Posted on 09/02/2005 10:54:43 PM PDT by MRMEAN
Missouri Task Force 1 operations near New Orleans ground to a halt yesterday when the city’s mayor ordered all rescue workers to cease searching until civil disorder could be brought under control.
Until 4 p.m., the team had been hunting frantically for survivors, cutting holes in homes’ roofs in a search for flood victims. The team was working in an area just northwest of New Orleans that was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Homes there were submerged up to the roofs.
There were reports of workers being shot at in some parts of the city.
"Our guys heard gunshots in the area but were not actually shot at," said Gale Blomenkamp of the Boone County Fire Protection District, home to Task Force 1. "They felt fairly secure in their home base of operation."
Survivors were found trapped in attics with temperatures near 150 degrees, and others had gone without drinking water for days. Sometimes, all the task force members found were the dead. Rescuers couldn’t recover the bodies, however, while survivors remained.
"Going into the houses is very eerie," said task force member Randy Sanders, a rescue boat worker from O’Fallon. "You’re going into their lives. You just don’t know what you are going to find when you go into a room."
Helicopters were dropping food and water to stranded people to keep them alive until boat rescuers could reach them.
The 38-member Missouri team has been sleeping in vehicles and tents, working 12-hour days without showers and eating military rations. The team’s base camp was set up in a parking lot outside the New Orleans Saints practice fields.
"It smells like a flood," Project Manager Doug Westhoff said. "You have the sewage. You have the petroleum products from the vehicles that are submerged. There is human waste. It’s just a variety of smells."
Westhoff, a Boone County Fire Protection District assistant chief, said the team arrived in the city late Monday night and will be there for at least another week.
The team, working with its Tennessee counterpart, had lost count of its rescues. There were 332 the first day and probably hundreds more on Wednesday and yesterday. Speaking from a cell phone with the thumping of a helicopter in the background, Westhoff said team members have seen groups of flood victims in the hundreds possibly thousands stranded on bridges.
Despite all the reports of civil disorder, task force members said the flood victims were meeting them with gestures of gratitude.
"They are very appreciative, shaking our hands and thanking us," Sanders said.
Sanders said his boat searched about 20 homes yesterday, a labor-intensive process requiring saws to cut entrances into flooded homes.
In some cases, the rescuers found leaking natural gas pipes. In one home, the rescue boat found two brothers in a dry area with two weeks’ worth of supplies. The brothers told the rescuers to move on to others more in need and get them later.
The team has been launching johnboats and large inflatables from an offramp of Interstate 610, an offshoot of the larger Interstate 10.
Team members rise at 6 a.m. and are on the floodwaters by 7:30 a.m. Westhoff said his crews work until about 6 p.m., then begin mapping plans for the next day. The team has 14 Boone County firefighters, plus structural engineers, mapping experts, a physician and other medical professionals from around Missouri.
The team was working from 11 boats, and the Tennessee group had at least five more.
"I’ve seen tornadoes in Boone County, and it looked like a bunch of F-5s came through here and wiped everything out," said team member Jerry Jeffries, a former Boone County firefighter who lives in Little Rock, Ark.
Jeffries coordinates communications among boats and from the command post.
In some homes, hands were seen waving for help through broken roof vents. As time goes on, though, hope diminishes that more survivors in the sweltering roof areas can be found. "We are probably close to ending our recoveries in attics because people are probably dead by now. We are going to look for other places," Jeffries said. "We believe" survivors "are out there."
Westhoff said yesterday evening that the team remains optimistic.
"We can do some good here, get some people out of harm’s way," he said. "Body recovery will come later. Right now, the entire focus is on saving savable lives."
This morning, the team was redeployed to a residential section of northeast New Orleans. Rescuers were back on the water, searching and hoping for more survivors.
At least some people were prepared.
yep.
Hopefully more people will wake up around the country. The government can't protect you. Fortune favors the prepared!
That sounds like it coulda been my place, but I'm 1500 or so miles NNW of there.
Food for 2 weeks plus for the 4 men, 2 kids, 3 dogs and cat that live here, 7.5 KW genset, 500 lbs of propane for the outdoor kitchen and genset, full fuel oil tank, 2 4x4's and a bus.
Oh, there are bicycles for all, a couple of motorbikes, and the means to defend all the above, too......
I neglected to mention the firewood pile. # cords so far, but the winter stock has to be laid in yet...
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