T-P EVACUATINGTuesday, 9:40 a.m.
The Times-Picayune is evacuating it's New Orleans building.
Water continues to rise around our building, as it is throughout the region. We want to evaucate our employees and families while we are still able to safely leave our building.
Our plan is to head across the Mississippi River on the Pontchartrain Expressway to the west bank of New Orleans and Jefferson Parish. From there, we'll try to head to Houma.
Our plan, obviously, is to resume providing news to our readers ASAP. Please refer back to this site for continuing information as soon as we are able to provide it.
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Special needs residents to be transferred to Baton Rouge8:40 a.m.
August 30
By Jan Moller
Baton Rouge Bureau
About 500 "special needs" residents being sheltered at the Superdome will be transferred Tuesday to the Louisiana State University Field House, a spokesman for the state Office of Emergency Preparedness said.
"Those people are going to be evacuated today by whatever means necessary," said OEP spokesman Mark Smith. Once in Baton Rouge, they will be assessed by state medical teams.
Meanwhile, about 350 search-and-rescue boats set off at daybreak across flooded areas of Southeast Louisiana to look for people stranded in their homes on rooftops or in attics. Dwight Landreneau, secretary of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said at 8:15 a.m. that 700 people had been brought to safety.
"We are picking up as many people as the boats can hold, and we have others hanging on the sides," Landreneau said.
Of the flotilla, 35 of the boats came from Texas, and another 60 are on the way.
More than 30 of the boats are being sent to hard-hit St. Tammany Parish, where state officials are still having trouble establishing communication links.
"St. Tammany Parish is a black hole to us right now," Smith said
Seeking answers to rising watersTuesday, 8:05 a.m.
The Broussard recovery planJefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard began laying out a recovery plan this morning for "the horrific tragedy" that Hurricane Katrina visited upon his jurisdiction. It starts, he told WWL-AM radio, with "Operation Lockdown" using Louisiana State Police and military police to seal off Jefferson's borders until a target of Monday at 6 a.m. to reopen them. "I will be looking to secure and lockdown this parish," he said. "It is like a ghost town out there. That is the way we want it. If I can keep it a ghost town for the next five days, the looters will stand out and shine like a bright light." Next, he said, is "Operation Snowplow," using National Guard bulldozers, cranes, trucks and other heavy equipment to clear the major east-west thoroughfares on both side of the Mississippi River. Concurrently, he will seek state help removing trees, traffic signals, signs and debris from north-south roads. "We have to establish at least a functional grid," Broussard said. Neighborhoods must wait. "The residential streets are off my map right now," said Broussard, who gamely toured the parish Monday evening. "I almost didn't get back, and I have Expedition with a blue light on top. We could hardly find a route to get us back that wasn't flooded." Broussard said he will seek a crackdown on looting, calling in more military police to work with sheriff's deputies and local police. Looters arrested in Jefferson Parish might have to be taken to jails elsewhere to ensure they are houses in sanitary and humane surroundings, he said. Also important is raising water pressure, now so low in Broussard's view that toilets can't be flushed and firefighters can't douse flames. "There was a business on the West Bank that burned to the ground yesterday," Broussard said. Water pressure has plunged because Katrina uprooted old trees through Jefferson Parish, and in the process their roots ripped open buried water lines, Broussard said. He said sewerage infrastructure seems to be in good shape but that wasterwater can't get to treatment plants because of lower water pressure in homes. Other aspects of the recovery plan are: -- Establishing traffic control once streets are clear, for many signals and signs have vanished. -- Using parish government's website (www.jeffparish.net) to give evacuees information about their neighborhoods. -- Bring all drainage pumping stations back online. Broussard said crews are working west to east on East Jefferson pumping stations -- from Kenner to New Orleans -- and in the opposition direction in West Jefferson.
Only way out of New Orleans is WestThe only way people can leave the city of New Orleans is to get on Crescent City Connection, head to the West Bank and take Highway 90 to Interstate 310 or I-10 on to Lafayette, authorities said this morning. Interstate-10 eastbound, toward Slidell and the Gulf Coast, can't be traveled. Several sections of the Twin Spans have washed away and other sections of the bridge are structurally unsound. The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway has been opened to police, fire and other emergency vehicles after an initial inspection concluded the 24-mile long bridge was sound, WWL Radio reported this morning. No other vehicles will be allowed on the bridge; and access to St. Tammany Parish remains restricted. The condition of U.S. Highway 11 across the Lake is not known.
The overview: 'Look, look man: It’s gone'By Bruce Nolan Staff writer Hurricane Katrina struck metropolitan New Orleans on Monday with a staggering blow, far surpassing Hurricane Betsy, the landmark disaster of an earlier generation. The storm flooded huge swaths of the city, as well as Slidell on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, in a process that appeared to be spreading even as night fell. A powerful storm surge pushed huge waves ahead of the hurricane, flooding much of St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward, just as Betsy 40 years ago. But this time the flooding was more extensive, spreading upriver as well to cover parts of the Bywater, Marigny and Treme neighborhoods. As with Betsy, people scrambled into their attics or atop their roofs, pleading for help from the few passers-by. The powerful Category 4 storm crossed the coast near the mouth of the Pearl River shortly after daybreak with winds of 135 mph. Naval Air Station-Joint Reserve Base in Belle Chasse reported an early morning gust of 105 mph. With the power out throughout the area and fierce winds raging throughout the day, officials barely began Monday to assess the full damage of the monstrous storm, which was expected to leave thousands homeless and many more coping with damage from the wind and water. Meantime, five miles to the west, engineers worked to close a breach along the New Orleans side of the 17th Street Canal. Huge drainage pumps ordinarily can drive millions of gallons of rainwater uphill through the canal, as it takes water from the low-lying city into Lake Pontchartrain. But the breach turned the canal into a major threat. Lake water flowed back through the breach, hemorrhaging into Lakeview and beyond. Across Lake Pontchartrain and closer to the site of Katrina’s landfall, thousands of homes in Slidell flooded. From the Interstate 10 overpass at Slidell’s Old Spanish Trail, the only visible structure from the dense commercial intersection was a boat bobbing on the waves. “This is Lake Pontchartrain,” said St. Tammany deputy sheriff Kenny Kreeger. |