WWL
Updates as they come in on Katrina
09:25 PM CDT on Saturday, September 3, 2005
Tom Planchet
8:58 P.M. - Ann Rice article, "Do you know what it means to lose New Orleans in the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/04rice.html?ei=5090&en=ce2f33f8719dba9c&ex=1283486400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
8:47 P.M. - (AP) The last bedraggled refugees were rescued from the Superdome on Saturday and the convention center was all but cleared, leaving the heart of New Orleans to the dead and dying, the elderly and frail stranded too many days without food, water or medical care.
No one knows how many were killed by Hurricane Katrina's floods and how many more succumbed waiting to be rescued. But the bodies are everywhere: hidden in attics, floating among the ruined city, crumpled on wheelchairs, abandoned on highways.
8:42 P.M. - Health official: No timetable on when New Orleans will be decontaminated. First, he said, it must be drained, then it must be decontaminated.
8:40 P.M. - (AP) Thousands of people remain at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, where officials turned a Delta Blue terminal into a triage unit. Officials say three- to five-thousand people had been treated at the triage unit, but fewer than 200 remain. Others throughout the airport are waiting for transport out of the city.
Jake Jacoby, a physician who's helping run the triage center, says "in the beginning it was like trying to lasso an octopus."
Airport director Roy Williams says about 30 people had died, some of them elderly and ill. The bodies are being kept in refrigerated trucks as a temporary morgue.
8:18 P.M. - Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard: People can return beginning Monday at 6 a.m., but they must show identification and they are urged to leave the area after that for about one month. Broussard said the returns will cut off at 6 p.m. each day. The return visits will end next Thursday.
8:17 P.M. - SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) -- New Orleans-based Hibernia is assuring its customers that banking will go on uninterrupted and was working to re-establish communications with its mainframe.
The company says ATM and debit cards should be working and has seen only isolated instances of problems, said Keith Bergeron, regional chairman for northwest Louisiana. Its telephone banking system is overloaded and may give busy signals but will be improved. Payroll for its employees and other companies is on track.
8:08 P.M. - Congressman William Jefferson: "It is utter devastation." On my helicopter tour, I flew over New Orleans East, the Lower Ninth Ward, Central City - it's all under water. I saw the levee breach at the 17th Street Canal, it's unbelievable. I have never seen anything like it. My entire district, the city I love, is gone."
8:06 P.M. - New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin: There are some employees who have been on for six straight days in horrible conditions and some of them are starting to crack.
7:58 P.M. - St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis: Sales of alcohol no longer allowed in the parish. Also parish under a "no burn" order.
7:56 P.M. - CBS' Cami McCormack on WWL Radio: People at the Convention Center site were wetting themselves rather than getting out of a line for buses and possibly losing their place.
7:55 P.M. - McCormack - The conditions in the Convention Center were horrible. There were people being beaten, there were rapes, there were people banding together to keep watch around themselves due to the crime.
Note to Mayor Nagin: suck it up, and tell your people to as well!
These people that Represent NO are going to have to fly all over America to visit their constituents. I think that NO will be rebuilt, but half of what it is now.
To paraphrase: Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin pleaded for days for federal help but couldn't get it (it's Bush's fault.)