Posted on 08/31/2005 2:11:38 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Heaviest loss of life appears to be from Biloxi building collapse
GULFPORT, MISS. - Stunned residents emerged from shelters and homes Tuesday to start assessing the massive damage left by Hurricane Katrina as rescuers pulled bodies from crushed homes and apartments near the coast.
The death toll in this hard-hit county rose to more than 100, but officials believe that number will rise. "There's so much rubble, we won't know for a while. But I fully expect the number to be in the hundreds," said Jason Green, assistant to the Harrison County coroner.
In an auxiliary morgue downtown, hearses unloaded bodies uncovered by search-and-rescue teams.
"Several families have brought in their dead," Green said.
County Supervisor Connie Rockco said it appears the heaviest loss of life was in east Biloxi, where an apartment building collapsed and killed 30 people.
"But there are fatalities from one end of the county to the other," Rockco said.
Gulfport Fire Chief Pat Sullivan said most of those who died in Gulfport perished in the zone of the storm surge, which pushed up to a set of railroad tracks about six blocks from the beach.
"We begged, we pleaded, we demanded. We told them they had a good chance of dying if they didn't leave. But there's only so much government can do to protect people," Sullivan said. "Too many people tried to ride it out. We can't regulate good sense."
Thought they were safe
Sullivan said many homes that survived the catastrophic Hurricane Camille in 1969 were washed away by Katrina.
"People in them thought they were safe, that lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place," he said.
In Biloxi, at the Quiet Water Beach apartments, at least 30 people died when the two-story building crumbled in the storm Monday. One resident, Joy Schovest, told the Associated Press she swam for her life.
"We grabbed a lady and pulled her out the window and then we swam with the current," said Schovest, 55, breaking into tears. "It was terrifying. You should have seen the cars floating around us. We had to push them away when we were trying to swim."
All that remained of the apartment complex was a concrete slab surrounded by a heap of red bricks that were once the building's walls. A crushed red toy wagon, jewelry, clothing and twisted boards were mixed in with the debris.
Gulfport Police Lt. Michael Shaw said he and others in his search crew carried bodies across stretches of rubble that ran blocks from the beach.
"I've lived here all my life, and in some places we were, I couldn't recognize where I was," Shaw said.
The central part of the city, near the coast, looked as though it had been rocked by an explosion. At the waterfront, the blocklong floating Copa Casino had been heaved about 200 yards onto the shore. Its sides were blown to tatters, especially on the lower levels of the roughly six-floor structure.
The floating Grand Casino also was pushed aground and came to rest several blocks west of its former location.
On the beachfront U.S. 90, near the center of town, Hugh Keting surveyed where his law office used to be. The two-story stucco house had been scraped off its foundation, although a huge live oak next to it remained with hardly a damaged branch.
Dwight Harper's workplace was all but gone, too. He works for Dole, which runs a shipping operation on the docks. Some of the facility's two-story-tall unloaders and other heavy equipment were tossed about the edge of downtown.
Inside First Presbyterian Church, which faces the water about a block from the shore, waves had pounded away the plaster up to a line about 6 feet high across the entire back wall. The floor was covered with 3 inches of sand.
Gulfport Mayor Brent Warr said the beachfront shopping center that he and his father owned was destroyed, as were their homes.
Warr and his city staff met in the largely undamaged City Hall on Tuesday morning to choose locations for distribution points for the aid they expect to come in. He said he expected it to begin arriving early today.
"We understand the military trying to reach us was bogged down on U.S. 49," Warr said, referring to the main north-south highway into Gulfport. "I was told there were more than 100 big pines across the road in a two-mile stretch in the DeSoto (National) Forest."
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."
Police Chief Steve Barnes said there was an immediate need for portable toilets. "There's not one left standing along the whole (Mississippi) coast," he said.
Katrina's destruction was so widespread, Barnes said, that "all the emergency resources we need are being stretched."
Marine life facility gone
After several drug and grocery stores opened late in the day, lines quickly formed and parking lots filled. Some residents, including 67-year-old Norman Vancourt, said they were planning to leave the coast until basic services are restored. "I'll go as far north as it takes to get a hot cup of coffee," he said.
His house in Long Beach, a town of about 17,000 just west of Gulfport, was demolished. "In a storm like this, you don't even board it up," he said.
Six bottlenose dolphins from Marine Life Oceanarium that rode out the storm in two motel pools will leave town soon, too.
"We were totally destroyed," said Moby Solangi, the aquarium's president. "We're planning to put them in another facility until we can rebuild."
Three of Solangi's sea lions that ended up in neighborhoods were recovered alive, he said.
"The birds and fish, they're free now," Solangi said, describing how the storm crushed several 30-foot-tall tanks.
thomas.korosec@chron.com
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. ....***
Thanks for the post. BTTT.
Orlando Salinas of FNC reported on that yesterday and he said the stench was becoming unbearable, compounded by the August heat and humidity.
My sister and her family live south of Jackson, in Simpson Co. They have incredible damage, even that far inland. Prayers up for our fellow Americans.
Meanwhile, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter have made arrangements to tour the afflicted areas. Foreign aide is pouring in, with France leading the EU with its massive donations of manpower and equipment.
Sir Bono is organaizing a relief concert to be broadcast internationally to aid the crippled Gulf region.
Bump!
***....."There will be neighborhoods where people can't get back to their homes for weeks, if not months," Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said in the Louisiana capital.
Officials will assess the housing needs for victims.
"We're going to be working with the state of Louisiana to see what those needs are and how best to meet those needs," said Earl Armstrong, a spokesman for FEMA in Denton, home of the agency's regional office.
Officials said options include tents, mobile homes or financially troubled hotels and apartments.
For the next week, most evacuees will have to rely for housing on friends, family or the American Red Cross.
Hotels in Baton Rouge and as far away as Lafayette are full, and power is out in many parts of southern Louisiana.
The Red Cross reported Tuesday that 31,000 people are in its hurricane shelters in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
Gov. Rick Perry approved sending doctors, nurses and support personnel from the Texas National Guard to help in Louisiana.
The Southern Baptist Association, in conjunction with FEMA, has sent 25 portable kitchens.
They can feed 500,000 people per day.
And the Salvation Army is sending 72 mobile canteens and two larger feeding units.*** Source
All the buzzards will come out for their photo ops.
I forgot the /sarcasm tag.
I just saw a video of Gulfport and Biloxi..May God be wirh those who mourn..The storm surge was so destructive.
A friend of mine works in the claims department for FEMA, here in Atlanta. He said last night that the claims from this storm alone will take up to three years to take care of.
Americans will take care of their own.
I hadn't seen it, but I heard someone had videotaped the storm surge as it come ashore akin to the tsunami of last December.
We are pretty good at that!
That's what I've been thinking, whether the international community chimes in or not.
Yes. Unfortunately, idiotic left-wing Americans and Euroweenies are already blaming the U.S. in general and President Bush specifically for the hurricane because of 'global warming.'
I'm glad to read that.
But I have to say that Governor Blanco is the blankest, dead-head of a governor I have ever seen appear on television.
Haley Barbour was quite impressive on the other hand -- almost a tragic Roman nobility about him facing this disaster.
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