Posted on 09/09/2005 6:06:57 PM PDT by Happy2BMe
NEW ORLEANS
Authorities said their sweep of this deluged city for the last voluntary evacuees was nearly complete, with officers ready to carry out the mayor's order to forcibly remove the thousands who remain in their homes.
"The ones who wanted to leave, I would say most of them are out," said Detective Sgt. James Imbrogglio.
Between 5,000 and 10,000 residents are believed left in the city, where toxic floodwaters have started to slowly recede but the task of collecting rotting corpses and clearing debris will likely take months.
Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Jason Rule said his crew pulled 18 people from their homes Thursday. He said some of the holdouts did not want to leave unless they could take their pets.
"It's getting to the point where they're delirious," Rule said. "A couple of them don't know who they were. They think the water will go down in a few days."
Police Chief Eddie Compass said officers would use the "minimum amount of force" necessary to persuade those who remain to evacuate. Although no one was forcibly removed Thursday, some residents said they left under extreme pressure.
"They were all insisting that I had to leave my home," said Shelia Dalferes, who said she had 15 minutes to pack before she and her husband were evacuated.
"The implication was there with their plastic handcuffs on their belt. Who wants to go out like that?"
As searches for the living continued, the grim task of retrieving corpses intensified under the broiling sun. Officials raised the death toll in Louisiana to 118 Thursday, though New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin has said up to 10,000 could be dead in that city alone. State officials have ordered 25,000 body bags.
Authorities are now faced with the challenge of how to identify bodies that may be bloated and decayed beyond recognition. At two collection sites, federal mortuary teams were collecting information that may help identify the bodies, such as where they were found. Personal effects were also being logged.
At the temporary morgue set up in nearby St. Gabriel, where 67 bodies had been collected by Thursday, the remains were being photographed and forensic workers hope to use dental X-rays, fingerprints and DNA to identify them.
Dr. Bryan Patucci, coroner of St. Bernard Parish, said it may be impossible to identify all the victims until authorities compile a final list of missing people.
Decaying corpses in the floodwaters could pose problems for engineers who are desperately trying to pump the city dry. While 37 of the 174 pumps in the New Orleans area were working and 17 portable pumps were in place Thursday, officials said the mammoth undertaking could be complicated by corpses getting clogged in the pumps.
"It's got a huge focus of our attention right now," said John Rickey of the Army Corps of Engineers. "Those remains are people's loved ones."
Some 400,000 homes in the city were also still without power, with no immediate prospect of getting it back. And fires continued to be a problem. At least 11 blazes burned across the city Thursday, including at historically black Dillard University where three buildings were destroyed.
Also Thursday, Congress rushed through an additional $51.8 billion for relief and recovery efforts and President Bush pledged to make it "easy and simple as possible" for uprooted storm victims to collect food stamps and other government benefits.
In an attempt to stem the criticism of the slow federal response to the disaster, Vice President Dick Cheney also toured parts of the ravaged Gulf Coast, claiming significant progress but acknowledging immense obstacles remained to a full recovery.
Meanwhile, Democrats threatened to boycott the naming of a panel that Republican leaders are proposing to investigate the administration's readiness and response to the storm. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said it was like a baseball pitcher calling "his own balls and strikes."
Democrats have urged appointment of an independent panel like the Sept. 11 commission.
Confusion continued to be a problem in many areas:
_ Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said that radio equipment and portable generators she requested from the federal government a week ago had yet to arrive. Federal officials said they were tracking down the status of the items.
_ In Houston, hundreds of storm victims waited for hours to pick up debit cards for cash that had been promised by relief agencies. By noon Thursday, so many people had jammed the entrance to the sign-up area that some were overcome by the heat and police were summoned.
___
I'm sure some of them are. So, I suppose we could just means test this evacuation.
susie
Great post.
You forgot to add that some areas even have water, sewerage, and electricity services restored. I guess some utility workers didn't get the memo that the city was unsalvageable.
Besides the two LEOs that shot and killed themselves, how many have been shot?
Perhaps more common sense would be a good start.
How about those who own their own properties get to make an actual decision about whether to let the govt take their real estate?
Please, rant on. Free Republic obviously needs it.
LOL! Ya, that could be it.
"Besides the two LEOs that shot and killed themselves, how many have been shot?"As of last Thursday to my knowledge only one NOLA PD had been shot during Katrina, but I don't know the circumstances of it.===============================
Yes, I did, but I feared "electrcity" might be too big of a word. ;)
Sadly, some of these people are hellbent on forcing these good people out of their perfectly intact and working homes. I wonder if that will change when it's their turn?
Looks like the folks in that video, and from other sources, have got those bases covered. They've got electricity, food and supplies and personal protection, i.e, guns.
I think that is what you object to most...the fact that these folks believe in the concept of property rights, and are willing to defend their beliefs against government lackeys such as you and the rest of your-boot-licking buddies here.
And that is what you truly fear, law-abiding citizens defending their homes against unconstitutional government intrusion.
Same reason you are the biggest FReeper cheerleader for the atrocities at Waco.
Well, frankly, you appeared a little dense, so I was trying to make it understandable for you. Houses are fine. Power is on. Water is on. Streets are dry. They have cars, and can get supplies as needed. Diseases aren't a problem for the NG or NOPD (they're not wearing hazmat suits). So why do you want the government to take their guns and force them out?
Sounds good to me, as long as that test consists entirely of the following question:
"You have the option of evacuating. If you choose not to evacuate, do you fully understand that you can expect no aid or supplies other than those you can acquire on your own, city services may not be reliably available for the foreseeable future, and you are responsible for your own security, health, and welfare?"
The hurricane is over.
Their presence has only served to endanger more lives, including their own, during the rescue phase of this disaster.
I have not seen the slightest evidence of that, and you and no one else on this thread has provided that. The evidence that has emerged since the hurricane departed is that it is the authorities that endangered lives, by allowing lawlessness and rampant looting, by the NOPD's abandonment of duty and even engaging in their own looting in the first critical days, by the city government's failure to use available resources, including city and school buses, to evacuate people who wanted refuge, by the city and state's refusal of aid by the Federal government and from private organizations and citizens, by shutting down hotels and driving people onto the streets, by keeping at gunpoint in the city people who were attempting to evacuate on foot, and now by keeping commercial suppliers out of areas that are in fact habitable, if only the authorities would get out of the way, and fulfill their minimal duty, which is to keep public order.
... and remembering that there is no electricity, water, or sewage that is working, exactly where does this fine old lady distribute her bowel droppings? Sanitary, isn't it???
I lived for weeks after the Ice Storm of '98 without power, water, heat, (in the coldest part of a Maine winter)with trees and heavy icicles falling for weeks, onto houses and roads. To travel one drove over downed power lines, which hopefully weren't energized. Flushing the toilet required hauling in water...so you didn't do that too often. You make do. It looks like a lot of people in New Orleans are willing to make do, if only the authorities would let them. As for sewerage, you have cited no information that their sewage systems aren't working...even if their toilets flush to a nonfunctional treatment center, at this point it will hardly make any difference, given the condition of the water. If they had to, and if the police and city administration would let them, they could bring in chemical toilets.
And even if their living conditions aren't ideal, where do you want to put them? Oh, the Astrodorm? Many New Orleaners no doubt feel much safer at home than with the Superdorm evacuees.
Realistically, once people abandon their houses in that city, they should expect to return and find it looted and destroyed, if they are even ever allowed to return.
Outside of the two LEOs that shot and killed themselves, I think one was shot since this event started. However, that happens all the time, on good days, in cites where no disaster exists...
Utah is what? 0.2% black? You gotta think that the blacks there are worrying about all them whites eyeing their every move. They prolly get the willies about how they stick out in the snow. They don't know how to ski or skate, and there's no decent barbeque there. I'd feel out of place there, too.
>>>Mosquitos have always been in New Orleans. Always. It's surrounded by swamps, and there are bayous and canals within the city.>>>
No kidding.
Even though the smell can be misleading on some summer days, the bayou and canals are usually swimming with raw sewage and rotting bodies. What part of that difference aren't you getting?
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