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According to this report it wasn't Haley who said that

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=axLmRQqK.K0U&refer=us

New Orleans Gets More Troops to Stop Katrina Looting (Update5)

Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) -- About 24,000 National Guard members will be in Louisiana and Mississippi by the end of the week to combat looting and quell gunfire that disrupted the rescue of survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today at a news conference that 1,400 will go to New Orleans daily for the next three days, expanding a force of 3,000 that's trying to maintain order in a city flooded and left without power by the storm three days ago.

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said National Guardsmen from Arkansas were prepared to use deadly force as they try to restore order in New Orleans, the Times-Picayune reported.

Blanco said at a news conference today that the guardsmen ``know how to shoot to kill ... and I expect they will,'' the New Orleans newspaper said.

Some rescue operations by the Federal Emergency Management Agency were suspended in areas where gunfire broke out, Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said in Washington, the Associated Press reported. People trying to board amphibious vehicles outside New Orleans's Charity Hospital were shot at while trying to evacuate, Cable News Network reported.

`You Loot, We Shoot'

People outside the city's convention center were also fired upon, while the city's police officers were forced to guard some precincts from the roof because of violence in the city, CNN said. Earlier today, a helicopter assisting in the evacuation of 23,000 people from the Superdome came under fire.

``Looters are hitting food stores, they're hitting department stores, they're in jewelry stores and gun stores -- they're stealing guns wherever they can,'' Sergeant Frank Coates, a spokesman for the Louisiana Police, said in a telephone interview from Baton Rouge, the Louisiana state capital. ``It's not just to survive, they're taking goods for personal gain.''

Almost every store in downtown Slidell, a Louisiana community just over Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, have been broken into and stripped. Smashed doors and bare shelves are found in convenience stores, hobby shops and pay-day lenders. In Biloxi, Mississippi, there are big signs in front of smashed homes, which were ripped in half by the storm, that read: ``You loot, we shoot.''

Oil Disruptions

Katrina, the 11th named storm of the six-month hurricane season that ends Nov. 30, swept over Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and western Florida on Monday with 140-mile-an-hour winds. Standard & Poor's said the damage may cost insurance companies $50 billion, including repairs to roads and bridges, AP reported, citing an S&P report. That's double the figure the insurance industry estimated, which already would have made the storm the costliest U.S. natural disaster.

Katrina has killed an untold number of people and destroyed commerce along the Gulf Coast region, which produces a third of the nation's oil and a fifth of its natural gas and handles 40 percent of U.S. grain exports.

The disruption to refineries, drilling rigs and pipelines pushed up oil and natural gas prices to records and sent retail gasoline prices through $3 a gallon. Economists suggested the Federal Reserve might soon stop raising interest rates because of the hurricane's drag on the economy.

``While recent hurricanes have not had lasting macroeconomic impacts, Katrina may prove to be the exception,'' said Bruce Kasman, head of economic research at JPMorgan Securities Inc. in New York.

Evacuations

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said as many as 300,000 people in the region have been evacuated. About 49,800 people are in 131 shelters in the state, which can hold 70,000 more, Blanco said. She said she didn't know how many were left in New Orleans.

``We are receiving what I have asked for right now,'' Blanco said at a press conference. ``But the scope and dimension are so dramatic and so large.''

In New Orleans, where thunderstorms were expected tonight and tomorrow, the busing of refugees from the Superdome to the Astrodome in Houston continued, Lieutenant Colonel Pete Schneider, a spokesman for the Louisiana National Guard, said earlier today.

Astrodome

Late tonight, officials at the Houston Astrodome turned away three buses that arrived from the New Orleans Superdome, Cable News Network reported. The drivers of the buses, which held as many as 75 people each, were told to go to another location, which wasn't disclosed, CNN said.

A fire marshal said the Astrodome reached capacity at about 10:30 p.m. local time, CNN said, citing Nate McDuell of the Houston Police Department. Approximately 8,000 people are being housed at the facility, CNN reported, without citing where it received the information.

In Mississippi, more than 2,500 people have been rescued from homes by the National Guard, Coast Guard and the state's Fish and Wildlife Services Agency. Thousands of missing persons reports have been received, said Scott Hamilton, a spokesman for Mississippi's Emergency Management Agency.

`Out of Control'

The bottom 60 miles of Mississippi to the Gulf Coast is essentially a disaster zone, Hamilton said. All roads are either impassible or have been blocked by the National Guard.

``The coroners reports are going to skyrocket,'' said James Stebl, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Jackson, Mississippi.

In Kenner, Louisiana, a city of 75,000 about 10 miles away, people began stealing from stores when floodwaters receded, Steve Caraway, a spokesman for Kenner police, said in a telephone interview.

``The looting is pretty much out of control,'' Caraway said. ``We have compassion, but we still have laws to enforce. It's gone past food and is becoming whatever they can steal.'' Kenner has about 190 officers patrolling the town, he said.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Blanco refocused state and local police and some National Guard troops from rescue activity to restoring order after the attack on the helicopter at the Superdome, said Sergeant Nicholas Stahl of the Louisiana emergency preparedness office.

Bush Tour

U.S. President George W. Bush will take a ground and air tour of the Gulf Coast region tomorrow, meeting with the governors of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. The president also asked his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and former President Bill Clinton to lead a fund-raising effort. He met with the two men, who also led tsunami relief earlier this year, today, McClellan said.

The president urged a crackdown on lawlessness.

``There ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this,'' Bush said in an interview on ABC's ``Good Morning America.''

The Pentagon has so far sent about 7,200 active-duty forces to the region, mostly sailors in vessels that will help in relief efforts, and several hundred members of the Corps of Engineers.

Aircraft Carriers

The U.S. Navy said today it will send the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier based in Norfolk, Virginia, and the USS Whidbey Island docking craft to the Gulf to serve as floating staging areas for helicopters and command communications. It has a crew of about 3,350 sailors, according to a Navy fact sheet. The Whidbey Island has a crew of about 350.

This will bring to more than 11,000 the number of active- duty military personnel deployed for disaster relief.

In New Orleans, where the Mississippi flooded 80 percent of the city, floating bodies were reported as rescuers worked to save people stranded on rooftops, said Stahl of the Louisiana emergency preparedness office.

``They still haven't got any food or drinking water and the communications are down,'' he said. ``They may think we've forgotten them.''

Providing Shelter

Texas Governor Rick Perry said yesterday that the Houston Astrodome would shelter Superdome evacuees through December. He said today that the state would take 25,000 more in San Antonio.

Ghulan Masir, 76, went to the Superdome on Sunday, before the storm, and was put on a bus with 100 others, who were told they were headed to Lafayette, Louisiana. When he woke 10 hours later, he was at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He spent two nights there and was moved to Baton Rouge's River Center, an entertainment complex on the banks of the Mississippi.

He said he hasn't showered since Sunday and is wearing the same dark-beige polo shirt and khakis he had when he boarded the bus in New Orleans. He said he's been able to bathe by towel and washed his shirt in the sink once.

About 2,500 patients are being evacuated from hospitals in New Orleans with the assistance of the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Defense and the Coast Guard, said Bill Hall, an HHS spokesman, in a telephone interview today. Many are being taken by helicopter or boat to local airports, where they are flown to waiting hospitals around the country.

`Likely Thousands'

Nagin, the New Orleans mayor, said yesterday that Katrina killed ``most likely thousands'' of people. That would make the hurricane the deadliest U.S. storm since one that swept through Galveston, Texas, in 1900, killing an estimated 8,000 to 12,000. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire killed 5,000 to 6,000.

Katrina also killed people in Mississippi, where the cities of Gulfport and Biloxi were nearly destroyed.

The U.S. Congress will curtail its annual vacation to discuss hurricane aid. Bush will ask Congress for $10.5 billion in emergency spending, Republicans familiar with the plan said.

The government has declared a disaster area for parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama that the White House says equals 90,000 square miles, about the size of the state of Michigan. About $2 billion has already been spent or obligated to contractors in the emergency response, Chertoff said today.

Engineers are working to plug breaches in the New Orleans levee system, which protects the below-sea-level city from the Mississippi to its south and Lake Pontchartrain to the north. About 1.3 million people live in the city and surrounding areas.

High Water

The Kenner area of Central Orleans Parish has water levels of 10 feet to 15 feet, said Colonel Richard Wagenaar, New Orleans District Commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Officials are most concerned about three breaches in the system, Wagenaar said in an interview. Workers plan to use steel sheets to close the 17th Street Canal while helicopters drop one-ton and 10-ton sandbags into the breach, he said.

Johnny Bradberry, secretary of Louisiana's Department of Transportation and Development, said he expects to turn on the pumps to drain New Orleans by Sept 4.

The contaminated floodwaters and bodies present a health problem, Coates of the Louisiana police said. He said there was waste and a ``stench'' in the water.

Identifying the dead is ``low on the priority list'' as officials try to rescue those trapped, Stahl said. He said there is no system to collect, identify and store bodies; most are still underwater.

``All of the ingredients of a disease problem are there,'' Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said in an interview today.

About 10 people died in Kenner of causes including dehydration and exposure since Katrina passed, said Caraway, the police spokesman.

Mississippi

As many as 110 people were killed in Mississippi, the New York Times said. About 85 were dead in Hancock County, CNN said. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said on CNN that reports of at least 185 dead are ``credible and we worry that we may go up.''

In Mississippi, the storm destroyed about a third of the casinos in the Gulf Coast towns of Biloxi and Gulfport, home to 15 riverboat and barge casinos.

In Biloxi, houses that once lined Highway 90 no longer exist. A bridge farther up the road that connected the city to Ocean Springs buckled from the rising waters and collapsed. Massive oak trees and pine trees are split in half.

Power lines hang limply over the road. There's a mile-long line of cars snaking in front of a shuttered supermarket where the National Guard is handing out bags of ice and water.

Without Power

Entergy Corp., Southern Co. and Cleco Corp. said about 1.32 million customers were still without power in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. This includes 723,946 people in Louisiana, 389,825 in Mississippi and 206,910 in Alabama. Tribune Co.'s WGNO-TV and WNOL-TV stations in New Orleans are off the air because of water damage, spokesman Gary Weitman said.

Texas and other neighboring states added to the federal government's effort, pitching in to help find, feed and shelter thousands of people left homeless.

The city of Dallas and the American Red Cross yesterday opened Reunion Arena to Katrina refugees. Hundreds of people are already there, and the arena has room for ``several thousand'' more, said Anita Foster, spokeswoman for the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the American Red Cross. San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger said at a press conference that the Texas city would accept an undetermined number of refugees.

Oil Output Cut

Katrina shut 90 percent of the region's oil production and 79 percent of natural gas production. Gasoline futures rose more than 9 percent, signaling that the average price of gasoline in the U.S. will top $3 a gallon in coming weeks.

U.S. gasoline prices surged 36 cents overnight at the pumps to a record average of $2.99 a gallon today, according to GasPriceWatch.com, which calculated the price for regular grade gasoline from reports by volunteer price-spotters. Motorists formed lines as long as a mile at stations in Georgia where a record $5.68 a gallon was reported last night in Atlanta.

Rising energy costs and the shutdown of cities such as New Orleans and Biloxi may cut a full point off U.S. growth in the year's final three months, said economists including Nariman Behravesh at Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Former Federal Reserve Governor Lyle Gramley said changes of the Fed pausing in its series of quarter-point rate increases have increased.

``Katrina is a little bit different because you're also threatening the energy system,'' Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBC Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Connecticut, said in a Bloomberg television interview. ``We're still trying to figure out exactly where we are on that. The near-term implications are pretty extreme.''

The weather service was today tracking two more storms: Tropical Depression Lee about 780 miles east of Bermuda and an unnamed depression farther east in the Atlantic Ocean.