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Updates as they come in on Katrina

04:38 PM CDT on Thursday, September 1, 2005

Tom Planchet

4:36 P.M. - BATON ROUGE (AP): New Orleans Archbishop Alfred Hughes says he and thousands of other evacuees from New Orleans are being housed in Roman Catholic churches, schools and gymnasiums in Baton Rouge.

He told CNN that the Baton Rouge area's population of 350,000 is expected to double as refugees continue to arrive from New Orleans.

The archbishop says a special collection will be taken up at Catholic churches nationwide this Sunday for hurricane relief. Hughes notes that contributions also can be made to Catholic Charities or to the American Red Cross.

4:34 P.M. - (AP): Supplies ran dry at a small-but-growing number of gas stations across the United States on Thursday as Gulf Coast refiners and pipelines remained hobbled by Hurricane Katrina and motorists nervous about tightening supplies lined up to top off their tanks.

Most of the stations with "Out of Gas" signs and yellow caution tape draped across their pumps were concentrated along the East Coast and in Midwest states. Station owners said many of the shortages were temporary, exacerbated by panic buying and delayed deliveries.

A few stations turned off their pumps because wholesale prices were rising so fast that they were selling fuel at a loss -- even as prices spiked overnight to levels well above $3 a gallon.

Governors in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania urged motorists to conserve fuel and they warned retailers about alleged price gouging. President Bush also called for conservation and sought to calm motorists, saying that Hurricane Katrina would only cause a "temporary disruption" to the supply of gasoline.

Gas stations ran dry in many states, including Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia West Virginia and Wisconsin.

4:31 P.M. - BAGHDAD (AP): National Guard troops from Louisiana and other Gulf states will not be withdrawn from Iraq ahead of schedule, despite devastation from Hurricane Katrina.

Some units already are due to leave next month, ending a year in Iraq, but the process could take weeks to complete.

The U.S. Command says it has installed help lines for troops trying to contact family members. Still, pressure appears to be building for an early pullout allowing troops to return to their home states battered by Katrina.

More than 18,000 National Guard troops in the United States have been dedicated to Katrina relief and security. This could be the largest military response to a natural disaster.

4:22 P.M. - BATON ROUGE (AP): The Times-Picayune of New Orleans will resume printing a newspaper -- days after Hurricane Katrina forced it to abandon a printed edition. The newspaper has been available online. Officials hope to print 50-thousand copies, using the facility of The Houma Courier, a newspaper 60 miles southwest of New Orleans.

4:19 P.M. - BATON ROUGE (AP): The Rev. Jesse Jackson was expected to arrive in Louisiana on Thursday to visit with evacuees forced into shelters by Hurricane Katrina and then to see the devastation the storm has wrought on New Orleans.

State Sen. Cleo Fields, who invited Jackson to the area, said Jackson intended to stay in the storm-affected areas "as long as it takes to restore hope to the people who have lost everything in the wake of Hurricane Katrina," according to a news release from the Louisiana Senate.

Jackson was expected to receive a briefing from emergency preparedness officials before traveling to the Baton Rouge shelters and to New Orleans.

4:15 P.M. - (AP): Police say storm victims are being raped and beaten inside the New Orleans Convention Center.

About 15,200 people who had taken shelter at the convention center to await buses grew increasingly hostile.

Police Chief Eddie Compass says he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly beaten back by an angry mob.

Compass says, "We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten."

He says tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon.

In hopes of defusing the unrest at the convention center, Mayor Ray Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they can find. But the bedlam appeared to make leaving difficult.

4:11 P.M. - HOUSTON (AP): More patients from hurricane ravaged hospitals in New Orleans and other medical facilities along the Gulf Coast arrived today in Texas.

Many of the patients are being transported to Houston by planes landing at Ellington Field.

Doctors and nurses at the airport are offering the evacuees preliminary care before sending them to Houston-area hospitals. Some hospitals in the Dallas-Fort Worth areas also have been receiving patients from Louisiana.

4:07 p.m. - WASHINGTON (AP): It makes no sense to spend billions of dollars to rebuild a city that's seven feet under sea level, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said of federal assistance for hurricane-devastated New Orleans.

500 eggs, 60 men in blueThursday, 4:25 p.m. By Eva Jacob Barkoff Staff writer NEW IBERIA -- Around 5 a.m. today, Mary Tripeaux received a call that members of a search-and rescue-team from Phoenix, Ariz., were on their way for breakfast at Victor's Cafeteria on Main Street. Soon the crew arrived and filled themselves with coffee, grits, biscuits, bacon, potatoes and sausage -- and more than 500 eggs. "There are 180 eggs in one case and we went through at least three cases," Tripeaux said. "And by around 9 a.m., we had run out of sausage. They had eaten it all." After breakfast, about 60 men in blue uniforms from Phoenix's Urban Search and Rescue Team held a meeting under a gazebo across from Victor's to go over final details of their mission. They wouldn't discuss details with a reporter. The men had arrived in several trucks and two 18-wheelers filled with equipment. Also along were three Labrador retrievers. "We have a lot of equipment here to try and do what we can to help," one of the men said. Before leaving for New Orleans, he reflected on breakfast at Victor's and concluded: "That was the best meal we have had in 48 hours." Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Volunteer dutyBy Deanna McLendon Staff writer Nineteen-year-old Jacqueline Lively wants to go to medical school. While volunteering the past several nights at medical evacuation center established at LSU’s Pete Maravich Assembly Center, her desire was tested as she changed bedpans, emptied catheters and encountered both the awful and the poignant. Lively spent most of Tuesday night trying to locate 36-week premature infant Symphony Sotomayor Colon, who was airlifted out of Methodist Hospital in New Orleans earlier in the day. The mother had no idea where the baby was, Lively said. She’d stayed behind in New Orleans because she had other children but eventually was evacuated to Baton Rouge with her young son. The woman had no ailments but was allowed in the evacuation center, Lively said, because “they didn’t want the little boy sleeping outside.” Lively called the Red Cross and all the hospitals in Baton Rouge fruitlessly searching for Symphony. “I never found the baby. I don’t know if they ever found the baby – I have no idea.” Lively said the PMAC was filled with elderly people, many of whom “still had their feet wet from trying to get out. They were all really dehydrated.” Though many elderly were evacuated from nursing homes, others left residences behind. “They ask about their houses,” Lively said. “They haven’t seen any TV or news stories. I don’t want to tell them that their home is probably gone.” But despite all the pain and worry Lively encountered, her time as a volunteer also produced lighter moments. “There was one – all she has is her wig. I put lipstick on another lady. Another man tried to dance with me. … He sang me a song he wrote.” Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Mississippi windstorm office opensThursday, 3:57 p.m. The Mississippi Windstorm Underwriting Association has just opened. The office can be reached at 800-931-9548. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	City not safe for anyoneThursday, 3:45 p.m. Across the city Thursday, the haunting fear of flooding was replaced by a raw fear for life and public safety. Navigating the St. Thomas area of the Lower Garden District in an SUV, Times-Picayune reporter Gordon Russell, accompanied by a photographer from The New York Times, described a landscape of lawlessness where he feared for his life and felt his safety was threatened at nearly every turn. At the Superdome and Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Russell said throngs of hungry and desperate people displaced by the flood overwhelmed the few law enforcement or miliatary personnel present. "There was no crowd control," Russell said. "People were swarming. It was a near riot situation. The authorities have got to get some military down here to get control of the situation." Russell witnessed a shootout between police and citizens near the Convention Center that left one man dead in a pool of blood. Police, perhaps caught off guard by their sudden arrival on the scene, slammed Russell and the photographer against a wall and threw their gear on the ground as they exited their SUV to record the event. The journalists retreated to Russell's home Uptown where they hid in fear. They planned to flee the city later today. Almost everywhere Russell went Uptown, one of the few relatively dry areas in Orleans Parish, he said he felt the threat of violence. "There is a totally different feeling here than there was yesterday (Wednesday)," said Russell, who has reported on the aftermatch of Hurricane Katrina since the storm devastated the city on Monday. "I'm scared. I'm not afraid to admit it. I'm getting out of here." Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	SisterhoodI am a 30-year-old sorority girl. Homeless courtesy of Katrina and evacuated from the Times-Picayune office with one cubic foot of belongings, I’m the newest – and other than the house mom, oldest – resident of the Delta Zeta sorority house at LSU. For the next month, I’ll be living in a room surrounded by photos of pledge classes and formals, fraternity mixers and sisterhood retreats – just like I did a decade ago as a Delta Zeta at the University of South Carolina. Eleven years after I pledged, I’m still witnessing – and unbelievably grateful for -- true sisterhood. Wonder if I’ll be invited to a fraternity party? -- Deanna McLendon, copy editor Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Refugee restaurateursBy Brett Anderson Restaurant critic On Sunday, Ralph Brennan was headed with his wife, two children and 91-year-old mother-in-law to Florida, where his sister Cindy Brennan, owner of Mr. B's Bistro in the French Quarter, had evacuated. Crossing the Twin Spans they discovered I-10 east had been closed. Plan B -- to head to Ralph's brother's farm in Tuscaloosa, Ala. -- didn't pan out either. At 12:30 Monday morning, 12 hours after leaving New Orleans, Brennan and his family landed at the home Bill and Besty Latham, fellow restaurateurs in Jackson, Miss. They didn't stay long. The heat in Jackson, which lost power soon after Brennan arrived, was too much for his elderly mother-in-law. That's how Brennan, the owner of the New Orleans restaurants Bacco, Redfish Grill and Ralphs on the Park, found himself in Oxford, Miss., which since Monday has seen its population swell with evacuees, many of them from New Orleans' professional class. Duke Eversmeyer, a Metairie internist, escaped to his Oxford condominium. He's looking around for work, thinking about making it a permanent home. Billy Sothern, a New Orleans lawyer, is searching for an apartment, preferably a two bedroom, so his wife Nikki Page, an artist, can set up a studio. Last night he was at the bar above City Grocery, a restaurant owned by New Orleans native John Currence. "Now that I'm living here, I'm dedicating myself to drinking them out of Abita Amber" he said as he ordered another bottle of the Louisiana-brewed beer. Under normal circumstances, the tree-lined town of 12,000 residents is well equipped to handle visitors. Its restaurants, among the best in the deep south, are an attraction, as is Ole Miss. William Faulkner called Oxford home, and the town boasts a fertile literary community. Richard Howorth, Oxford's mayor, is also the owner of Square Books, the town's well-regarded book seller. Howorth figures that Oxford has absorbed 2,000 to 3,000 evacuees from New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The first ones were mostly friends and family members of Oxford residents. Yesterday saw the arrival of what he called "bonafied refugees" like Brennan, and he expects their number to swell in the next couple of days. He met today with officials from the Red Cross and other relief agencies "to try to get our heads around what our capacity is, what we can reasonably deal with, and what our possibilities are for receiving these people, because they're not just visiting." Howorth said that the University of Mississippi was extending its enrollment a week to accommodate displaced students from Tulane and LSU. Armed with his laptop and cell phone, Brennan was trying to assess the damage to his restaurants and figure out a way to take care of his roughly 400 employees. He said staffers can check in with his restaurants' Web sites to report their whereabouts and retrieve other information. "Unfortunately, I'm thinking maybe only half (of the employees) have Internet capability. We have paychecks for them. Today is payday, and our comptroller is in Houston." Brennan's restaurants are far from his only worry. His mother-in-law is ailing, and he needs to find schools for his 16-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son. He'd heard about every other member of the Brennan restaurant family save for his cousin Dickie Brennan, who's set up a temporary office in Baton Rouge. Dickie Brennan hopes to marshal the resources of his New Orleans restaurants -- Palace Cafe, Bourbon House, Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse -- to help in the relief effort, much as restaurants in Manhattan became defacto soup kitchens in the wake of 9-11. Ralph Brennan hasn't gotten that far yet. He's having trouble keeping track of what day it is. "I live on my calendar," he said, holding up his PDA. "And now there's no calendar."

500 eggs, 60 men in blueThursday, 4:25 p.m. By Eva Jacob Barkoff Staff writer NEW IBERIA -- Around 5 a.m. today, Mary Tripeaux received a call that members of a search-and rescue-team from Phoenix, Ariz., were on their way for breakfast at Victor's Cafeteria on Main Street. Soon the crew arrived and filled themselves with coffee, grits, biscuits, bacon, potatoes and sausage -- and more than 500 eggs. "There are 180 eggs in one case and we went through at least three cases," Tripeaux said. "And by around 9 a.m., we had run out of sausage. They had eaten it all." After breakfast, about 60 men in blue uniforms from Phoenix's Urban Search and Rescue Team held a meeting under a gazebo across from Victor's to go over final details of their mission. They wouldn't discuss details with a reporter. The men had arrived in several trucks and two 18-wheelers filled with equipment. Also along were three Labrador retrievers. "We have a lot of equipment here to try and do what we can to help," one of the men said. Before leaving for New Orleans, he reflected on breakfast at Victor's and concluded: "That was the best meal we have had in 48 hours." Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Volunteer dutyBy Deanna McLendon Staff writer Nineteen-year-old Jacqueline Lively wants to go to medical school. While volunteering the past several nights at medical evacuation center established at LSU’s Pete Maravich Assembly Center, her desire was tested as she changed bedpans, emptied catheters and encountered both the awful and the poignant. Lively spent most of Tuesday night trying to locate 36-week premature infant Symphony Sotomayor Colon, who was airlifted out of Methodist Hospital in New Orleans earlier in the day. The mother had no idea where the baby was, Lively said. She’d stayed behind in New Orleans because she had other children but eventually was evacuated to Baton Rouge with her young son. The woman had no ailments but was allowed in the evacuation center, Lively said, because “they didn’t want the little boy sleeping outside.” Lively called the Red Cross and all the hospitals in Baton Rouge fruitlessly searching for Symphony. “I never found the baby. I don’t know if they ever found the baby – I have no idea.” Lively said the PMAC was filled with elderly people, many of whom “still had their feet wet from trying to get out. They were all really dehydrated.” Though many elderly were evacuated from nursing homes, others left residences behind. “They ask about their houses,” Lively said. “They haven’t seen any TV or news stories. I don’t want to tell them that their home is probably gone.” But despite all the pain and worry Lively encountered, her time as a volunteer also produced lighter moments. “There was one – all she has is her wig. I put lipstick on another lady. Another man tried to dance with me. … He sang me a song he wrote.” Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Mississippi windstorm office opensThursday, 3:57 p.m. The Mississippi Windstorm Underwriting Association has just opened. The office can be reached at 800-931-9548. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	City not safe for anyoneThursday, 3:45 p.m. Across the city Thursday, the haunting fear of flooding was replaced by a raw fear for life and public safety. Navigating the St. Thomas area of the Lower Garden District in an SUV, Times-Picayune reporter Gordon Russell, accompanied by a photographer from The New York Times, described a landscape of lawlessness where he feared for his life and felt his safety was threatened at nearly every turn. At the Superdome and Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Russell said throngs of hungry and desperate people displaced by the flood overwhelmed the few law enforcement or miliatary personnel present. "There was no crowd control," Russell said. "People were swarming. It was a near riot situation. The authorities have got to get some military down here to get control of the situation." Russell witnessed a shootout between police and citizens near the Convention Center that left one man dead in a pool of blood. Police, perhaps caught off guard by their sudden arrival on the scene, slammed Russell and the photographer against a wall and threw their gear on the ground as they exited their SUV to record the event. The journalists retreated to Russell's home Uptown where they hid in fear. They planned to flee the city later today. Almost everywhere Russell went Uptown, one of the few relatively dry areas in Orleans Parish, he said he felt the threat of violence. "There is a totally different feeling here than there was yesterday (Wednesday)," said Russell, who has reported on the aftermatch of Hurricane Katrina since the storm devastated the city on Monday. "I'm scared. I'm not afraid to admit it. I'm getting out of here." Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	SisterhoodI am a 30-year-old sorority girl. Homeless courtesy of Katrina and evacuated from the Times-Picayune office with one cubic foot of belongings, I’m the newest – and other than the house mom, oldest – resident of the Delta Zeta sorority house at LSU. For the next month, I’ll be living in a room surrounded by photos of pledge classes and formals, fraternity mixers and sisterhood retreats – just like I did a decade ago as a Delta Zeta at the University of South Carolina. Eleven years after I pledged, I’m still witnessing – and unbelievably grateful for -- true sisterhood. Wonder if I’ll be invited to a fraternity party? -- Deanna McLendon, copy editor Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Refugee restaurateursBy Brett Anderson Restaurant critic On Sunday, Ralph Brennan was headed with his wife, two children and 91-year-old mother-in-law to Florida, where his sister Cindy Brennan, owner of Mr. B's Bistro in the French Quarter, had evacuated. Crossing the Twin Spans they discovered I-10 east had been closed. Plan B -- to head to Ralph's brother's farm in Tuscaloosa, Ala. -- didn't pan out either. At 12:30 Monday morning, 12 hours after leaving New Orleans, Brennan and his family landed at the home Bill and Besty Latham, fellow restaurateurs in Jackson, Miss. They didn't stay long. The heat in Jackson, which lost power soon after Brennan arrived, was too much for his elderly mother-in-law. That's how Brennan, the owner of the New Orleans restaurants Bacco, Redfish Grill and Ralphs on the Park, found himself in Oxford, Miss., which since Monday has seen its population swell with evacuees, many of them from New Orleans' professional class. Duke Eversmeyer, a Metairie internist, escaped to his Oxford condominium. He's looking around for work, thinking about making it a permanent home. Billy Sothern, a New Orleans lawyer, is searching for an apartment, preferably a two bedroom, so his wife Nikki Page, an artist, can set up a studio. Last night he was at the bar above City Grocery, a restaurant owned by New Orleans native John Currence. "Now that I'm living here, I'm dedicating myself to drinking them out of Abita Amber" he said as he ordered another bottle of the Louisiana-brewed beer. Under normal circumstances, the tree-lined town of 12,000 residents is well equipped to handle visitors. Its restaurants, among the best in the deep south, are an attraction, as is Ole Miss. William Faulkner called Oxford home, and the town boasts a fertile literary community. Richard Howorth, Oxford's mayor, is also the owner of Square Books, the town's well-regarded book seller. Howorth figures that Oxford has absorbed 2,000 to 3,000 evacuees from New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The first ones were mostly friends and family members of Oxford residents. Yesterday saw the arrival of what he called "bonafied refugees" like Brennan, and he expects their number to swell in the next couple of days. He met today with officials from the Red Cross and other relief agencies "to try to get our heads around what our capacity is, what we can reasonably deal with, and what our possibilities are for receiving these people, because they're not just visiting." Howorth said that the University of Mississippi was extending its enrollment a week to accommodate displaced students from Tulane and LSU. Armed with his laptop and cell phone, Brennan was trying to assess the damage to his restaurants and figure out a way to take care of his roughly 400 employees. He said staffers can check in with his restaurants' Web sites to report their whereabouts and retrieve other information. "Unfortunately, I'm thinking maybe only half (of the employees) have Internet capability. We have paychecks for them. Today is payday, and our comptroller is in Houston." Brennan's restaurants are far from his only worry. His mother-in-law is ailing, and he needs to find schools for his 16-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son. He'd heard about every other member of the Brennan restaurant family save for his cousin Dickie Brennan, who's set up a temporary office in Baton Rouge. Dickie Brennan hopes to marshal the resources of his New Orleans restaurants -- Palace Cafe, Bourbon House, Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse -- to help in the relief effort, much as restaurants in Manhattan became defacto soup kitchens in the wake of 9-11. Ralph Brennan hasn't gotten that far yet. He's having trouble keeping track of what day it is. "I live on my calendar," he said, holding up his PDA. "And now there's no calendar."