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04:47 PM CDT on Saturday, September 10, 2005

Staff reports

4:46 P.M. (Staff reports): Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport will reopen Tuesday, Sept. 13, for scheduled passenger air service. Cargo flights will resume immediately.

Armstrong International Airport has been operational since Tuesday, Aug. 30 for humanitarian relief flights and civilian and military rescue efforts.

4:19 P.M. (AP): Three people from New Orleans face identity theft charges in Mississippi after trying to get personal information from Hurricane Katrina evacuees at a shelter in Laurel, Miss.

Jones County Sheriff Larry Dykes said Saturday that the trio posed as representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to try to get personal information from some of the more than 1,700 people from the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Louisiana at the Magnolia Center, a multipurpose venue in Laurel used for concerts and horse shows.

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Edward Charles Francis Jr., 44; Michelle Davis, 39; and Danielle Marie Doyle, 36, are being held without bond because they are considered a flight risk, Dykes said. They were arrested this past Monday and charged with identity theft, he said.

4:09 P.M. (AP): The Federal Emergency Management Agency has paid out $669 million nationwide to families affected by Hurricane Katrina, officials announced Saturday.

Nationwide, FEMA has registered 573,262 families, agency spokesman Ed Conley said.

3:56 P.M. (New York Times): As of Sept. 7, State Farm, the largest residential insurer in the area, had received more than 62,000 Katrina-related claims from homeowners in Mississippi and Alabama, as well as 16,000 auto claims.

Compounding the problem is the complexity of hurricane-related claims. Hurricanes are a combination of wind and water. Most private homeowners' policies will pay for wind damage. But if the damage was the result of flooding, coverage would be available only if the homeowner had separate flood insurance purchased from a government program or a private insurer. Many residents who suffered severe hurricane damage did not have flood insurance, so sorting out the damage in those cases is sure to be complicated.

3:16 P.M. (AP): Hornets owner George Shinn wants his team to stay in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, but understands that cannot be done.

"Our objective is not to abandon ship here or to get out of dodge," Shinn told The Times-Picayune from his summer home in Telford, Tenn. "Our plan is to hope and pray New Orleans rebuilds. And I think it will with everyone's support and the federal money that's coming in there. I think it will be stronger."

The Hornets have received offers to play NBA home games this season in Louisville, Ky.; Oklahoma City; Kansas City, Mo., Nashville, Tenn; and San Diego.

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Shinn said hopes are dimming to play in Baton Rouge because the downtown Rivercenter and LSU Assembly Center in Baton Rouge are being used as evacuation shelters and medical facilities.

3:00 P.M. (AP): A group of police, doctors and National Guardsmen inspected Charity Hospital, where doctors and patients had been stranded in rising flood waters.

Doctors hoped to be able to reopen it to help treat skin infections, dehydration and other illnesses, said Dr. Jeffrey Kochan, who is overseeing medical services in New Orleans. But they found the basement full of water, meaning electricity couldn't be restored. Kochan said they would inspect the city's other hospitals.

3:00 P.M. (AP): The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said most of the city could be drained within a month, though some areas hit by the storm surge could take longer. The estimates are far shorter than early predictions by the corps, which has struggled to get breached levees repaired and pumps operational.

"We learned long ago not to be too optimistic in times like this. But a few days ago we were talking about 80 days," said Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the Corps' chief of engineers, who was in Vicksburg, Miss.

Power and other utilities remain out in most of the affected region. More than 427,000 customers lack power, and 500,000 have no phone service, state officials said.

2:48 P.M. (AP): Just under 60 percent of the Gulf of Mexico's normal daily oil production remained blocked from market Saturday because of production platform evacuations forced by Hurricane Katrina, a federal agency said.

Following a survey of 56 energy companies, the Minerals Management Service reported that 122 of the 819 staffed platforms in the Gulf were shut down, blocking 897,605 barrels -- or 59.8 percent of the Gulf's normal daily production of 1.5 million barrels.

2:46 P.M. (AP): Vice President Dick Cheney toured Hurricane Katrina shelter operations in Texas' capitol city Saturday, a group of about two dozen protesters gathered outside chanting, "Cheney, Cheney, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide."

2:30 P.M. (Staff report) American Red Cross spokesman Joe Degnan said Saturday that while the organization appreciates people's willingness to help, individuals and groups shouldn't just pack up and head into devastated areas or major shelter centers.

"We need to make sure we have trained people who can come," Degnan told a group of reporters assembled in Baton Rouge for a joint FEMA/Red Cross press conference. "It's not just people coming to load and unload trucks, and even that takes training."

He said the Red Cross needs volunteers with special training in areas including congregate living, health care and financial assistance.

Degnan said there currently are about 36,000 Red Cross volunteers involved in Katrina relief efforts.

2:20 P.M. (Staff report) U.S. Ambassador Joe Sullivan said Saturday that foreign governments have contributed a total of about $700 million in cash and in-kind aid to Katrina relief "with other things pledged and promised."

Sullivan spoke briefly Saturday at a joint FEMA/Red Cross press conference in Baton Rouge. He discussed incoming foreign aid as well as the status of foreigners caught up in Hurricane Katrina.

Sullivan said a Spanish parliamentarian was among the evacuees and had since returned to Spain. He said initial estimates had more than 1,000 foreign nationals among the missing, but that number is down to "the low hundreds," with no foreign nationals among the confirmed deaths.

International donations and offers have included 20 tons of relief supplies from Tunisia, two tons of disposable diapers from the Republic of Korea and a shipment including cots, sheets and blankets from Italy. An elderly woman from Lithuania even sent her life savings – €1,000, about $1,241 – to benefit the Katrina relief effort.

1:11 P.M. (The Dallas Morning News)

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt toured the Dallas Convention Center Saturday so that he could take his own first-hand look at the shelters.

Leavitt's late-morning visit was part of a two-day trip to meet with evacuees in shelters in Georgia, Arkansas, Texas and Tennessee to explain the benefits available to those displaced by the hurricane. He credited Dallas for its quick action and said that money will be forthcoming to repay the city and county governments.

“Communities all over the country realize this is not something we can or should wait for somebody from Washington to solve,” he said.

12:29 P.M. (The Dallas Morning News): The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is setting aside about 5,000 foreclosed homes in 11 states for Katrina survivors.

The agency normally sells the homes to consumers and investors. HUD spokesman Brian Sullivan said Friday that the houses will be "held off the market indefinitely until we can get past this business."

Foreclosed homes that are in poor condition and can't be easily repaired won't be included in the plan. But HUD plans to spend up to $10,000 on repairs on each house.

Earlier this week, HUD began notifying real estate agents and potential buyers that the properties were being pulled off the market.

The HUD relief program also includes about 5,600 public housing units within 500 miles of storm-damaged areas.

10:39 A.M. (AP): New Orleans Police Chief Eddie Compass said Saturday that his hard-pressed force was regaining control despite a shortage of roughly 300 officers.

"We're much more organized at this point," Compass said. "We have our logistics in order and the patrols are going very well."

Compass said more than 200 people had been arrested in recent days and were being held in a makeshift jail.

Of a force of 1,750, Compass said he is short about 300 officers, but he had offered no details about where they were or why they were not available for duty.

"I can't worry about that now," he said. "We're doing the job we have to do."

8:51 A.M. (AP): Two New Orleans couples were married Friday night at a shelter in Fort Worth, Texas.

Donna Mathis and James Nelson, Jr., and Annie Lee and Leo Tate said their vows less than two weeks after surviving Hurricane Katrina.

The double wedding was arranged in just two days by shelter volunteer Annie Alvarez, who persuaded businesses and individuals to donate everything from bridal gowns and bouquets to wedding-night rooms at an upscale Fort Worth hotel.

Lee and Tate have had an on-and-off relationship for 27 years, but the timing had never seemed right to tie the knot. After reuniting again in June, they set a December wedding date, but Katrina changed their plans. They barely made it to their attic in time when New Orleans flooded, then were rescued and moved to the Superdome, where they spent five days sleeping outside on cardboard mats to avoid the stench inside.

They formed quick bonds with fellow shelter residents after they arrived last week, and decided to marry in front of the people they now call family.

Mathis and Nelson also arrived last week. Friends for two years, they started dating seriously earlier this year. Once Mathis was reunited a few days ago with her 2-year-old daughter, who was in another part of Louisiana with her father when the storm hit, she decided the wedding couldn't wait.

"We were thinking how we needed something to rejoice in, something to cry happy tears over," Mathis said. "This is a way to make our lives normal. We can start our lives over, and we'll be together."

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