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New Orleans chaotic, Texas to get Katrina refugees

Posted on: Wednesday, 31 August 2005, 13:57 CDT

By Rick Wilking

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - About 23,000 refugees stuck at the New Orleans Superdome arena after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city will be evacuated to Houston under plans announced on Wednesday, as looters and high water sowed chaos.

A fleet of buses was to begin ferrying some 23,000 refugees from the storm-battered Superdome to shelter in the Houston Astrodome 350 miles away.

In New Orleans, engineers tried to plug a leaking levee that allowed lake water to flood into the city after Katrina struck the U.S. Gulf Coast. Stranded people were running out of food and water and growing desperate as authorities sought ways to get them out.

"We will be either loading them by boat, helicopter, anything that is necessary," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco told ABC's "Good Morning America."

Looting erupted as people broke into stores to grab supplies, television sets, jewelry, clothes and computers.

"It's a lot of chaos right now," Louisiana state police Director H.L. Whitehorn said.

Katrina's death toll was more than 100 and expected to rise much higher, but efforts to count the dead took a back seat to assisting survivors.

GAS PRICES ROCKETING

President George W. Bush cut short his vacation in Crawford, Texas, to return to Washington, where the administration was putting together an aid package for recovery and cleanup. Air Force One dipped low enough for the president to view the destruction as the plane flew over stricken areas.

The Bush administration said it would release oil from a strategic reserve to offset losses in the Gulf of Mexico, where the storm had shut down production, and it relaxed anti-pollution fuel standards with an aim toward making more gasoline and diesel available.

U.S. crude-oil prices eased below $70 per barrel, but analysts said they expected retail gasoline prices to vault well over $3 a gallon in most parts of the country as early as this weekend.

Katrina struck Louisiana on Monday with 140 mph (224 kph) winds, while slamming into the coasts of neighboring Mississippi, Alabama and western Florida.

At least 110 people died in Mississippi, which was struck by a 30-foot (10-meter) storm surge, but local officials said the toll could be in the hundreds. Search crews patrolled with cadaver dogs to find the dead.

'I'M ALIVE'

U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu told reporters she had heard at least 50 to 100 people were dead in New Orleans.

Louisiana officials said 3,000 people had been rescued, but many more waited to be picked up in boats that cruised flooded streets or helicopters that buzzed overhead.

"I'm alive. I'm alive," shouted a joyous woman as she was ferried from a home nearly swallowed by the flood.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he expected the Superdome refugees to begin arriving in Houston in the next 24 hours aboard some 500 buses provided by federal emergency officials. The arena in Houston had cleared its schedule until December. "They are welcome as long as they want to stay in this state," Perry said in Houston.

New Orleans flooded after the raging waters of Lake Pontchartrain tore holes in the levees that protect the low-lying city, then slowly filled it up.

Attempts had failed on Tuesday to plug a 200-foot gap (60-meter-) with sandbags and concrete barriers, but officials said they would keep trying.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers planned to try to fill the breach with giant 3,000-pound (1,360-kg) sandbags.

The lake should return to normal levels within about 36 hours, and the water now flooding New Orleans would begin to drain, said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers senior project engineer Al Naomi.

He said the historic French Quarter, on slightly higher ground, should escape with only minor flooding.

But New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin estimated it would be 12 to 16 weeks before residents could return. The floods knocked out electricity, contaminated the water supply and cut off most highway routes into the city.

A million people fled the New Orleans area before Katrina arrived. But former Mayor Sidney Barthelemy estimated 80,000 were trapped in the city and urged the president to send more troops.

"If we can spend the monies that we are spending to help the people in Iraq, then we can do the same thing for New Orleans," Barthelemy told CNN.

GUNS IN HAND

The U.S. military was sending a hospital ship and two helicopter-carriers to assist two other Navy ships already conducting rescues in the area. Governors of the afflicted states mobilized 8,000 National Guard troops.

Amid the looting, gun-toting citizens took to the streets in some areas to try to restore order. A store owner had put up a sign reading: "You loot, I shoot."

Police said there were dozens of carjackings overnight, by desperate survivors trying to leave town or obtain supplies. Somebody fired at a rescue helicopter Tuesday night, forcing its crew to abandon efforts to evacuate patients from a hospital, a state official said.

Authorities intent on rescuing flood victims let the looting go unstopped at first, but Nagin told CNN that authorities were "bringing it under control as we speak."

He said 3,500 National Guard troops were being sent to New Orleans. Louisiana state police were sending 40 troopers and two armored personnel carriers.

Katrina knocked out electricity to about 2.3 million customers, or nearly 5 million people, in four states, utility companies said. Restoring power could take weeks, they warned.

(Additional reporting by Paul Simao in Mobile, Alabama)

Source: REUTERS

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