larger pic ..and they wonder why they were KILLED!
Posted on 08/30/2005 11:53:09 PM PDT by conservative in nyc
Hurricane Katrina cost more lives and destroyed more property than any disaster in Coast history, the Red Cross said Tuesday.
Unprecedented destruction on the Coast and elsewhere will prompt "the largest Red Cross response in the history of the nation," national Red Cross spokesman Peter Teahen said Tuesday. Mississippi Coast history, prompting "the largest Red Cross response in the nation's history," said Peter Teahen, a national spokesman for the relief agency.
Hundreds are feared dead, said Biloxi spokesperson Vincent Creel.
"It's going to be much higher than anything we've ever seen," said Jim Pollard, spokesperson for the Harrison County Emergency Management Agency.
Public officials were skittish about relaying fatality numbers because firefighters, other emergency workers and even volunteers navigated mountains of debris Tuesday, finding bodies all along the waterfront.
The hardest hit areas appeared to be the peninsula in East Biloxi, a four-block stretch of the waterfront in Long Beach and low-lying areas of Henderson Point on the west side of Pass Christian.
Rubble was so thick and high that some areas were inaccessible.
In East Biloxi, firefighters and emergency workers pulled bodies from the debris, mostly in areas inaccessible to sightseers. The firefighters tucked the bodies into black bags, laid them on the ground and resumed their search.
Officials were still concentrating on search and rescue missions, looking for survivors that might have been trapped in debris, Tuesday afternoon. As many as 100 rescue vehicles were expected to fill the parking lot at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum, designated a command center for rescue operations.
Biloxi officials were worried, too, about a shortage of potable water they hoped wouldn't lead to more deaths. The city's water and sewer system is not working, Creel said, and the heat and humidity will quickly dehydrate people who have no access to clean water.
Officials are trying to arrange for one or more portable water stations to be brought to Biloxi, Creel said.
"The nightmare we thought might happen before the hurricane hit appears to be developing," Teahen said.
Frantic family members who fled Katrina made their way to devastated neighborhoods Tuesday, searching for loved ones. Many burst into tears when they took in the destruction and wondered if they would ever again see relatives who dared face Katrina.
"Has anyone seen . . . ?"
"Have they found . . . ?"
The agony on their faces was apparent, but no one could offer them answers.
The scene could only be compared to 9/11, when people desperately sought word from loved ones. Emergency workers moved as fast as they could. Some of them, including firefighters at Biloxi's East End station, barely escaped Katrina themselves
The East End firefighters tied themselves down in the hose beds of their fire trucks as water rose to the hoods.
Two silver hearses and a truck eased through the littered landscape to retrieve the bodies. More vehicles were on the way and a makeshift morgue was set up in Gulfport.
Some family members brought their deceased loved ones to the Harrison County coroner's office.
Joseph Waldrop approached firefighters with a single tear trickling down his cheek. He reported seeing a body on Oak Street. The firefighters told him they would get to it when they could.
He was angry with his neighbors who stayed behind. Waldrop arranged early in the week to evacuate to high ground north of the interstate in D'Iberville.
"People ought to know not to stay here for something like this," Waldrop said. "I knew better. They gave them plenty of warning to get out of here."
Katrina's storm surge overwhelmed the community. Residents expected Camille; they were wrong.
"We've been through Camille," said resident David McCaleb. "We've been through everything. But I ain't never seen anything like this in my life."
Added Richard Wright, who floated to a perch in his neighbor's attic and rode out the storm there: "It looked like a tsunami with hurricane winds."
When the water's subsided, Wright found the body of his 90-year-old neighbor, Francis Odessa Saucier, in her living room.
A devout Catholic, she had lived frugally.
"Believe me, she's in heaven," said Janet Wright Dubaz. "People thought she was homeless, but she gave everything to the church."
Charles Parfait's family was among the fortunate. They survived Katrina in the attic with their two dogs. They lashed 5-year-old Hannah Mays, a family member, to the rafters.
Why did they stay in their home? "Shelters don't accept animals," Parfait said. The family was covered in mud. They tried to regroup on the roadside and decide where they could go with their dogs.
Several people said they perched in treetops for Katrina's duration. Huong Tran, 50, and her fiancée were among them.
As the water rose, he helped her up a Live Oak, where they spent six hours. "I thought I was going to die," Tran said. "The water was over the house. She prayed to a Buddhist goddess. "I called to her, 'Help me, help me. I think I'll die."
Although most of her possessions washed away, she found her goddess statute on the ground near the tree. She hugged it to her chest Tuesday, saying, "I love her so much. I'll keep her forever."
She said she and her fiancée did not evacuate because they were having car trouble.
Her family had found her.
Aaron Williams found his 4-year-old son's dog, appropriately named Hercules, on a roof a block from what had been their home. Williams clutched the beagle to his chest and sobbed.
"I can't believe it," he said.
When Leon and Lonnie Duvall had recovered their wits after arriving to see the destruction, she told her husband, "Lonnie, lets hang that flag up."
Their son, Dustin, hung the flag from an oak still standing.
"There you go, son," his father said. "Stretch it proud."
After the Duvalls departed, Tera Davidson arrived from Gulfport, desperate to find her brother, his girlfriend and their 8-month-old baby.
Michael Knuth had called her at 11 a.m. Monday, as the storm surge from Katrina rose into his attic. She hadn't heard from him since.
Davidson's shoulders shook as she cried, "That little baby didn't have a chance in the world."
About an hour later, an observer's heart filled with dread, hoping against hope Davidson would not spot the hearses in the debris field, that she could hold onto a slim hope.
At that moment, she screamed at the top of her voice, "MICHAEL." Her brother was strolling down the sidewalk toward her. Mother and baby were fine. They had made it out.
He was worried about one thing: Getting to his van. "I have $2,000 worth of tools in there," he said as his sister urged him forward so their mother, waiting nearby, could see him alive.
There's some actual news about conditions in Pass Christian and Long Beach - areas about which we haven't heard much.
PING
ping
see the video on last post of gulfport. you would not believe the scene. Biloxi is just about gone.
ping
That post from My Favorite Headache sounds as though it is really true. This w/b the news for tomorrow.
larger pic ..and they wonder why they were KILLED!
>>>That post from My Favorite Headache sounds as though it is really true. This w/b the news for tomorrow.
Frightening, indeed.
I heard Skip Pickering talk tonight on Greta about MS - he said, almost as an aside, "We have hundreds dead". So I thought, hundreds dead just in MS? And he probably is underestimating, as most of them do.
When this is all said and done, the figure will be in the thousands.
10 feet of water surged into the ground floor of the Gulfport home, ruining the kitchen, dining room, bowling alley and long-term care facility and submerging the emergency generator. The hurricane also blew down the home's water tower.
a ranch house on the complex used for visitors was blown away, as was the eight-foot-high brick and steel fence around the 49-acre complex's perimeter.
While the MSM had it's sites on New Orleans, the people of Gulfport/Biloxi knew it was coming. I guess they thought it couldn't be that bad...
This is why the comparisons with the Tsunami or 9/11 are not helpful. There will be another disaster of this nature, so it is OK to be a bit preachy about the lessons of this one. That said, it is still very, very sad. Many could not leave, at least not reasonably easily, so something can be done about that. Watching the Super Dome, I kept wondering about busing the people to safe areas using city buses.
City officials said they could not immediately re-establish water or sewer services. All land phone lines and most cell phone communications were out of service, they said, and crews were trying to repair a major gas leak downtown.
Tons of chicken parts, which had been stored for shipping in the port area, ended up scattered across dozens of blocks west of the city.
"That's going to become a biohazard in no time," said Sullivan, the fire chief. "We'll need fast help with that, too." ...***
"Hurricane Katrina cost more lives ... than any disaster in Coast history, the Red Cross said Tuesday.
Hmmm, me thinks the Red Cross spokesperson wasn't around for the "coastal" hurricane hit on Galveston Island that took over 6000 lives.
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