A rchive Date
[ 02-09-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.torontosun.com/News/Katrina/2005/09/02/1199024-sun.html
Anarchy hits in New Orleans
By ADAM NOSSITER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Fri, September 2, 2005
NEW ORLEANS - Storm victims were raped and beaten, fights and fires broke out, corpses lay out in the open, and rescue helicopters and law enforcement officers were shot at as flooded-out New Orleans descended into anarchy yesterday.
"This is a desperate SOS," Mayor Ray Nagin said as anger mounted across the ruined city. Thousands of desperate victims of Hurricane Katrina, hungry and without water, waited for buses to take them out.
"We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," Rev. Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Centre, where bodies lay in the open and evacuees said they had nothing - no food, no water, no medicine.
About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at the convention centre to wait for buses grew increasingly hostile. Police Chief Eddie Compass said he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation, but they were quickly beaten back by an angry mob.
"We have individuals who are getting raped. We have individuals who are getting beaten," Compass said. "Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon."
Hoping to defuse the situation, Mayor 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 at the convention centre appeared to make leaving difficult.
A military helicopter tried to land there several times to drop off food and water, but the rushing crowd forced the choppers to back off. Troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from three metres off the ground and flew away.
National Guardsmen poured in to help restore order and put a stop to the looting, carjackings and gunfire that have gripped New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina flooded the city on Monday.
In Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the government is sending in 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to help stop looting and other lawlessness. Already, 2,800 National Guardsmen are in the city.
Prime Minister Paul Martin called President George W. Bush to offer Canadian sympathy and support. "If you need help, just ask and we'll be there," he told Bush in a 15-minute phone call.
Martin said Bush didn't ask for help, but predicted he will.
The Canadian military put troops on standby and prepared to load a ship with gear and equipment. The Canadian Red Cross was sending a team of 100 to 200 experienced disaster workers to bolster the American Red Cross staff in the region.
Bush will tour the devastated Gulf Coast region today and has asked his father, former president George H.W. Bush, and former president Bill Clinton to lead a private fund-raising campaign for victims. Congress considered $10 billion aid.
In flooded New Orleans, rescuers came under attack from storm victims.
"Hospitals are trying to evacuate," said Coast Guard Lt.-Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan. "At every one of them, there are reports that as the helicopters come in people are shooting at them. There are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, 'You better come get my family.' "
Outside the convention centre, the sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement. Thousands of storm refugees had been assembling outside for days, waiting for buses that haven't come.
At least seven bodies were scattered outside.
An old man in a chaise longue lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered with a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.
"I don't treat my dog like that," Daniel Edwards, 47, said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair.
'EXPLOSIVE'
"I buried my dog."
The Superdome, where some 25,000 people were being evacuated on hundreds of buses to the Houston Astrodome, 560 km away, descended into chaos as well.
Huge crowds hoping to escape the stadium jammed the concourse outside the dome.
Terry Ebbert, head of the city's emergency operations, said the slow evacuation at the Superdome had become an "incredibly explosive situation," and said the Federal Emergency Management Agency was not offering enough help.
"This is a national disgrace," he said. "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control."
Copyright © 2005, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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