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Хората са опасни животни. 2 дена без ток, храна, вода и подслон и ето какво става с прекрасната цивилизация, която считаме за даденост. Баш като в добрите стари пост-апокалиптични sci-fi-чета...
"New Orleans mayor issues 'desperate SOS'
CTV.ca News Staff
Corpses lay out in the open on New Orleans' streets as storm victims -- hungry, desperate and exhausted -- wait for buses to ferry them out of a city that has rapidly descended into chaos Thursday.
"This is a desperate SOS," said city Mayor Ray Nagin in a statement.
Nagin's plea came as National Guardsmen poured in to help restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire in the city in the days since hurricane Katrina plunged much of New Orleans under water.
"We are out here like pure animals," said Rev. Issac Clark outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where he and up to 20,000 other evacuees had been waiting for buses for days.
In an attempt to relieve what was becoming an explosive situation, Nagin announced this afternoon that the evacuees would be allowed to march to a nearby expressway in search of aid.
"Right now we are out of resources at the convention centre and don't anticipate enough buses. We need buses. Currently the convention centre is unsanitary and unsafe and we're running out of supplies."
Police Chief Eddie Compass told Associated Press that he sent in 88 officers to the convention center, but they were driven back by an angry mob.
"We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten," said Compass. "Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon."
Earlier, emergency teams were forced to suspend boat rescue operations in New Orleans because conditions in the city were too dangerous.
New Orleans' Charity Hospital had to stop efforts to evacuate its patients after it came under sniper fire, Dr. Tyler Curiel, who witnessed the incident, told CNN.
Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, denied earlier reports that evacuation efforts in the New Orleans Superdome were disrupted after shots were fired at a military helicopter.
"The choppers continued to do their work. They simply shifted from moving patients to doing rescue," Brown said at a FEMA news conference Thursday." Not once did those choppers stop from doing what they were supposed to be doing."
But the scene at the Superdome became increasingly chaotic, with thousands packing the arena in hopes they could climb onto the buses that would take them away.
In Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the government is sending in 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to help stop looting and other lawlessness in New Orleans. He said there were already, 2,800 National Guardsmen in the city.
Evacuees arrive in Houston
The first busloads of evacuees, meanwhile, arrived Thursday at their new temporary home -- another sports arena, the Houston Astrodome.
The Associated Press reports that thousands of refugees from Louisiana have made it to the air-conditioned Astrodome Thursday, where some of them are getting their first chance in days to clean up.
About 300 buses will eventually be shuttling more than 20,000 refugees, who are holed up in miserable conditions in the Superdome, to the Astrodome, more than 560 km away.
The Superdome, without electricity or air conditioning, had become a stifling heat trap with broken toilets and nowhere for anyone to bathe.
National Guard forces pour in
Back in New Orleans, National Guard forces in armoured vehicles were helping authorities curb the escalating lawlessness as looting spirals out of control in the devastated city.
U.S. President George Bush issued a stern warning to those taking advantage of the dire situation in the Gulf Coast area.
Speaking with ABC's Diane Sawyer Thursday morning, Bush said criminals and price gougers will be prosecuted.
He said there would be "zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this. Whether it be looting or price gouging at the gasoline pump or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud, and I've made that clear to our attorney general."
Mayor Nagin ordered the entire police force to abandon search-and rescue efforts and concentrate on putting a stop to widespread looting and violence.
Dozens of carjackings were reported, including a nursing home bus and a truck carrying medical supplies for a hospital.
"There are physical threats to safety from roving bands of armed individuals with weapons who are threatening the safety of the hospital," said Tenet HealthCare Corp. spokesman Steven Campanini.
Outside one pharmacy, thieves used a forklift to push up the storm shutters and break through the glass. As tempers flared between residents and authorities, some police officers said they had been shot at.
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she was "just furious" about the lawlessness.
"We'll do what it takes to bring law and order to our region," she said at a news conference.
Thousands feared dead
When Mayor Nagin was asked how many people died in the hurricane, said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."
While Lt. Kevin Cowan of the state Office of Emergency Preparedness said it is too soon to confirm how many died, he noted there were likely many who had not been rescued from their roofs and attics.
"You have a limited number of resources, for an unknown number of evacuees. It's already been several days. You've had reports there are casualties. You all can do the math," he said.
The death toll has already reached at least 110 in Mississippi.
At about midday Wednesday, officials reported that floodwaters finally stopped rising in New Orleans, which is mostly below sea level and was inundated by water from Lake Pontchartrain after levees broke.
Still, the Army Corps of Engineers said it planned to use helicopters to drop 15,000-pound bags of sand and stone in a 500-foot gap in the breach.
But the agency said it was having trouble getting the sandbags and highway barriers to the site because the waterways were blocked by boats, debris, and loose barges.
An additional 10,000 National Guard troops from across the country have been ordered into the Gulf Coast to bolster security and relief operations, bringing the total to more than 28,000.
"I think it's important to recognize although there's been a tremendous blow to New Orleans, there's a blow to Mississippi as well, and also to Alabama," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday morning, appearing on NBC.
"I think we've got hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced. This is unprecedented in this country's history. We are going to call for the kind of relief effort which we have been able to mount overseas, and we are now going to have mount at home."
In Mississippi, bodies are starting to pile up at the morgue in hard-hit Harrison County.
Forty corpses have been brought to the morgue already, and officials expect the death toll in the county to climb well above 110."
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