HOLY COW! Look at Hurricane Katrina!

[yoviher]

Perhaps the most heartbreaking parts, which literally led me to tears was in Mississippi, when a local news reporter found a very distraugh man with two kids, speaking with a very hard to understand southern accent, that he's lost everything, that his wife is gone, that he hasn't seen her since the house was devastated, and he had his two children alongside him, and the reporter who heard that was holding her tears.... I can't start to describe the feeling...

Last night I saw live when the buses started arriving at the Houston Astrodome... the descriptions of how the drivers where scared for their safety until they managed to leave the city of New Orleans... The state the city has gone into.... I can't describe it... its surreal. This all looks more like a scene from "The Day After Tomorrow". The last time I saw such a devastation, chaos and anarchy in a major city like New Orleans was in old newsreels of Berlin just after World War II.

Perhaps the worst feeling of all, is when I look at the devastation that the 25 ft. surge caused in the Mississippi/Alabama gulf coast, and I start remembering thats precisely what would happen to the entire San Juan financial district, the Isla Verde part of the San Juan metro area, plus the port, in such a situation because of their low levels...

 

[squirtle]

My coworker has a friend who lives in NO. He stayed to ride out the storm because he has a dog and a cat who just had a litter of kittens. His mother lives here in Jacksonville and heard from him before the storm and received another call from him yesterday. He is alive but living in his attic with the animals. He had to wade through neck deep water to get to a pay phone a few blocks from his house. He told her what was going on and said that he has not seen any rescue crews in his area at all. He also has another elderly woman in the attic as well. His legs are all cut up. We are emailing the Rec Cross but can'f find a phone number to call, we have his address. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[rosehawke]

Originally Posted by squirtle

My coworker has a friend who lives in NO. He stayed to ride out the storm because he has a dog and a cat who just had a litter of kittens. His mother lives here in Jacksonville and heard from him before the storm and received another call from him yesterday. He is alive but living in his attic with the animals. He had to wade through neck deep water to get to a pay phone a few blocks from his house. He told her what was going on and said that he has not seen any rescue crews in his area at all. He also has another elderly woman in the attic as well. His legs are all cut up. We are emailing the Rec Cross but can'f find a phone number to call, we have his address. Anyone have any ideas?

Dang, I wish I'd taken down the numbers! I've been listening/watching www.wwltv.com which is local, constant coverage from Baton Rouge, they had a couple of contact numbers earlier. Try their web site? Maybe there's something posted there.

'Kay, these were on the site I mentioned, but I would suspect that you can expect many busy signals and it would take some time to get through:

Emergency search and rescue phone lines for those in distress:
(225) 925-7708 | (225) 925-7709 | (225) 925-3511 | (225) 925-7412

 

[squirtle]

Originally Posted by RoseHawke

Dang, I wish I'd taken down the numbers! I've been listening/watching www.wwltv.com which is local, constant coverage from Baton Rouge, they had a couple of contact numbers earlier. Try their web site? Maybe there's something posted there.

'Kay, these were on the site I mentioned, but I would suspect that you can expect many busy signals and it would take some time to get through:

Thank you so so much for posting that link. There were numbers on the home page for search and rescue. I called each one and after several tries got through to a live person with the police department. I gave her the address and nearest intersection to his home. I pray they are able to save him. The fact that he stayed in the storm for those animals really got to me.

 

[rockcat]

Originally Posted by squirtle

Thank you so so much for posting that link. There were numbers on the home page for search and rescue. I called each one and after several tries got through to a live person with the police department. I gave her the address and nearest intersection to his home. I pray they are able to save him. The fact that he stayed in the storm for those animals really got to me.

God bless him!

 

[rosehawke]

Originally Posted by squirtle

Thank you so so much for posting that link. There were numbers on the home page for search and rescue. I called each one and after several tries got through to a live person with the police department. I gave her the address and nearest intersection to his home. I pray they are able to save him. The fact that he stayed in the storm for those animals really got to me.

Glad I could help

.

 

[malynn]

I posted earlier on this thread about my relatives that live in the Gulfport Mississippi area. My brother in law and his wife have lost their home, everything is gone. Their son, who is a firefighter went back over yesterday to go back to work and his home was standing, they lived about 6 miles inland, he said it was one of few in the neighborhood that made it. His sister and her husbands house is standing also. He said that he went over to check on her house and a window was broken and some roofing was off but still standing. While he was there he said that 5 cats showed up and turns out his sister was feeding some strays or ferals that have come up and she never could touch them but she fed them. He said they wouldnt let him touch them but he found the cat food that Jessica had been feeding them and fed them.
He will continue to feed them I'm sure. Bless their hearts, its a wonder they made it. I'm so glad at least 2 homes of the family are still standing and my brother in law and his wife will have somewhere to go when they are able to go back. It's so sad, but they feel better knowing their houses are in livable condition.

 

[rockcat]

I just read this on another forum. Has anyone here heard of this?
"It has also been reported that there have been spoting's of SHARKS SWIMMING DOWN THE STREET! No kidding. the local fish tank that held sharks isnt there anymore and all the creatures in the tank are free to go where ever they want."

God please help all of these poor people and animals.

 

[squirtle]

Originally Posted by Rockcat

I just read this on another forum. Has anyone here heard of this?
"It has also been reported that there have been spoting's of SHARKS SWIMMING DOWN THE STREET! No kidding. the local fish tank that held sharks isnt there anymore and all the creatures in the tank are free to go where ever they want."

God please help all of these poor people and animals.

That has been on the radio today!

 

[fairykitty]

I have relatives in New Orleans. We haven't heard from them. VERY VERY BEST VIBES FOR my Aunt Sally and Uncle Jim!

P.S. Apple had kittens! 2 of them died. 1 little girl remains.

luv-Berry, Jake, Apple, me, and lil ????...

 

[gailc]

I know CNN.com's website had a list of emergency phone #'s. I just donated $25 to Bestfriends.org. By time I'm done my huuby will faint when we get the credit card bill by time I'm done!!

 

[yoviher]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ricane_katrina

New Orleans Mayor Issues 'Desperate SOS'

By ADAM NOSSITER, Associated Press Writer 28 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - 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 Thursday. "This is a desperate SOS," the mayor said.
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Anger mounted across the ruined city, with thousands of storm victims increasingly hungry, desperate and tired of waiting for buses to take them out.

"We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," the Rev. Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where corpses lay in the open and the and other evacuees complained that they were dropped off and given nothing — no food, no water, no medicine.

The plea from Mayor Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to help restore order and put a stop to the looting, carjackings and gunfire that have gripped New Orleans in the days since Hurricane Katrina plunged much of the city under water.

About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at the convention center to await buses were growing angry and restless in what appeared to be a potentially explosive situation. In hopes of defusing it, the mayor gave them permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they can find.

In a statement to CNN, he said: "This is a desperate SOS. Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses. We need buses. Currently the convention center is unsanitary and unsafe and we're running our of supplies."

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 in New Orleans. Already, 2,800 National Guardsmen are in the city, he said.

But across the flooded-out city, the rescuers themselves came under attack from storm victims.

"Hospitals are trying to evacuate," said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan, spokesman at the city emergency operations center. "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.'"

Some Federal Emergency Management rescue operations were suspended in areas where gunfire has broken out, Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said in Washington. "In areas where our employees have been determined to potentially be in danger, we have pulled back," he said.

A National Guard military policeman was shot in the leg as he and a man scuffled for the MP's rifle, police Capt. Ernie Demmo said. The man was arrested.

"These are good people. These are just scared people," Demmo said.

Outside the Convention Center, 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 did not come.

At least seven bodies were scattered outside, and hungry people broke through the steel doors to a food service entrance and began pushing out pallets of water and juice and whatever else they could find.

An old man in a chaise lounge 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," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair. "I buried my dog." He added: "You can do everything for other countries but you can't do nothing for your own people. You can go overseas with the military but you can't get them down here."

The street outside the center, above the floodwaters, smelled of urine and feces, and was choked with dirty diapers, old bottles and garbage.

"They've been teasing us with buses for four days," Edwards said.

People chanted, "Help, help!" as reporters and photographers walked through. The crowd got angry when journalists tried to photograph one of the bodies, and covered it over with a blanket. A woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm.

John Murray, 52, said: "It's like they're punishing us."

The Superdome, where some 25,000 people were being evacuated by bus to the Houston Astrodome, descended into chaos as well.

Huge crowds, hoping to finally escape the stifling confines of the stadium, jammed the main concourse outside the dome, spilling out over the ramp to the Hyatt hotel next door — a seething sea of tense, unhappy, people packed shoulder-to-shoulder up to the barricades where heavily armed National Guardsmen stood.

At the front of the line, heavily armed policemen and guardsmen stood watch and handed out water as tense and exhausted crowds struggled onto buses. At the back end of the line, people jammed against police barricades in the rain. Luggage, bags of clothes, pillows, blankets were strewn in the puddles.

Many people had dogs and they cannot take them on the bus. A police officer took one from a little boy, who cried until he vomited. "Snowball, snowball," he cried. The policeman told a reporter he didn't know what would happen to the dog.

Fights broke out. A fire erupted in a trash chute inside the dome, but a National Guard commander said it did not affect the evacuation. After a traffic jam kept buses from arriving at the Superdome for nearly four hours, a near-riot broke out in the scramble to get on the buses that finally did show up.

Col. Henry Whitehorn, head of state police, said authorities are working on establishing a temporary jail to hold people accused of looting and other crimes. "These individuals will not take control of the city of New Orleans," he said.

The first of hundreds of busloads of people evacuated from the Superdome arrived early Thursday at their new temporary home — another sports arena, the Houston Astrodome, 350 miles away.

But the ambulance service in charge of taking the sick and injured from the Superdome suspended flights after a shot was reported fired at a military helicopter. Richard Zuschlag, chief of Acadian Ambulance, said it was too dangerous for his pilots.

The military, which was overseeing the removal of the able-bodied by buses, continued the ground evacuation without interruption, said National Guard Lt. Col. Pete Schneider. The government had no immediate confirmation of whether a military helicopter was fired on.

Terry Ebbert, head of the city's emergency operations, warned that the slow evacuation at the Superdome had become an "incredibly explosive situation," and he bitterly complained that FEMA was not offering enough help.

"This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace," he said. "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."

In Texas, the governor's office said Texas has agreed to take in an additional 25,000 refugees from Katrina and plans to house them in San Antonio, though exactly where has not been determined.

In Washington, the White House said
President Bush will tour the devastated Gulf Coast region on Friday and has asked his father and former
President Clinton to lead a private fund-raising campaign for victims.

The president urged a crackdown on the lawlessness.

"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this — whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud," Bush said. "And I've made that clear to our attorney general. The citizens ought to be working together."

On Wednesday, Mayor Ray Nagin offered the most startling estimate yet of the magnitude of the disaster: Asked how many people died in New Orleans, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands." The death toll has already reached at least 126 in Mississippi.

If the estimate proves correct, it would make Katrina the worst natural disaster in the United States since at least the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, which was blamed for anywhere from about 500 to 6,000 deaths. Katrina would also be the nation's deadliest hurricane since 1900, when a storm in Galveston, Texas, killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people.

Nagin called for a total evacuation of New Orleans, saying the city had become uninhabitable for the 50,000 to 100,000 who remained behind after the city of nearly a half-million people was ordered cleared out over the weekend.

The mayor said that it will be two or three months before the city is functioning again and that people would not be allowed back into their homes for at least a month or two.

"We need an effort of 9-11 proportions," former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, now president of the Urban League, said on NBC's "Today" show.

"A great American city is fighting for its life," he added. "We must rebuild New Orleans, the city that gave us jazz, and music, and multiculturalism."

Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu toured the stricken areas said said rescued people begged him to pass information to their families. His pocket was full of scraps of paper on which he had scribbled down their phone numbers.

When he got a working phone in the early morning hours Thursday, he contacted a woman whose father had been rescued and told her: "Your daddy's alive, and he said to tell you he loves you."

"She just started crying. She said, `I thought he was dead,'" he said.

 

[katspixiedust]

I just wanted to share this e-mail that was sent out to all University of Central Florida students just a minute ago. I'm so happy to see that my university is doing what it can to open its arms to those in need

"To: Campus Community
From: John C. Hitt, President
Submitted by: Beth Barnes, Vice President and Chief of Staff

Beginning today, the University of Central Florida will allow college
students displaced by Hurricane Katrina to register for classes on a
space-available basis.

Students who were enrolled this fall at universities that have been closed
because of the hurricane may apply to UCF by 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 9.
Students can call 407-823-6188 for enrollment information; a 1-800 number
will be posted at www.ucf.edu later this week. Because UCF started classes
Aug. 22, admissions staff will work one-on-one with displaced students to
expedite admission, enrollment, and financial assistance processes.

Application fees will be waived, and students will pay in-state tuition
rates. UCF will provide guidance and tutoring assistance, as well as
referrals for housing and other necessities.

Students will be offered admission on a case-by-case basis and will be
required to sign a form verifying that they were registered elsewhere and
have been displaced. Students who are unable to provide transcripts and
other official materials immediately will be allowed to do so at a later
date.

Our hearts go out to the students and families who have lost so much
because of this devastating storm. By allowing students to resume their
academic careers with as little interruption as possible, we hope to help
them overcome this tragedy and get on with their lives. I urge you to
welcome them into our community and make their transition as smooth
possible."


I hope some of the displaced decide to take advantage of this opportunity. It would be such a great thing for those students to be able to move forward in some way.

 

[yoviher]

It has now come in Puerto Rican local news that the Governor of Puerto Rico, AnÃ:censor:bal Acevedo Vilá has activated 1,200 national guardsmen and is preparing to send them to Louisiana to help in the efforts. He says that by now the only formality necesary is the permission from Governor Blanco, which probably is already been issued. The Puerto Rico chapter of the Red Cross has sent 25 volunteers, and also, the UPR is preparing to accept all Puerto Ricans who were enrolled in universities in New Orleans who have been forced to return home, to keep their studies.

 

[talon]

I was happy to see in an email today that my company donated $100,000 to the red cross and is sending shampoo in response to their need for toiletries.

 

[sashacat421]

Originally Posted by Talon

I was happy to see in an email today that my company donated $100,000 to the red cross and is sending shampoo in response to their need for toiletries.

That is incredible.

Who do you work for? They should publicize that giving!
I work for Manpower and we're doing a global drive as we have 4300 office worldwide. All 11 offices in the NO area are closed. Each region is funneling cash to the most effective help agencies.

 

[yoviher]

The patients evacuated from the hospitals are being now taken to the Louis Armstrong International Airport where the U.S. Military has set up field hospitals, and then trying to take them to hospitals scattered all over the region...

However, there is something that is really weird: There is smoke billowing over the city... there is a fire of sorts somewhere... They say a depot has exploded. The most horrible comment is one on CNN where they said New Orleans looked more like a third world country in the midst of a civil war.

Congress has appropiated more funds for FEMA.

 

[rockcat]

Someone called our office and said that a major Bell South building was on fire. I get very limited TV channels at work. Has anyone else seen this?

 

[gemlady]

The fire Victor mentioned was reported this morning as being oil barrels. I also understand that broken gas lines are sparking fires just about everywhere.

 

[gemlady]

And the Astrodome is full.