| Topic: |
Science > Prophecies-Of-Nostradamus |
| User: |
"=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_da_HOOROO_Guru=99?=" |
| Date: |
26 Aug 2005 01:17:45 AM |
| Object: |
FRICK, my sweetness !!! Hurricane Katrina packs a deadly punch.......... |
Two peoplez die (so far)
HOOROO
UNCLE WALLY
From da Beeb:
Two die as hurricane hits Florida
Katrina whipped up waves of up to 4.5m
Hurricane Katrina has hit south-east Florida, killing at least two
people and leaving hundreds of thousands of homes without electricity.
One man died when a tree was blown onto the car in which he was sitting
after strong winds and rain struck the Fort Lauderdale area at 1900
(2300 GMT).
Earlier, motorists stocked up at petrol stations and emergency shelters
were opened as the storm closed in.
Flooding is forecast, with up to 25cm (10 inches) of rain expected to
fall.
People go out and fill their tanks to the brim, but they don't leave
Florida petrol station attendant
Animated guide: Hurricanes
Katrina hit the densely populated coastline between Hallandale Beach
and North Miami Beach, said the US National Hurricane Center.
Skies darkened as winds reaching 130km/h (80mph) whipped up seas to an
estimated 4.5 metres (15ft) high, toppled street signs and knocked down
trees and power lines.
Some 400,000 customers were without electricity, said Florida Power &
Light.
Buckle down
Earlier, residents in the area most at risk, including Miami, Fort
Lauderdale and Palm Beach, stocked up on food, water and fuel.
Motorists flocked to petrol stations to stock up on fuel and
cigarettes, the Associated Press news agency reported.
"People go out and fill their tanks to the brim, but they don't leave.
They buckle down," petrol station attendant Chris Bonhorst told the
agency.
Click here to see Katrina's predicted course
Authorities urged people in mobile homes or low-lying areas to evacuate
to safer ground.
"The entire south part of the peninsula is at risk for flooding," said
Ed Rappaport, the NHC's deputy director.
Thirteen years ago this week, the maximum-strength Category Five
Hurricane Andrew hit the same area of Florida - the most costly
hurricane to hit the US.
Katrina, however, is only expected to be a Category One storm.
Coastal warning
The US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) upgraded Katrina from a tropical
storm to a hurricane around 1530 (1930 GMT) on Thursday.
Most areas will see 15 to 30cm (six to 12in) of rain before Katrina
reaches the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday.
The storm could then turn north towards Florida's Panhandle, probably
hitting early next week.
Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who cancelled a business trip to Peru to
return to the state ahead of the storm, warned there could be petrol
shortages in isolated areas.
People in coastal communities were warned to beware "large and
dangerous battering waves".
Schools and businesses in south-east Florida closed and cruise lines
rerouted their ships as seaports shut down.
Parts of the Bahamas saw heavy showers and powerful waves from Katrina
on Wednesday but no major damage was reported.
The Florida Panhandle has already been battered by Hurricane Dennis and
Tropical Storm Cindy this year.
The Atlantic hurricane season began on 1 June and continues until 30
November.
Click here to return
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FROM OTHER NEWS SITES:
ABCNEWS.com Hurricane Katrina drenches, pummels Florida - 5 hrs ago
Reuters Hurricane drenches Florida - 7 hrs ago
USA Today Hurricane Katrina nears Fla - 9 hrs ago
FOXNews.com Hurricane warning issued - 13 hrs ago
Denver Post NEW: Katrina moves in on Florida - 13 hrs ago
About these results
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
SEE ALSO:
Hurricane season set to be stormy
11 Jul 05 | Science/Nature
Hurricane caused 'tallest wave'
05 Aug 05 | Science/Nature
Hurricane Emily hits Mexico coast
19 Jul 05 | Americas
In pictures: US relief after Hurricane Dennis
11 Jul 05 | In Pictures
RELATED BBC LINKS:
BBC Weather - Lifecycle of a hurricane
BBC Caribbean service
Naming hurricanes
RELATED INTERNET LINKS:
US National Hurricane Center
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
TOP AMERICAS STORIES NOW
Two die as hurricane hits Florida
Deal ends Ecuadorian oil crisis
Obesity crisis worsens in the US
Protest mother back at ranch
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_Da_HOOROO_Big_Kahuna_;-=99?=" |
|
| Title: MELBOURNE PAIR THOUGHT 'WE'RE GOING TO DIE'................... |
06 Sep 2005 03:46:11 AM |
|
|
theage.com.au
Melbourne pair thought 'we're going to die'
By Jane Holroyd
September 6, 2005 - 3:45PM
A Melbourne woman who arrived home from the Katrina devastated United
States early this morning has described the appalling conditions she
endured while awaiting evacuation from Louisiana.
And she has slammed Liberal backbencher Wilson Tuckey for questioning
why Australians had remained in Louisiana and Mississippi despite
hurricane warnings and then expected the Government to bale them out.
Karen Marks, 25, and her aunt Pamela Whyte, 59, spent five days in the
New Orleans Convention Centre before being evacuated to Texas on
Saturday and arriving back in Melbourne at 7.40am today to hugs and
tears of joy from family members.
"It was hell,'' Ms Marks told theage.com.au from her mother's home in
Meadow Heights in Melbourne's west.
"I thought we were going to die there for a while... All I could think
was how no one had helped us.''
"We were all helping ourselves and sharing food throughout the centre.
There were no toilets, no running water and the garbage was piling
up.''
Some of the evacuees tried to clean up the centre themselves, as "there
was no escaping the smell'' in 39-degree heat with 90 per cent
humidity.
Advertisement
Advertisement"The toilets weren't working from Wednesday onwards. By
about Friday or Saturday you couldn't stay in the building any more
because the smell was making you vomit. It was coming up and I was
forcing it back down.''
Apology
Ms Marks had demanded Wilson Tuckey apologise for remarks to Parliament
last night, in which he said, "What were a mob of Australians doing
there?''
"Why was the woman quoted by the leader of the opposition (yesterday)
so insistent, not that the Prime Minister get her out of her problems,
but the Australian taxpayer get her out of her problems, when in fact
on all the warnings we heard here in Australia (said it) was unwise to
stay?''
Mr Marks said the warnings were not sufficient.
"We weren't aware of the hurricane at all until we arrived there. If
someone had informed us that there was the threat of a hurricane or an
evacuation, we could have made the choice (not to go),'' she told
theage.com.au.
"He can say what he likes but he wasn't there, and he didn't go through
what we did.''
"It sounds like all he is worried about is the money and not the people
and what we were put through,'' Ms Marks said this afternoon.
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd has backed Ms Mark's
call.
"Wilson Tuckey, from this distance, can't pontificate on the
circumstances that young Australians and Australians in general, have
found themselves in, in New Orleans,'' he said.
'No one cared'
Ms Marks said the worst part of her ordeal was the sense of
abandonment.
"It felt like no one really cared about us. My first thought was, `the
Red Cross always arrives the next day - helping out with food and
water', but it wasn't until Friday that the military came in and no one
would tell us what was going on,'' Ms Marks said.
Mrs Whyte said she and her niece used chairs to barricade themselves
into a space with another family, sitting in the pitch black as racial
tensions and fears that the flood waters would return ran high.
"We were calling it prison because we could not go further than six
foot out the big doors," she said.
"We couldn't make friends easily because they just looked at you - we
were called white trash twice.
The pair were living on chips and Diet Coke shared with 17 people
around them, but water was the real concern.
"In the beginning we were letting ourselves go with the water but by
about Thursday was my big panic (and) I started cutting down to (about)
half a bottle a day,'' Ms Marks said.
Not 'a bloody word'
The lack of communication from officials also fed suspicion.
"We were all becoming really paranoid. There was one rumour going
around... A lot of the families were saying it (the flood) was a way of
taking back the city from the black people, or that they were going to
blow up the (levees) and drown the rest of us,'' Ms Marks said.
"So you're living in a state of complete panic and fear all the time.
I'd like to live without that for awhile.''
The women said they were angry that they had received no help from
Australian or US officials while in the centre.
"The cops were nowhere to be seen, or the National Guard," Ms Marks
said.
Mrs Whyte said the National Guard were only sent in for the eventual
evacuation.
"If we had one, just one person of authority say, 'OK ladies, it will
be four days, just be patient,' everything would have been perfect.
"But nobody said a bloody word."
Trip back
Ms Marks, a secretary for a real estate company, said she planned to
spend the next two weeks recuperating.
And despite her ordeal, she said she and her aunt were planning to
travel back to the United States next year to visit those they met
inside the Convention Centre.
"We were instant friends,'' said Ms Marks.
"I really wish that real life was like that. We (watched) one another's
backs. If we had down moments we would talk to each other and perk one
another up. We all did it for everyone else.''
- theage.com.au
.
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_Da_HOOROO_Big_Kahuna_;-=99?=" |
|
| Title: Five Days After Katrina, Refugees *STILL* lWaiting |
03 Sep 2005 11:14:12 PM |
|
|
Five Days After Katrina, Refugees *Still* Waiting
By ROBERT TANNER, AP National Writer
Saturday, September 3, 2005
(09-03) 07:34 PDT New Orleans (AP) --
A day after the National Guard finally arrived in force and began mass
evacuations, thousands of people remained behind Saturday as fires
belched ribbons of smoke over the city and sporadic gunfire echoed
through the night.
Thousands from the Superdome were taken to Texas on air-conditioned
buses, but early Saturday the operation was halted - with as many as
5,000 in the stadium alone still to be evacuated five days after
Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
Lt. Kevin Cowan of the state Office of Emergency Preparedness said the
Superdome evacuations were stopped so that authorities could
concentrate on getting an estimated 25,000 out of the New Orleans
Convention Center.
"Their main mission now is the convention center," Cowan said.
Jennifer Washington was among thousands of frustrated evacuees who
spent another morning at the convention center waiting for buses to
come.
"At first they said 6:30 this morning, then they said 9, but there are
no buses. They promised us buses," said Washington, 25, who has not
been able to find her four children in the aftermath of the storm.
Helicopters were evacuating the sickest people from outside the
convention center, and two of the city's most troubled hospitals were
evacuated late Friday after desperate doctors spent days making tough
choices about which patients got dwindling supplies of food, water and
medicines.
"We're just trying to ease their pain, give them a little bit of
dignity and get them out of here," said Lt. Col. Connie McNabb.
Saks Fifth Avenue billowed smoke Saturday, as did rows of warehouses on
the east bank of the Mississippi River, where corrugated roofs buckled
and tiny explosions erupted. Gunfire - almost two dozen shots -
broke out in the French Quarter overnight.
As the warehouse district burned, Ron Seitzer, 61, washed his dirty
laundry in the even dirtier waters of the Mississippi River and said he
didn't know how much longer he could stay in the French Quarter without
water or power, surrounded by looters.
"I've never even had a nightmare or a beautiful dream about this," he
said as he watched the warehouses burn. "People are just not
themselves."
On Friday, President Bush took an aerial tour of the city and answered
complaints about a sluggish government response by saying, "We're going
to make it right." A crowd of nearly 20,000 stood outside the
convention center as at least three dozen camouflage-green troop
vehicles and supply trucks finally rolled through axle-deep floodwaters
into what remained of New Orleans.
In what looked like a scene from a Third World country, some outside
the convention center threw their arms heavenward and others hollered
profanities as the trucks and hundreds of soldiers arrived in the
punishing midday heat. Watching the caravan, Leschia Radford sang the
praises of a higher power.
"Lord, I thank you for getting us out of here!" Radford shrieked.
National Guard Lt. Col. Jerry Crooks said troops had served more than
70,000 meals outside the convention center and had 130,000 more on
hand.
But on Saturday, hope was overtaken by frustration as people continued
to wait. A dead man lay on sidewalk under a blanket with a stream of
blood running down the pavement toward the gutter. People said he died
from violence.
"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.
About a dozen people who headed down the street to look for food and
water were turned back by a soldier who pulled a gun.
"We had to get something to eat. What are they doing pulling a gun?"
said Richard Johnson, 28.
The soldiers' arrival-in-force came amid angry complaints from local
officials that the federal government had bungled the relief effort and
let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine as
the city was overtaken by looting, rape and arson.
"The people of our city are holding on by a thread," Mayor Ray Nagin
warned in a statement to CNN. "Time has run out. Can we survive another
night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows."
The president took a land and air tour of hard-hit areas of Louisiana,
Mississippi and Alabama, and admitted of the relief effort: "The
results are not enough." Congress passed a $10.5 billion disaster aid
package, and Bush quickly signed the measure.
The supplies and troops arrived. Flatbed trucks carried huge crates,
pallets and bags of relief supplies, including Meals Ready to Eat.
Soldiers sat in the backs of open-top trucks, their rifles pointing
skyward.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the military presence helped calm a jittery
city.
"We are seeing a show of force. It's putting confidence back in our
hearts and in the minds of our people," Blanco said. "We're going to
make it through."
Guard members carrying rifles also arrived at the Louisiana Superdome,
where bedraggled people - many of them trapped there since the
weekend - stretched around the perimeter of the building. Lt. Gen.
Steven Blum, commander of the National Guard, said 7,000 Guard members
would be in the city by Saturday.
All the victims in the Superdome were supposed to have been evacuated
by dawn Saturday, but shortly after midnight, the buses stopped rolling
without explanation. Between 2,000 and 5,000 people still in the
stadium could be there until Sunday, according to the Texas Air
National Guard.
Within minutes of the soldiers' arrival at the convention center, they
set up six food and water lines. The crowd was for the most part
orderly and grateful.
Diane Sylvester, 49, was the first person through the line. "Something
is better than nothing," she said of her two bottles of water and pork
rib meal. "I feel great to see the military here. I know I'm saved."
With Houston's Astrodome already full with 15,000 storm refugees, that
city opened two more centers to accommodate an additional 10,000.
Dallas and San Antonio also had agreed to take refugees.
One group of Katrina's victims lurched from one tragedy to another: A
bus carrying evacuees from the Superdome overturned on a Louisiana
highway, killing at least one person and injuring many others.
At the broken levee along Lake Pontchartrain that swamped nearly 80
percent of New Orleans, helicopters dropped 3,000-pound sandbags into
the breach and pilings were being pounded into place to seal off the
waters. Engineers also were developing a plan to create new breaches in
the levees so that a combination of gravity and pumping and would drain
the water out of the city, a process that could take weeks.
___
.
|
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| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: Five Days After Katrina, Refugees *STILL* lWaiting |
04 Sep 2005 09:20:09 AM |
|
|
On 3 Sep 2005 21:14:12 -0700, "Uncle Wally Da HOOROO Big Kahuna ;-)™"
<stargatedecember2012@yahoo.ca> wrote:
Five Days After Katrina, Refugees *Still* Waiting
By ROBERT TANNER, AP National Writer
Saturday, September 3, 2005
(09-03) 07:34 PDT New Orleans (AP) --
A day after the National Guard finally arrived in force and began mass
evacuations, thousands of people remained behind Saturday as fires
belched ribbons of smoke over the city and sporadic gunfire echoed
through the night.
Thousands from the Superdome were taken to Texas on air-conditioned
buses, but early Saturday the operation was halted - with as many as
5,000 in the stadium alone still to be evacuated five days after
Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
Lt. Kevin Cowan of the state Office of Emergency Preparedness said the
Superdome evacuations were stopped so that authorities could
concentrate on getting an estimated 25,000 out of the New Orleans
Convention Center.
"Their main mission now is the convention center," Cowan said.
Jennifer Washington was among thousands of frustrated evacuees who
spent another morning at the convention center waiting for buses to
come.
"At first they said 6:30 this morning, then they said 9, but there are
no buses. They promised us buses," said Washington, 25, who has not
been able to find her four children in the aftermath of the storm.
Helicopters were evacuating the sickest people from outside the
convention center, and two of the city's most troubled hospitals were
evacuated late Friday after desperate doctors spent days making tough
choices about which patients got dwindling supplies of food, water and
medicines.
"We're just trying to ease their pain, give them a little bit of
dignity and get them out of here," said Lt. Col. Connie McNabb.
Saks Fifth Avenue billowed smoke Saturday, as did rows of warehouses on
the east bank of the Mississippi River, where corrugated roofs buckled
and tiny explosions erupted. Gunfire - almost two dozen shots -
broke out in the French Quarter overnight.
As the warehouse district burned, Ron Seitzer, 61, washed his dirty
laundry in the even dirtier waters of the Mississippi River and said he
didn't know how much longer he could stay in the French Quarter without
water or power, surrounded by looters.
"I've never even had a nightmare or a beautiful dream about this," he
said as he watched the warehouses burn. "People are just not
themselves."
On Friday, President Bush took an aerial tour of the city and answered
complaints about a sluggish government response by saying, "We're going
to make it right." A crowd of nearly 20,000 stood outside the
convention center as at least three dozen camouflage-green troop
vehicles and supply trucks finally rolled through axle-deep floodwaters
into what remained of New Orleans.
In what looked like a scene from a Third World country, some outside
the convention center threw their arms heavenward and others hollered
profanities as the trucks and hundreds of soldiers arrived in the
punishing midday heat. Watching the caravan, Leschia Radford sang the
praises of a higher power.
"Lord, I thank you for getting us out of here!" Radford shrieked.
National Guard Lt. Col. Jerry Crooks said troops had served more than
70,000 meals outside the convention center and had 130,000 more on
hand.
But on Saturday, hope was overtaken by frustration as people continued
to wait. A dead man lay on sidewalk under a blanket with a stream of
blood running down the pavement toward the gutter. People said he died
from violence.
"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.
About a dozen people who headed down the street to look for food and
water were turned back by a soldier who pulled a gun.
"We had to get something to eat. What are they doing pulling a gun?"
said Richard Johnson, 28.
The soldiers' arrival-in-force came amid angry complaints from local
officials that the federal government had bungled the relief effort and
let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine as
the city was overtaken by looting, rape and arson.
"The people of our city are holding on by a thread," Mayor Ray Nagin
warned in a statement to CNN. "Time has run out. Can we survive another
night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows."
The president took a land and air tour of hard-hit areas of Louisiana,
Mississippi and Alabama, and admitted of the relief effort: "The
results are not enough." Congress passed a $10.5 billion disaster aid
package, and Bush quickly signed the measure.
The supplies and troops arrived. Flatbed trucks carried huge crates,
pallets and bags of relief supplies, including Meals Ready to Eat.
Soldiers sat in the backs of open-top trucks, their rifles pointing
skyward.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the military presence helped calm a jittery
city.
"We are seeing a show of force. It's putting confidence back in our
hearts and in the minds of our people," Blanco said. "We're going to
make it through."
Guard members carrying rifles also arrived at the Louisiana Superdome,
where bedraggled people - many of them trapped there since the
weekend - stretched around the perimeter of the building. Lt. Gen.
Steven Blum, commander of the National Guard, said 7,000 Guard members
would be in the city by Saturday.
All the victims in the Superdome were supposed to have been evacuated
by dawn Saturday, but shortly after midnight, the buses stopped rolling
without explanation. Between 2,000 and 5,000 people still in the
stadium could be there until Sunday, according to the Texas Air
National Guard.
Within minutes of the soldiers' arrival at the convention center, they
set up six food and water lines. The crowd was for the most part
orderly and grateful.
Diane Sylvester, 49, was the first person through the line. "Something
is better than nothing," she said of her two bottles of water and pork
rib meal. "I feel great to see the military here. I know I'm saved."
With Houston's Astrodome already full with 15,000 storm refugees, that
city opened two more centers to accommodate an additional 10,000.
Dallas and San Antonio also had agreed to take refugees.
One group of Katrina's victims lurched from one tragedy to another: A
bus carrying evacuees from the Superdome overturned on a Louisiana
highway, killing at least one person and injuring many others.
At the broken levee along Lake Pontchartrain that swamped nearly 80
percent of New Orleans, helicopters dropped 3,000-pound sandbags into
the breach and pilings were being pounded into place to seal off the
waters. Engineers also were developing a plan to create new breaches in
the levees so that a combination of gravity and pumping and would drain
the water out of the city, a process that could take weeks.
___
They had no intention of helping these people from the start, if a
racial war does not happen over this mess I will be very suprised.
Where is the "American Compassion" now? People deserve help no matter
what color their skin or financial situation is. Americans disgust me
even more now, at least the ones who believe these people should not
be helped.
.
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_Da_HOOROO_Big_Kahuna_;-=99?=" |
|
| Title: Re: Five Days After Katrina, Refugees *STILL* lWaiting |
04 Sep 2005 10:09:29 PM |
|
|
wrote:
On 3 Sep 2005 21:14:12 -0700, "Uncle Wally Da HOOROO Big Kahuna ;-)=99"
<stargatedecember2012@yahoo.ca> wrote:
Five Days After Katrina, Refugees *Still* Waiting
By ROBERT TANNER, AP National Writer
Saturday, September 3, 2005
(09-03) 07:34 PDT New Orleans (AP) --
A day after the National Guard finally arrived in force and began mass
evacuations, thousands of people remained behind Saturday as fires
belched ribbons of smoke over the city and sporadic gunfire echoed
through the night.
Thousands from the Superdome were taken to Texas on air-conditioned
buses, but early Saturday the operation was halted - with as many as
5,000 in the stadium alone still to be evacuated five days after
Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
Lt. Kevin Cowan of the state Office of Emergency Preparedness said the
Superdome evacuations were stopped so that authorities could
concentrate on getting an estimated 25,000 out of the New Orleans
Convention Center.
"Their main mission now is the convention center," Cowan said.
Jennifer Washington was among thousands of frustrated evacuees who
spent another morning at the convention center waiting for buses to
come.
"At first they said 6:30 this morning, then they said 9, but there are
no buses. They promised us buses," said Washington, 25, who has not
been able to find her four children in the aftermath of the storm.
Helicopters were evacuating the sickest people from outside the
convention center, and two of the city's most troubled hospitals were
evacuated late Friday after desperate doctors spent days making tough
choices about which patients got dwindling supplies of food, water and
medicines.
"We're just trying to ease their pain, give them a little bit of
dignity and get them out of here," said Lt. Col. Connie McNabb.
Saks Fifth Avenue billowed smoke Saturday, as did rows of warehouses on
the east bank of the Mississippi River, where corrugated roofs buckled
and tiny explosions erupted. Gunfire - almost two dozen shots -
broke out in the French Quarter overnight.
As the warehouse district burned, Ron Seitzer, 61, washed his dirty
laundry in the even dirtier waters of the Mississippi River and said he
didn't know how much longer he could stay in the French Quarter without
water or power, surrounded by looters.
"I've never even had a nightmare or a beautiful dream about this," he
said as he watched the warehouses burn. "People are just not
themselves."
On Friday, President Bush took an aerial tour of the city and answered
complaints about a sluggish government response by saying, "We're going
to make it right." A crowd of nearly 20,000 stood outside the
convention center as at least three dozen camouflage-green troop
vehicles and supply trucks finally rolled through axle-deep floodwaters
into what remained of New Orleans.
In what looked like a scene from a Third World country, some outside
the convention center threw their arms heavenward and others hollered
profanities as the trucks and hundreds of soldiers arrived in the
punishing midday heat. Watching the caravan, Leschia Radford sang the
praises of a higher power.
"Lord, I thank you for getting us out of here!" Radford shrieked.
National Guard Lt. Col. Jerry Crooks said troops had served more than
70,000 meals outside the convention center and had 130,000 more on
hand.
But on Saturday, hope was overtaken by frustration as people continued
to wait. A dead man lay on sidewalk under a blanket with a stream of
blood running down the pavement toward the gutter. People said he died
from violence.
"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.
About a dozen people who headed down the street to look for food and
water were turned back by a soldier who pulled a gun.
"We had to get something to eat. What are they doing pulling a gun?"
said Richard Johnson, 28.
The soldiers' arrival-in-force came amid angry complaints from local
officials that the federal government had bungled the relief effort and
let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine as
the city was overtaken by looting, rape and arson.
"The people of our city are holding on by a thread," Mayor Ray Nagin
warned in a statement to CNN. "Time has run out. Can we survive another
night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows."
The president took a land and air tour of hard-hit areas of Louisiana,
Mississippi and Alabama, and admitted of the relief effort: "The
results are not enough." Congress passed a $10.5 billion disaster aid
package, and Bush quickly signed the measure.
The supplies and troops arrived. Flatbed trucks carried huge crates,
pallets and bags of relief supplies, including Meals Ready to Eat.
Soldiers sat in the backs of open-top trucks, their rifles pointing
skyward.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the military presence helped calm a jittery
city.
"We are seeing a show of force. It's putting confidence back in our
hearts and in the minds of our people," Blanco said. "We're going to
make it through."
Guard members carrying rifles also arrived at the Louisiana Superdome,
where bedraggled people - many of them trapped there since the
weekend - stretched around the perimeter of the building. Lt. Gen.
Steven Blum, commander of the National Guard, said 7,000 Guard members
would be in the city by Saturday.
All the victims in the Superdome were supposed to have been evacuated
by dawn Saturday, but shortly after midnight, the buses stopped rolling
without explanation. Between 2,000 and 5,000 people still in the
stadium could be there until Sunday, according to the Texas Air
National Guard.
Within minutes of the soldiers' arrival at the convention center, they
set up six food and water lines. The crowd was for the most part
orderly and grateful.
Diane Sylvester, 49, was the first person through the line. "Something
is better than nothing," she said of her two bottles of water and pork
rib meal. "I feel great to see the military here. I know I'm saved."
With Houston's Astrodome already full with 15,000 storm refugees, that
city opened two more centers to accommodate an additional 10,000.
Dallas and San Antonio also had agreed to take refugees.
One group of Katrina's victims lurched from one tragedy to another: A
bus carrying evacuees from the Superdome overturned on a Louisiana
highway, killing at least one person and injuring many others.
At the broken levee along Lake Pontchartrain that swamped nearly 80
percent of New Orleans, helicopters dropped 3,000-pound sandbags into
the breach and pilings were being pounded into place to seal off the
waters. Engineers also were developing a plan to create new breaches in
the levees so that a combination of gravity and pumping and would drain
the water out of the city, a process that could take weeks.
___
They had no intention of helping these people from the start, if a
racial war does not happen over this mess I will be very suprised.
Where is the "American Compassion" now? People deserve help no matter
what color their skin or financial situation is. Americans disgust me
even more now, at least the ones who believe these people should not
be helped.
They're far too busy helping out their little skull-capped buddies in
the Middle East.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Five Days After Katrina, Refugees *STILL* lWaiting |
05 Sep 2005 05:15:45 AM |
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On 4 Sep 2005 20:09:29 -0700, "Uncle Wally Da HOOROO Big Kahuna ;-)™"
<stargatedecember2012@yahoo.ca> wrote:
.
They're far too busy helping out their little skull-capped buddies in
the Middle East.
====================================================================
You are probably right. Money does come first after all. It is a damn
shame. I think the people of the US should just say ***** you bush and
take it upon themselves to do what they can to help these people.The
government has such a tight noose on the people that they are scared
to do anything. Enough is Enough!!!
.
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_Da_HOOROO_Big_Kahuna_;-=99?=" |
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| Title: ** KATRINA NEWS UPDATE ** |
31 Aug 2005 04:34:21 AM |
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Hurricane damage 'enormous'
By Joseph B. Treaster and Kate Zernike The New York Times
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2005
NEW ORLEANS The Gulf Coast on Tuesday began to confront the aftermath
of one of the most devastating hurricanes ever to hit the United
States.
Officially, the regional death toll was put at 55 Tuesday morning, but
officials warned that it was certain to rise; Governor Haley Barbour of
Mississippi said the toll in just one county in his state could be as
high as 80.
The waters of Lake Ponchartrain continued to rise and spill over into
areas of New Orleans that flooded when two levees collapsed after
Hurricane Katrina tore through the area on Monday. Mayor C. Ray Nagin
said in a television interview on Tuesday that 80 percent of the city
was under water, in some places to a depth of 20 feet, or six meters.
The storm, which packed 145-mile-an-hour winds as it made landfall on
Monday, left more than a million people in three states without power
and submerged highways far from its center.
Some of the worst damage reports came from east of New Orleans. An
estimated 40,000 homes were reported flooded in St. Bernard Parish. In
Gulfport, the storm left three of five hospitals without working
emergency rooms, beachfront homes wrecked and major stretches of the
coastal highway flooded and impassable.
As dawn broke Tuesday, rescuers set out in boats and helicopters to
search for survivors. A reporter who accompanied Jefferson Parish
rescue officials on a flight over the area saw floodwaters reaching to
the eaves of some three-story houses.
Hundreds of people trapped on roofs waved frantically for rescue. Coast
Guard and police Blackhawk helicopters were plucking them off one by
one. "The devastation down there is just enormous," Barbour said.
"I hate to say it, but it looks like it is a very bad disaster in terms
of human life," he said, referring to Harrison County, which includes
Gulfport and Biloxi.
Mayor A. J. Holloway of Biloxi told The Biloxi Sun Herald: "This is our
tsunami."
The entire city of New Orleans was ordered evacuated before the storm,
and Mayor Nagin said about 80 percent of the city's residents had left.
But on Tuesday, even as rescuers searched for victims, other officials
had to deal with looters. CNN showed images of hundreds of people
breaking into stores on Canal Street, at the edge of the French
Quarter, and running away unhindered with bagloads of merchandise.
Officials at the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security said that
presidents of Plaquemines and Jefferson Parishes, which include New
Orleans, as well as other communities throughout the state, had sought
the imposition of martial law, which would suspend certain civil
rights. Officials were awaiting direction from the attorney general's
office.
President George W. Bush, in a televised news conference in San Diego,
urged people in the affected areas to listen to instructions from the
state and federal authorities.
"These are trying times for the people of these communities," Bush
said. "We know that many are anxious to return to their homes. It's not
possible at this moment. Right now our priority is on saving lives, and
we are still in the midst of search and rescue operations."
The White House said the president would curtail his vacation in Texas
and return to Washington on Wednesday to deal with the recovery effort.
At 10 a.m., the National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm, by
then categorized as a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds
of 35 miles an hour, or 55 kilometers an hour, was centered near
Clarksville, Tennessee, northwest of Nashville. It continued to cause
flooding as it made its way north.
In Diamondhead, Mississippi, in a grim scene that was probably being
repeated in countless other places nearby, the fire department was
going door to door Tuesday morning to search for survivors. If they
found no victims, members of the Fire and Rescue team painted large Cs
on the front doors of buildings, many of which were barely standing.
Many people had fled to the community, about 60 miles, or 100
kilometers, northeast of New Orleans, thinking they were reaching
higher safer ground that would keep them out of harm's way. Instead,
many were caught in the storm surge, which pushed through Bay St. Louis
on the Gulf Coast and into the bayous, forcing water to the top of
second-story homes in Diamondhead.
Relatives of Rhea Finnila, 84, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease,
had taken her up to the attic of her son's home in Diamondhead, hoping
to keep her safe, but the floodwaters that reached almost to the eaves
of the house nearly carried her away on the mattress on which her
family had placed her.
"When the surge came, the mattress was floating most of the time," said
Rich Finnila, 59, a relative. "It was a struggle to get her in there."
After the storm, fire and rescue workers who found them used a blanket
to carry the woman from the house and then loaded her in the back of a
Jeep to take her to another relative's house.
Jeff Garth, 34, and his family, from Waveland, which is on the coast,
sought refuge in Diamondhead with his sister-in-law, Tammy Lick, 35,
who bought her home only a month ago.
The house did not survive the storm.
"The whole house is gone - everything in it," Lick said. "They told us
we needed wind and hail insurance, but that we didn't flood here.
Little did we know." Yet no one was injured.
In New Orleans, a survey team was sent to inspect an overflowing canal
that was spilling more water into already flooded areas, Lieutenant
Kevin Cowan of the National Guard, serving in the Louisiana Office of
Emergency Preparedness, said in a telephone interview Tuesday. The
assumption was that the canal was "simply overflowing," he said, but
the team would look for possible levee breeches.
New Orleans lies mostly below sea level and is protected by a network
of pumps, canals and levees. But many of the pumps were not working
Tuesday.
More than 1,600 Mississippi National Guardsmen were activated to help
with the recovery, and the Alabama Guard planned to send two battalions
to Mississippi, The Associated Press reported.
A Coast Guard officer in Louisiana, Captain Terry Galbraith, told CNN
that several hundred survivors needed to be rescued in New Orleans, but
that he did not have an estimate for nearby areas.
A total of more than 2.1 million people have reported power failures in
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, the U.S. Department of
Energy said.
Joseph B. Treaster and Ralph Blumenthal reported from New Orleans for
this article, and Kate Zernike from Montgomery, Alabama. Reporting was
contributed by Abby Goodnough in Mobile, Alabama; Michael M. Luo in New
York; James Dao in Hattiesburg, Mississippi; Jeremy Alford in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana; Diane Allen in Diamondhead, Mississippi, and Terence
Neilan, Christine Hauser and Shadi Rahimi in New York.
NEW ORLEANS The Gulf Coast on Tuesday began to confront the aftermath
of one of the most devastating hurricanes ever to hit the United
States.
Officially, the regional death toll was put at 55 Tuesday morning, but
officials warned that it was certain to rise; Governor Haley Barbour of
Mississippi said the toll in just one county in his state could be as
high as 80.
The waters of Lake Ponchartrain continued to rise and spill over into
areas of New Orleans that flooded when two levees collapsed after
Hurricane Katrina tore through the area on Monday. Mayor C. Ray Nagin
said in a television interview on Tuesday that 80 percent of the city
was under water, in some places to a depth of 20 feet, or six meters.
The storm, which packed 145-mile-an-hour winds as it made landfall on
Monday, left more than a million people in three states without power
and submerged highways far from its center.
Some of the worst damage reports came from east of New Orleans. An
estimated 40,000 homes were reported flooded in St. Bernard Parish. In
Gulfport, the storm left three of five hospitals without working
emergency rooms, beachfront homes wrecked and major stretches of the
coastal highway flooded and impassable.
As dawn broke Tuesday, rescuers set out in boats and helicopters to
search for survivors. A reporter who accompanied Jefferson Parish
rescue officials on a flight over the area saw floodwaters reaching to
the eaves of some three-story houses.
Hundreds of people trapped on roofs waved frantically for rescue. Coast
Guard and police Blackhawk helicopters were plucking them off one by
one. "The devastation down there is just enormous," Barbour said.
"I hate to say it, but it looks like it is a very bad disaster in terms
of human life," he said, referring to Harrison County, which includes
Gulfport and Biloxi.
Mayor A. J. Holloway of Biloxi told The Biloxi Sun Herald: "This is our
tsunami."
The entire city of New Orleans was ordered evacuated before the storm,
and Mayor Nagin said about 80 percent of the city's residents had left.
But on Tuesday, even as rescuers searched for victims, other officials
had to deal with looters. CNN showed images of hundreds of people
breaking into stores on Canal Street, at the edge of the French
Quarter, and running away unhindered with bagloads of merchandise.
Officials at the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security said that
presidents of Plaquemines and Jefferson Parishes, which include New
Orleans, as well as other communities throughout the state, had sought
the imposition of martial law, which would suspend certain civil
rights. Officials were awaiting direction from the attorney general's
office.
President George W. Bush, in a televised news conference in San Diego,
urged people in the affected areas to listen to instructions from the
state and federal authorities.
"These are trying times for the people of these communities," Bush
said. "We know that many are anxious to return to their homes. It's not
possible at this moment. Right now our priority is on saving lives, and
we are still in the midst of search and rescue operations."
The White House said the president would curtail his vacation in Texas
and return to Washington on Wednesday to deal with the recovery effort.
At 10 a.m., the National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm, by
then categorized as a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds
of 35 miles an hour, or 55 kilometers an hour, was centered near
Clarksville, Tennessee, northwest of Nashville. It continued to cause
flooding as it made its way north.
In Diamondhead, Mississippi, in a grim scene that was probably being
repeated in countless other places nearby, the fire department was
going door to door Tuesday morning to search for survivors. If they
found no victims, members of the Fire and Rescue team painted large Cs
on the front doors of buildings, many of which were barely standing.
Many people had fled to the community, about 60 miles, or 100
kilometers, northeast of New Orleans, thinking they were reaching
higher safer ground that would keep them out of harm's way. Instead,
many were caught in the storm surge, which pushed through Bay St. Louis
on the Gulf Coast and into the bayous, forcing water to the top of
second-story homes in Diamondhead.
Relatives of Rhea Finnila, 84, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease,
had taken her up to the attic of her son's home in Diamondhead, hoping
to keep her safe, but the floodwaters that reached almost to the eaves
of the house nearly carried her away on the mattress on which her
family had placed her.
"When the surge came, the mattress was floating most of the time," said
Rich Finnila, 59, a relative. "It was a struggle to get her in there."
After the storm, fire and rescue workers who found them used a blanket
to carry the woman from the house and then loaded her in the back of a
Jeep to take her to another relative's house.
Jeff Garth, 34, and his family, from Waveland, which is on the coast,
sought refuge in Diamondhead with his sister-in-law, Tammy Lick, 35,
who bought her home only a month ago.
The house did not survive the storm.
"The whole house is gone - everything in it," Lick said. "They told us
we needed wind and hail insurance, but that we didn't flood here.
Little did we know." Yet no one was injured.
In New Orleans, a survey team was sent to inspect an overflowing canal
that was spilling more water into already flooded areas, Lieutenant
Kevin Cowan of the National Guard, serving in the Louisiana Office of
Emergency Preparedness, said in a telephone interview Tuesday. The
assumption was that the canal was "simply overflowing," he said, but
the team would look for possible levee breeches.
New Orleans lies mostly below sea level and is protected by a network
of pumps, canals and levees. But many of the pumps were not working
Tuesday.
More than 1,600 Mississippi National Guardsmen were activated to help
with the recovery, and the Alabama Guard planned to send two battalions
to Mississippi, The Associated Press reported.
A Coast Guard officer in Louisiana, Captain Terry Galbraith, told CNN
that several hundred survivors needed to be rescued in New Orleans, but
that he did not have an estimate for nearby areas.
A total of more than 2.1 million people have reported power failures in
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, the U.S. Department of
Energy said.
Joseph B. Treaster and Ralph Blumenthal reported from New Orleans for
this article, and Kate Zernike from Montgomery, Alabama. Reporting was
contributed by Abby Goodnough in Mobile, Alabama; Michael M. Luo in New
York; James Dao in Hattiesburg, Mississippi; Jeremy Alford in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana; Diane Allen in Diamondhead, Mississippi, and Terence
Neilan, Christine Hauser and Shadi Rahimi in New York.
NEW ORLEANS The Gulf Coast on Tuesday began to confront the aftermath
of one of the most devastating hurricanes ever to hit the United
States.
Officially, the regional death toll was put at 55 Tuesday morning, but
officials warned that it was certain to rise; Governor Haley Barbour of
Mississippi said the toll in just one county in his state could be as
high as 80.
The waters of Lake Ponchartrain continued to rise and spill over into
areas of New Orleans that flooded when two levees collapsed after
Hurricane Katrina tore through the area on Monday. Mayor C. Ray Nagin
said in a television interview on Tuesday that 80 percent of the city
was under water, in some places to a depth of 20 feet, or six meters.
The storm, which packed 145-mile-an-hour winds as it made landfall on
Monday, left more than a million people in three states without power
and submerged highways far from its center.
Some of the worst damage reports came from east of New Orleans. An
estimated 40,000 homes were reported flooded in St. Bernard Parish. In
Gulfport, the storm left three of five hospitals without working
emergency rooms, beachfront homes wrecked and major stretches of the
coastal highway flooded and impassable.
As dawn broke Tuesday, rescuers set out in boats and helicopters to
search for survivors. A reporter who accompanied Jefferson Parish
rescue officials on a flight over the area saw floodwaters reaching to
the eaves of some three-story houses.
Hundreds of people trapped on roofs waved frantically for rescue. Coast
Guard and police Blackhawk helicopters were plucking them off one by
one. "The devastation down there is just enormous," Barbour said.
"I hate to say it, but it looks like it is a very bad disaster in terms
of human life," he said, referring to Harrison County, which includes
Gulfport and Biloxi.
Mayor A. J. Holloway of Biloxi told The Biloxi Sun Herald: "This is our
tsunami."
The entire city of New Orleans was ordered evacuated before the storm,
and Mayor Nagin said about 80 percent of the city's residents had left.
But on Tuesday, even as rescuers searched for victims, other officials
had to deal with looters. CNN showed images of hundreds of people
breaking into stores on Canal Street, at the edge of the French
Quarter, and running away unhindered with bagloads of merchandise.
Officials at the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security said that
presidents of Plaquemines and Jefferson Parishes, which include New
Orleans, as well as other communities throughout the state, had sought
the imposition of martial law, which would suspend certain civil
rights. Officials were awaiting direction from the attorney general's
office.
President George W. Bush, in a televised news conference in San Diego,
urged people in the affected areas to listen to instructions from the
state and federal authorities.
"These are trying times for the people of these communities," Bush
said. "We know that many are anxious to return to their homes. It's not
possible at this moment. Right now our priority is on saving lives, and
we are still in the midst of search and rescue operations."
The White House said the president would curtail his vacation in Texas
and return to Washington on Wednesday to deal with the recovery effort.
At 10 a.m., the National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm, by
then categorized as a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds
of 35 miles an hour, or 55 kilometers an hour, was centered near
Clarksville, Tennessee, northwest of Nashville. It continued to cause
flooding as it made its way north.
In Diamondhead, Mississippi, in a grim scene that was probably being
repeated in countless other places nearby, the fire department was
going door to door Tuesday morning to search for survivors. If they
found no victims, members of the Fire and Rescue team painted large Cs
on the front doors of buildings, many of which were barely standing.
Many people had fled to the community, about 60 miles, or 100
kilometers, northeast of New Orleans, thinking they were reaching
higher safer ground that would keep them out of harm's way. Instead,
many were caught in the storm surge, which pushed through Bay St. Louis
on the Gulf Coast and into the bayous, forcing water to the top of
second-story homes in Diamondhead.
Relatives of Rhea Finnila, 84, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease,
had taken her up to the attic of her son's home in Diamondhead, hoping
to keep her safe, but the floodwaters that reached almost to the eaves
of the house nearly carried her away on the mattress on which her
family had placed her.
"When the surge came, the mattress was floating most of the time," said
Rich Finnila, 59, a relative. "It was a struggle to get her in there."
After the storm, fire and rescue workers who found them used a blanket
to carry the woman from the house and then loaded her in the back of a
Jeep to take her to another relative's house.
Jeff Garth, 34, and his family, from Waveland, which is on the coast,
sought refuge in Diamondhead with his sister-in-law, Tammy Lick, 35,
who bought her home only a month ago.
The house did not survive the storm.
"The whole house is gone - everything in it," Lick said. "They told us
we needed wind and hail insurance, but that we didn't flood here.
Little did we know." Yet no one was injured.
In New Orleans, a survey team was sent to inspect an overflowing canal
that was spilling more water into already flooded areas, Lieutenant
Kevin Cowan of the National Guard, serving in the Louisiana Office of
Emergency Preparedness, said in a telephone interview Tuesday. The
assumption was that the canal was "simply overflowing," he said, but
the team would look for possible levee breeches.
New Orleans lies mostly below sea level and is protected by a network
of pumps, canals and levees. But many of the pumps were not working
Tuesday.
More than 1,600 Mississippi National Guardsmen were activated to help
with the recovery, and the Alabama Guard planned to send two battalions
to Mississippi, The Associated Press reported.
A Coast Guard officer in Louisiana, Captain Terry Galbraith, told CNN
that several hundred survivors needed to be rescued in New Orleans, but
that he did not have an estimate for nearby areas.
A total of more than 2.1 million people have reported power failures in
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, the U.S. Department of
Energy said.
Joseph B. Treaster and Ralph Blumenthal reported from New Orleans for
this article, and Kate Zernike from Montgomery, Alabama. Reporting was
contributed by Abby Goodnough in Mobile, Alabama; Michael M. Luo in New
York; James Dao in Hattiesburg, Mississippi; Jeremy Alford in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana; Diane Allen in Diamondhead, Mississippi, and Terence
Neilan, Christine Hauser and Shadi Rahimi in New York.
NEW ORLEANS The Gulf Coast on Tuesday began to confront the aftermath
of one of the most devastating hurricanes ever to hit the United
States.
Officially, the regional death toll was put at 55 Tuesday morning, but
officials warned that it was certain to rise; Governor Haley Barbour of
Mississippi said the toll in just one county in his state could be as
high as 80.
The waters of Lake Ponchartrain continued to rise and spill over into
areas of New Orleans that flooded when two levees collapsed after
Hurricane Katrina tore through the area on Monday. Mayor C. Ray Nagin
said in a television interview on Tuesday that 80 percent of the city
was under water, in some places to a depth of 20 feet, or six meters.
The storm, which packed 145-mile-an-hour winds as it made landfall on
Monday, left more than a million people in three states without power
and submerged highways far from its center.
.
|
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_Da_HOOROO_Big_Kahuna_;-=99?=" |
|
| Title: Katrina will scar US 'for years' |
31 Aug 2005 11:52:18 PM |
|
|
Katrina will scar US 'for years'
City under siege
The US states stricken by Hurricane Katrina will take years to recover,
President George W Bush has said, after an aerial tour of the disaster
zone.
He promised his cabinet will take over the aid operation for "one of
the worst natural disasters" the US had seen.
An extra 10,000 troops are being sent to the worst-hit areas in the
coastal states of Louisiana and Mississippi.
New Orleans is to be fully evacuated, amid fears thousands may have
died there as flood waters swept the city.
With most of the low-lying city now submerged, its remaining residents
have no electricity and are running out of fresh water and food.
BBC correspondent Alastair Leithead says widespread looting and the
failure to stop water pouring in from burst embankments have added to
the panic in the city, and most people are now desperate to leave.
Map of central New Orleans
Plans have been announced to evacuate tens of thousands of people from
New Orleans - including some 20,000 sheltering in its crowded Superdome
stadium.
Asked how many had died in the city, Mayor Ray Nagin said "Minimum,
hundreds. Most likely, thousands."
'Doubly devastating'
President Bush's aircraft circled low over the stricken region on
Wednesday as it flew him to Washington, ending his month-long break in
Texas a few days earlier than scheduled.
As he passed over towns whose rooftops alone remained visible above
flood waters, Mr Bush said: "It's devastating."
Follow Katrina's path
"It's got to be doubly devastating on the ground."
Later addressing the nation from the White House, the president said
the relief effort would initially focus on restoring power,
communication and transport links.
He also announced the release of fuel from federal reserves to
stabilise oil output, severely dented by hurricane damage to rigs in
the Gulf of Mexico.
"This will help take some pressure off the gas price," Mr Bush said.
'Late response'
With conditions still deteriorating, the government has declared a
public health emergency along the whole of the Gulf coast to speed up
the delivery of food, water and fuel to the region.
Before the phones went, I was told [my family in Biloxi] had lost
their roof, barn, 2 oak trees and many pines and they were letting in
water
Natalie McVeigh
Oakley, England
Your Katrina experiences
Blogging Katrina
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said 1,700 truckloads of
essential supplies were on their way there.
Medical shelters are being set up offering 10,000 beds, while the US
military is providing dozens of rescue helicopters and boats.
The Pentagon has ordered 10,000 extra national guardsmen to be
despatched to Louisiana and Mississippi.
This will bring to 21,000 the total number of troops in areas hit by
the hurricane, including Alabama and Florida.
President Bush flew over areas worst hit by the hurricane
Officials in Mississippi state, to the east of Louisiana, have warned
the death toll is likely to climb above the current 110.
The state's Harrison County bore the brunt of Hurricane Katrina as it
slammed into Biloxi and Gulfport before heading inland.
Democratic senator Frank Lautenberg has accused the Bush administration
of taking too long to respond.
"We are watching this devastation unfold on our televisions for days
and you have to ask: where is the federal government?" the Reuters news
agency quotes him as saying.
"We should have had a significant amount of troops and supplies there
on the ground Monday."
Katrina will scar US 'for years'
The US states stricken by Hurricane Katrina will take years to recover,
President George W Bush has said, after an aerial tour of the disaster
zone.
He promised his cabinet will take over the aid operation for "one of
the worst natural disasters" the US had seen.
An extra 10,000 troops are being sent to the worst-hit areas in the
coastal states of Louisiana and Mississippi.
New Orleans is to be fully evacuated, amid fears thousands may have
died there as flood waters swept the city.
With most of the low-lying city now submerged, its remaining residents
have no electricity and are running out of fresh water and food.
BBC correspondent Alastair Leithead says widespread looting and the
failure to stop water pouring in from burst embankments have added to
the panic in the city, and most people are now desperate to leave.
Plans have been announced to evacuate tens of thousands of people from
New Orleans - including some 20,000 sheltering in its crowded Superdome
stadium.
Asked how many had died in the city, Mayor Ray Nagin said "Minimum,
hundreds. Most likely, thousands."
'Doubly devastating'
President Bush's aircraft circled low over the stricken region on
Wednesday as it flew him to Washington, ending his month-long break in
Texas a few days earlier than scheduled.
As he passed over towns whose rooftops alone remained visible above
flood waters, Mr Bush said: "It's devastating."
"It's got to be doubly devastating on the ground."
Later addressing the nation from the White House, the president said
the relief effort would initially focus on restoring power,
communication and transport links.
He also announced the release of fuel from federal reserves to
stabilise oil output, severely dented by hurricane damage to rigs in
the Gulf of Mexico.
"This will help take some pressure off the gas price," Mr Bush said.
'Late response'
With conditions still deteriorating, the government has declared a
public health emergency along the whole of the Gulf coast to speed up
the delivery of food, water and fuel to the region.
Before the phones went, I was told [my family in Biloxi] had lost
their roof, barn, 2 oak trees and many pines and they were letting in
water
Natalie McVeigh
Oakley, England
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said 1,700 truckloads of
essential supplies were on their way there.
Medical shelters are being set up offering 10,000 beds, while the US
military is providing dozens of rescue helicopters and boats.
The Pentagon has ordered 10,000 extra national guardsmen to be
despatched to Louisiana and Mississippi.
This will bring to 21,000 the total number of troops in areas hit by
the hurricane, including Alabama and Florida.
Officials in Mississippi state, to the east of Louisiana, have warned
the death toll is likely to climb above the current 110.
The state's Harrison County bore the brunt of Hurricane Katrina as it
slammed into Biloxi and Gulfport before heading inland.
Democratic senator Frank Lautenberg has accused the Bush administration
of taking too long to respond.
"We are watching this devastation unfold on our televisions for days
and you have to ask: where is the federal government?" the Reuters news
agency quotes him as saying.
"We should have had a significant amount of troops and supplies there
on the ground Monday."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/4203302.stm
Published: 2005/09/01 01:50:11 GMT
=A9 BBC MMV
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_Da_HOOROO_Big_Kahuna_;-=99?=" |
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| Title: Katrina's death toll could be thousands |
01 Sep 2005 03:48:27 AM |
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Katrina's death toll could be thousands
Bush pledges help until the rebuilding, which could take years, is
finished.
September 1, 2005
By John Hill
jhillbr@gannett.com
BATON ROUGE -- As the flooding from Lake Pontchartrain stopped pouring
into New Orleans on Wednesday, boat rescuers continued combing by grids
area neighborhoods trying to find the living, leaving the dead for
later.
State and federal officials refused to estimate the number of dead. But
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said the death toll "most likely" is in the
thousands.
President Bush, after flying over the Katrina-devastated Gulf Coast on
his way back from his Texas vacation, convened a Cabinet meeting in
Washington, D.C., and vowed to help rebuild Louisiana, Mississippi and
Alabama.
"We're dealing with one of the worst natural disasters in our history,"
he said, calling on Americans to donate to the American Red Cross to
help the victims, which include more than 1.2 million displaced
Louisianans.
After the emergency Cabinet meeting, Bush held a White House press
conference to pledge all possible federal assistance. "The folks along
the Gulf Coast are going to need your help a long time."
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, after thanking the president, said she
was incensed by reports of looting and declared she would restore order
no matter what it takes. She sent state police SWAT and riot teams to
New Orleans.
A steady stream of helicopters and ambulances brought hospital patients
and evacuees needing medical attention to LSU's Assembly Center and
Field House, now a triage center and hospital.
The floodwaters stopped rising in the city after the water leveled off
between Lake Pontchartrain and the 17th Street Canal, halting the flow
through a 250-foot-long breach of the levee into the Lakeview area. A
second overflow occurred on the same canal south of Interstate 10,
causing some flooding in the Old Metairie and cemetery areas.
The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of
Transportation and Development were collaborating Wednesday night on
plans to plug the breaches.
Asked to estimate the number of dead in the New Orleans area, Mike
Brown, the Federal Emergency Management Agency director at the state's
command center, said that it is impossible.
"The governor's admonition is to do everything we can to recover the
living. Right now, it's about saving lives," Brown said, repeating what
Blanco and others have said every time the question has been asked.
Rescuers will save survivors "before they pull a body out of the
river," Brown said. "Mortuary action takes second place. We will get to
a point where we can give you accurate death toll numbers."
FEMA was forming mortuary teams to deal with the dead and were scouting
temporary morgue sites. "We will retrieve them and treat them with the
respect they deserve," Brown said.
Nagin was the only person willing to predict large numbers of
fatalities. "We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in
the water," he said, adding that other people are likely dead in their
homes or attics.
When asked how many, Nagin said, "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely,
thousands."
Rescuers have no way of knowing how many people are trapped in their
attics or drowned in their homes, Brown said. It was easier to do
counts in Mississippi because it was not a flooded urban area.
"We begged all of those people to get out. They chose to stay," Blanco
said. More than 1 million evacuated the region, but many thousands
remained to ride out the storm.
Resources have been allocated to retrieving the living and taking them
by boat or helicopter to safety instead of divers being deployed to
search for the dead, Brown said.
U.S. Coast Guard helicopters continued plucking those people who were
successful in breaking through their attics to reach their roofs.
Rescuers who could hear people calling from inside their attics chopped
through roofs to retrieve victims.
They were taken to staging areas on interstates and the Superdome for
busing out to shelters in Louisiana and Texas.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry made the Astrodome in Houston available for the
23,000 survivors who were gathered in the Superdome and the elevated
Superdome Plaza.
Emergency responders began planning for long-term shelters for those
whose homes have been destroyed.
"There are folks in New Orleans who will not be able to get back into
their homes in months, if ever," Brown said. "Devastation is that
great."
He advised those displaced by the storm to contact the American Red
Cross for their immediate needs. "We know you don't have access to your
bank accounts, that you might not have your checkbooks."
Bush also urged Americans to contribute to churches or other charities,
being careful to designate the money for hurricane victims.
The American Red Cross is responsible for temporary housing up to 60
days, food and clothing. FEMA will come in later to arrange longer-term
assistance such as housing. Truckloads of supplies, including ice, food
and medical supplies, flowed into Baton Rouge at various staging areas,
including LSU.
Blanco did not hide her anger at looters, decrying that Louisiana
people "are too good to have their reputations destroyed" by the "petty
criminals.
"We are not going to put up with what we have seen and heard," the
governor said. "We are going to do what it takes to restore order to
our region. We are not going to put up with petty criminals. I am just
furious. This is intolerable."
While some looters were simply taking food and water for survival,
others were stealing electronic equipment and anything in sight.
Larry Hasten, a brother of a Gannett reporter who evacuated from Hilton
Hotel in downtown, reported seeing looters riding in the back of
pickups going into downtown stores with plastic bags and returning with
them full.
State Attorney General Charles Foti was setting up a holding facility
and temporary court in a dry area of Orleans Parish to deal with
looters. "Then we will transfer them from the parish," Foti said.
Survivors in the Baton Rouge area were relocated to the Baton Rouge
River Center convention center and the Lamar-Dixon Exhibition Center in
Gonzales.
There were reports of some difficulties with some of the 5,000 evacuees
at the Baton Rouge center. Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden warned those
causing problems that "you will be dealt with" and imposed a curfew on
shelter residents.
Still, Blanco lauded rescue workers and emergency responders from the
state and elsewhere in the nation, some of whom have come in from as
far as California. "There are a lot of heroes."
FEMA, headquartered in Baton Rouge, was forming task forces on housing,
economic recovery and infrastructure. Bush said the nation would stand
with Katrina victims until the rebuilding -- which he said would take
years -- is finished.
The U.S. Postal Service was relocating its New Orleans center to Baton
Rouge, where apartments and homes for sale are being snapped up
rapidly.
The Jefferson Parish City Council, in an emergency meeting in the Baton
Rouge Metro Council Chambers, passed emergency response resolutions
authorizing all spending necessary to secure and clean up the parish
and to call for additional medical and other supplies.
The mayor's office in New Orleans was relocating to Baton Rouge,
probably in the state Capitol complex, said an aide to Holden.
Many of 135,000 schoolchildren from southeast Louisiana will be unable
to return to their schools in the foreseeable future and should be
enrolled wherever they are sheltered, state Education Superintendent
Cecil Picard said.
Louisiana and federal education funds will follow the children, he
said. Under federal law, the children are considered homeless, so the
federal government pays all of their education expenses, Picard said.
FEMA will supply temporary buildings for classes, with a 75 percent-25
percent federal-state match. However, the Louisiana congressional
delegation is proposing a waiver of the local match, Picard said.
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| User: "Su Zanadu" |
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| Title: Re: FRICK, my sweetness !!! Hurricane Katrina packs a deadlypunch... |
26 Aug 2005 06:01:26 AM |
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Looks like Yerp is doin' worse!
We haven't seen the worst from Kat. The first punch was a love pat.
SuZanne
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_s_nice_n_comfy_cozy_HOOROO_corner_cabin__;-=99?=" |
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| Title: EVACUEES BURN TO DEATH ON BUS IN EXODUS GRIDLOCK............ |
23 Sep 2005 11:15:12 PM |
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Evacuees burn to death on bus in exodus gridlock
=B7 Two dozen nursing home patients killed as 2.5m flee
=B7 Storm veers towards New Orleans
=B7 Bush heads for Texas
Julian Borger in Port Arthur and Jamie Wilson in Washington
Saturday September 24, 2005
The Guardian
The outer bands of Hurricane Rita were buffeting the Texas and
Louisiana coastlines last night as the storm claimed its first victims:
two dozen elderly evacuees burned to death on a bus in traffic.
Rita took a sharper than expected turn to the right on Thursday,
setting it on a course that could spare Houston and nearby Galveston a
direct hit, but raised the risk that the hurricane could strike much
closer to New Orleans, with heavy rain last night breaching the already
weakened industrial canal levee and flooding the largely empty lower
ninth ward, one of the areas worst hit by Katrina.
Article continues
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Weather forecasts showed the category four storm was pointing its
devastating 140mph winds directly at Beaumont and Port Arthur, about 75
miles north of Houston, with the eye predicted to make landfall either
late last night or early this morning local time.
Forecasters warned of the possibility of a storm surge of 15 to 20
feet, battering waves and rain along the coast. There is also an
additional concern that the storm may stall when it gets inland,
disgorging enormous amounts of rain on Texas and northern Louisiana.
Tornado warnings are also in force across the region.
The chaos on the roads caused by an estimated 2.5 million people
fleeing the storm - one of the biggest mass evacuations in history -
appeared to have eased slightly yesterday, with cars flowing more
freely on the main routes out of Houston and Galveston. But there were
still big tailbacks across the state, with traffic backed up in some
areas for up to 100 miles.
A gridlocked bus evacuating 38 elderly people and six staff from
Brighton Gardens nursing home in Bellaire, a wealthy suburb of Houston,
burst into flames at about 6.30am killing as many as 24 people and
injuring 25 others. Officials at the scene told reporters it appeared
malfunctioning brakes caused the initial fire, but oxygen canisters
being used by the patients exploded, reducing the vehicle to a
blackened, burned out shell. People jumped out of their cars and tried
to get into the bus, breaking through the windows in an attempt to get
people out.
Tina Jones, a nurse who tried to help the injured, was driving behind
the bus. "I saw the smoke and then there was an explosion," she told
the Associated Press. The bus, with blue tarpaulins covering many
seats, was pulled to the side of the road to allow the exodus along
Interstate 45 to continue.
Despite the easing of the traffic officials came under fire yesterday
for botching the evacuation. Some people were stranded for hours on the
highway after running out of petrol and Houston's mayor, Bill White,
acknowledged that an 82-year-old woman died of dehydration while stuck
in traffic in the stifling heat.
Military tankers sent to rescue the stranded drivers found the nozzles
of the fuel hoses would not fit into civilian cars, while officials
made matters worse by announcing they would open both carriageways on
one highway to ease the outbound crush, only to revoke the order later
as impractical. Mr White admitted that their plans had not anticipated
the volume of traffic, and tried to claim they had not urged such a
widespread evacuation, despite telling residents on Thursday: "The time
for waiting is over ... don't follow the example of New Orleans and
think someone's going to get to you."
Yesterday Mr White and Harris county judge Robert Eckels, the chief
executive for the county surrounding Houston who had been equally
apocalyptic in his predictions, told residents who had not left yet to
stay where they were and ride out the storm at home.
The usually bustling tourist island of Galveston - rebuilt after as
many as 12,000 people died during a hurricane in 1900 - was all but
abandoned, with at least 90% of its 58,000 residents cleared out. At
Houston's Johnson space centre Nasa evacuated its staff, powered down
the computers at mission control and turned the international space
station over to the Russian space agency.
As many as 500,000 people in southwestern Louisiana, many of them
already displaced by Hurricane Katrina, were told to evacuate and roads
north were jammed as they tried to escape.
The state governor, Kathleen Blanco, advised those who refused to leave
to write their social security numbers on their arms with indelible
ink, so their bodies could be identified afterwards.
Residents fleeing the Texas coast also jammed Houston's two major
airports, stretching an already thin supply of security screeners and
finding no way out without a ticket. A spokesman for the city said
Hobby and Bush Intercontinental airports were overrun by people without
confirmed reservations.
George Bush, stung by criticism over the administration's lacklustre
response to Hurricane Katrina, was on the road yesterday in an effort
to show he was firmly in control of the crisis.
The president was due to visit Texas to look at storm preparations and
thank emergency workers before heading to the headquarters of the
northern command in Colorado Springs to monitor the storm as it makes
landfall.
Questioned by reporters about why he was going to the region during a
visit to Fema in Washington yesterday, Mr Bush said: "One thing I won't
do is get in the way," adding that he "must not and will not interfere
with the important work going forward."
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From the blogs:
Houston
Tory Gattis, Houston Strategies
houstonstrategies.blogspot.com
"Got up early this morning to get groceries and gas because yesterday
afternoon was the Fall of Saigon writ large. Multiple gas stations with
no gas, but finally found one in my neighbourhood that only had regular
left. My car requires super, but what the heck. I want to go into this
thing with a full tank, not a quarter tank."
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Houston
Lou Minatti
"We tried to leave last night and gave up ... after five hours we were
10 miles north of FM1960. About 1-2 mph. With screaming, miserable
kids, a large stinky dog and no A/C in order to cut down gas
consumption, it was too much. We drove home in 45 minutes. Just as
well. There is no gas to be had, and after 8-9 hours of non-moving
traffic, we'd have been on empty. Now we plan to hunker down and ride
it out."
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Houston to Columbus on the I-10
Twelve Two Two Fondue
"Record high temperatures and humidity made for a sweltering night and
numbers of cars were pulled over to the side of the road, overheated.
Wrecks were frequent as the traffic would occasionally pulse to a speed
of 30-40 mph, and then slow suddenly to a standstill and the
unobservant would find themselves crashing into the car in front of
them."
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Texas City
Bloggy Goodness
"I found out that my parents, who I thought had evacuated Texas City,
are still there. They left yesterday for Lufkin to stay with my
brother's family. After driving for 10 hours with three dogs and a cat
and having only travelled 40 miles, they turned around and went home.
Texas City is a ghost town now. My mom said, 'I don't want us to die
here.' I've pretty much been bawling ever since."
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Lake Livingston, Trinity
Michael Taylor
"You definitely get a Grapes of Wrath sense while driving the roads.
Families carrying their house in their cars and trucks. Kinda scary.
Keep these folks in your thoughts and prayers... we're hunkering down
and going to tough it out. I spent the afternoon battening down the
hatches, backing up my computer equipment, securing the boat, and
smoking some brisket for the storm ahead. Yes, every good Texan knows
you gotta do some grilling during hurricane time. And a corona or two
to keep your sanity or lack thereof."
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Rayne, Louisiana
Phoenix Friends (blog for former regulars at the Phoenix Bar in New
Orleans)
"Billy and I are hunkered down in Rayne, LA, which until just about 12
hours ago was a reasonably safe place to be. The mandatory evacuation
order in this area applies to people south of Highway 92, and we are
eight miles north of that. However, now Rita is shifting a little
closer to us, so we are definitely in for some weather."
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Port Arthur
This blur called life
"My family in Port Arthur has evacuated and those in Houston are
leaving for Dallas. Lee and Lisa's dad was stupid and decided to stay
in Port Arthur. Now, all the New Orleans people are displaced in TX,
and those that stayed with family in Port Arthur and Houston are
displaced again, along with the family who hosted them. Jesus Christ -
please stop hurricaning. Please."
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| User: "The Other Guy" |
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| Title: Re: EVACUEES BURN TO DEATH ON BUS IN EXODUS GRIDLOCK............ |
24 Sep 2005 12:32:32 AM |
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The 'Almighty' takes those that "Need To Be Taken".
I know this is of small consolation to the families of those family members that where lost in
this Event.
But, "Life Happens" (they have moved on to a 'Better Place'), Trust Me !!!
:-(]
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| User: "Su Zanadu" |
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| Title: Re: FRICK!! We're GOING UNDER!!! |
26 Aug 2005 10:41:49 PM |
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Kat's now a kategory-3!!
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_da_HOOROO_Guru=99?=" |
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| Title: Re: FRICK!! We're GOING UNDER!!! |
26 Aug 2005 11:36:46 PM |
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Now Katty has taken 6 lives !!!
Unc.
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Katrina kills 6 in Florida, becomes more powerful
Last Updated Fri, 26 Aug 2005 18:50:19 EDT
CBC News
Hurricane Katrina killed six and caused power cuts to more than 2
million in southeast Florida Friday. It increased in strength as it
moved northwest over the Gulf of Mexico and was expected to hit land
along the Florida panhandle near Louisiana by Monday.
This photo shows an overpass under construction in Miami-Dade County
which collapsed onto State Road 836 Friday Aug. 26, 2005. (AP
Photo/Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, Lt. Eric Baum)
Forecasters said the storm has become a Category-Two hurricane with 160
km/h winds.
They say it could reach Category-Three by Saturday, and be near
Category-Four as it approaches the Gulf Coast.
The death toll included three people killed by falling trees and two
boaters who tried to ride out the storm in their crafts.
Sheets of rain flooded communities and fierce gusts stripped tiles off
roofs, tore away mosquito screens and shattered trees, leaving
neighbourhoods piled high with tree limbs and leaves.
An overpass under construction collapsed west of Miami, blocking the
city's main east-west highway.
Most schools, businesses and government offices in southeast Florida
were closed Friday. Winds were so strong a parked Boeing jetliner was
blown sideways at Miami International Airport.
Oil companies evacuated some workers from platforms in the Gulf of
Mexico.
Punished last season by four powerful hurricanes in six weeks, Florida
residents had snapped up drinking water and batteries from stores but
few bothered to put up hurricane shutters.
Friday evening utility crews scrambled to restore power to more than
one million customers.
Florida Governor Jeb Bush urged residents in panhandle areas to monitor
the storm and make necessary preparations.
If Katrina hits the panhandle at Category 4 strength, as forecasters
say it could, it would mean sustained winds topping 208 km/h.
Officials asked for a federal disaster declaration to speed recovery
aid for the cities of Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
HOOROO
UNCLE WALLY
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_da_HOOROO_Guru=99?=" |
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| Title: Re: FRICK!! We're GOING UNDER!!! |
27 Aug 2005 12:03:42 AM |
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Su Zanadu wrote:
Kat's now a kategory-3!!
Here's what I said waaaaaaaay back in April, my sweetness !!!
Woe to the CarOLINAS !!
Especially after August 31st !!
F L A S H B A C K M O D E:
From APN April 2005:
three major Hurricanes for Florida & Sth Carolina (do
not move there !!!) as the sea water will breach the foreshores and mix
with the sewage & municipal water supplies !!!
Yucky yucky yucky Poo !!!
HOOROO
UNCLE WALLY
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_da_HOOROO_Guru=99?=" |
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| Title: Re: FRICK!! NORLEANS IS GOING UNDER!!! |
28 Aug 2005 11:30:08 PM |
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Su Zanadu wrote:
Kat's now a kategory-3!!
Kategory 5 now my sweet !!!
& headin' slap bang in the middle towards Norleans !!!
HOOROO
UNCLE WALLY
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| User: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Uncle_Wally_da_HOOROO_Guru=99?=" |
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| Title: Re: FRICK!! NORLEANS IS GOING UNDER!!! |
28 Aug 2005 11:57:40 PM |
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29.08.05 1.00pm UPDATE
By Russell McCulley
NEW ORLEANS - A group of Christchurch singers were among the hundreds
of thousands who evacuated New Orleans this morning and fled inland to
escape Hurricane Katrina.
The group of nine had to take an 850km taxi ride to escape the
low-lying Gulf Coast city as the hurricane strengthened into one of the
fiercest US storms ever seen.
Wendy Kington said they hired a convoy of taxis to make their escape
from New Orleans to Memphis. The Christchurch group were in New Orleans
for a music festival.
She said the experience had been terrifying.
"It's scary to think that we were going to be there," she told Newstalk
ZB, "had it not been for those brave taxi drivers who came and rescued
us this morning."
Ms Kington said there are many people, the poor and those without cars,
who have been unable to get out of New Orleans and are stuck there to
face the hurricane.
Those who could not join the exodus were advised to head to about a
dozen shelters in the city, one of which is the Louisiana Superdome,
home to the National Football League's New Orleans Saints.
With Katrina expected to hit in the next few hours, Highways out of
Louisiana's largest city, much of which lies below sea level, were
jammed and petrol stations and convenience stores reported long lines
for water and other supplies after city officials ordered 485,000
people to leave.
Mayor Ray Nagin warned the hurricane's storm surge of up to 28 feet
could topple levees and flood the city's historic French Quarter when
it makes a second, and more powerful, assault on US shores after
killing seven people in Florida on Thursday.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I had better news for you but we are
facing a storm that most of us have feared," Nagin told a news
conference after reading out a mandatory evacuation order. "This is a
threat that we've never faced before."
President Bush declared an emergency in Louisiana and Mississippi and a
major disaster in Florida, measures that allow federal aid to be
deployed.
Ms Kington said the situation in New Orleans is unbelievable because
other locals are very laid back and do not appear to believe the
seriousness of the situation.
Rain is falling in New Orleans, ahead of the expected arrival of the
hurricane which is expected to slam into the Louisiana coast in a few
hours, bringing winds of nearly 300 km/h. The major concern is an
accompanying storm surge of more than eight metres. Much of New Orleans
is below sea level and the wall of water could overwhelm flood
defences.
Petrol stations are running out of fuel as motorists fill up and flee
the city but oil prices around the world have gone through the roof
because of Hurricane Katrina. The storm has disrupted supplies from the
Gulf of Mexico.
Early trading in Asian markets has seen the price of a barrel of oil
surge more than $4, to more than US$70 a barrel.
RESIDENTS PREPARE
In the French Quarter, shopkeepers sandbagged art galleries and boarded
up bars and restaurants in preparation for the storm. Police and fire
officials took to the streets with bullhorns, alerting residents of the
coming danger.
Max Mayfield, director of the US National Hurricane Center, described
Katrina as a "perfect" hurricane. It had grown into a Category 5
hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson, with winds near 270 km/h
just before 5pm EDT (9am NZ Time) on Sunday, the Miami-based US
National Hurricane Center said.
Katrina was about 150 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River
and heading northwest at 21 km/h. Hurricane force winds could be felt
105 miles out from the centre.
Katrina had a central pressure -- a measure of a storm's intensity --
of 902 millibars, which would make it one of the four strongest storms
on record. The Labor Day hurricane of 1935 that hit the Florida Keys,
killing some 600 people, was the strongest with a minimum central
pressure of 892 millibars on landfall.
"The lower the pressure, the stronger the winds and that is exactly
what is happening here with Katrina," Mayfield told CNN.
15 INCHES OF RAIN POSSIBLE
The hurricane centre warned of destructive winds along the Gulf Coast
from the Florida-Alabama border, through Mississippi and west into
Louisiana, and said Katrina could bring up to 15 inches of rain.
Its track would take it through key US oil and gas areas in the Gulf of
Mexico, and Katrina seemed likely to affect already sky-high petrol
prices. Oil rigs were evacuated and casinos along Mississippi's coast
were closed.
It also endangers the port serving New Orleans, one of the most
important in the world, and could do billions in damage to the city's
tourism infrastructure.
Tourists on the Gulf Coast scrambled to join the mass exodus but many
were left trapped as rental cars were snapped up quickly. Authorities
in New Orleans said they would commandeer vehicles and private
buildings if necessary.
"About all you can do at this point is pack the car with as much as you
can carry, place the rest of your belongings as high in the house as
you can and then get the heck out of here," said Cathe Jackson, whose
house is one block from the water in Biloxi, a casino-resort town on
Mississippi's coast.
"We will do everything in our power to help the people and communities
affected by this storm," Bush said from his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
"We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast
communities."
The last Category 5 to strike the area was Hurricane Camille in 1969.
Camille, which just missed New Orleans but devastated parts of
Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, killing more than 250 people.
Hurricane Andrew, which destroyed the city of Homestead south of Miami
in 1992 and ranks as the costliest natural disaster in US history, also
was a Category 5.
- REUTERS and NEWSTALK ZB
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