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From Times-Picayune, nola.com:

Wednesday, August 31, 2005
	Powerless stillWednesday, 7:55 p.m. By Keith Darce Business writer The 6,000 power line workers currently assembled in southeastern Louisiana won’t be nearly enough to restore electricity to the 990,000 customers still without power in metropolitan New Orleans, the region’s suppliers said Wednesday. But getting more workers to the area might be impossible until late this week. That’s because many utility crews from neighboring states are still restoring power to southern Florida, which was hit surprisingly hard by Katrina when she crossed the state nearly a week ago, said Chanel Lagarde, spokesman for Entergy Corp., Louisiana’s power supplier. “There are severe limits on resources at this point,” he said. “We are told that the utilities in Florida are expected to wrap up later this week. Many of those (workers) will come directly here or to the east” in coastal Mississippi and Alabama. The atmosphere of near-anarchy in New Orleans is another major concern, said Arthur Wiese Jr., vice president of corporate communications for Entergy. “We can’t send workers out and put their lives in jeopardy,” he said late Wednesday afternoon from the one of the company’s storm command centers in Jackson, Miss. “Once we have facilities back operating, we have to know that our workers can get to work safely. “We are as alarmed as anyone over the chaos in the city. It is a very serious question,” Wiese said. Those problems further validated earlier predictions by Entergy managers that many people in the hardest-hit parts of the state could be without electricity for a month or more. Flooding and road blockage from debris remained the most immediate barriers to repair crews moving into the most damaged parts of the region. A main transmission line running 25 miles between Madisonville and Bogalusa suffered catastrophic damage, with at least 18 miles requiring repairs, said Mark Segura, vice president of transmission and distribution services for Pineville-based Cleco Corp. Transmission lines connect power plants to community substations and supply electricity to large numbers of customers. Despite the difficulties, by Wednesday night Entergy had restored power to 181,829 customers in Louisiana and Mississippi, mostly in areas not affected by flooding, Wiese said. “We are making good progress where we can get access,” he said. All of the region’s power and telephone companies were struggling to restore services in the wake of Katrina. Almost every Entergy and Cleco customer in metropolitan New Orleans remained without power Wednesday night, 48 hours since the storm ripped through the region. Communication was another problem, for utility workers as well as everyone else in southeastern Louisiana. Telephone services, both over wired and wireless networks, remained sporadic and, in some cases in Orleans, Jefferson and St. Bernard, completely dead. Almost 81,000 wired phone lines were silent in southeastern Louisiana, said BellSouth Corp., the state’s largest phone service provider. And more phone lines were expected to fail as backup generators ran out of fuel at communications terminals that initially survived the storm. BellSouth reported several “key” breaks in the company’s fiber optic line system, which serves as the backbone of its communications network. Work crews focused on repairing major cables, firming back-up power to switching centers and restoring phone service to emergency personnel, local officials and hospitals, the Atlanta-based company said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. “We are doing everything possible to assess the extensive damage this destructive storm has caused,” said Bill Oliver, president of BellSouth’s Louisiana operations. Call volumes created their own problems over parts of the network that were working. Many people trying to make calls to and from the region were met by busy signals or messages saying that circuits were busy. Wireless phone networks experienced similar troubles. Cingular Wireless lost at least 700 antennas, or cell sites, throughout the region, a company operator said. Verizon Wireless also lost portions of its network, but spokesman Patrick Kimball couldn’t say how many towers were down in the region. “Strangely enough, some cell sites are still operating on roof tops,” he said. Wireless services were improving in Baton Rouge, Mobile, Ala., and Pensacola, Fla., where crews had easier access to damaged facilities, Kimball said. But networks in much of metropolitan New Orleans remained unreachable, he said. “The situation could improve in certain cases and it could worsen in others. It’s such a fluid situation, it’s hard to tell,” he said. Most of the electricity and phone companies were running storm operations centers outside of the New Orleans metropolitan area. Managers with Entergy, the New Orleans-based power company that supplies electricity to 1.2 million customers in Louisiana, are mainly orchestrating their historically massive power grid restoration effort from command centers in Baton Rouge and Jackson, Miss. Almost all of the company’s employees who rode out the storm in the Hyatt Regency Hotel next to the Superdome in downtown New Orleans evacuated Tuesday when flood waters began rising dangerously high in the Central Business District and other conditions in the city deteriorated. The hotel, which also served as the command center for City Hall, suffered major damage during the storm. Dan Packer, chief executive officer of Entergy’s utility in New Orleans, remained at the hotel with Mayor Ray Nagin and a handful of city officials. Wednesdsay at 5 p.m.., 693,156 Entergy customers in southeastern Louisiana, or more than half of its customer base in the state, were in the dark. Another 21,636 were without power in central Mississippi. With 1.1 million Entergy customers losing electricity services at the peak of the storm, Lagarde said the outage more than quadrupled the severity of the previous high for the company: during Tropical Sorm Cincy in June. All 88,000 Cleco customers in the parishes of St. Tammany and Washington north of Lake Pontchartrain remained without power, Cleco spokeswoman Fran Phoenix said. (E-mail Keith Darcé at nolapaperboy@cox.net) Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	No shelters in St. John ParishWednesday, 7:40 p.m. St. John the Baptist Parish officials had initially talked about opening a shelter for evacuees, but Natalie Robottom, the parish's Chief Administrative Officer, said the parish has been unable to move forward with plans because it does not have the resources to supply and staff shelters. She said the parish is struggling to provide food and gas for its own workers and really can’t help travelers in need. “We do not have the personnel or supplies to open a shelter, or the manpower to man it,” Robottom said. “So far we haven’t gotten a commitment from (the state) to provide it.” Robottom said the parish has already received power for most of its utility plants and along Airline Highway. Initially, plants were operating using generators, but there have been problems supplying those facilities with fuel. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Federal public health emergency declaredThe following is a news release from Health and Human Services discussing response to hurricane. HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt Wednesday declared a federal public health emergency and accelerated efforts to create up to 40 emergency medical shelters to provide care for evacuees and victims of Hurricane Katrina. Working with its federal partners, HHS is helping provide and staff 250 beds in each shelter for a total of 10,000 beds for the region. Ten of these facilities will be staged within the next 72 hours and another 10 will be deployed within the next 100 hours after that. In addition, HHS is deploying up to 4,000 medically-qualified personnel to staff these facilities and to meet other health care needs in this region. Already, HHS has helped set up a medical shelter with up to 250 beds at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge to help provide health care for those fleeing New Orleans in Katrina's wake. As of late this morning, the facility had already screened 300 patients and admitting 45 for in-patient care. HHS and its Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also are providing the region with public health personnel and expertise to address the potential for disease outbreak in the aftermath of Katrina. "We're delivering medical supplies, facilities and professionals into the Gulf Region to provide health care to those evacuating from New Orleans as well as victims of the hurricane throughout the region," Secretary Leavitt said. "We're focused on the immediate health care needs of people in the region, augmenting state and local efforts. And we're also preparing for public health challenges that may emerge such as disease and contamination. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to all our fellow Americans who have been affected by this hurricane," Secretary Leavitt added. "Recovery will take time, and the road ahead will not be easy. But all of us at the Department of Health and Human Services - with our health partners - will do everything we can for as long as it takes to help protect the health and well-being of those impacted." An order was signed by the Secretary today to declare a public health emergency for the states of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. This action will allow the Department to waive certain Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and HIPAA requirements as well as make grants and enter into contracts more expeditiously during this emergency. Secretary Leavitt emphasized that HHS is making available all its public health and emergency response capabilities to help state and local officials provide care and assistance to victims of this hurricane. "We all need to come together and help our neighbors in this time of need. We are asking Americans to help spread the word to both neighbors and strangers about public health warnings or directives from emergency response officials so we can reach as many people as possible. Together, we will get through this and help the people of the Gulf region rebuild their lives and their communities," Secretary Leavitt added. HHS has delivered to Louisiana 27 pallets of medical supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile. These pallets include basic first-aid material (such as bandages, pads, ice packs, etc.), blankets and patient clothing, suture kits, sterile gloves, stethoscopes, blood pressure measuring kits and portable oxygen tanks. These supplies are primarily being used to set up the medical shelter at LSU in Baton Rouge. More medical supplies will be shipped into Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi as needed to meet any growing demands for health care equipment and supplies. HHS has identified available hospital beds and provided health care professional HHS is using the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) to identify available hospital beds. HHS is working with DOD, the Veterans Administration and others to move patients to these facilities. At last count, there were 2,600 beds available in a 12-state area around the affected area. Nationwide, the NDMS has identified 40,000 available beds in participating hospitals. Right now, 38 US Public Health Service officers are in the region providing health care and assistance, particularly at the Baton Rouge facility. HHS has hundreds of additional public health and medical officers ready for deployment in a moment's notice to further meet any growing needs of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Department is reaching out to neighboring states, such as Texas, that are providing refuge for those evacuating the Gulf Region to make sure their needs are being met through any resources HHS can provide. HHS has public health experts working with states in the Gulf Region to help assess threats to public health and develop pro-active responses to prevent the spread of disease and illness. The full resources and expertise of CDC and FDA are available to augment state and local public health resources - including chemical and toxicology teams, sanitation and public health teams, epidemiology teams and food safety teams. CDC experts are now working with Louisiana officials to implement a mosquito abatement program that will help prevent or mitigate an outbreak of West Nile Virus. Department agencies are helping states evaluate their sanitation and water systems. Epidemiology teams, known as disease detectives, are reaching out to state and local officials to augment efforts to monitor potential outbreaks of disease or illness. Public health messages (PSAs) warning about the safe consumption of food and water are being disseminated. HHS is issuing strong warnings to the public to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning from the use of generators. HHS is making mental health resources available to the region through its Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Blood supplies and inventory levels in the affected Gulf Coast states meeting current medical needs. The need for blood will be ongoing, especially over the next few weeks, as disaster victims require additional care, as deferred elective surgeries are rescheduled or if there should be any further emergencies. In order to maintain a healthy and adequate blood supply level, people who would like to help should call their blood banks to schedule an appointment. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Lolis Eric ElieBy Lolis Eric Elie Columnist JoNell Kennedy's grandmother is one of those old women who is still proudly and defiantly in command of her faculties. You aren't going to tell her what to do or what to think. There's something endearing about seeing such a spirit in someone whose body nonetheless has lost much of its strength and whose gait has lost much of its pep. Until Monday, I had hoped one day to be one of those people. I wanted to be like Clothilde Martha Crowley Nicholas. But so much has changed since then. Nichols lives in the flood-prone area near Dillard University. She refused to evacuate for Katrina, even after hearing of all the devastation that the hurricane was expected to bring about. I can hear her words in my imagination, though I wasn't there on the front porch to hear her actually say them. "I have seen more hurricanes than you will ever see. I'm not leaving my house. That's that. If you want to go, go!" “That is what I treasure about her and what angers me most," Kennedy wrote me in an e-mail. "By being the matriarch of our family, things have always gone her way, and this Sunday past it was no different. After being urged by my aunts, mother and neighbors, who were all packed and ready to move to higher ground, she refused." "JoNell, I'm not running from God. I'm going to sit right here and let King Jesus ride on," Nichols told her granddaughter. What do you do in a circumstance like that? Do you leave a person behind and save your own life? Do you walk to your car and drive off as much out of spite as out of an instinct for self-preservation? Do you pray for forgiveness, club them over the head, knock them out cold and kidnap them to safety? That was neither an issue nor an option for Kennedy. She lives in California and couldn't have interceded from such a distance. "The last time I talked to her was Monday," Kennedy said. "I called early at around 8 a.m. and she hurriedly answered the phone, explaining that she could not talk long. Uncle George and she had tried to close a window that had blown open on the side of the house. One of the panes had broken and she was bandaging a cut that he received over his eye. "Grandmother, would you consider going down the street to St. John, the old orphanage? I would feel a lot better knowing you were with more people and on higher ground," JoNell pleaded. “She just snapped at me: 'I wish you people would just leave me alone! I am not going anywhere! Now I've got to go. I have things to do,’ " Kennedy recalls her saying. "I told her I loved her, and that was the last we spoke," Kennedy said. My cousin George Thompson, didn't want to leave either. He helped me board up my house Sunday and, for the third time in as many days, told me that he wasn't going anywhere. I had learned the hard way that arguing with him only frustrated me and agitated him. All of my newly acquired information about coastal erosion and the so-called "bowl effect," which can keep flood waters in the city for weeks or months, meant nothing to him. He would be safe uptown on Hillary Street. Or, if it got really bad, he would go to the Superdome. Well, I told him, suppose you're right. Suppose you survive on Hillary Street. How are you going to survive with no electricity, no food, no water and no access to assistance? Uptown, is not going to flood, he said. The fallacies in his logic were too numerous to itemize. Recently I had spent a day with a coastal oceanographer learning about the potential devastation of hurricanes in this new era of coastal erosion and global warming. But who were my experts to do battle with my cousin’s experience? He knew he'd be OK. Frustrated, I left him and his logic in place, waving goodbye on the corner as I drove off. Neither my cousin, nor my friend's grandmother has been heard from in all of this devastation. So we have been condemned to imagine the worst. We have been condemned to repeat those final conversations in our minds over and over again and pray that they were not, in fact, final. (Lolis Eric Elie may be reached at elietp@gmail.com) Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Post-hurricane health hazardsWednesday, 6:05 p.m. The biggest hurricane-related health problems so far have been stomach ailments caused by eating spoiled food and drinking contaminated water, state epidemiologist Raoult Ratard said Wednsday. People should throw out food that they suspect of being spoiled, he said, and they should disinfect water before drinking it. Boiling it is the best way, Ratard said, but people who don't have power for cooking should purify water by adding chlorine bleach -- one-eighth of a teaspoon per gallon if the water is clear, and twice that amount if it is cloudy. The potential for much more serious hurricane-related health complications such as a spurt in West Nile fever infections, exists, but it is too early after the storm to expect reports of such information, Department of Health and Hospitals spokesman Bob Johannessen said. "We're still in the search-and-rescue mode," he said. "Hospital staffs have a big workload treating people with injuries related to the initial incident.'' Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Looting on Tchoupitoulas StreetBy Michael Perlstein Staff writer Looting in New Orleans was so widespread Wednesday that police were forced to prioritize their overwhelmed enforcement effort. Winn-Dixie's Riverside Market Place on Tchoupitoulas Street was breached in the morning by foragers who broke through a metal security door. Eight police officers in marked cruisers made it to the parking lot by noon, but they had a more pressing problem than people walking off with food and liquor. The officers were rushing to a break-in next door at the Sports Authority, desperate to secure the store's stockpile of guns and ammunition. "I think we ran them off before they got any of it," said the commanding officer at the scene. The cops secured the store with heavy plywood before moving on to other emergencies. At about 2 p.m., the officers rushed back to disrupt a second break-in at the sporting goods store. An officer in a squad car tried to chase a Bell South utility truck that fled the scene, but he lost the truck amid fallen trees. Upon surveying the thefts, the officer said the most conspicuous missing items were all the weapons from the store's knife case. Before boarding up again, the officers took some essential supplies for themselves: socks, T-shirts and Power Bars. As officers were pounding the last nails the commander yelled: "Let's roll it, someone's driving around in a mail truck." Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	In St. Tammany: Shock and aweWednesday, 6:34 p.m. By Meghan Gordon and Richard Boyd St. Tammany bureau With major roadways in St. Tammany Parish dramatically clearer Wednesday, returning evacuees got their first awful look at the devastation caused by Katrinia’s high winds and flooding. As homeowners walked and biked into their lakefront neighborhoods from the cleared roads, they saw much of the same wreckage whether they were in Lacombe, Mandeville or Madisonville. Enormous trees rested on crushed roofs and cars, and putrid sludge covered the once-flooded ground. And except for those people with generators, no one had power. Central Louisiana Electric Co. officials said they had no firm estimate of when they would restore electricity to parts of St. Tammany and Washington parishes. They said they found serious damage to the equipment that connects power plants with distribution lines. “Every circuit that we have has damage,” said spokeswoman Robbyn Cooper. “It’s going to take us weeks, an extended period of time. We would like to have a better assessment before we give a more specific time.” In Lacombe, most streets off Lake Road showed the remains of Katrina’s flooding. Evacuees trudged through inches of muck or rode four-wheelers through standing water to confirm what they expected: flooded homes and wind-damaged roofs. “It’s a mess, but thank God we still have our life,” said Wilhelmina Batiste, 70, who lives in Napoleon Avenue. “Katrina was a terrible girl.” “Lord, I know,” said neighborhood Dianne Ducre, 68, as the reality set in that she had nothing left but a mildewing house with its soaked and toppled contents. Lacombe’s most vulnerable houses on Elenore Drive weathered the storm fairly well, because most are raised on piers. But Jimmy Impastato learned different news when he drove through the neighborhood and found his wooden A-frame house relocated to the middle of the road. Although Jeffrey Fontenette’s Elenore Drive house fared well, the storm left him with bad memories of the screaming winds and rising waters. But he said the toughest part of the storm’s aftermath has been the virtual absence of communication between those who stayed and their families across the country. “It’s nauseating,” Fontenette said. “I’ve got a mama. My son’s got a mama. That’s all we want to do: Call our mommies and tell them we’re living.” Though Madisonville’s flood damage was more limited than Lacombe’s, the signs of Katrina’s high winds were just as apparent in the riverfront town. The tin roofs of Salty’s Marina were peeled back like soup cans. The banks of Bayou DeZare were a mess of sludge. Perhaps most dramatically, enormous trees, which just days ago added to the town’s charm, now lay across houses, beside roads and at odd angles. A 5-foot-wide tree on Main Street was tilted to a 45-degree angle. “Just about every old tree in town is down,” Madisonville police spokesman Dave Smith said. “The town just will never look the same in our lifetime. It breaks my heart. I’m so disgusted. Just about every ancient pecan and a lot of the oaks are gone.” Some residents labored through the day clearing their yards, while others found shade and tried to push aside the countless questions they had about the coming days. Susie Derks, 40, tapped into the little remaining food at Badeaux’s Drive In near the Tchefuncte River. Spreading warm mayonnaise on a bun, she recounted the terror she and six relatives and friends experienced as the storm passed her house at 804 Main St. Winds blew off large sections of her tin roof off, leaving them exposed for hours in the rain. Then water from the lake a few blocks away rose high enough to soak all of her belongings. “It was coming up from the floor. It was coming down from the ceiling,” Derks said. “We didn’t know what to do.” The group was pulled out after a sheriff’s deputy alerted fire department officials, who sent a 5-ton truck to the house. Police cruising through Madisonville could help clear trees and patch up homes, but they didn’t have many answers for those left homeless by the storm. Plans for distributing food, water and building supplies had yet to circulate across the parish. “There’s no ice, no food, no fuel,” Smith said. “People are asking everywhere, ‘Where can I find it?’” Smith said at least one person was apparently desperate enough for fresh meat that he shot a deer. The damage to historic buildings along Mandeville’s lakefront became clearer Wednesday, a day after police cleared one route to Lakeshore Drive. Mayor Eddie Price raised his estimate of seriously damaged homes to more than 100 in Mandeville. On the lakefront, six homes were leveled and most of the others had serious structural damage. Mandeville building inspector Bill Wohler said every home not raised in Old Mandeville was seriously damaged. Many landmark buildings were all but shells, including the Pontchartrain Yacht Club, Rips on the Lake, Java Grotto, Juniper Restaurant, Rest-A-While church summer camp and the Down on the Lake bar. Le Petit Fluer, one of the city’s most historic homes, was gutted but still stood. In Abita Springs, some water remained on the ground in low areas. Large pine and oak trees spliced roofs and made driving through most streets impossible. Winds ripped the face off a yellow house on Level Street, and fallen trees left a white house nearby demolished. The Tammany Trace was covered with debris, and the Abita Springs Cafe's roof was torn off. CLECO’s Cooper said the company’s power transmission system sustained severe damage. Thus the effort to restore power is larger than just righting electricity poles and re-stringing lines. “They’re the backbone of our system,” Cooper said of the transmission equipment. “They actually carry the electricity from the power plant to us.” She said crews were working simultaneously on the transmission system and the distribution lines that power 78,940 homes in St. Tammany and 709 in Washington Parish. The distribution system has about 65 percent overhead lines, with the rest buried underground. In every corner of the parish, the lines and poles hang precariously over roads and tangled with fallen trees. Like parish officials, CLECO officials are urging residents not to return to St. Tammany. Cooper said darkened street lamps and traffic lights make driving incredibly dangerous, especially as more evacuees return. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Displaced studentsTexas Southern University will open its doors to any student currently enrolled at colleges affected by hurricane Katrina. Application fees for the fall 2005 semester will be waived and a meeting for interested students will be help Sept. 1 at the Houston university. Students and faculty at the university have also undertaken several fund-raising activities and has offered free tickets to the Labor Day Classic football game between TSU and Prairie View to college students and their families housed in area shelters. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	St. Joseph's Abbey survives the stormSt. Joseph’s Abbey near Covington survived the storm just fine, but after two days without power, some of those who rode out the storm headed out to Jeanerette. Health aide Nancy Robinson, who was ferrying an elderly former co-worker in her pick-up truck, carried a wheelchair in the back for one of two elderly priests elsewhere in her caravan. It wasn’t like she had a home to go to. Robinson, who lives in Slidell off Thompson Road, said “all the reports we can get say everything is under water.” Same for her son, who lives in Eden Isles. Steve Stevens of Picayune, Miss., waited in a gas station line that snaked out onto Airline Highway in Baton Rouge Wednesday. Like many others, he had made the long trek to stock up on supplies, in his case, a generator purchased at a nearby Pep Boys. The chemical engineer reported “lots and lots of trees in houses, lots of roofs down, and several businesses totally decimated.” Stevens’ work place, Wink Inc. in badly flooded eastern New Orleans, probably fared far worse, but he doesn’t know for sure.”I haven’t been able to reach anyone,” he said. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Making contact with the outside worldScott Andrews, a newscast director at WGNO Channel 26 in New Orleans, traveled to Baton Rouge Tuesday afternoon to make contact with those outside the storm area. He sat at a table in a chain restaurant near Interstate 10 making telephone calls on his cell phone as he ate a hot meal in air-conditioned comfort. Another purpose of his drive from the Covington area was to pick up ice for family ice chests as homes in the New Orleans area moved into a second day without power and food in refrigerators and freezers began to thaw and spoil. Ice was in short supply in Baton Rouge, because the state capital on the fringe of the storm was just beginning to see power restored. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Banks attempt a comebackWednesday, 5:55 p.m. By Mary Judice Business writer BATON ROUGE -- New Orleans area banks worked Wednesday to bring branches outside New Orleans back into operation and announced financial packages to help customers in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina. Chase Bank reopened branches in Baton Rouge and Houma as power was restored and rerouted to other centers its auto financing transactions that had been processed in the New Orleans area. “We stopped collection efforts in the zip codes affected and set up financial relief packages,’’ said Chris Spencer, Chase spokesperson in Baton Rouge. The bank will waive automated teller machine fees and offer free check processing as part of the package, he said. Also, Chase will work with customers to post transactions that were made in the days immediately before the storm. On Wednesday, Chase had 28 of its 34 branches in Baton Rouge open for business, as well as its main branch in Houma, Spencer said He said the bank's safe deposit banks in the New Orleans area are located on the first floor of branches, and the bank does not know the extent of damages of contents. “The safe deposit boxes are water-resistant, not waterproof,’’ he said. Hibernia National Bank said Tuesday that its operations centers in Houston and Shreveport were being used as data back-up sites and for contingency planning for the New Orleans center. Regions Bank had 25 of its 29 branches in Baton Rouge in operation Wednesday but not all of the branches had functioning ATMs. Michael Bannister, Regions spokesperson in Baton Rouge, said the branches, which had been operated by Union Planters before Regions acquired it, were connected to a communication line that runs through New Orleans and processes transactions in Jackson, Miss. He said ATMs at 14 branches were not in operation but that the bank is rerouting the affected network lines. Regions will waive its ATM fees for customers who use machines outside the bank’s network, will defer some loan and credit card payments and increase credit limits. He said special rates will be offered on home equity loans and lines of credit. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Peeling open a store4:50 p.m. Looters went to extraordinary means to get into the Rite Aid drug store on Carrollton Avenue and Oak Street in Uptown New Orleans, where metal storm doors were rolled shut on the doors and windows. Looters commandered a fork lift, which they used to ram into the metal and peel open the protective covering to get inside the store. That allowed a steady stream of looters, many wheeling shopping carts, to stock up, primarily with food, candy, any soft drink or water or alcohol, and cigarettes. After much of the store had been emptied, a pair of looters carrying handfuls of candy and chips stopped briefly to talk to a newspaper reporter. "They still have come canned foods in there if you want some." Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Wharves damagedHarbor Police Chief Robert Hecker said Wednesday afternoon that there was "a lot of damage" on port property around the wharves, but life-saving and security duties are taking precedence over a close assessment of how serious the damage might be. “There is obviously a lot of damage -- light poles and trees down -- but hopefully none that can’t be repaired,” Hecker said. He said two ships were in port when the storm hit and neither reported damage. Some of his officers have been operating the department’s two boats the past two days, helping New Orleans police in life-saving efforts, particularly in the 9th Ward, Hecker said. Others are guarding the port against looting, none of which has been reported so far, Hecker said. Some administrative personnel have been allowed to go check on their own homes, he said. As far as damage to the port, he said, The port of New Orleans is closed for at least the rest of this week. “I don’t know how far into next week” it will be closed, he said. “It depends on the flood-waters.” Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Floating body Uptown5 p.m. Neighbors in the area near Hickory and Short streets Uptown said a body has been floating nearby in five feet of water since the unidentified man was shot five times on Monday. Neighbors said the shooting was reported, but police and other officials apparently have been unable to respond. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Michoud facility damaged, but space equipment unscathedThe 36 workers and 28 firefighters who rode out Hurricane Katrina in NASA's massive Michoud Assembly Facility in eastern New Orleans made it through the hurricane without any injuries, the space agency's national headquarters said Wednesday. But the condition of the 58-acre plant, which makes external fuel tanks for the space shuttles, was uncertain. Some windows and roofs at the Michoud complex of buildings were damaged and debris is blocking some of the plant's roads, but no space vehicle hardware inside the buildings appeared damaged, according to a statement from NASA headquarters. The agency's Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Miss., just across Louisiana's state line, sustained similar window and roof damage, NASA said. However, the center's space shuttle rocket engine test structure's didn't appear damaged. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)

Wednesday, August 31, 2005
	Powerless stillWednesday, 7:55 p.m. By Keith Darce Business writer The 6,000 power line workers currently assembled in southeastern Louisiana won’t be nearly enough to restore electricity to the 990,000 customers still without power in metropolitan New Orleans, the region’s suppliers said Wednesday. But getting more workers to the area might be impossible until late this week. That’s because many utility crews from neighboring states are still restoring power to southern Florida, which was hit surprisingly hard by Katrina when she crossed the state nearly a week ago, said Chanel Lagarde, spokesman for Entergy Corp., Louisiana’s power supplier. “There are severe limits on resources at this point,” he said. “We are told that the utilities in Florida are expected to wrap up later this week. Many of those (workers) will come directly here or to the east” in coastal Mississippi and Alabama. The atmosphere of near-anarchy in New Orleans is another major concern, said Arthur Wiese Jr., vice president of corporate communications for Entergy. “We can’t send workers out and put their lives in jeopardy,” he said late Wednesday afternoon from the one of the company’s storm command centers in Jackson, Miss. “Once we have facilities back operating, we have to know that our workers can get to work safely. “We are as alarmed as anyone over the chaos in the city. It is a very serious question,” Wiese said. Those problems further validated earlier predictions by Entergy managers that many people in the hardest-hit parts of the state could be without electricity for a month or more. Flooding and road blockage from debris remained the most immediate barriers to repair crews moving into the most damaged parts of the region. A main transmission line running 25 miles between Madisonville and Bogalusa suffered catastrophic damage, with at least 18 miles requiring repairs, said Mark Segura, vice president of transmission and distribution services for Pineville-based Cleco Corp. Transmission lines connect power plants to community substations and supply electricity to large numbers of customers. Despite the difficulties, by Wednesday night Entergy had restored power to 181,829 customers in Louisiana and Mississippi, mostly in areas not affected by flooding, Wiese said. “We are making good progress where we can get access,” he said. All of the region’s power and telephone companies were struggling to restore services in the wake of Katrina. Almost every Entergy and Cleco customer in metropolitan New Orleans remained without power Wednesday night, 48 hours since the storm ripped through the region. Communication was another problem, for utility workers as well as everyone else in southeastern Louisiana. Telephone services, both over wired and wireless networks, remained sporadic and, in some cases in Orleans, Jefferson and St. Bernard, completely dead. Almost 81,000 wired phone lines were silent in southeastern Louisiana, said BellSouth Corp., the state’s largest phone service provider. And more phone lines were expected to fail as backup generators ran out of fuel at communications terminals that initially survived the storm. BellSouth reported several “key” breaks in the company’s fiber optic line system, which serves as the backbone of its communications network. Work crews focused on repairing major cables, firming back-up power to switching centers and restoring phone service to emergency personnel, local officials and hospitals, the Atlanta-based company said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. “We are doing everything possible to assess the extensive damage this destructive storm has caused,” said Bill Oliver, president of BellSouth’s Louisiana operations. Call volumes created their own problems over parts of the network that were working. Many people trying to make calls to and from the region were met by busy signals or messages saying that circuits were busy. Wireless phone networks experienced similar troubles. Cingular Wireless lost at least 700 antennas, or cell sites, throughout the region, a company operator said. Verizon Wireless also lost portions of its network, but spokesman Patrick Kimball couldn’t say how many towers were down in the region. “Strangely enough, some cell sites are still operating on roof tops,” he said. Wireless services were improving in Baton Rouge, Mobile, Ala., and Pensacola, Fla., where crews had easier access to damaged facilities, Kimball said. But networks in much of metropolitan New Orleans remained unreachable, he said. “The situation could improve in certain cases and it could worsen in others. It’s such a fluid situation, it’s hard to tell,” he said. Most of the electricity and phone companies were running storm operations centers outside of the New Orleans metropolitan area. Managers with Entergy, the New Orleans-based power company that supplies electricity to 1.2 million customers in Louisiana, are mainly orchestrating their historically massive power grid restoration effort from command centers in Baton Rouge and Jackson, Miss. Almost all of the company’s employees who rode out the storm in the Hyatt Regency Hotel next to the Superdome in downtown New Orleans evacuated Tuesday when flood waters began rising dangerously high in the Central Business District and other conditions in the city deteriorated. The hotel, which also served as the command center for City Hall, suffered major damage during the storm. Dan Packer, chief executive officer of Entergy’s utility in New Orleans, remained at the hotel with Mayor Ray Nagin and a handful of city officials. Wednesdsay at 5 p.m.., 693,156 Entergy customers in southeastern Louisiana, or more than half of its customer base in the state, were in the dark. Another 21,636 were without power in central Mississippi. With 1.1 million Entergy customers losing electricity services at the peak of the storm, Lagarde said the outage more than quadrupled the severity of the previous high for the company: during Tropical Sorm Cincy in June. All 88,000 Cleco customers in the parishes of St. Tammany and Washington north of Lake Pontchartrain remained without power, Cleco spokeswoman Fran Phoenix said. (E-mail Keith Darcé at nolapaperboy@cox.net) Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	No shelters in St. John ParishWednesday, 7:40 p.m. St. John the Baptist Parish officials had initially talked about opening a shelter for evacuees, but Natalie Robottom, the parish's Chief Administrative Officer, said the parish has been unable to move forward with plans because it does not have the resources to supply and staff shelters. She said the parish is struggling to provide food and gas for its own workers and really can’t help travelers in need. “We do not have the personnel or supplies to open a shelter, or the manpower to man it,” Robottom said. “So far we haven’t gotten a commitment from (the state) to provide it.” Robottom said the parish has already received power for most of its utility plants and along Airline Highway. Initially, plants were operating using generators, but there have been problems supplying those facilities with fuel. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Federal public health emergency declaredThe following is a news release from Health and Human Services discussing response to hurricane. HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt Wednesday declared a federal public health emergency and accelerated efforts to create up to 40 emergency medical shelters to provide care for evacuees and victims of Hurricane Katrina. Working with its federal partners, HHS is helping provide and staff 250 beds in each shelter for a total of 10,000 beds for the region. Ten of these facilities will be staged within the next 72 hours and another 10 will be deployed within the next 100 hours after that. In addition, HHS is deploying up to 4,000 medically-qualified personnel to staff these facilities and to meet other health care needs in this region. Already, HHS has helped set up a medical shelter with up to 250 beds at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge to help provide health care for those fleeing New Orleans in Katrina's wake. As of late this morning, the facility had already screened 300 patients and admitting 45 for in-patient care. HHS and its Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also are providing the region with public health personnel and expertise to address the potential for disease outbreak in the aftermath of Katrina. "We're delivering medical supplies, facilities and professionals into the Gulf Region to provide health care to those evacuating from New Orleans as well as victims of the hurricane throughout the region," Secretary Leavitt said. "We're focused on the immediate health care needs of people in the region, augmenting state and local efforts. And we're also preparing for public health challenges that may emerge such as disease and contamination. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to all our fellow Americans who have been affected by this hurricane," Secretary Leavitt added. "Recovery will take time, and the road ahead will not be easy. But all of us at the Department of Health and Human Services - with our health partners - will do everything we can for as long as it takes to help protect the health and well-being of those impacted." An order was signed by the Secretary today to declare a public health emergency for the states of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. This action will allow the Department to waive certain Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and HIPAA requirements as well as make grants and enter into contracts more expeditiously during this emergency. Secretary Leavitt emphasized that HHS is making available all its public health and emergency response capabilities to help state and local officials provide care and assistance to victims of this hurricane. "We all need to come together and help our neighbors in this time of need. We are asking Americans to help spread the word to both neighbors and strangers about public health warnings or directives from emergency response officials so we can reach as many people as possible. Together, we will get through this and help the people of the Gulf region rebuild their lives and their communities," Secretary Leavitt added. HHS has delivered to Louisiana 27 pallets of medical supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile. These pallets include basic first-aid material (such as bandages, pads, ice packs, etc.), blankets and patient clothing, suture kits, sterile gloves, stethoscopes, blood pressure measuring kits and portable oxygen tanks. These supplies are primarily being used to set up the medical shelter at LSU in Baton Rouge. More medical supplies will be shipped into Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi as needed to meet any growing demands for health care equipment and supplies. HHS has identified available hospital beds and provided health care professional HHS is using the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) to identify available hospital beds. HHS is working with DOD, the Veterans Administration and others to move patients to these facilities. At last count, there were 2,600 beds available in a 12-state area around the affected area. Nationwide, the NDMS has identified 40,000 available beds in participating hospitals. Right now, 38 US Public Health Service officers are in the region providing health care and assistance, particularly at the Baton Rouge facility. HHS has hundreds of additional public health and medical officers ready for deployment in a moment's notice to further meet any growing needs of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Department is reaching out to neighboring states, such as Texas, that are providing refuge for those evacuating the Gulf Region to make sure their needs are being met through any resources HHS can provide. HHS has public health experts working with states in the Gulf Region to help assess threats to public health and develop pro-active responses to prevent the spread of disease and illness. The full resources and expertise of CDC and FDA are available to augment state and local public health resources - including chemical and toxicology teams, sanitation and public health teams, epidemiology teams and food safety teams. CDC experts are now working with Louisiana officials to implement a mosquito abatement program that will help prevent or mitigate an outbreak of West Nile Virus. Department agencies are helping states evaluate their sanitation and water systems. Epidemiology teams, known as disease detectives, are reaching out to state and local officials to augment efforts to monitor potential outbreaks of disease or illness. Public health messages (PSAs) warning about the safe consumption of food and water are being disseminated. HHS is issuing strong warnings to the public to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning from the use of generators. HHS is making mental health resources available to the region through its Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Blood supplies and inventory levels in the affected Gulf Coast states meeting current medical needs. The need for blood will be ongoing, especially over the next few weeks, as disaster victims require additional care, as deferred elective surgeries are rescheduled or if there should be any further emergencies. In order to maintain a healthy and adequate blood supply level, people who would like to help should call their blood banks to schedule an appointment. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Lolis Eric ElieBy Lolis Eric Elie Columnist JoNell Kennedy's grandmother is one of those old women who is still proudly and defiantly in command of her faculties. You aren't going to tell her what to do or what to think. There's something endearing about seeing such a spirit in someone whose body nonetheless has lost much of its strength and whose gait has lost much of its pep. Until Monday, I had hoped one day to be one of those people. I wanted to be like Clothilde Martha Crowley Nicholas. But so much has changed since then. Nichols lives in the flood-prone area near Dillard University. She refused to evacuate for Katrina, even after hearing of all the devastation that the hurricane was expected to bring about. I can hear her words in my imagination, though I wasn't there on the front porch to hear her actually say them. "I have seen more hurricanes than you will ever see. I'm not leaving my house. That's that. If you want to go, go!" “That is what I treasure about her and what angers me most," Kennedy wrote me in an e-mail. "By being the matriarch of our family, things have always gone her way, and this Sunday past it was no different. After being urged by my aunts, mother and neighbors, who were all packed and ready to move to higher ground, she refused." "JoNell, I'm not running from God. I'm going to sit right here and let King Jesus ride on," Nichols told her granddaughter. What do you do in a circumstance like that? Do you leave a person behind and save your own life? Do you walk to your car and drive off as much out of spite as out of an instinct for self-preservation? Do you pray for forgiveness, club them over the head, knock them out cold and kidnap them to safety? That was neither an issue nor an option for Kennedy. She lives in California and couldn't have interceded from such a distance. "The last time I talked to her was Monday," Kennedy said. "I called early at around 8 a.m. and she hurriedly answered the phone, explaining that she could not talk long. Uncle George and she had tried to close a window that had blown open on the side of the house. One of the panes had broken and she was bandaging a cut that he received over his eye. "Grandmother, would you consider going down the street to St. John, the old orphanage? I would feel a lot better knowing you were with more people and on higher ground," JoNell pleaded. “She just snapped at me: 'I wish you people would just leave me alone! I am not going anywhere! Now I've got to go. I have things to do,’ " Kennedy recalls her saying. "I told her I loved her, and that was the last we spoke," Kennedy said. My cousin George Thompson, didn't want to leave either. He helped me board up my house Sunday and, for the third time in as many days, told me that he wasn't going anywhere. I had learned the hard way that arguing with him only frustrated me and agitated him. All of my newly acquired information about coastal erosion and the so-called "bowl effect," which can keep flood waters in the city for weeks or months, meant nothing to him. He would be safe uptown on Hillary Street. Or, if it got really bad, he would go to the Superdome. Well, I told him, suppose you're right. Suppose you survive on Hillary Street. How are you going to survive with no electricity, no food, no water and no access to assistance? Uptown, is not going to flood, he said. The fallacies in his logic were too numerous to itemize. Recently I had spent a day with a coastal oceanographer learning about the potential devastation of hurricanes in this new era of coastal erosion and global warming. But who were my experts to do battle with my cousin’s experience? He knew he'd be OK. Frustrated, I left him and his logic in place, waving goodbye on the corner as I drove off. Neither my cousin, nor my friend's grandmother has been heard from in all of this devastation. So we have been condemned to imagine the worst. We have been condemned to repeat those final conversations in our minds over and over again and pray that they were not, in fact, final. (Lolis Eric Elie may be reached at elietp@gmail.com) Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Post-hurricane health hazardsWednesday, 6:05 p.m. The biggest hurricane-related health problems so far have been stomach ailments caused by eating spoiled food and drinking contaminated water, state epidemiologist Raoult Ratard said Wednsday. People should throw out food that they suspect of being spoiled, he said, and they should disinfect water before drinking it. Boiling it is the best way, Ratard said, but people who don't have power for cooking should purify water by adding chlorine bleach -- one-eighth of a teaspoon per gallon if the water is clear, and twice that amount if it is cloudy. The potential for much more serious hurricane-related health complications such as a spurt in West Nile fever infections, exists, but it is too early after the storm to expect reports of such information, Department of Health and Hospitals spokesman Bob Johannessen said. "We're still in the search-and-rescue mode," he said. "Hospital staffs have a big workload treating people with injuries related to the initial incident.'' Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Looting on Tchoupitoulas StreetBy Michael Perlstein Staff writer Looting in New Orleans was so widespread Wednesday that police were forced to prioritize their overwhelmed enforcement effort. Winn-Dixie's Riverside Market Place on Tchoupitoulas Street was breached in the morning by foragers who broke through a metal security door. Eight police officers in marked cruisers made it to the parking lot by noon, but they had a more pressing problem than people walking off with food and liquor. The officers were rushing to a break-in next door at the Sports Authority, desperate to secure the store's stockpile of guns and ammunition. "I think we ran them off before they got any of it," said the commanding officer at the scene. The cops secured the store with heavy plywood before moving on to other emergencies. At about 2 p.m., the officers rushed back to disrupt a second break-in at the sporting goods store. An officer in a squad car tried to chase a Bell South utility truck that fled the scene, but he lost the truck amid fallen trees. Upon surveying the thefts, the officer said the most conspicuous missing items were all the weapons from the store's knife case. Before boarding up again, the officers took some essential supplies for themselves: socks, T-shirts and Power Bars. As officers were pounding the last nails the commander yelled: "Let's roll it, someone's driving around in a mail truck." Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	In St. Tammany: Shock and aweWednesday, 6:34 p.m. By Meghan Gordon and Richard Boyd St. Tammany bureau With major roadways in St. Tammany Parish dramatically clearer Wednesday, returning evacuees got their first awful look at the devastation caused by Katrinia’s high winds and flooding. As homeowners walked and biked into their lakefront neighborhoods from the cleared roads, they saw much of the same wreckage whether they were in Lacombe, Mandeville or Madisonville. Enormous trees rested on crushed roofs and cars, and putrid sludge covered the once-flooded ground. And except for those people with generators, no one had power. Central Louisiana Electric Co. officials said they had no firm estimate of when they would restore electricity to parts of St. Tammany and Washington parishes. They said they found serious damage to the equipment that connects power plants with distribution lines. “Every circuit that we have has damage,” said spokeswoman Robbyn Cooper. “It’s going to take us weeks, an extended period of time. We would like to have a better assessment before we give a more specific time.” In Lacombe, most streets off Lake Road showed the remains of Katrina’s flooding. Evacuees trudged through inches of muck or rode four-wheelers through standing water to confirm what they expected: flooded homes and wind-damaged roofs. “It’s a mess, but thank God we still have our life,” said Wilhelmina Batiste, 70, who lives in Napoleon Avenue. “Katrina was a terrible girl.” “Lord, I know,” said neighborhood Dianne Ducre, 68, as the reality set in that she had nothing left but a mildewing house with its soaked and toppled contents. Lacombe’s most vulnerable houses on Elenore Drive weathered the storm fairly well, because most are raised on piers. But Jimmy Impastato learned different news when he drove through the neighborhood and found his wooden A-frame house relocated to the middle of the road. Although Jeffrey Fontenette’s Elenore Drive house fared well, the storm left him with bad memories of the screaming winds and rising waters. But he said the toughest part of the storm’s aftermath has been the virtual absence of communication between those who stayed and their families across the country. “It’s nauseating,” Fontenette said. “I’ve got a mama. My son’s got a mama. That’s all we want to do: Call our mommies and tell them we’re living.” Though Madisonville’s flood damage was more limited than Lacombe’s, the signs of Katrina’s high winds were just as apparent in the riverfront town. The tin roofs of Salty’s Marina were peeled back like soup cans. The banks of Bayou DeZare were a mess of sludge. Perhaps most dramatically, enormous trees, which just days ago added to the town’s charm, now lay across houses, beside roads and at odd angles. A 5-foot-wide tree on Main Street was tilted to a 45-degree angle. “Just about every old tree in town is down,” Madisonville police spokesman Dave Smith said. “The town just will never look the same in our lifetime. It breaks my heart. I’m so disgusted. Just about every ancient pecan and a lot of the oaks are gone.” Some residents labored through the day clearing their yards, while others found shade and tried to push aside the countless questions they had about the coming days. Susie Derks, 40, tapped into the little remaining food at Badeaux’s Drive In near the Tchefuncte River. Spreading warm mayonnaise on a bun, she recounted the terror she and six relatives and friends experienced as the storm passed her house at 804 Main St. Winds blew off large sections of her tin roof off, leaving them exposed for hours in the rain. Then water from the lake a few blocks away rose high enough to soak all of her belongings. “It was coming up from the floor. It was coming down from the ceiling,” Derks said. “We didn’t know what to do.” The group was pulled out after a sheriff’s deputy alerted fire department officials, who sent a 5-ton truck to the house. Police cruising through Madisonville could help clear trees and patch up homes, but they didn’t have many answers for those left homeless by the storm. Plans for distributing food, water and building supplies had yet to circulate across the parish. “There’s no ice, no food, no fuel,” Smith said. “People are asking everywhere, ‘Where can I find it?’” Smith said at least one person was apparently desperate enough for fresh meat that he shot a deer. The damage to historic buildings along Mandeville’s lakefront became clearer Wednesday, a day after police cleared one route to Lakeshore Drive. Mayor Eddie Price raised his estimate of seriously damaged homes to more than 100 in Mandeville. On the lakefront, six homes were leveled and most of the others had serious structural damage. Mandeville building inspector Bill Wohler said every home not raised in Old Mandeville was seriously damaged. Many landmark buildings were all but shells, including the Pontchartrain Yacht Club, Rips on the Lake, Java Grotto, Juniper Restaurant, Rest-A-While church summer camp and the Down on the Lake bar. Le Petit Fluer, one of the city’s most historic homes, was gutted but still stood. In Abita Springs, some water remained on the ground in low areas. Large pine and oak trees spliced roofs and made driving through most streets impossible. Winds ripped the face off a yellow house on Level Street, and fallen trees left a white house nearby demolished. The Tammany Trace was covered with debris, and the Abita Springs Cafe's roof was torn off. CLECO’s Cooper said the company’s power transmission system sustained severe damage. Thus the effort to restore power is larger than just righting electricity poles and re-stringing lines. “They’re the backbone of our system,” Cooper said of the transmission equipment. “They actually carry the electricity from the power plant to us.” She said crews were working simultaneously on the transmission system and the distribution lines that power 78,940 homes in St. Tammany and 709 in Washington Parish. The distribution system has about 65 percent overhead lines, with the rest buried underground. In every corner of the parish, the lines and poles hang precariously over roads and tangled with fallen trees. Like parish officials, CLECO officials are urging residents not to return to St. Tammany. Cooper said darkened street lamps and traffic lights make driving incredibly dangerous, especially as more evacuees return. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Displaced studentsTexas Southern University will open its doors to any student currently enrolled at colleges affected by hurricane Katrina. Application fees for the fall 2005 semester will be waived and a meeting for interested students will be help Sept. 1 at the Houston university. Students and faculty at the university have also undertaken several fund-raising activities and has offered free tickets to the Labor Day Classic football game between TSU and Prairie View to college students and their families housed in area shelters. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	St. Joseph's Abbey survives the stormSt. Joseph’s Abbey near Covington survived the storm just fine, but after two days without power, some of those who rode out the storm headed out to Jeanerette. Health aide Nancy Robinson, who was ferrying an elderly former co-worker in her pick-up truck, carried a wheelchair in the back for one of two elderly priests elsewhere in her caravan. It wasn’t like she had a home to go to. Robinson, who lives in Slidell off Thompson Road, said “all the reports we can get say everything is under water.” Same for her son, who lives in Eden Isles. Steve Stevens of Picayune, Miss., waited in a gas station line that snaked out onto Airline Highway in Baton Rouge Wednesday. Like many others, he had made the long trek to stock up on supplies, in his case, a generator purchased at a nearby Pep Boys. The chemical engineer reported “lots and lots of trees in houses, lots of roofs down, and several businesses totally decimated.” Stevens’ work place, Wink Inc. in badly flooded eastern New Orleans, probably fared far worse, but he doesn’t know for sure.”I haven’t been able to reach anyone,” he said. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Making contact with the outside worldScott Andrews, a newscast director at WGNO Channel 26 in New Orleans, traveled to Baton Rouge Tuesday afternoon to make contact with those outside the storm area. He sat at a table in a chain restaurant near Interstate 10 making telephone calls on his cell phone as he ate a hot meal in air-conditioned comfort. Another purpose of his drive from the Covington area was to pick up ice for family ice chests as homes in the New Orleans area moved into a second day without power and food in refrigerators and freezers began to thaw and spoil. Ice was in short supply in Baton Rouge, because the state capital on the fringe of the storm was just beginning to see power restored. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Banks attempt a comebackWednesday, 5:55 p.m. By Mary Judice Business writer BATON ROUGE -- New Orleans area banks worked Wednesday to bring branches outside New Orleans back into operation and announced financial packages to help customers in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina. Chase Bank reopened branches in Baton Rouge and Houma as power was restored and rerouted to other centers its auto financing transactions that had been processed in the New Orleans area. “We stopped collection efforts in the zip codes affected and set up financial relief packages,’’ said Chris Spencer, Chase spokesperson in Baton Rouge. The bank will waive automated teller machine fees and offer free check processing as part of the package, he said. Also, Chase will work with customers to post transactions that were made in the days immediately before the storm. On Wednesday, Chase had 28 of its 34 branches in Baton Rouge open for business, as well as its main branch in Houma, Spencer said He said the bank's safe deposit banks in the New Orleans area are located on the first floor of branches, and the bank does not know the extent of damages of contents. “The safe deposit boxes are water-resistant, not waterproof,’’ he said. Hibernia National Bank said Tuesday that its operations centers in Houston and Shreveport were being used as data back-up sites and for contingency planning for the New Orleans center. Regions Bank had 25 of its 29 branches in Baton Rouge in operation Wednesday but not all of the branches had functioning ATMs. Michael Bannister, Regions spokesperson in Baton Rouge, said the branches, which had been operated by Union Planters before Regions acquired it, were connected to a communication line that runs through New Orleans and processes transactions in Jackson, Miss. He said ATMs at 14 branches were not in operation but that the bank is rerouting the affected network lines. Regions will waive its ATM fees for customers who use machines outside the bank’s network, will defer some loan and credit card payments and increase credit limits. He said special rates will be offered on home equity loans and lines of credit. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Peeling open a store4:50 p.m. Looters went to extraordinary means to get into the Rite Aid drug store on Carrollton Avenue and Oak Street in Uptown New Orleans, where metal storm doors were rolled shut on the doors and windows. Looters commandered a fork lift, which they used to ram into the metal and peel open the protective covering to get inside the store. That allowed a steady stream of looters, many wheeling shopping carts, to stock up, primarily with food, candy, any soft drink or water or alcohol, and cigarettes. After much of the store had been emptied, a pair of looters carrying handfuls of candy and chips stopped briefly to talk to a newspaper reporter. "They still have come canned foods in there if you want some." Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Wharves damagedHarbor Police Chief Robert Hecker said Wednesday afternoon that there was "a lot of damage" on port property around the wharves, but life-saving and security duties are taking precedence over a close assessment of how serious the damage might be. “There is obviously a lot of damage -- light poles and trees down -- but hopefully none that can’t be repaired,” Hecker said. He said two ships were in port when the storm hit and neither reported damage. Some of his officers have been operating the department’s two boats the past two days, helping New Orleans police in life-saving efforts, particularly in the 9th Ward, Hecker said. Others are guarding the port against looting, none of which has been reported so far, Hecker said. Some administrative personnel have been allowed to go check on their own homes, he said. As far as damage to the port, he said, The port of New Orleans is closed for at least the rest of this week. “I don’t know how far into next week” it will be closed, he said. “It depends on the flood-waters.” Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Floating body Uptown5 p.m. Neighbors in the area near Hickory and Short streets Uptown said a body has been floating nearby in five feet of water since the unidentified man was shot five times on Monday. Neighbors said the shooting was reported, but police and other officials apparently have been unable to respond. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)
	Michoud facility damaged, but space equipment unscathedThe 36 workers and 28 firefighters who rode out Hurricane Katrina in NASA's massive Michoud Assembly Facility in eastern New Orleans made it through the hurricane without any injuries, the space agency's national headquarters said Wednesday. But the condition of the 58-acre plant, which makes external fuel tanks for the space shuttles, was uncertain. Some windows and roofs at the Michoud complex of buildings were damaged and debris is blocking some of the plant's roads, but no space vehicle hardware inside the buildings appeared damaged, according to a statement from NASA headquarters. The agency's Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Miss., just across Louisiana's state line, sustained similar window and roof damage, NASA said. However, the center's space shuttle rocket engine test structure's didn't appear damaged. Print \| Send To A Friend \| Permalink (Learn More)