← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Sertorius
Thread ID: 19976 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2005-09-03
2005-09-03 18:27 | User Profile
The New York Times September 4, 2005 New Orleans Quiets With Guard on Patrol and Offering Aid By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
Amid signs of progress in the struggle against the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush said today that he had ordered 7,000 additional troops to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast states to crack down on lawlessness and evacuate thousands of refugees.
Hours after signing a $10.5 billion package of assistance for the stricken region, calling it a down payment on aid to come, the president acknowledged again today that his administration had failed to promptly help many of the hurricane's most desperate victims and promised to resurrect this city and devastated coastal areas of several states.
"The magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities," he said, slightly exaggerating the stricken land area in a radio broadcast before television cameras in the White House Rose Garden. "The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."
The admission of shortcomings was another striking acknowledgment by the President, who made a similar statement in his visit to New Orleans and Mississippi on Friday and who has come under stiff criticism from both political parties for his handling of the crisis, and he appeared to be striving to make amends, particularly to those caught in the crisis.
"I know that those of you who have been hit hard by Katrina are suffering," the president declared. "Many are angry and desperate for help. The tasks before us are enormous, but so is the heart of America. In America, we do not abandon our fellow citizens in our hour of need. And the federal government will do its part."
Hundreds of newly arrived National Guard troops patrolled the lawless streets of New Orleans on Saturday, beginning the task of wresting control from thugs and looters and restoring order in a city that had all but surrendered to death and disorder after Hurricane Katrina.
The deployment of the troops, the arrival of major convoys of desperately needed supplies, the speeded evacuation of tens of thousands of people from refugee centers and hospitals and progress in closing some of the breached levees brought glimmers of hope for the flooded and ravaged city.
But officials cautioned that New Orleans faced a long, difficult climb out of the crisis.
Maj. Gen. Don T. Riley, director of civil works for the Army Corps of Engineers, said work had begun to drain floodwater from the canals. Notches were cut in the levee walls. "We need to pump the canal out so we can get to the pump stations," General Riley said. He said crews had to dry out the generators and pumps at the stations to use them to help dry out the city.
It was unclear how many guardsmen were in the city. But on streets where gun battles, fistfights, rapes, holdups, carjackings and marauding mobs of looters had held sway through the week, the mere sight of troops in camouflage battle gear with assault rifles gave a sense of relief to many of the thousands of stranded survivors who had endured days of appalling terror and suffering.
"They brought a sense of order and peace, and it was a beautiful sight to see that we're ramping up," Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana said. "We are seeing a show of force. It's putting confidence back in our hearts and in the minds of our people. We're going to make it through."
Six days after the hurricane decimated the Gulf Coast in a fantasia of howling winds and towering seas that weakened and then breached the city's protective levees, New Orleans was still a nightmarish town that had endured the unthinkable: 80 percent of its ground flooded, perhaps thousands of its citizens killed and numberless homes and businesses destroyed by water, fires, looters and scavengers.
At dawn today, as a brilliant orange sun rose over the Mississippi, two huge columns of smoke climbed over the city as major fires burned unchecked, one apparently at the scene of an explosion that ripped through a propane gas storage warehouse on Friday. Firefighters were handicapped by low water pressure and difficulty of getting around the flooded city.
The streets of downtown New Orleans were nearly deserted this morning. Troops were on patrol outside City Hall, all the federal buildings, at refugee centers and at key intersections, and there were only glimpses of the hoodlums who had ruled unchecked for days.
There were a few reports of violence, said Michael D. Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "Some of these kids think this is a game," he said. "They somehow got their hands on a weapon. They think they are playing Pacman or something and shooting at people. Those kinds of hot spots will continue, but I can tell you they will learn very quickly the 82nd Airborne does not like to be shot at. This is not a game."
Here and there, small groups of people pushed shopping carts, carried shopping bags or dragged suitcases holding their remaining possessions.
The absence of widespread disorder was only one of the positive signs. In addition to the arrival of hundreds of National Guard troops, which coincided with President Bush's visit and mea culpa on Friday, there were other signs of hope.
Convoys of trucks carrying food, water and other relief supplies rolled into the city and were greeted by cheers and sobs of relief by some of the exhausted, traumatized refugees. Others, like 46-year-old Michael Levy, one of the refugees at the convention center, were bitter. "They should have been here days ago," he said as others yelled in agreement.
After days of delay and broken promises, the goal of evacuating the stricken city also appeared to be more than just talk. Caravans of buses that for thousands meant deliverance from danger, hunger and misery were finally rolling in, and thousands more, including 100 New York City buses accompanied by New York police officers, were on the way.
Seventy of the New York buses left today and 30 more were to leave Sunday on 20-hour, 1,300 mile non-stop trips to New Orleans. Each bus carried two drivers and a police officer, and more than 100 other officers were preparing to make the trip in their own cars. The convoy, including a tow truck and a communications bus, was carrying 11,000 bottles of water and other supplies.
"Fellow Americans need help and they have responded in the finest tradition of the Police Department," Commissioner Raymond Kelly of New York said of the officers, all of whom will be authorized by the government to carry weapons and exercise full police powers in Louisiana.
The evacuations of Tulane University and Charity Hospitals were completed, officials said. The evacuation of the Louisiana Superdome, which had become a fetid shelter of last resort for 25,000 people, was nearly completed by daybreak today, with most of its refugees taken to the Astrodome in Houston, 350 miles away. But an unexplained hitch halted the buses with 2,000 people still left in the Superdome, and it was unclear when they would get out.
There were untold thousands of people still holding out elsewhere in the city, including 25,000 at the New Orleans Convention Center, where heat, filth and gagging stench were overpowering. But troops moved in and chased out hoodlums who had terrorized many of the refugees, and food, water and other supplies were reaching those who desperately needed them.
Patrick Rhode, deputy director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told CNN today that significant progress had been made at the convention center, and that 95 percent of the refugees in the Superdome had been evacuated. He said aid had also arrived in Mississippi and other stricken areas along the Gulf Coast.
At a late night news briefing at the state capital in Baton Rouge, Governor Blanco said she had sent a list of needs to President Bush in a letter, including the return of the headquarters unit of the Louisiana-based 256th Brigade Combat Team from Iraq, where its mission has been completed.
The governor also asked the White House to open a new military staging base in Baton Rouge, supplementing another in Pineville, La., and to maintain a minimum of 40,000 troops there.
She also asked for 200 military trucks to carry food, water and other supplies, Humvees and other vehicles and for aerial and ground firefighting equipment.
"I think we turned a corner today," said the governor, clearly in an upbeat mood.
Col. Jeff Smith, a retired Army officer who is deputy director of the Louisiana office of homeland security and emergency management, said that 5,000 members of the Louisiana National Guard were on duty and that more than 3,400 other soldiers from around the country would join them shortly.
But Terry Ebbert, the retired Marine colonel who is director of homeland security for New Orleans with authority over the police and fire departments and other emergency services, said there were only about 1,000 National Guardsmen in the city as of today morning.
Colonel Ebbert said the city hoped that 2,000 more would begin arriving later in the day, but that was far short of the 10,000 soldiers the city had requested. Other officials said it appeared the city would not get more than 3,000 guardsmen and no regular troops at all.
The Corps of Engineers said that crews had gained control over the breach in the 17th Street Canal levee, where the heaviest floodwaters had entered the city, and said they expected to close a second gap in another canal over the weekend.
But Brig. Gen. Robert Crear said it might take months to remove floodwaters from the swamped city. "We're looking at anywhere from 36 to 80 days to being done," he said.
Joseph B. Treaster contributed reporting from New Orleans for this article, Elisabeth Bumiller from Washington andCampbell Robertson from Gulfport, Miss.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company [url]http://nytimes.com/2005/09/04/national/nationalspecial/04storm.html?ei=5094&en=914bef5e84ddf2d3&hp=&ex=1125806400&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1125771063-zE3Bau1U14zD8H43D5+kNA&pagewanted=print[/url] =============== Either they are sending those two infantry of the 82nd or they aren't. I wonder what is what here and I wonder if they do?