order --
is handled by the National Guard acting under orders from state
governors, officials said.
Blanco said that in light of
Bush's order, she has asked Maj. Gen. Bennett Landreneau,
Louisiana's adjutant, to focus the state's National Guard on
security.
Of Bush's order to send more active duty forces to
the area, Blanco said, "this is welcome news."
"A secure
environment is critical to continuing search and rescue operations
and restoration of critical infrastructure,"
Blanco said.
"These men and women are doing heroic work saving people and
restoring order."
Forty states have sent National Guard
soldiers and airmen to Louisiana as of Saturday, said Jack Harrison
of the National Guard Bureau in Arlington, Va.
About 22,000
National Guard troops have been sent to Louisiana, Mississippi and
Alabama, and the number is expected to grow to 30,000 today, he
said.
"It's an unprecedented response in our history,"
Harrison said. Blanco said 12,000 National Guard troops are in
Louisiana, including 5,000 from the state. Another 4,000 are
expected by Monday, Blanco said.
"These men and women are
doing heroic work saving people and restoring order," Blanco
said.
Air National Guard aircraft had flown more than 720
missions into the region, delivering more than 3,600 tons of
"life-saving supplies and equipment to the region" and then
evacuating more than 11,000 people, Harrison said.
In a radio
interview Friday, Kenner police Chief Nick Congemi likened the
military airlift operation taking place at Louis Armstrong
International Airport to what he saw as a soldier in
Vietnam.
The Coast Guard, meanwhile, which is part of the
Department of Homeland Security, has sent 23 helicopters and five
airplanes to the region. Coast Guard aircrews rescued more than
3,660 people between Monday and Saturday morning, the agency
said.
In New Orleans, National Guard personnel moved 20,000
people out of the Superdome and secured the convention center. "They
did provide and are providing to those who are still there
sufficient food and water to everyone," Harrison said.
Seeking help in New Orleans, people instead find
death, unrest
Rape, gunfire reported at Convention
Center
By Trymaine D. Lee Staff
writer
By Friday afternoon the old man's body was beginning
to decompose, sitting in the lawn chair where he died four days
earlier outside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
The
pungent stench of death wafted from under the dingy blanket that
draped his corpse. He had become all but invisible to a sea of the
living that staggered from the curbs and into the streets not far
from his body.
The small children - many suffering from heat
rash and hunger -- who huddled with family on the sidewalk outside
the Convention Center sat quietly and tearless by the sides or on
the laps of helpless adults.
This is where flood survivors
hoped they would find food, where they hoped to find water and the
rumored evacuation buses that many people talked about but no one
had ever seen until Saturday. All they'd found there was despair and
more death. They'd survived killer winds and floods, but now many of
the old and the sick were dying from what many believed was a lack
of medicine and water.
Officials said the crowd outside the
Convention Center had swelled to 25,000 people.
For four
days there was no sign of law enforcement or city, state or federal
officials, several of the displaced said. There was no updated
evacuation schedule. And there was no food.
The young men
were getting restless and angry. Evacuees said some of them were
armed and most were willing to take extreme measures if somebody
didn't do something to save them.
Many said they'd braved
chin-high floodwaters to get to the Convention Center from
neighborhoods such as Carrolton and Treme. They said they came from
places where their neighbors had drowned and where entire families
had vanished.
"We're being treated like animals," Donyell
Porter, 25, said Friday. "Look around. Man, look at the bodies. And
there's no way for us to leave. Brothers been stealing cars, but
they can't make it over the bridge. ... It's not right. We're
humans, too."
The old man was said to be the first of many to
die at the center. By Wednesday an elderly woman was found dead,
slumped in her wheelchair near a curb 20 feet from the Convention
Center doors, said Bob Payne, 57, a retired journalist turned
refugee. Payne said a teenage girl was the next to die, rumored to
have been raped and her throat sliced open.
"They took her
body and put it on the third floor in a walk-in freezer," Payne
said. Payne said he had seen at least seven dead during the three
days he spent sleeping on the ground outside the center.
"It
was absolutely horrendous," Payne said, after being rescued by a
reporter friend who he'd seen through the crowd. "I'd never seen
anything like it. I couldn't believe that this was America I was
seeing."
Boiling point
"Don't think the Army
out here is the only ones with guns," said Mark Course, 29. "These
young dudes got guns too, and if something don't change soon,
something's going to happen."
He pointed toward a group of
military police officers holding rifles and bottles of water. "Look
at them. They got water so cold it'll freeze your tongue, but look
at what we got: nothing or it's boiling hot."
Witnesses said
a small riot broke out Wednesday when refugees saw rescuers in big
trucks carting off white tourists by the dozens, leaving many black
people to fend for themselves.
"You should have seen them
gathering up white folks," said Kim Jackson, 39. "They had a big
18-wheeler with the National Guard walking alongside them. ... But
they got us here like dogs."
Other acts of violence were
reported.
New Orleans Police Chief Eddie Compass said someone
opened fire inside the Convention Center early Thursday morning.
Officers responded and were fired upon, but they couldn't return
fire. It was dark, he said, and his men didn't want to risk shooting
innocent people. Praising officers who he said "fought like dogs" in
a war for the streets, Compass said cops followed the flash erupting
from the gunmen's weapons and disarmed them without firing a
shot.
'All we got is us'
Food rations and
water arrived at Convention Center Boulevard on Friday after the
National Guard and the media came. Until then there was none, so as
early as Wednesday people started breaking into the Convention
Center searching for food, Payne said. Through a side door, stepping
over six bodies covered with sheets, Payne said, Samaritans pilfered
canned beans and fruit, bottled water and cans of soup.
"All
we got is us out here," Course said. "We know the looting is hurting
us, but we're stranded out here. So we were taking everything we
could and handing it out to people."
Families pooled their
resources, sharing diapers and formula or food for the children if
they had any.
"I had some things, but people out here really
helped out a lot. We got together, and that's all that has gotten us
by," said Kelly Billy, 22, of eastern New Orleans. Billy said she
escaped her third-story home with her three small children -- ages 6
months to 3 years-- on an inflatable mattress using a broom as a
paddle.
Payne said from what he witnessed, the initial wave
of looting was purely for survival. But later small groups began
making their way to the Gap and Saks Fifth Avenue, emerging with
clothing and high-end handbags.
Compass said he realized that
many of those breaking into local businesses were doing so for food
and water, and that "the same knuckleheads they go to war with every
day are the ones causing trouble for everybody else."
With
extensive news coverage of looting and lawlessness in the city, many
people stranded outside the Convention Center said they resent being
criminalized under the most horrible of conditions.
"They
think we're a bunch of crazed beasts just acting crazy," said Ray
Bryant, 46. "But this is inhumane. How do they expect people to
act?"
Many promises
On Friday, Compass
addressed the crowd with a megaphone, promising that buses out of
town were on their way. Payne and others said the promise was one
of many that had trickled through the crowd throughout the
week. By Saturday, a fleet of buses finally rolled up to the
Convention Center.
Thousands began pushing and dragging
their belongings up the street to more than a dozen buses. The mood
was more numb than jubilant.
Yolanda Sanders stood at a
barricade clutching her cocker spaniel, Toto. She had been at the
Convention Center for five days.
"I had faith that they'd
come. I feel good that I know I can get to my family,'' she said.
Sanders didn't know where they were taking her, but "anyplace is
better than here," she said. "People are dying over there.''
Evacuees from the Superdome were shipped to the Astrodome in
Houston, which by Saturday had been filled with 15,000 refugees. The
doors to two additional centers in Houston were opened, accepting
10,000 additional survivors. Dallas and San Antonio also agreed to
take in those in need. And refugee shelters were being established
in other states.
Feelings of hope quickly returned to
frustration as people continued to wait, throwing their arms in the
air and cursing. A dead man lay on the sidewalk under a blanket with
a stream of blood running down the pavement toward the gutter.
"We're hurting out here, man. We got to get help. All we
want is someone to feel our pain, that's all,'' said Tasheka
Johnson, 24.
Viewed from the windows of a
low-flying Blackhawk helicopter, the scope of Hurricane Katrina's
destruction becomes clearer. The Causeway is like a broken spine,
large sections of roadway listing disconcertingly into the brown
water of Lake Pontchartrain. The modest homes in the Lower 9th Ward
have been uprooted and are crushed together in clots like bumper
cars. Pyramid-shaped rooftops are all that can be seen of many
suburban-style houses in the Lakeview neighborhood. And the expanses
of small trees that line the coastal wetlands of eastern New Orleans
have been bent to the ground and combed precisely in one direction
that marks the path of last week's ferocious wind. Nothing is right.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin knew that's what he would find
when he conducted a helicopter survey Saturday of the city, a grim
tour that graphically exposed members the national and local press
to the destruction he's come to know well. The copter turned slow
circles over the sky like a buzzard over the still-breached 17th St.
Canal levee and twice paused in flight over New Orleanians who were
still stranded. Nagin dropped water and a ready-to-eat meal to one
of them.
Preparing for the flight, Nagin was in a more
sedate mood than he was during an expletive-ridden television
interview Thursday, when he railed against the plodding federal and
state relief efforts, accused President Bush and Gov. Kathleen
Blanco of posturing for political advantage at a time of acute need,
and burst into tears -- not that the situation in the drowning,
crippled city had much improved.
"When I woke up this
morning," Nagin said, "I turned my radio off. I just couldn't digest
any more bad news."
Bush was forgiving of Nagin's tirade
when they met Friday, Nagin said. "He said, 'Look, I know you said
lots of things. We could have done better. I can't argue. Let's deal
with the future.' ... Mr. Bush was really, really concerned."
Blanco, too, understood his anger, Nagin said. "I told the
president and her, 'I kind of lost it. But put yourselves in my
shoes. If I said anything offensive, I apologize.' ... But then I
immediately went on to tell them what I need."
Nagin may
have mended his fences politically, but he said he still believes
the situation is being poorly handled. "We're still fighting over
authority," he said. "A bunch of people are the boss. The state and
the federal government are doing a two-step dance. "I told the
president, 'I'm into solutions. If the state government can't take
responsibility, then you take it.' ... I think it's getting better,
but the pace is still not sufficient.'"
Some observers have
said that because the majority of storm evacuees are black, the
lethargic disaster response has a racist component. But Nagin cast
the color issue in another light. "I think it's more a class issue
than race," he said. "The Superdome had mostly poor people in
distress. The rich have resources the poor don't. The Convention
Center was different. There the poor were mixed with people from
hotels and predators. You had blacks, Hispanics, Asians. The
predators in there didn't care. When those stories come out, like
children raped, with their throats cut, then somebody's got to
answer."
Nagin's ire began to rise anew as he recalled a
foiled strategy to send able-bodied refugees over the Crescent City
Connection to the high ground of the West Bank.
"We were
taking in people from St. Bernard Parish," he said. "If we had a
bottle of water, we shared it. Then when we were going to let people
cross the bridge, they were met with frigging dogs and guns at the
Gretna parish line. They said, 'We're going to protect Jefferson
Parish assets.'
"Some people value homes, cars and jewelry
more than human life. The only escape route was cut off. They turned
them back at the parish line."
Nagin said that in order to
cope with the always frustrating, sometimes overwhelming situation
he has tried to "stay in the moment," dealing as best he can with
each individual issue as it arises: a police officer's report that a
large number of elderly people were stranded near Lee Circle; the
sight of refugees continuing to gather on the city's raised
highways. Nagin recalled with special dismay having recently been
told that a New Orleans police officer committed suicide during the
storm's aftermath.
"I asked my people to get in touch with
the LSU department of psychiatry," he said. "The police are holding
the situation together with Band-Aids. We have to let them get three
to five days off."
As the Blackhawk coursed over the city,
Nagin and the other passengers pointed out familiar landmarks made
unfamiliar by the storm. The city was largely ruined. It would be as
difficult to restart as the thousands of automobiles submerged in
the murky water below. But Nagin insisted it must be restarted, no
matter what.
"I think I'm here for a reason: to rebuild," he
said. "New Orleans is the soul of the country. It's the place jazz
comes from. It has Mardi Gras Indians that nobody else has. It's a
place where a chef can take a piece of fish and make it into a
masterpiece. We don't even think about not rebuilding Miami. We
don't think about rebuilding Los Angeles, and they're on a fault
line. We just do it. We don't talk about it. I don't want to talk
about that foolishness."
31
dead in nursing home; man found with dead family
By
Paul Rioux and Manuel Torres St. Bernard bureau
As
the last of the stranded St. Bernard Parish residents were rescued
and evacuated, parish officials on Saturday turned their attention
to recovering bodies, draining water and contaminated muck from the
area, and dealing with looters and other criminals who Sheriff Jack
Stephens said would be shot if encountered by police.
Finally reaching areas that had been rendered inaccessible
by as much as 12 feet of water, rescuers found horrific sites,
including a nursing home where 31 residents were dead and a man who
spent days in the attic with members of his family, all of whom were
dead.
Parish officials estimated that more than 6,000 people
had been evacuated from St. Bernard since rescue efforts began
Tuesday. Several hundred remain in the parish, not all of them
law-abiding, officials said.
Stephens said he has ordered
his officers to use deadly force to deal with the looters.
"We are in an absolute shoot-to-kill mode," Stephens said
Saturday to his team gathered aboard the commandeered Cajun Queen.
"Anybody who presents a clear danger is to be shot."
By
Saturday evening no shots had been fired.
Stephens estimated
the death toll to be in the hundreds. Twenty-two bodies were found
tied together in Violet, which along with the rest of St. Bernard
was one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. Officials
said the 22 victims apparently had tied themselves together in a
desperate attempt to survive the storm.
While the sheriff
fears the death toll will be high, he said the actual number of
deaths may never be known because some bodies might have washed into
canals and other bodies of water. Stephens said he personally had
watched two bodies float away.
For every few people rescued,
another one or two have been found dead, officials said. Rescuers
reached St. Rita’s nursing home in Poydras to find 31 dead in their
beds. Another 50 were rescued alive from the home but were in poor
condition. One rescue team found a man sticking out of an attic,
hollering for help. Volunteer rescuer, Patrick Lannes of Arabi, said
the man yelled to them, "You have got to get me out here; my whole
family is dead in here with me.’"
The St. Bernard Parish
Sheriff’s Office was handling the mayhem with little federal aid,
though international aid arrived in the form of 47 Canadian search
and rescue specialists Thursday, officials said. Some state Wildlife
and Fisheries officers also were helping with the rescue effort, and
dozens of volunteers came to the parish in boats to do anything,
from clearing off the river levees to delivering water and other
supplies. But there were few National Guardsmen in the parish.
"We didn’t have any goddamn help," Parish President Henry
"Junior" Rodriguez said. "You would think if those assholes didn’t
get any communications from us that they could figure out that we
needed help."
Despite being recently released from the
hospital after a three-month Stay following gallbladder surgery,
Rodriguez has remained in the parish, as well as many other parish
officials - most of them staying in the courthouse.
As the
rescue effort wrapped up, other problems mounted.
An oil
leak at the Murphy Oil refinery in Meraux was several inches deep on
top of the floodwaters. Fumes from the leak were overwhelming,
officials said. Refinery officials were attempting to find the
source of the leak and fix it.
The smell of the oil mingled
with the stench of the sewage-laden waters, which were receding
about six inches to a foot a day. Sections of Judge Perez and St.
Bernard highways were dry, but litter, debris and boats surrounded
the businesses along them.
In back of the Lexington Place
subdivision in Meraux, raging flood waters had lifted homes,
foundation and all, and thrown them against neighboring homes.
And where the land was dry, insurgents took hold. In the
sheriff’s Verret substation, a group of what he called "known
criminals" took hold until a helicopter flyby scared them off.
"This is a catastrophe of biblical proportions," Stephens
said. "Stephen King couldn’t write a script like
this."
Numbers
suspected to be in thousands, but nothing official
By
Gwen Filosa Staff writer
Federal and state officials
acknowledged Saturday that the Louisiana death toll from Hurricane
Katrina could be in the "thousands," but repeatedly said they had no
official number – insisting that the dead were not their priority as
long as so many survivors remained trapped in the devastated region.
The count in Mississippi was at 147 and likely to rise,
officials there said, while those in Louisiana remained grimly
silent about any numbers.
"I know there are bodies up
there," said U.S. Army Col. John Smart, when asked about how many
estimated dead were at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in
downtown New Orleans.
Smart, the chief of operations for the
military effort in Louisiana, added, "That is not our
mission."
Since Monday, when Katrina struck, officials from
federal agencies and the governor's office have said it was not
their job to count the dead. Federal Emergency Management Agency
officials referred the question to the state and local officials –
including parish coroners. Gov. Kathleen Blanco's administration
turned the question back to FEMA.
On Saturday, the
bureaucratic vision changed: The federal Disaster Mortuary
Operational Response Team will collect and count those whose lives
were lost in the catastrophe, said Rear Adm. Craig Vanderwagen of
the U.S. Public Health Unit. It is the same federal unit that dealt
with the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New
York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.
Vanderwagen said a
starting figure of the dead could come today or Monday at the
latest.
Asked for an estimate of the dead, Blanco said, "A
lot."
It could be in the thousands, she quickly added, but
"we don't know."
FEMA Director Mike Brown was visibly
displeased with repeated requests for an estimated death toll. Brown
not only bristled at the question, but told reporters it was
"amazing" that the question was being pressed.
FEMA has
established a makeshift morgue in St. Gabriel, where a dozen
refrigerated trucks were on site Saturday and 16 were en route.
The disaster mortuary unit began work in the early 1980s,
prompted by the National Funeral Directors Association as a solution
to dealing with mass casualty crises. A "disaster portable morgue
unit" includes the technology and equipment to provide victim
identification and mortuary services.
The teams are made up
of private citizens from various fields of expertise, who work with
local authorities to recover, identify and process the dead. Teams
include funeral directors, medical examiners, coroners, pathologists
and dental assistants, among other specialists.
Restoring electricity to
the hardest-hit areas of southeastern Louisiana likely will take
more than a month, the state’s largest power utility said Saturday.
The slow draining of floodwater from Orleans, St. Bernard
and Plaquemines parishes will keep much of those areas in the dark
for weeks longer than other parts of metropolitan New Orleans,
Entergy spokesman Chanel Lagarde said.
Public security also
must be restored in New Orleans before utility crews can move in and
begin work, he said.
About 506,000 Entergy customers in
southeastern Louisiana remained without power late Saturday
afternoon, down from 800,000 at the height of the historically
massive storm outage, Lagarde said. But most of the restoration work
thus far has occurred in the Baton Rouge area.
On the north
shore of Lake Pontchartrain, about 77,000 Cleco Corp. customers
remained without power Saturday, down from 80,000, Cleco spokeswoman
Susan Broussard said. Electricity was back on at most hospitals,
city halls, police stations and fire stations.
Power also
was flowing along the major retail business corridor of Louisiana
190 from downtown Covington to Interstate 12, she said.
Most
of the utility’s transmission system had been re-energized in St.
Tammany, but a major transmission line between Madisonville and
Bogalusa feeding Washington Parish remained down, Broussard said.
More than 10,000 utility line workers were in southeastern
Louisiana on Saturday, up from 6,000 just a day earlier. And more
help from out-of-state utilities was on the way, Lagarde said.
Work repairing the catastrophic damage inflicted on the
local grid continued to gain traction, but the job remained
daunting. Entergy crews restored power to 29,000 homes and
businesses in Algiers on Friday, only to lose the services Friday
night, said Public Service Commissioner James Field of Baton Rouge.
Meanwhile, some evacuees settling into temporary homes and
apartments in Baton Rouge were told Friday by Entergy that it would
take at least three weeks to turn on electricity in their new
residences.
"That’s unacceptable," Field said. "(Entergy)
will have to have a very, very good explanation to explain that. A
seven-day period would be reasonable."
Lagarde said late
Saturday afternoon that new customers in Baton Rouge would be
connected within five days.
"What is not working, we're going to make it right,"
President Bush says
By Jed Horne Staff
writer
New Orleans, or what's left of it, awoke Friday to
discover that fire had been added to the array of pestilences -
floodwaters, hunger, looting and mass death - that have beset the
city since Hurricane Katrina's winds ripped it apart five days ago.
The plumes of smoke rising from locations on both sides of
the river were offset by the belated arrival of long-promised
National Guard units in a bid to further the evacuation and reverse
the virtual anarchy that descended over the city as beleaguered and
increasingly angry local officials begged for federal assistance.
On a daylong tour of New Orleans and the stricken Gulf
Coast, President Bush conceded that the nation's disaster response
had been a disappointment and vowed a redoubled relief effort.
"What is not working, we're going to make it right," he said
after an initial landing in Mobile, Ala. His wife, Laura Bush,
echoed the same theme in remarks during a visit to Lafayette.
There were continued signs of the efforts to restore
order.
Guns pointed skyward in the back of troop transport
vehicles, Friday's initial deployment of about 7,000 soldiers from
all over the country first moved in on the Ernest N. Morial
Convention Center, where they encountered a small city of angry and
desperate refugees along a boulevard littered with now putrefying
corpses.
Soldiers offloaded pallets of food and water, in
some cases tossing the supplies at upwards of 15,000 refugees
seething from their exposure to subhuman conditions brought on by
lack of sustenance and sewerage.
A motorcade of 95
air-conditioned buses broke away from the troop transport vehicles
they had been following and made for the Superdome, the city's
shelter of last resort, to complete an evacuation that on Thursday
had pared back a refugee population that peaked at about 25,000.
The show of force began to yield results, but not without
incident. One unit in a five-bus caravan had reached Opelousas when
it flipped on its side, killing one passenger and injuring 17
others.
Other convoys carried 4,200 people to airstrips for
further evacuation out of the region, and by early evening the
Superdome was expected to be empty, Brig. Maj. Gen. Mark Graham,
deputy commander of the National Guard's Katrina Task Force, said
late Friday afternoon. The Convention Center throng was reduced by
1,000, he said. In addition, a fleet of six small planes - soon to
be expanded to a dozen - airlifted 438 patients from city hospitals.
The Coast Guard continued to ply flooded neighborhoods
working alongside a private flotilla of several hundred boats to
pluck survivors from rooftops, attics and highway ramps and bridges.
By Friday, the tally of those rescued by the Coast Guard had topped
4,000, Capt. Sharon Richey said.
If New Orleans was the
epicenter of misery and chaos, reports from more remote suburbs
revealed that the death and looting was not limited to the region's
big city.
With unofficial death toll estimates rising into
the thousands, State Sen. Walter Boasso said at least 100 corpses
had been collected in St. Bernard Parish, 25 having been tethered
together to keep them from floating away.
"We've had people
lying in water in the attic for days," Boasso said of the continuing
rescue effort.
Amos Cormier, chairman of the governing
council in Plaquemines Parish, the finger of land that stretches
downriver to the mouth of the Mississippi , arrived Friday in Baton
Rouge seeking a long list of supplies, his top request a satellite
phone. Other items urgently needed: 50 military police, 50 assault
rifles, 50 sharpshooters, dynamite and at least 200 body bags.
Cormier said the lower half of the parish was entirely
underwater and that virtual piracy had broken out as looters arrived
by boat and began grabbing maritime supplies and even yachts and
trawlers - "whatever they can take," Cormier said.
The
dynamite would be used to blow holes in the marsh-side levees below
Myrtle Grove, hastening drainage of floodwaters, said Cormier, who
acknowledged that, as options go, dynamite is less than ideal. The
Army Corps would prefer that the levees be breached by excavation to
make their rebuilding more manageable. Cormier said that was fine
with him -- "if they can get in" with the heavy equipment needed for
the job.
Back in Orleans Parish, floodwaters continued to
drain from the city into Lake Pontchartrain through breaches punched
in the levee system, but the process, even after the now-defunct
city pumps begin working, will take 36 to 80 days, authorities
said, fine-tuning an initial estimate that the process would take up
to two months. Johnny Bradberry, secretary of the state Department
of Transportation Development, said the pumps may be working as
early as Monday.
To keep high tides - or another hurricane
-- from pushing the lake back into the city, Boh Brothers
construction company raced Friday to complete installation of sheet
metal piling below the Old Hammond Highway bridge over the 17th
Street Canal. The waterway between Orleans and Jefferson parishes
was the scene of the most spectacular and devastating failure of the
city's flood protection system. The breach was attacked by dropping
3,000 pound sacks of sand - 200 of them - into the chasm eaten into
the side of the canal by roiling water. Officials said the hole
should be plugged by late Sunday or Monday.
Mayor Ray Nagin,
meanwhile, predicted that electrical power in the city would not be
restored for two to three months. Jefferson Parish also abandoned
rosier projections and said residents should not plan to visit the
parish Monday, even for the temporary check-up on their homes that
had been announced in the immediate aftermath of Katrina's
landfall.
Some of the fires that had sent smoke into the
morning skies were still burning by late afternoon, and another
appeared to have erupted and spread to several houses in the area of
Notre Dame Seminary on Carrollton Avenue.
The first of the
day's fires, announced by an explosion that rocked a wide area of
the city, consumed a warehouse along the levee in the city's
downriver Bywater area and spread to a second. State officials with
the Department of Environmental Quality flew a helicopter over the
building, formerly a storage depot for oil products, and determined
that its emissions were not toxic, and fireboats appeared to have
brought that conflagration under control by late afternoon.
Given the lack of firefighting resources in a city without
water, the potentially greater threat was the fire that erupted in a
low-rise sandwich shop nestled among hotels and office towers in the
heart of the Central Business District, just yards from the
sprawling Harrah's casino. Another fire of undetermined origin sent
smoke rising into cloudless morning skies across the Mississippi
River on the West Bank of suburban Jefferson Parish, which already
has seen an entire shopping mall torched by looters.
The
Mississippi River on Friday was opened to closely restricted
navigation up to mile 235, the Coast Guard announced, good news for
some 90 vessels that have been idled at its mouth. Some of them
would be tankers bearing crude oil to refineries and a possible
respite in gas prices that soared above $6 a gallon at some stations
Friday.
Another statistic on the oil front suggested that
the shortages, even with resumed tanker traffic, could be
long-lasting. Katrina knocked 28 offshore oil platforms from their
moorings; 30 more were lost altogether, industry officials
said.
Other economic indicators were comparably grim. The
loss attributable to the storm was set at $100 million by Risk
Management Solutions and state officials with the Department of
Labor were bracing for the worst as unemployment claims, usually at
about 4,000 a week, soar to a projected 750,000 all told.
As
they have all week, survivors of the holocaust on Friday continued
to stagger into cities and towns all around the rim of Hurricane
Katrina's arc of destruction, gazing back at their former lives in
anger, sorrow and disbelief.
One among the thousands was
Mark Perillat, a 49-year-old Bywater resident. After sending his
wife and children to Lake Charles, he had stayed on in their home
for three days, venturing out repeatedly into flooded neighborhoods
by canoe to rescue trapped people and deliver them to overpasses,
bridges - anywhere he could drop them. One canoe load, a couple in
their 50s, had stood for three days in neck-deep water, he said.
As a cable television station rebroadcast the tearful and
bitter Thursday night tirade in which Nagin lambasted federal
officials for their lack of effective response and then burst into
tears, Perillat cheered the mayor -- "that's my guy" - and then
broke down himself.
"Weathering storms, getting people out
of the water, that's okay," Perillat said after regaining his
composure. "The worst thing is not being able to deal with this on a
national level. The government let us down, the whole f----- city."
Staff writers Ed Anderson, Sheila Grissett, Susan
Langenhennig and Brian Thevenot contributed to this
report.
David Grunfeld/The Times-Picayune A
mother carries her two children at Louis Armstrong
International Airport. » Photo
gallery
By JAMES
VARNEY Staff writer
New Orleans - Unable to get to
the office, Fr. Jose Lavastida rolled up his sleeves Friday and got
to work.
Lavastida, dean of academic affairs at Notre Dame
Seminary in New Orleans and a chaplain in the Naval reserves, landed
in New Orleans last Sunday on one of the last flights before
Hurricane Katrina shattered the city.
Trapped before the
storm by the contraflow traffic on the main thoroughfares and later
by flood waters, Lavastida found himself marooned around the New
Orleans International Airport. And this week that airport has become
the main transit point and triage center for the Federal Emergency
Management Agency.
Throughout the day Friday, a variety of
military helicopters swollen with human cargo, the stranded and
desperate survivors of the storm, landed at the airport. Within the
city, the military birds landed at established heliports and
makeshift ones on the top of elevated road ramps, as the U.S. armed
forced finally began to make their presence felt.
It is a
testament to the mayhem Katrina hath wrought that the airport's "D"
concourse, with its rows of elderly men and women lying on combat
litters looked orderly; an improvement on the filth-filled pickup
points authorities established for people within the city that
provided neither a pickup nor food nor water.
But underneath
the image, the lethal results of Katrina were the same inside and
outside, Lavastida said.
"I have been busy administering last
rites," he acknowledged, though he declined to offer specific
numbers. "There is a triage center and the doctors have moved
patients they can't help aside.
"In that area there are so
many people," he said. "They're just there waiting to
die."
Although Lavastida again declined to provide specific
figures, he conceded the death toll at the airport will soon top
100.
While that number sounds small by international disaster
standards, FEMA workers and doctors said they are overwhelmed by
Katrina's near annihilation of New Orleans.
"This is
unequivocally, by far, the single most chaotic disaster situation
I've ever experienced," said Dr. Mona Khanna, who said she worked on
location after the devastating tsunami in Asia (last year? This
year?).
Other FEMA workers, echoing a viewpoint New Orleans
Police Department brass were voicing in the last dry pockets of the
city during the week, said Katrina dwarfs the terrorist attacks of
2001.
"I did 9/11," said Michael Rieger, a photographer for
the federal disaster agency. "This is worse."
Despite having
Disaster Medical Assistance Teams from eight states – roughly 150
workers – Khanna and Rieger predicted the situation at the airport
would only worsen in the near future.
Certainly it seemed
bad enough at times. At one point, as Lavastida tried to comfort a
man covered in grime and dissolving in sobs, a paramedic team
sprinted by cradling an infant. They carried the baby into an
impromptu intensive care ward, and doctors quickly huddled around
the wailing tot as a nurse closed the doors.
The baby's
loneliness was reflected everywhere.
"Everyone is
disconnected from their family, and as they gather here it seems
sometimes they just want to tell their story, to have someone listen
to it," Lavastida said.
Louisiana coastal
restoration officials began brainstorming with officials from the
Army Corps of Engineers on Friday about how to protect the New
Orleans area and other communities in southeastern Louisiana from
another catastrophic hurricane and restore its coastal wetlands at
the same time.
They're trying to quickly hammer together a
plan that could be thrown into an expected supplemental
congressional appropriation that's needed to pay the cost of Katrina
rescue and recovery efforts, said Randy Hanchey, deputy secretary of
the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources.
Sidney Coffee,
coastal adviser to Gov. Kathleen Blanco, confirmed that the talks
began Friday.
Late Friday, corps officials announced they are
beginning to breach levees to drain water from Chalmette, flooded
because of failures of levees along the Industrial
Canal.
Backhoes mounted on marsh buggies and draglines
mounted on barges will cut breaches in the levees, including one
along the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet between the Bayou Bienville
and Bayou Dupree floodgates and another near the Caernarvon
Freshwater Diversion Canal.
Breaches of two ring levees in
Plaquemines Parish, one on each bank of the river, will soon follow,
the corps announcement said.
Corps officials already have
said that protecting New Orleans from a Category 5 storm would cost
at least $2.5 billion.
The proposed Morganza-to-Gulf
hurricane protection levee being considered for authorization during
this term of Congress, is estimated to cost $670 million, but would
only protect parts of Terrebonne, Lafourche and Jefferson parishes
from a Category 3 storm, just like the existing levees around the
New Orleans area.
Congress also is considering a $1.2 billion
proposal to begin restoring the coastline, a process estimated to
eventually cost $15 billion.
"We're trying to put together a
package recommending a comprehensive hurricane protection and costal
restoration program that will provide a much higher level of
protection, with the restoration of critical land features in the
coastal zone that provide surge protection," Hanchey said.
"How this will be received, we just don't know," he said.
"But you can't look at hurricane protection any more from the
microeconomic, one-city point of view any more. If one is concerned
about economic justification about a project like this, that
question has been answered."
Hanchey said the preliminary
plan is to ask Congress to allow the corps to skip the preliminary
cost-justification steps of these projects that often take as long
as five to 10 years.
"We need to accelerate the way the funds
are provided and move directly to design and construction," he said.
"We need to be starting today."
State and federal officials
have been delayed in determining how much damage the Category 4
Katrina has done to coastal areas because manpower, boats, planes
and helicopters all have been pressed into service to rescue people
in New Orleans.
A flight by Coffee and other coastal
officials at dusk Thursday, however, indicated that as much as half
of Plaquemines Parish was still underwater.
While it's still
unclear whether the wetlands there have been destroyed, Coffee said
the view was similar to maps drawn by the state to show what the
coastline would look like in 2050 without a restoration program.
Asbury Sallenger, a coastal geologist with the U.S.
Geological Survey's St. Petersburg, Fla., laboratory, has been able
to fly photographic missions over the eastern Louisiana coastline
and the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama during the past few days
to measure Katrina's damage.
He said the Chandeleur Islands
have been ripped asunder, and look worse than they did after
Hurricane Georges in 1998 and Tropical Storm Isidore and Hurricane
Ivan in 2002.
Meanwhile, state Department of Environmental
Quality and the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator's Office are trying
to determine the extent of a major oil spill at mile marker 22 on
the Mississippi River near Venice.
DEQ spokesman Darren Mann
said it's still unclear whether the oil is leaking from a pair of
holding tanks that have been described as holding either 800,000
barrels of oil each or 2 million barrels of oil each, he said.
Coffee said there were a number of smaller oil spills near
platforms all along southern Plaquemines Parish. How much oil is
in the water, and exactly where it comes from will have to wait
until officials can get to the area by boat, he
said.
Meanwhile, Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals
officials say floodwaters inside levees in St. Bernard and Jefferson
parishes and New Orleans are a toxic mix of bacteria contamination
and hazardous chemicals.
Exactly what chemicals might be in
the water is not yet known, said Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator Stephen Johnson in a phone interview from
Washington.
"It's too early to speculate," Johnson said. "We
haven't even gotten to the point where we're able to assess what's
there or not there."
Emergency preparedness experts have long
warned that floodwaters in New Orleans could be contaminated with
everything from the household chemicals beneath kitchen and bathroom
sinks to hazardous chemicals in businesses and factories to gasoline
and diesel fuel leaking from underground storage tanks. Above-ground
tanks also were expected to add to the mix as they floated free
from their supports, breaking piping as floodwaters rose.
Contaminated water already is being pumped into Lake
Pontchartrain, where it will make its way along the south shore, out
the Chef Menteur and Rigolets passes and into the Gulf of Mexico.
Equally contaminated floodwaters from St. Bernard Parish also will
end up in coastal wetlands, all of which are home to the state's
lucrative oyster industry and other fisheries.
Johnson said
the Federal Drug Administration and Department of Health and Human
Services will assist in making sure no contaminated seafood reaches
the public in the months to come. The state Health Department also
will assist in that effort. Health Department spokesman Bob
Johannessen said triage units treating evacuees haven't seen
tell-tale rashes on legs or other bare skin that would result from
exposure to toxic chemicals. He said bacteria in the water could
have gotten into wounds, and the problems that might cause could
take some time to show up.
Federal and state officials
continue to search from the air for chemical and oil leaks, but a
detailed inspection also has been delayed by the diversion of
personnel to rescue efforts.
"Our first priority is to assist
and make sure people are safe and we are actually saving lives,"
Johnson said.
"We have 69 watercraft on the scene and thus
far, emergency response personnel have rescued 500 people," he
said.
The EPA also is providing 50 workers to conduct
environmental assessments of construction sites for temporary
housing that will be built during the next few weeks for displaced
residents, he said.
An EPA plane equipped with sensing
instruments flew over a warehouse fire on a Mississippi River wharf
in New Orleans Friday and found no evidence of toxic materials, Mann
said.
The agency also is working with the corps in preparing
a plan to deal with the vast quantity of storm debris left in
Katrina's wake.
"We will be assessing the debris material to
see if it is indeed hazardous," Johnson said.
Johnson said he
was unaware of the unique problems that debris would present if it
is infested with Formosan termites, but said that would be added to
the list.
When South Carolina officials stored debris from
Charleston's older neighborhoods in empty lots on the outskirt of
town after Hurricane Hugo hit the Formosan termite-infested area,
the termites were spread to new areas, officials there said.
Entomologist Kenneth Grace of the University of Hawaii said
it's likely that floodwater may result in a reduction of termite
nests in the New Orleans area, but that even long-standing
stormwater won't kill all of the damaging insects. That's because
their underground nests are likely to contain pockets of air, and
they also have nests in the upper trunks of trees above the
floodwaters.
And he warned that moving building debris
around was likely to spread the insects to areas not yet infested,
just like in Charleston.
Mark Schleifstein can be reached at
mersmia@cox.net
About 1,000 National Guard
soldiers and airmen arrived Friday at the Naval Air Station-Joint
Reserve Base in Belle Chasse, which has become the staging area for
National Guard troops assisting with recovery efforts in New Orleans
in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
About 1,000 troops had gone
through the processing center between 4 a.m. and midafternoon at the
Louisiana Air National Guard's 159th Fighter Wing hangar, officials
said.
"We're getting the troops in as fast as we can,'' said
Col. Mike Lopinto.
After the troops were processed, they were
trucked or flown in by helicopter to "the zone,'' military jargon
for dangerous areas, said Lt. Col. Pete Schneider of the Louisiana
National Guard.
The 1,000 troops come from 15 states,
including Arkansas, Texas, Ohio and South Carolina, and were
dispersed to various areas around the city, said Army National Guard
Col. Ron Stuckey.
"You name it, they're coming,'' he
said.
Brig. Gen. Hunt Downer, an assistant adjutant for
Louisiana National Guard, said their purpose is to do whatever is
needed. "You name it and we'll do it.''
A lot of troops who
have been streaming through the air station have been to Iraq and
Afghanistan, officials said.
Downer said the joint effort
involves Army National Guard, Air National Guard, Navy and Coast
Guard. "It's an amazing experience for everyone,'' he said. "We're
making history.''
Lt. Col Ronald Turk, commanding officer of
the Jersey Air National Guard's 108th Security Forces Squadron based
at McGwire Air Force Base in New Jersey, said most of his troops
specialize in law enforcement, serving as police officer in civilian
life. Turk is second-in-command ATF's Nashville office.
He
and his people said they were eager to help. "There's a lot of folks
hurting right now and we're hoping to help,'' Turk
said.
Chief Master Sgt. Vincent Morton of New Jersey said
troops are prepared for whatever they might see.
Despite the
images of violence and looting, he said, "the majority of folks here
are good people. We're here to do a mission.''
The goal is to
have 7,000 soldiers and airmen involved in law enforcement in the
metro area.
"You will see a massive presence of troops on the
ground here,'' Schneider said. "They're coming in, and we're kicking
them out and it's not going to stop until we don't need anymore
(personnel).''
If there is a unit we need we are going to go
out and get civil engineers transportation and security.
A day after a normally
easy-going Mayor Ray Nagin blasted federal officials' seeming
indifference to the plight of New Orleanians who are stranded and
dying, President Bush stood on the lawn of the White House and
conceded the point: The federal government did not move quickly
enough or forcefully enough to help those people hit hardest by
Hurricane Katrina. "The results are not acceptable," the president
said before boarding a helicopter to go survey the storm's
damage.
It's good to hear the president admit his
administration's shortcomings, and it's even better to hear his
promise to help all of us who are in need. But the sad truth remains
that the federal government's slow start has already proved fatal to
some of the most vulnerable people in the New Orleans area. Water
has killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people. A lack of water to
drink is exacting its toll on others.
"I don't want to see
anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences," the mayor said during
a WWL radio interview Thursday. "Put a moratorium on press
conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources
are in this city."
The mayor had obviously become fed up with
federal bureaucrats' use of future tense verbs. "Don't tell me
40,000 people are coming here," he said. "They're not here. It's too
doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix
the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this
country."
We applaud the mayor for giving voice to an entire
city's frustration. How could the most powerful and technologically
advanced nation in the history of the world have responded so feebly
to this crisis?
The president's admission of his
administration's mistakes will mean nothing unless the promised help
is deployed immediately. Each life is precious, and there isn't a
second chance to save a single one of them. No more talk of what's
going to happen. We only want to hear what is being done. The lives
of our people depend on it.
7-foot-deep water remains in areas of Old
Metairie
By Matthew Brown and Michelle
Krupa Staff writers
Authorities appeared to gain the
upper hand Friday on the rampant disorder that had plagued parts of
Jefferson Parish since Hurricane Katrina, after a sharp security
crackdown coupled with dwindling numbers of people still in the
parish.
Checkpoints manned by police armed with assault
rifles and shotguns were widespread. Hundreds of New Orleans
residents who sought refuge in the parish -- and were blamed by
officials for much of the chaos -- were transferred to a staging
area on Interstate 10 in Metairie until they could be transported
out of the area.
The increasing stability, particularly on
the West Bank, allowed stalled recovery efforts to finally begin
moving forward. Entergy crews who had threatened to pull out were
given added police protection, officials said. Emergency management
officials set up their first food distribution centers four days
after the storm.
The clearing of debris from clogged streets
also began in earnest, prompting Parish President Aaron Broussard to
say he would stick with plans to open the parish Monday at 6 a.m. In
some areas of East Jefferson, however, that scenario remained in
doubt as Parish Council Chairman Tom Capella said that Monday was
too soon for people to return.
Parish and state workers were
constructing a mud and riprap levee on Airline Drive east of
Causeway Boulevard and were laying sheet pilings north of the
Hammond Highway bridge Friday to hold back floodwaters that had
poured out of Lake Pontchartrain through a levee breach at the 17th
Street Canal in New Orleans, officials said.
That break
flooded parts of Old Metairie and areas around Airline Drive, which
rely on the still-inoperable pumps at the 17th Street Canal to
remove water from neighborhoods.
"I did a tour on Monday
afternoon, and those areas were dry," Capella said. "Now parts of
Old Metairie and Airline Highway look like a
river."
Floodwaters up to 7 feet deep remained in areas of
Old Metairie near the Orleans Parish line.
And even if
residents can return, parish officials advised against canceling
their out-of-town hotel reservations.
"Please extend them at
least until the next weekend," Broussard said.
"The horror
story of this devastating hurricane is just beginning. When people
return, they will have no food, no water, no air conditioning and no
place to buy things," he said.
Meanwhile, parish leaders
worked from a makeshift headquarters in Baton Rouge, declaring that
the patchwork force of police from Gretna, Harahan, Kenner, Westwego
and the Sheriff's Office, along with sheriff's deputies from
Georgia, had staved off the terrifying street violence that had
taken hold of New Orleans.
"They've split this parish up and
locked this parish down," Capella said. "We're doing everything we
can to protect the homes of the people who have evacuated. Your home
will not be looted."
But Councilman-at-large John Young, who
rode out Katrina at East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie,
said a top Red Cross administrator told him Friday afternoon that
the relief agency, on advice from the Department of Homeland
Security, planned to hold off at least 24 hours to deliver aid to
East Jefferson and to West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero so
30,000 National Guard troops could secure the storm-ravaged New
Orleans area.
"We need to get them water and food," Young
said, adding that hospital employees and their families were sharing
resources with refugees and the infirm, and that a number of
dialysis patients died at Kenner Regional Medical Center in
Katrina's aftermath.
Provisions also were needed at shelters
at Bonnabel High School in Kenner, Worley Middle School in Westwego
and C.T. Janet Elementary School in Marrero, he said, though it was
unknown how many people had taken refuge at those sites. Both
hospitals, despite low provisions, were operating Friday with
electric power. Water service also had been restored to West
Jefferson.
But some residents are working on moving out of
the New Orleans region altogether. Keith Hill of Waggaman said his
cousin and about 30 family members were preparing to resettle in
Houston after evacuating there prior to the storm. His cousin's
sister-in-law already has found a job as a nurse, and another family
member is looking for construction work.
"They have about
eight kids they already enrolled in school because they don't know
the duration of this," Hill said. "It would be six
months."
"If they've got new jobs and their kids are going to
school, they've already got roots. What are they going to return to?
They've already lost everything."
In Terrytown, the fire that
threatened to destroy the Oakwood Shopping Center was brought under
control Friday at 1:30 a.m. Firefighters who had abandoned the blaze
Thursday afternoon returned that evening after water pressure
increased and renewed hope that the structure could be saved, said
chief Bryan Adams of the Terrytown 5th District Volunteer Fire
Department. About 10 stores inside the sprawling shopping center
were completely lost.
Adams said the fire appeared to have
been set by looters. Firefighters entering the building were
"bumping into looters."
On Friday, as firefighters boxed up a
jewelry store's merchandise, Councilman Chris Roberts predicted it
would be many months before Oakwood could reopen - a sharp blow for
the local economy. He estimated that 500 to 700 jobs could be
temporarily lost and said the closing would drain millions of
dollars in sales tax revenues from the parish.
For Adams, who
had broken into tears after calling his men back from the fire
Thursday, it was a victory.
"My guys busted their tails," he
said. "We decided we were not going to give up the shopping center
to nobody."
Banks and financial institutions this week began
announcing packages that allow customers in storm-affected areas to
delay a variety of payments without penalty.
Lenders are
offering moratoriums on house notes. Credit card companies are
pledging to allow customers to postpone payments for two months or
more without penalty, and the country's Big Three automakers said
they will allow consumers to postpone car payments.
Fannie
Mae, the federally chartered company that has helped millions of
first-time home buyers acquire loans, is giving "mortgage relief" to
borrowers in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida and other
states facing hardship as a result of Hurricane Katrina. The agency
will suspend mortgage payments for up to three months, reduce
payments for up to 18 months or - in the most severe cases - create
longer loan payback plans.
"What matters most to hurricane
victims in those first few days after a storm hits is basic safety
and survival, not concerns about making their next mortgage
payment," said Pam Johnson, senior vice president at Fannie
Mae.
The help comes as thousands of New Orleans area
customers displaced by Hurricane Katrina struggle with questions
about which bills to pay - and how to pay them - in a city where all
financial institutions are shut down for the foreseeable
future.
For some, the question is whether to continue making
rent or mortgage payments on an uninhabitable dwelling. For others
the issue is how to send payments when there is no postal service.
Freddie Mac also offered mortgage relief in locations
declared "major disaster areas" by President Bush. "Our goal is to
help families affected by Hurricane Katrina to keep their homes,"
the company's chairman, Richard Syron, said.
The state
Attorney General's office is helping insure that storm victims are
protected as well.
The office will contact the three credit
reporting bureaus - Experian, Equifax and TransUnion - to inform
them that state law prohibits them from reporting nonpayment of rent
on the credit report of a storm victim, said Isabel Wingerter of
Experian. Nonpayment reports can lower an individual's credit
score.
Other state agencies are also working to protect
consumers.
The state Office of Financial Institutions has
urged financial institutions to extend repayment terms on loans,
restructure debt and reduce late fees on past due loan
payments.
The banking department's web site,
www.ofi.state.la.us will provide links to federal regulatory sites
which will provide contact information for the affected financial
institutions.
Sidney Seymour, chief examiner of the state
Office of Financial Institutions, said there is no law providing
forebearance on mortgage payments and it will be up to individual
institutions to provide relief. There is no law providing protection
from the fees and penalties imposed by credit card companies,
either.
"There is no immunity for not paying your credit
cards," said Alys Cohen, a staff attorney for the National
Consumer Law Center in Washington, D.C. "The rules have always been,
if you don't pay you get in trouble."
Consumers should
contact their credit card companies to see what relief will be
offered.
Chris Spencer, spokesperson for Chase Bank, said
consumers who have questions about credit card, mortgage or loan
payments should contact a branch bank in the area where they have
evacuated to.
"The branches are crowded around Baton Rouge,''
he said. Chase also has a branch bank across from the Astrodome
in Houston, where busloands of evacuees have been
taken.
He said the bank will soon announce a disaster loan
program.
For those financing automobiles, the major
automakers are beginning to announce relief programs.
General
Motors said it will "work closely on a case-by-case basis with all
its impacted customers in auto finance, insurance and mortgage
units."
Car insurance company Geico announced it had
"catastrophe teams" ready to help victims file claims. Like the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, Geico and other companies offer
online claim forms or toll-free numbers for customers to use.
Many of the more than 135,000 school students
displaced by Hurricane Katrina are swelling enrollments in other
districts across the state and thenation as families rush to
relocate from the ravaged New Orleans area.
Louisiana
education officials said they couldn't begin to speculate on what
will remain of public school districts in Orleans,Jefferson, St.
Bernard and Plaquemines parishes.
"It is vitally important we
get these students into a safe environment where learning can go
on," said state Department of Education spokeswoman Meg Casper.
"These kids need some stability."
Archdiocese of New Orleans
officials said they are looking into opening satellite campuses to
serve far-flung Catholic school students from New Orleans, as
refugee families swamped Baton Rouge and Gonzales parochial schools
with applications.
In communities across the state, real
estate agents report selling and renting every property they've had
listed. One Baton Rouge agent, asked about rental openings, said the
closest available property she had is in Little Rock, Ark.
A
spokeswoman for Lafayette public schools said 1,469 displaced
students had enrolled in public schools there by Thursday evening
after school staff visited several shelters, including a Red Cross
shelter at the Cajun Dome.
In East Baton Rouge Parish, 300
students registered for classes in just four hours Thursday morning
at one shelter, an official said.
Casper said the department
has been fielding hundreds of calls from districts in other states
as far away as Ohio and Wisconsin as they begin enrolling New
Orleans-area students.
Meanwhile, state officials are
struggling to quickly channel funding for those students into the
myriad places where they'll soon be attending schools. Casper said
some refugee students have already started classes in other
districts.
Tai St. Julien, a spokeswoman for East Baton Rouge
Parish Schools, said officials there are contacting churches,
usinesses and charities seeking donations of money or classroom
space to handle the massive influx of students expected
there.
Districts taking in refugee students reported calls
from individuals or entire school systems across the nation pledging
donations of school supplies, money and other types of
support.
East Baton Rouge School Board President Patricia
Haynes Smith said there are a variety of options for accommodating
so many new students in a district that had 46,000 prior to Katrina.
Evacuated students could attend school in the afternoon while others
go to school in the morning, she said, or students could attend
school on alternating days.
Smith also said a federal court
agreed earlier this week to lift enrollment caps instituted several
years ago by court order in the system's long-standing desegregation
case.
Lafayette Schools spokeswoman Justine Sutley said
simply notifying evacuated parents about where their children will
be attending school could be an equally large challenge since "not
everybody has a cell phone and not everybody has a stable
location."
In Ascension Parish, assistant school
superintendent Donald Songy said getting children to schools is of
substantial concern since 42 of the district's school buses are
being used in the evacuation effort in New Orleans.
Teachers
from the New Orleans area are also relocating, with Lafayette taking
in applications from 80 teachers and an assistant superintendent in
Ascension Parish reporting a "stack" of applications from evacuated
teachers.
Cynthia Costello, a sixth-grade math teacher at New
Orleans Charter Middle School, said she has been more focused on
volunteer teaching assignments than locating another job. She
traveled to the Astrodome in Houston, where she was unable to
provide makeshift classes for evacuees because of "chaos"
there.
At the same time, three officials from the turnaround
firm tasked with righting Orleans Parish public schools' troubled
finances managed to get inside district offices in Algiers on
Thursday, aided by a police escort, to get backup tapes from the
district's computerized payroll system.
Steve Alschuler, a
spokesman for Alvarez & Marsal, said that information will be
uploaded to a working computer so Orleans Parish schools can process
payroll checks.
It is still unclear how that money will get
to system workers, he said, since checks cannot be mailed and some
banks are unable to process direct deposits.
Catholic schools
in the Diocese of Baton Rouge, covering eight civil parishes, were
scrambling Friday to process registrations from storm refugees. The
schools, some of whom were still facing power outages caused by
Katrina, were trying to give the families a warm welcome, though
cautioning it will be difficult to absorb all of the Catholic school
students who arrive.
"We're trying to not turn down anyone,"
said Sister Mary Michaeline, superintendent of the 32-school
Catholic district, which served 16,000 students before the
hurricane. How many it may ultimately serve is unknown.
The
displaced students can begin attending Baton Rouge Catholic schools
when they reopen Tuesday if their registration papers are complete,
she said. The Baton Rouge parochial schools may employ some
displaced teachers but "we want to find out how they're handling
their salaries and contracts" in the New Orleans archdiocese system,
Michaeline said.
Before the storm, the Archdiocese of New
Orleans served more than 50,000 students in seven civil parishes,
but some of the archdiocese's 108 schools in suburban areas where
there was less destruction may be able to reopen quickly, said the
Rev. William Maestri, schools superintendent.
Maestri said he
hopes many of the New Orleans archdiocese's schools can reopen in
January, and he stressed: "We are not giving up on Orleans
Parish."
New Orleans and Baton Rouge Catholic school
officials said they will work to ease the financial burden of school
changes by families that have already paid tuition for the year, but
it wasn't yet clear whether tuition already paid will be credited
toward charges at the new schools.
Maestri said that, in
addition to temporarily relying on Catholic schools in Baton Rouge
and other cities to educate New Orleans students, the archdiocese
may open "satellite campuses" of its own across Louisiana, as well
as in other states. Details of the initiative had not been ironed
out Friday, but Maestri will hold a meeting with principals and
teachers from the New Orleans parochial schools at 10 a.m. Wednesday
at the Catholic Life Center in Baton Rouge.
Ingrid Franc, 41,
evacuated to Baton Rouge with her 11-year-old daughter. Franc, a
resident of the Faubourg St. John neighborhood in New Orleans, said
two different Catholic schools accepted the application. One of the
schools was relieved when Franc informed them that her daughter
would not attend, saying its sixth-grade openings had evaporated as
new families streamed in.
Franc said her daughter had "a lot
of trepidation" in attending a school where there are no familiar
people, but the staff and other students at St. Thomas More Catholic
School quickly put her at ease.
"They were terrific, very
welcoming, smiling, organized," the mother said. "When she left, she
had a smile on her face and said, 'I like it there.'"
Among
other private schools in New Orleans, efforts are being made by
members of the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest to
collect details through e-mails on the whereabouts of displaced
families, so that they can consider enrolling in other private
schools with similar missions.
An effort by St. Martin's
Episcopal School in Metairie to arrange for night-school classes at
Episcopal High School in Baton Rouge was under way, although details
haven't been announced.
"We recommend that, until St.
Martin's is up and running again, our families enroll their children
in an Episcopal school where you are currently residing," the St.
Martin's Web site said. It reported that the Southwestern
Association of Episcopal Schools, including schools in Shreveport,
Monroe, Lake Charles, Lafayette and Baton Rouge, has urged its
members to "make themselves available to all Episcopal school
students from the New Orleans area, and has asked that they absorb
as much of the cost of tuition as they possibly can."
Anyone
interested in employment, registration or donations in East Baton
Rouge Parish can call (225) 226-3764 or (225)
226-3406.
Volunteer Ascension, a group providing aide in that
parish can be contacted at (225) 644-7655.
New Orleans school
system employees can get more information about their jobs at (877)
771-5800.
One killed when last bus of Superdome evacuees
overturns
From staff reports
The last bus in a
caravan of five buses evacuating people from hurricane-ravaged New
Orleans overturned Friday afternoon on Interstate 49 in St. Landry
Parish just outside Opelousas, killing one passenger and injuring 17
others, some critically, Louisiana State Police said.
The
bus, with 50 people on board, was traveling north from Lafayette
when it suddenly veered across the median and the southbound lanes,
turning onto its right side of the Creswell Lane exit ramp,
according to a state trooper following the
procession.
President Bush, who rarely admits failure, made
no bones Friday about his disappointment with the federal relief
effort along the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina.
With an entourage that had swelled with Mississippi
officials picked up during an earlier visit to Biloxi, Bush rode by
helicopter to New Orleans Louis Armstrong International Airport at 2
p.m., where the two presidential choppers were met by a delegation
of state officials that included U.S. Sens. Mary Landrieu and David
Vitter, Gov. Kathleen Blanco, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Kenner
Congressman Bobby Jindal.
The meeting, scheduled for 15
minutes, lasted an hour and was declared "productive" by
Blanco.
"The president is starting to grasp the magnitude of
the situation," said Landrieu, D-La. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said,
"The president obviously was just stunned" by what he saw.
Nagin, Blanco and Bush then boarded the helicopter and flew
over New Orleans.
In a Biloxi stop prior to the New Orleans
visit, Bush said the damage was "worse than imaginable," and
described the $10.5 billion aid package just approved by Congress as
a small down payment for disaster relief.
"It's as if the
entire Gulf Coast were obliterated by the worst kind of weapon you
can imagine," he said.
Bush began the day at the White House
where he expressed unhappiness with the efforts so far to provide
food and water to hurricane victims and to stop looting and
lawlessness in New Orleans.
"The results are not
acceptable," Bush said of the breakdown in security that had led to
looting and of the failure to make timely delivery of food and
medicine to tens of thousands of residents trapped in flooding after
the storm.
The president's comments came after Nagin lashed
out at federal officials, telling a local radio station "they don't
have a clue what's going on down here."
Even Republicans
were criticizing Bush and his administration for the sluggish relief
effort. "I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security
and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we
can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the
Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a
nuclear or biological attack?" said former House Speaker Newt
Gingrich.
He urged Bush to name former New York Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani as the White House point person for relief efforts.
U.S. Rep. John Sweeney, a New York Republican, also suggested
Giuliani, former Secretary of State Colin Powell or retired Gen.
Tommy Franks to take charge of the relief efforts.
In Biloxi,
Bush encountered two weeping women on a street where a house had
collapsed and towering trees were stripped of their branches. "My
son needs clothes," said Bronwynne Bassier, 23, clutching several
trash bags. "I don't have anything."
"I understand that,"
Bush said. He kissed both women on their heads and walked with his
arms around them, telling them they could get help from the
Salvation Army. "Hang in there," he said.
Asked later how
the richest country on earth could not meet the needs of its people,
Bush said, "I am satisfied with the response. I am not satisfied
with all the results."
Amid the lowest approval ratings of
his presidency, Bush has other problems besides the hurricane:
Gasoline prices have soared past $3 a gallon in some places, and
support is ebbing for the war in Iraq.
The White House
announced Bush had approved federal disaster aid for Texas and
Arkansas, which also suffered hurricane damage. Bush urged people to
donate money to the Red Cross and said he would sign the $10.5
billion in federal disaster relief later Friday.
"What is not
working right, we're going to make it right," Bush said. Referring
to rampant looting and crime in New Orleans, Bush said, "We are
going to restore order in the city of New Orleans."
"The
people of this country expect there to be law and order, and we're
going to work hard to get it," the president said. "In order to make
sure there's less violence, we've got to get food to people."
"We'll get on top of this situation," Bush said, "and we're
going to help the people that need help."
Bush was
accompanied by Homeland Security Department secretary Michael
Chertoff. The department, which oversees the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, has been accused of responding sluggishly to the
deadly hurricane. On the plane ride to Alabama, Bush was briefed on
plans for housing the tens of thousands of people displaced by the
hurricane.
"There's a lot of aid surging toward those who've
been affected. Millions of gallons of water. Millions of tons of
food. We're making progress about pulling people out of the
Superdome," the president said.
Parts of Old Metairie, Airline area still under some
water
By Matthew Brown and Michelle Krupa Staff
writers
Authorities appeared to gain the upper hand Friday on
the rampant disorder that had plagued parts of Jefferson Parish
since Hurricane Katrina after a sharp security crackdown coupled
with dwindling numbers of people still in the
parish.
Checkpoints manned by police armed with assault
rifles and shotguns were widespread. Hundreds of New Orleans
residents who sought refuge in the parish -- and were blamed by
offic
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