"The evacuation of Katrina victims onto buses for Texas was interrupted briefly, allowing 700 guests and employees from the adjacent Hyatt Hotel to move to the head of the evacuation line and board school buses."
""How does this work? They are clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" asked Howard Blue, an evacuee."
"Blue attempted to join the Hyatt group but was denied a place. As he rejoined the thousands of others enduring subhuman conditions, National Guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage."
"One hotel guest said the group was heading to the airport, but that could not be confirmed. The guest said the Hyatt told its patrons they would have water and phones by nightfall."
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Bus Carrying Evacuees Overturns In Louisiana
Relief Trucks Roll In To New Orleans
UPDATED: 6:12 pm MDT September 2, 2005
Louisiana State Police say one person is dead after a charter bus carrying evacuees overturned Friday afternoon in Opelousas, La.
The accident happened on Interstate 49 at Creswell Lane. The bus was transporting evacuees from the New Orleans Superdome to Dallas, CNN reported.
The newspaper Daily World of Opelousas reports on its Web site that at least 10 people have been taken to hospitals. Several suffered critical injuries.
A state police trooper said the driver lost control of the vehicle, but details are not known yet.
Meanwhile, after days without regular meals, thousands of hurricane evacuees are finally getting food, courtesy of the National Guard.
A convoy of more than a dozen military trucks loaded with water and Meals Ready to Eat began filing down Convention Center Boulevard in New Orleans under heavy Humvee escort.
Despite going without regular food and water for up to five days, the sometimes-unruly crowd marched in an orderly fashion into the parking lot and broke into six single-file lines.
Most people seemed grateful for the water and military meals. But not everyone was happy with the way the National Guard was running things. At least two people complained that the soldiers would give them rations only for themselves, even though they said they were caring for senior citizens.
Both the Superdome and convention center have been powderkegs of angry, desperate humanity -- with fights, filth and feelings of abandonment. But New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass received a hero's welcome Friday as he rode past the crowd with a bullhorn, offering reassurances.
"We got 30,000 people out of the Superdome, and we're going to take care of you," he said.
He also warned that if anyone disrupted the relief effort, troops would be forced to stop distributing food and water and leave.
But an incident Friday at the Superdome has caused some hurricane evacuees to wonder if others are getting special treatment.
The evacuation of Katrina victims onto buses for Texas was interrupted briefly, allowing 700 guests and employees from the adjacent Hyatt Hotel to move to the head of the evacuation line and board school buses.
"How does this work? They are clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" asked Howard Blue, an evacuee.
Blue attempted to join the Hyatt group but was denied a place. As he rejoined the thousands of others enduring subhuman conditions, National Guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage.
One hotel guest said the group was heading to the airport, but that could not be confirmed. The guest said the Hyatt told its patrons they would have water and phones by nightfall.
Trying to survive in the Superdome has been tough for the healthiest hurricane survivor. But those who are sick, injured or in need of medicine have really been hurting.
"Everybody's in pretty dire straits," said Kenneth Avery. He saw many small children who are sick, and a pregnant woman who was ready to deliver.
One woman said her newborn is running a fever, and small children in her area inside the dome all had rashes.
Becky Larue, of Des Moines, Iowa, and her husband were vacationing in New Orleans when the storm hit, and have been at the dome since Saturday. She's down to her last blood pressure pill.
Larue said she was waiting for evacuees "to start injuring themselves just to get out of here."
The Rev. Isaac Clark, a 68-year-old minister who's stranded with thousands of other evacuees at the New Orleans Convention Center said, "We are out here living like pure animals."
"We don't have water. We don't have food. We don't have help," Clark said.
Alan Gould, a man who is an evacuee inside the convention center, told CNN that women and small children are being raped and killed. He called it genocide.
He said officials keep giving them the runaround, saying "Help is coming. Help is coming. Help is coming." But he said people just keep dying.
The New Orleans police chief said 15,000 people are trapped in the city's convention center. And he said some are being raped and beaten.
A 23-year-old woman tending to her 4-year-old daughter said, "God is punishing New Orleans" for its corruption and crime.
At least seven bodies were scattered outside the convention center. People desperately called for help, chasing after reporters, sometimes pleading and sometimes threatening.
The man heading the military operation in New Orleans said if the emergency work were easy, it would have been done already.
Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore told CNN the high water near the convention center and Superdome is making it tough for troops to get in. But he said they have been unloading trucks full of food and water -- and will go restock when they're empty.
Honore said they'll also clear areas for helicopters to conduct medical evacuations.
The commander said he knows people in the area are frustrated at the pace, and he is, too. But he downplayed talk of mass criminal activity in New Orleans, saying most of the people massed on the streets are families just waiting to get out of a bad spot.
Bush: Hurricane Damage 'Worse Than Imaginable'
President George W. Bush visited several storm-ravaged cities along the Gulf Coast Friday, and he said the damage is "worse than imaginable."
But later, he said "there's been a flow of progress" following the destruction brought by Hurricane Katrina.
The president spoke to reporters after completing a visit to the devastated areas of the Gulf region. Bush said he's "not going to forget" what he's seen, and said, "We're making progress."
The president said some of the folks in Louisiana parishes are "wondering whether people are paying attention to them. We are."
Bush drew applause when he predicted that a "greater city of New Orleans" would arise from the destruction.
Earlier, Bush walked through a Biloxi, Miss., neighborhood hit hard by Katrina, trying to console people who lost their homes, and everything else but their lives, to Hurricane Katrina.
In Biloxi, Bush spoke with a tearful woman who told him, "We don't have anything." They stood alongside the ruins of homes that had been reduced to pieces amid fallen trees and other debris.
He walked through the debris with the woman and a girl, his arms around their shoulders, and told them to "hang in there."
The president warned that gas supply problems will continue through the weekend because of damaged refineries and pipelines.
Bush also acknowledged criticism of the government's actions after the storm, saying he's satisfied with the response but not the results. He stood next to the governors of Mississippi and Alabama while saying the government has a responsibility to "clean up this mess." And he specifically vowed to bring order back to New Orleans.
The Pentagon is promising 1,400 National Guardsmen, and Congress is rushing through an initial aid package of $10.5 billion. Bush is expected to sign the measure into law late Friday.
In front of cameras in Mobile, Ala., Bush received a briefing on the situation from the governors of Mississippi and Alabama and other emergency officials.
"It's as if the entire Gulf Coast was obliterated by the worst kind of weapon you can imagine," he said.
Before leaving the White House, he said the efforts to provide food and water to survivors, and to stop the lawlessness in New Orleans, had not been good enough. He said, "The results are not acceptable."
First lady Laura Bush visited an evacuation center Friday inside the Cajundome in Lafayette, La. She said she's seeing proof that not all parts of Louisiana are in terrible shape.
Mrs. Bush told reporters the center "doesn't really look like what we're seeing on television." The first lady said "some things are working really, really well in Louisiana."
She said about 6,000 people are having basic needs met inside the center, and she's urging more volunteers to show up there and at locations around the Gulf Coast.
After at first steering clear of a question about the federal response to Katrina, the first lady later said the response hasn't been the kind the government had in mind. "We know we can do it better," she said.
At least one prominent Republican is critical of Bush and his administration for their response to the ravages of Hurricane Katrina.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich urged Bush to appoint Rudolph Giuliani to head relief efforts. Gingrich told The Associated Press that no one is better prepared for the job than Giuliani, who was mayor of New York on Sept. 11, 2001.
Gingrich said the pace of the federal disaster response puts into question Homeland Security and Northern Command planning over the last four years. He rhetorically asks why the government believes it's prepared for a nuclear or biological attack when it can't respond to an event that was predicted days in advance.
Black members of Congress are angry about what they see as a slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina. The Congressional Black Caucus, the National Urban League and other African-American organizations charge that help lagged because those most affected are poor.
Many also are black, but the lawmakers did not hurl charges of racism.
"There will be another time to have issues about color," Ohio Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones said.
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois said too much focus is on the looting instead of the needy.
Elijah Cummings, a congressman from Maryland, said citizens and governments must come together with a "force equal to that of Hurricane Katrina."
Relief Trucks Roll In To New Orleans
The National Guard arrived in New Orleans in force Friday with food, water and weapons, rolling through the floodwaters in a vast truck convoy with orders to retake the streets and bring relief to the suffering.
"The cavalry is and will continue to arrive," said one general.
A convoy of amphibious vehicles carrying the relief supplies is making its way through the flooded streets of downtown New Orleans.
The trucks began arriving Friday at the New Orleans Convention Center, where 15,000 to 20,000 hungry and desperate evacuees had taken shelter -- many of them seething with anger so intense that the place appeared ready to erupt in violence at any moment.
A mix of cheering and swearing greeted the National Guard. As a convoy of trucks swarmed through downtown, some near the city's convention center threw up their hands and screamed "Thank you, Jesus!"
Others weren't as pleased. Michael Levy said "Hell no," he's not happy to see the Guard, saying troops should have shown up days ago. Levy said he'll be pleased when 100 buses arrive to evacuate people.
Levy said people at the center have been sleeping on the ground "like rats." And he said if he had his way, New Orleans would be burned down.
Meanwhile, the Army Corps of Engineers said it will be at least a matter of weeks before all the standing water can be pumped out. And it's also looking into breaching some levees bordering Lake Ponchartrain to let some drain that way.
Commander Carl Strock said the timetable depends on just how much pumping capacity can be restored, and whether any more storms pop up. He said experts will have to keep an eye on the Atlantic before popping holes in any levees and compromising more flood protection.
Strock acknowledged that complete funding for the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project would have allowed the Corps to get water out of New Orleans faster.
However, he said even if certain water and flood-control projects in New Orleans had been fully funded, they would have been no match against Hurricane Katrina.
The budget of the Corps has been trimmed by the Bush and other administrations several times to free up money for other White House priorities.
Airlines Evacuate New Orleans Residents
The nation's major carriers have begun flights meant to airlift more than 25,000 people stranded in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.
The evacuees will be taken to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio and other sites picked by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. (Click here for full story.)
New Orleans' Public Hospitals Seek Help
The morgue at New Orleans' Big Charity facility is full, and it's under water.
Spokesman Don Smithburg said the morgue is holding 12 bodies, and another five are stacked in a stairwell, which also is flooded. Other bodies are elsewhere in the public hospital.
Smithburg said some doctors and nurses are at the breaking point, and giving each other intravenous fluids to be able to continue functioning.
But rescuers are now inside Charity Hospital, which is New Orleans' largest public hospital and trauma center. Gunshots had prevented earlier efforts to evacuate more than 220 patients.
Evacuations have resumed under the watchful eye of the military. All of the babies at Charity have been moved out.
Doctors at Charity and the city's other public hospital, University Hospital, have faced horrific decisions between life and death. They had no provisions and no electricity, and they were having to choose which patients received whatever food, water and medicines were available. Both hospitals had more than 1,000 patients.
At University Hospital, about 500 family and staff members have joined 110 very ill patients, along with hundreds of others from the general community needing evacuation. Emergency radio communication with University has been lost.
At last word, staffers were begging for help. They were rationing a liter of water a day and had minimal food.
Mayor Angry
The once-glorious city of New Orleans is in ruins and its people in chaos from Hurricane Katrina.
For those who sought refuge in the New Orleans convention center, it became just another part of the nightmare. There are reports of rapes, beatings and fights in the convention center, where at least 15,000 people have sought safety.
Police Chief Eddie Compass said hotels have sent away their tourists and the displaced people are "walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon."
But when he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, they were driven back by a mob. He said, "They were beaten back within 30 feet of the entrance."
Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, is seething over what he sees as the government's slow response to his city's disaster.
Nagin went on WWL Radio Thursday night to say the feds "don't have a clue what's going on." He added, "Excuse my French -- everybody in America -- but I am pissed."
Nagin said that there are many drug addicts who are searching for a fix. He said that's why they are breaking into drug stores and hospitals.
"What you are seeing is drug-starving, crazy addicts that are wreaking havoc and we don't have the manpower that we can deal with it," Nagin said.
Nagin is angry, and wants people to flood the offices of the president and the governor with letters calling for help. He thinks not enough is being done to help the evacuees.
"Get off your a---s and let's do something and let's fix the biggest g-----n crisis in the history of this country," Nagin said. "People are dying. They don't have homes, they don't have jobs. The city of New Orleans will never be the same. And it's time."
The mayor said he needs troops and hundreds of buses to get evacuees out.
He said that it was laughable that some officials had mentioned possibly having school bus drivers brought to New Orleans to help with the evacuation.
"I'm like, 'You have got to be kidding me.' This is a national disaster, get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their a---s to New Orleans," he said. "This is a major, major, major deal."
Nagin accused state and federal officials of "playing games" and "spinning for the cameras." He said he keeps hearing that help is coming, but "there's no beef."
He called for a moratorium on press conferences. He said he doesn't want any more press conferences there until there is actual manpower on the ground helping his city. He said that he is tired of hearing that thousands of troops are on their way because they are just not there.
On Thursday, Nagin issued a "desperate SOS" on behalf of the thousands who are stranded at the convention center. He also gave the go-ahead for them to march across a bridge to a dry area of the city and look for whatever relief they could find.
Major Oil Spill Spotted On Mississippi River
To add to the energy problems along the Gulf Coast, a huge oil spill has been spotted near two storage tanks on the Mississippi River.
The Department of Environmental Quality said the tanks have a capacity of about 2 million barrels and appear to be leaking.
Arrivals From Louisiana Screened In Houston
Passengers getting off buses from New Orleans may be in sight of the end of their nearly week-long ordeal. But first, they have to go through screening.
Police in Houston are guiding people through lines where they can undergo pat-down searches.
Paramedics wearing rubber gloves are helping medical teams conduct a triage operation. Kidney patients and others who might need immediate medical attention are being transported to hospitals.
The evacuees are also being offered icy bottles of water as they get off the buses. Disposable diapers are being passed out to those with small children.
Many of the people are asking total strangers for a few seconds of cellphone time to try to locate loved ones.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry said efforts to help victims of Hurricane Katrina are building momentum.
The governor toured the massive relief effort under way Friday at the Houston Astrodome, which is housing 15,0000 of the storm evacuees and an additional 3,000 are in a nearby horse arena. Perry told reporters that the displaced people from New Orleans will need months of assistance.
Perry opened Texas public schools to the children of displaced families. Thousands have already been enrolled in public schools in the Houston area. He said that number could top 8,000 by the time longterm evacuees are settled.
College students who come to Texas from damaged areas will be able to attend state schools at resident rates, and social service assistance is also being made available.
The governor said FEMA vouchers can be used to rent apartments in the area.
Officials say the Houston Astrodome is full. So, they've begun sending buses to other shelters in the Houston area.
Houston Mayor Bill White said the nearby Reliant Center and the George R. Brown Convention Center were being prepared to house additional refugees.
Buses that continue to arrive are being sent on to other shelters in the area and as far away as Huntsville, about an hour north of Houston.
The U.S. Postal Service is gearing up to provide free post office boxes to those facing long-term evacuation because of Hurricane Katrina. (Click here for full story.)
Although the Astrodome is full, the state of Texas is rolling out an even bigger welcome mat for evacuees. Officials are agreeing to take another 25,000 displaced residents, bringing the grand total to 73,000.
The cities of Dallas, Houston and San Antonio will become new homes for storm evacuees, many from hard-hit New Orleans.
San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger hopes for a system in which evacuees can get their needs resolved in one central place. He said he hopes to restore "some dignity which these circumstances have taken away from" storm evacuees.
The American Red Cross is also running shelters in other Texas cities.
Officials are urging residents throughout the region to help locate garage apartments and other housing that could be temporarily made available to displaced families.
Arrangements are also being made to post highway signs directing those displaced by the storm to cities where other temporary shelters have been opened.
Major Developments
The National Guard presence balloons in New Orleans as more armed troops drive through watery streets with food, water and the promise of safer streets after days of looting. Lieutenant governor notes many troops are Iraq veterans "highly proficient in the use of lethal force."
Bush tours Gulf Coast communities amid criticism from the New Orleans mayor and others that he engineered a too-little, too-late response. Black lawmakers see bias against storm's many impoverished victims.
The influx of refugees to Houston overloads the Astrodome, forcing officials to open two more giant centers.
Congress works to rush a $10.5 billion recovery bill to Bush, who calls the relief effort the biggest in U.S. history.
Twenty-five countries agree to join the United States to release the equivalent of 2 million barrels of oil per day from strategic fuel reserves.
Asia-Pacific nations -- including tsunami-battered Sri Lanka -- promise to send money and disaster relief experts. (Click here for full list.)
Lawmakers demand investigation into price gouging on gasoline prices after thousands of consumer complaints.
Thousands of college students have been displaced, some enrolling at other schools. (Click here for full story.)
Memorable Scenes
A collection of scenes that have amazed, impressed, and horrified us over the past few days:
National Guard troops in trucks loaded down with water and food have gotten a mixed reaction from the starving masses outside the Superdome and convention center. Some threw their hands in the air and screamed, "Thank you Jesus!" But others swore at the troops, unhappy that it took them days to get there.
Some hungry tourists in New Orleans had engineered a creative way to get some food. They found some ramen noodles, let water sit in the sun to get hot, soaked the noodles in the water and served them with crackers.
The evacuation of Katrina victims from the Superdome onto buses for Texas was interrupted briefly today, allowing 700 guests and employees from the adjacent Hyatt Hotel to move to the head of the evacuation line and board school buses. One refugee, Howard Blue, asked, "How does this work? They are clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?"
The pool photographer watching the National Guard convoy approach the convention center area noted that heavily armed soldiers were keeping a wary eye on things as they drove by -- many with their automatic weapons pointed out the windows. He says the troops had been told to be on the lookout for sniper fire, and they were ready to engage citizens if fired upon.
The dead bodies are literally piling up at New Orleans' biggest hospital. The morgue at Charity Hospital has 12 bodies in it. Another five are stacked in a stairwell -- and in both cases, all those bodies are underwater. The hospital system's chief says there are also bodies in other parts of the hospital.
The water doesn't seem to be going up now, but what's already there will be there for a while. The Army Corps of Engineers says it'll likely be weeks before the standing water is pumped out or otherwise drained away.
The wish list for one parish council president in Louisiana was simple: a hundred automatic weapons and shotguns, 200 bodybags and a satellite phone. He had to hand-deliver the list to state officials today. A state lawmaker representing St. Bernard Parish says airlifts have saved some ten-thousand people from roofs and other high places.
As a mass convoy of aid headed for New Orleans, it drove right by some tiny Mississippi towns desperately in need of help -- as did power and Red Cross trucks before it. Tiny hamlets like Bond and Maxie are in dire need of food, water, electricity and gas after getting a direct hit from Katrina. One woman in Bond says "people back here are going to starve" if some relief doesn't show.
President Bush wrapped his arms around two sobbing women in Biloxi, Mississippi as one told him she doesn't have anything left. Bush kissed the women on the head and told them to hang in there -- and later told reporters the damage is almost beyond imagination.
In a bit of role reversal, the U-N is calling on other nations to help the U.S. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says America has always been generous in aiding other nations, and now it's time to return the favor. Cuba is among the nations offering help. And a religious leader in Turkey says Turks should remember how the U.S. helped them after a devastating earthquake in 1999.
Previous Stories:
September 2, 2005: Angry New Orleans Mayor Says Feds Don't Have A Clue
September 2, 2005: Astrodome Declared Full; Refugees Sent To Other Shelters
September 1, 2005: Astrodome Declared Full; Evacuees Sent To Other Shelters
September 1, 2005: Americans Open Wallets, Hearts To Help Hurricane Victims
September 1, 2005: Congress To Reconvene Early To Pass Katrina Legislation
August 31, 2005: Storm Surge: Katrina Pushes Gas Prices Toward $3
September 1, 2005: Superdome Evacuations Disrupted After Reports Of Shots Fired
September 1, 2005: Bush: 'New Communities Will Flourish'
August 31, 2005: Thousands Could Be Dead, New Orleans Mayor Says
August 31, 2005: White House To Release Oil From Federal Reserves To Boost Supply
August 31, 2005: New Orleans Mayor: Entire City Could Flood
August 30, 2005: Rescuers Search For Katrina Survivors Along Gulf Coast
August 30, 2005: Katrina Shreds Superdome Roof
August 30, 2005: Oil Prices Top $70 A Barrel After Katrina
August 30, 2005: U.S. Airlines Take Direct Hit From Katrina, Oil Prices
August 30, 2005: Katrina Among Costliest U.S. Storms
August 30, 2005: Report: At Least 50 Dead In Coastal Mississippi
August 29, 2005: Katrina Damage Blocks Phone Calls To Stricken Area
August 29, 2005: Bush Considers Tapping Petroleum Reserve
August 29, 2005: Superdome Roof Ripped As Katrina Nears New Orleans
August 28, 2005: For Mississippi, Katrina Prompts Memories Of Camille
August 26, 2005: Katrina Strengthens; 4 Dead, 5 Missing
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