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.
___
As Mr. O'Dwyer said in that video linked in 94, all he wants is "benign neglect" -- I have a feeling he and others like him can take care of business just fine.
I really hope that isn't true. I would see that as a direct attack, and would most definitely fight back.
WOW, they just asked the NO police chief this question, and he just this second said he was NOT allowed to say or comment on that! CNN.....
>>>You've been talking like the flood waters are an open sewer. Can you explain how the sewage enters the waters?Z>>>
The flood waters mingle with the water in the sewers. What you say is neglible I say is important. Lets say you have a rack in the sink. In the sink is one cup of feces and you fill the sink up with water. The feces will mingle with the feces and contaminate the entire water supply in the sink. No, the feces is not concentrated anymore and very much diluted, but still enough to make me think it is unsafe. When the city floods, the water floods into the sewers and becomes nasty and INFECTIOUS. How many people have AIDS and poop in the toilets of NO? How many people have Hep C? Etc... I know a plumber that died from HEP C. He didn't have much contact with feces, but apparently enough.
That's why the authorities at first demanded that no cameras accompany them on clean-up, but luckily cnn was able to get that rescinded.
A whole bunch of beads.
I'm afraid it is true. Bringing my post on another thread over here:
http://www.oxfordpress.com/news/content/shared/news/nation/stories/09/08KATRINA_RESCUE.html
snip
Despite such political wrangling in the city, cops in St. Bernard Parish made it clear Wednesday that they weren't interested in taking no for an answer. Nor were they taking dogs they deemed too big or dangerous.
That left forced evacuee Marie Miller on the verge of tears.
"They shot our dogs!" Miller, a 54-year-old housewife, said of her mixed pit bulls, Angel and Hooch. She had gone inside to collect clothes and personal papers when she heard it.
"Boom! Boom!" Miller said. "Hooch came in and had blood all over him."
Miller, husband William and 20-year-old daughter Shannon were taken to a local warehouse dubbed Camp Katrina, where they received tetanus shots and other medical treatment from Mid Georgia Ambulance Co. of Macon, Ga., a private company that volunteered to help.
Shannon sat on her red Marlboro duffel bag, clutching her Chihuahua, Sassy, who was small enough to save. Crying, she recalled what had happened less than an hour before. She didn't see the shot. She just knew it was to Angel's head.
I emailed Greta tonight about this, but I don't think she got to this. Maybe she mentioned something about animals, I think there was a little something, but I was too busy on this thread to pay much attention to the tv.
Yeah, just as I was reading your posts, the NO police chief totally declined to comment on that. Unbelievable.
It is unbelievable.
I'm on septic. I live within the city limits in So Cal. Many folks up here are still on septic system.
You've been talking like the flood waters are an open sewer. Can you explain how the sewage enters the waters?No brainer; the sewage treatment facilities in NOLA are inop; do you recall seeing video where the water is 'boiling' for no appreant reason (and NO, not the nat. gas fires).
Found while rummaging around on the internet, from an article appearing in '36:
Typhoid Fever
Typhoid fever is known as an infectious,
febrile disease, caused by a baccillus introduced
into the system with the food or drinking water,
and characterized by catarrh of the intestines,
enlargement and necrosis of the peyerian
glands, enlargement of the spleen, and mesenteric
glands, peculiar eruptions appearing
on the seventh, eighth, and ninth days consisting
of small slightly elevated rose-colored
spots, and often diarrhea.
Reduction in Typhoid
Some thirty years ago there were about 450,000 cases
of typhoid fever each year, and an annual death toll
of 45,000 from this disease.
By 1925 the number of cases of typhoid had dropped to
150,000 and the deaths to 15,000. This 300 per cent
decrease is due chiefly to:
(1) Safe water supplies.
(2) Quick and safe removal of fecal matter
through the medium of a water closet bowl.
(3) Adequate sewerage systems.
(4) Elimination of the privy vault, the principal
breeding place of the common house fly - carrier
of disease germs from the privy to human food.
Elimination of sources of pollution of private
water supplies.
The water closet bowl can hardly be denied its proper
place of importance in the reduction of typhoid fever
in the United States. The practice of swatting flies
and screening houses against the fly is often given
full credit for the reduction of typhoid fever, but
to eliminate a disease it is necessary to remove the
cause.
Making filth inaccessible to the fly removes his power
to do harm as a carrier. In sects and vermin are
carriers. What the fly is to typhoid, the louse is to
typhus and the mosquito to malaria fever. When vermin
cannot become infected, they cannot transport disease
from filth to man, or man to man. Remove the cause and
prevent the disease. Typhoid is a filth disease, and
the quick and safe removal of fecal matter is an act
of prevention.
Oh come on! You mean baby doc nagin and generalissimo compass don't dish out due process of law?
"without just compensation."
They're being allowed to get out of town alive. They made baby doc nagin unhappy, he's being generous. Baby doc nagin loves his flock.
Sorry, I just find it ridiculous people would take what that incompetent petty tyrant seriously and argue in support of his trashy schemes.
We're seeing people forced off their properties, their legal guns taken away, their pets shot in front of them. What world did we just step into?
Baby doc nagin...I love that.
Given your spelling I would say you are the idiot
"We're seeing people forced off their properties, their legal guns taken away, their pets shot in front of them. What world did we just step into?"
The Future
ROTFLOL!!!!!!!! I love that.
Some people cannot admit they are wrong. This is wrong in every way.
Actually, we had a septic tank when I lived in Metarie.
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