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.
___
Yeah, right. NOW they are making people leave instead of making it mandatory BEFORE the hurricane hit.
That cop is lucky he did not cause her to break her hip by being so rough with her. If she were my mother, I would sue the pants off of the NO Police Dept.
They would have to shoot me first before they could shoot my dogs or cats!
This whole situation is a complete fiasco to say the least. Evacuation should have been mandatory 5 days before the hurricane hit. If people had no transportation, then that should have been supplied. Their pets should have been taken along as well. The SPCA would have set up shelters for pets if folks did not have anywhere to go with them.
As far as shooting anyone, those nursing home employees who left those elderly people in their beds to die should be the first ones shot!!!!
A faithful dog who stays by your side during such a nightmare should be given an award, not shot!!!
That is my opinion and I am sticking to it. As an R.N., I would never have abandoned my patients to die.
As a pet owner, I would never allow my pets to be in such danger, just as I certainly would not allow my family members to remain in danger.
However, the mayor is bringing in the horse long after the cart is gone. He should be removed from office immediately!
So where are the mosquitos going to get all these dangerous diseases? Do they just spring up out of the blue if there is a flood? Or does there have to be disease in the area to start with? And yes, you are quite right that the mosquitos don't stay in one small area. So why is it that on Fox News a few minutes ago they said the French Quarter will be "up and running" in a couple of months? If there is such a danger, how can this be?
And, with the video we already have of the NOPD, I can just imagine they're relishing the chance to loot some very ritzy houses. Oriental carpets, fine art, grand furniture--all the kinds of stuff that aren't easily taken during an evacuation...
"I have to side with the folks who are more concerned about the Constitutional issues than the threat of disease or the trouble that citizens staying behind might cause the government."
==============================
NOLA has the highest murder rate in the country and those people who remained safe throughout the height of the looting did so because of their Constitutional Right to bear arms.
Would George Washington have gotten away with confiscating arms by door-to-door searches from those he suspected to be loyal to the Crown?
Much more is at play here than just trying to 'protect' citizens from disease, IMHO.
It's obvious their property rights were lost when their weapons were taken away.
H2
You don't get AIDS or HepC from a mosquito bite. This much is known about transmission of those two diseases. If people aren't walking through the water or drinking it, they shouldn't get either one of those. Next question, please.
"That cop is lucky he did not cause her to break her hip by being so rough with her. If she were my mother, I would sue the pants off of the NO Police Dept."=====================================
I believe that particular cop was out of California.
Oh, man. This just breaks my heart. This is not the country I love. These are not the authorities I respect. This is something else. You know, we came SOOOO close to moving to New Orleans when dear hubby retired--so very grateful that we didn't. I thank God daily in prayer that we didn't. However, we should all take note: if they can do this in New Orleans (and remember Waco and Ruby Ridge), they can do it anywhere.
Good point.
Exactly the right question to ask. Worse, they just reported (on Fox News) that the French Quarter would be "up and running" in just a couple of months. IF disease is such a problem, how could everything be alright in the Quarter so soon?
I have relatives who have a house in Metairie. They evacuated ahead of the storm, but when they let them in to get some valuables, they told them to get as much as they could, because they'd never see their house again! The house is fine, there is no flooding now, but they made it plain that they wouldn't be coming back.
Since you ask, that makes me wonder...
Are you a full-salaried constitution vandalizer, or is this strictly a volunteer position?
This is what we've been trying to tell you! Some areas are terribly, horribly flooded and should be evacuated. But other areas escaped without much damage, water OR wind. The city has turned on water and power, fer cryin' out loud. They are, indeed, forcibly evacuating these as well as the heavily damaged areas.
The evacuation is right and proper and so is the use of force to stop the looting and crime.
I do not object to the Principal reason of the searches - it is the way they are being conducted on law abiding citizens that is the travesty here.
I also believe that if citizens can produce proper documentation they are the legal residents of said properties, they should by all means be allowed to remain in their domiciles if not in immediate danger.
The LE are only trying to do their jobs. The people are only trying to protect their properties. Both are noble and proper endeavors.
We just had a terrible decision by the USSC that ruled private property rights are secondary to corporate rights.
That was a terrible precedent and the country is in turmoil and confusion. Awful things come out of national crisis such as this one. When you have multiple national crisis going on at the same time as we do (war on terror, border crisis, energy crisis, economic uncertainty) any and all of those emergencies can spark severe national unrest.
If the government does not get a handle on how these evictions are conducted - they will have a lot more to occupy their time than killing misquotes in murky backwaters of New Orleans.
Unless you have been down to the disaster area, it is very difficult to realize the scope of destruction and suffering.
There will be hard feelings over this for decades, but the government needs to clarify their position crystal clear on this to maintain the trust of Americans.
I would guess the "shelters" would be more of a disease danger than the people living in perfectly ok houses, on dry land, and drinking bottled water. At least they don't have to share showers and sleep a foot away from someone who might actually be ill with something contageous.
Of course the police are implementing it. There is a lot to be looted from some of those affluent neighborhoods. (And we know they'll do it--they have video of them doing it.)
This is what an RN in our family is saying, too. It has more weight, though, coming from Wecht.
How can the city concentrate all of it's efforts on cleaning up the city if they have 5,000-10,000 people to babysit?
Declare the whole area a toxic waste dump.
Too bad you didn't read the rest of the thread. No one is delivering anything. Some have enough food and bottled water to last for months. Some don't need those supplies, because they can drive out--to places where there are things like grocery stores and drug stores.
Who says anything about babysitting? These people just want to be left alone.
I should also add, I am ONLY speaking about areas that were mostly undamaged by the storm, and are NOT under water, or even have standing water in the area. Not every place is like the footage they keep showing on the news of water up to the rooftops. Some places received very little water damage, and less wind damage. These places don't need to be evacuated.
As for those who must wade in the water--I do hope they get out. That is where the danger lies--that, and, apparently, the orders from Baby Doc Nagin.
I'm sure those resuers who have been out there at least 20 times trying to convince those people to leave will be greatly relieved, too.
Talk about "spinning their wheels" so to speak.
They could have been collecting bodies on the streets instead of wasting time on the hold-outs.
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