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.
___
The NOPD cannot WAIT to get free run of the mansions in the garden district.This is just plain sick.
I'm entertaining punching 'abuse' on the post expressing this thought ...
I suppose in your mind, Dr. Michael Baden never cracked a medical book? Guffaw. Your arrogance is just short of astounding.
A summary of vector borne diseases in urban areas put together by a paper V.P. Sharma at the Malaria Research Center in New Delhi.
1. Dengue: Aedes aegypti the primary vector of dengue fevers has a global distribution and it invades urban aeras. Aedes albopictus the second dengue vectors has already invaded Europe and the United States of America. Dengue fever causes 50-100 million cases and 500,000 cases of DHF annually in the world. Epidemics in Cuba (1997) and Ribeirao Preto, Brazil (1990), and enhanced vulnerability in Taiwan have been cited.
2. Urban malaria. In India An. stephensi and in Amazonian basin towns An. darlingi are the vectors of malaria. The former species breeds in a variety of containers in urban areas whereas the later species is riverine, and has adapted itself to the urban environment.
3. Filariasis affects 120 million people in 73 countries of the world. A study in the town of Olinda in north eastern Brazil brought out that microfilaria rate varied from 0.6 to 14.9% (average 6.5%). Bancroftian filariasis is spreading in northeastern towns in Brazil.
4. Yellow Fever is spreading despite of a very effective vaccine. In South America cases have occurred in Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and French Guinea. In Africa cases have been reported from Cote d?lvoire (1982), Burkina Faso (1983), Nigeria (1986,87) and Mali (1987). Aedes fucifer is the major vector in savanna region. Aedes africanus is emerging as a vector in forests.
5. Plague is associated with rats and fleas that inhabit human dwellings. In recent years human plague has surfaced in Africa where 65% of the 3,000 cases occur. Plague has re-appeared in Madagascar with more than 200 cases reported each year. In the port city of Mahajanga plague has been re-introduced and in Antananrivo the capital city, cases have been increasing. Plague epidemic in 1994 caused havoc in India and 500,000 people had to flee from Surat.
6. Ticks transmit lyme disease. It is mainly the disease of temperate regions and restricted to woodland and grasslands in European cities.
7. Urban leishmaniasis caused by L. tropica is a cutaneous disease transmitted by P. sergenti in the Middle East. In the city of Kerman, Southeast Iran cases increased in 7 years to an over all prevalence rate of 0.8% and scar rate 4.4% in 1977. The authors concluded that health institutions must maintain surveillance, primary health care, and vaccination and vector control. Tools exist for the control of vector borne diseases. Health policy makers should emphasize preventive measures rather control of epidemics. There is a need for a greater understanding of the environment and climate factors
Since the NOPD has been videotaped in the act of LOOTING, I see nothing "abusive" about someone suggesting they might loot the Garden District mansions.
Like I said, you can't come back now and shout 'trump'.
Whatever. I have no idea what you're talking about.
And PS--I'll still take Baden's word over yours.
You are rather prissy in your view. Sewerage plants not working? No food, no water, and the CDC got you down. Shit in a hole or in a bucket and piss on the ground. Now what was that you were saying about where does the "effluent go when you flush a toilet?"
You assume too much.
"SEWERAGE plants NOT operating, LIFT stations NOT operating; where does the effluent go if you flush a toilet?"
Nowhere. Even with storm water it just fills, then backs up.
"Post something FACTUAL spunk, or this is the last time I will ever address you."
I already did. Your failure to know septic and storm are completely separate regardless, means you are refuse to even recognize reality.
" Bzzzzzt! NOT if you've got 50,000 (OR EVEN 10,000) residents using storm water to 'flush' their toilets (as some have said they are dong).
KMA!
Since the NOPD has been videotaped in the act of ...Someone else who watches too much TEEVEE and thinks he/she can render a 100% ACCURATE evaluation of what was taking place in a CRISES atmosphere (EVER here the term COMMANDEER) -
JUST like Nancy 'Miz Amerika' Pelosi did when she declared all of FEMA's actions inadequate just a few days after events based on skewed and highly subjective news reporting.
Why are you heading in a different direction now - feel you lost the 'last' one?
No date for Saturday night?
(TWO can play *this* game!)
Yeah, we're all going to die. All you've got is empty exaggerated scare stories. You demean folks that have already proven themselves to be able to survive and deny they could continue at all. You speak as if the world was a death trap before your modern experts were born. You ignore so much history and fact it's pitiful. Just to back that bunch of jackboots down in NO.
Yeah, those NOPD "officers" were "commandeering" lots of electronics. Probably, like the rest of the looters, they were just frustrated about their difficult childhoods and had to do something to take the "edge" off.
I don't feel I "lost" one. It's just that I trust Dr. Michael Baden's opinion far more than I could ever trust yours.
Married and of ancient age, I don't date.
Disease Vectors
The spread of contagious diseases is not always as simple as someone coughing on another person.
There may be intermediate hosts and/or disease transmitting organisms. The latter are referred to as disease vectors.
Mosquitoes, fleas, lice, ticks, flies, and even some snails are common disease vectors. Plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Its normal host is wild rodents and other small mammals.
However, it can be spread to people by fleas that suck blood from those animals and transmit it to humans when they extract their blood.
Once an epidemic of the plague begins, fleas can easily spread the disease from one human host to another.
Flies are known to carry bacteria on their legs from feces to food. This is one of the ways in which bacterial dysentery is spread.
Close to half of the people in the world today have chronic diseases that are vector-borne. The tropical and subtropical regions are the most effected. In third world nations, vector-borne diseases cause high levels of physical disability and low life expectancies.
Do you ever go outside?
You keep citing 'an expert' - just one expert?
One 'expert' can be wrong, as can a 'group', so why not take a poll - or, horror of HORRORS, do your own 'thinking' and research. Some people, like yourself maybe(?), may not be able to do their own reliable 'research' -
- so I can see why you may need one 'expert' to quote and follow ...
You must show relevance. Simple posting of data is meaningless. You must be able to show that these people can never live for a few weeks, or a month more/whatever w/o dying. You must show cause and effect, not imply it. Everything you posted refers to things that exist w/o the flood being present. There's more water outside the flood area, than in it.
I see. You think I should take your word for it. Well, get over it. You're just another internet flack who likes to think they know it all--and that everyone should be grateful to receive the bits of wisdom from whatever it is they think they know.
At least I know Dr. Michael Baden is a doctor. At least I know my brother in law is an RN (and he agrees with Baden). I don't know anything about you, except you're cranky and arrogant.
4x6s reinforce doors. Truth, hard and persistant, shall put the Bush hating media, DNC Politburo liars, and hack careers on the gallows reinforcing our Republic. We citizens footing this bill and witnessing Constitutional violations must raise Hell with our elected officials past their next campaign's election day.
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