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The Cavalry Arrives at Last . . . But Chaos Rules the City Fires Erupt As Troops and Aid Turn Up a Week After Hurricane

Posted on: Saturday, 3 September 2005, 15:00 CDT

CHAOTIC scenes met the convoys of military vehicles that rolled into New Orleans last night, as the simmering resentment among those still stuck in the city threatened to disrupt the massive relief effort.

Widespread looting and violence were reported as the National Guard arrived with food, water, and weapons.

They headed to the New Orleans Superdome, which still housed about 20,000 desperate refugees, and received a mixed reception.

While some greeted them with cries of "Thank you, Jesus!" others were not so grateful. Michael Levy, 46, said: "They should have been here days ago. I ain't glad to see 'em" - words that brought shouts of "Hell, yeah!" from those around him. He added:

"We've been sleeping on the ground like rats. I say burn this whole city down."

The arrival of the thousands of soldiers came amid blistering criticism from the mayor and others who said the federal government had bungled the relief effort and allowed people to die for lack of food, water or medicine.

"The people of our city are holding on by a thread, " Mayor Ray Nagin said. "Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows."

Earlier attempts to reach victims were thwarted when stampedes left helicopters nowhere to land.

For a day or more, corpses lay abandoned outside the building, and many storm refugees complained bitterly that they had been forsaken by the US government.

The open-topped trucks carried huge boxes of relief supplies. Soldiers sat in the backs of some of the trucks, their rifles pointing skyward.

The day started abruptly for the few residents who managed to get a little sleep when an explosion shook the city before daybreak. The 4.30am blast rocked a chemical storage facility, jolting residents awake, lighting up the sky, and sending a pillar of acrid grey smoke over a ruined city. The explosion took place along the Mississippi River about 15 blocks from the French Quarter, and about two miles from both the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Centre, the two spots where tens of thousands of hungry, desperate, and hostile refugees waited for buses to deliver them from their misery.

The cause of the blast was under investigation.

A series of smaller explosions followed, including a second large fire erupting downtown in an old retail building in a dry section of Canal Street. There were no reports of injuries.

Lieutenant General Steven Blum, of the National Guard, said 7000 guardsmen arriving in Louisiana yesterday would be dedicated to restoring order in New Orleans. He said half of them had just returned from assignments overseas and were "highly proficient in the use of lethal force", promising to put down the violence "in a quick and efficient manner".

As long convoys of vehicles stacked with supplies were seen pouring into the city, one relieved general announced that the cavalry had arrived.

Soldiers were given strict instructions to keep weapons out of sight. Lieutenant General Russell Honore, commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, said he did not want this to look like Iraq.

Over the past few days, rescuers, law officers, and medical- evacuation helicopters have been shot atby storm victims. Fist- fights and fires broke out as thousands of people waited in misery to board buses for the Houston Astrodome.

At the Superdome, a group of refugees broke through a line of heavily armed National Guardsmen in a scramble to board the buses. About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at the convention centre grew ever more hostile after waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead, including at least seven bodies scattered outside the building.

Police Chief Eddie Compass said there was such a crush around a squad of 88 officers that they retreated when they went in to check reports of assaults. "We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten.

Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon, " he said.

A military helicopter tried to land at the convention centre several times yesterday to drop off food and water.

Pilots found no place to land, and troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10ft off the ground.

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the agency had just learned about the situation at the convention centre yesterday and quickly scrambled to provide food, water, and medical care and remove the corpses.

Thousands of refugees left the city, but the Houston Astrodome took only 11,325, less than half the estimated 23,000 people expected.

Texas governor Rick Perry announced that Dallas would accommodate 25,000 more refugees at Reunion Arena and 25,000 others would be sheltered at a San Antonio warehouse, a former Air Force base. Houston estimated that as many as 55,000 people who fled the hurricane were staying in hotels.

Lake Pontchartrain's floodwaters still own New Orleans, and now they are toxic with battery acid, petrol, garbage and raw sewage.

Health experts warn that outbreaks of disease could wreak havoc in the days and weeks ahead. Michael Leavitt, health and human services secretary, claimed the standing water and the heat is posing a huge health threat.

"We have a recipe for disease and we want to avoid that. It would make a devastating tragedy even worse, " he said.

A day after Mayor Nagin took 1500 police officers off search-and- rescue duty to try to restore order in the streets, there were continued reports of looting, shootings, gunfire and carjackings.

Tourist Debbie Durso of Washington, Michigan, said she asked a police officer for assistance and his response had been "Go to hell - it's every man for himself."

Hospitals struggled to evacuate critically ill patients who were dying for lack of oxygen, insulin or intravenous fluids. But when some hospitals try to airlift patients, Coast Guard Lt Cmdr Cheri Ben-Iesan said "there are people just taking pot shots at police and at helicopters, telling them, 'You better come get my family'."

All along the 90-mile coast, other emergency workers retrieved corpses, some of them lying on the streets and amid the ruins of the obliterated homes that stretch back blocks from the beach.

Governor Haley Barbour said he knows people are tired, hungry, dirty and scared - particularly in areas that were hit hardest by the storm.

He also admitted the state faces a long and expensive recovery process.

"I will say, sometimes I'm scared, too, " Barbour said during a briefing in Jackson, Mississippi. "But we are going to hitch up our britches. We're going to get this done."

Source: Herald, The; Glasgow (UK)

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