New Orleans – A day after the National Guard finally arrived in force and began mass evacuations, thousands of people remained behind today as fires belched ribbons of smoke over the city and sporadic gunfire echoed through the night.
Thousands from the Superdome were taken to Texas on air-conditioned buses, but early today the operation was halted – with as many as 5,000 in the stadium alone still to be evacuated five days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
Lt. Kevin Cowan of the state Office of Emergency Preparedness said the Superdome evacuations were stopped so that authorities could concentrate on getting an estimated 25,000 out of the New Orleans Convention Center.
“Their main mission now is the convention center,” Cowan said.
Jennifer Washington was among thousands of frustrated evacuees who spent another morning at the convention center waiting for buses to come.
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At first they said 6:30 this morning, then they said 9, but there are no buses. They promised us buses,” said Washington, 25, who has not been able to find her four children in the aftermath of the storm.
Helicopters were evacuating the sickest people from outside the convention center, and two of the city’s most troubled hospitals were evacuated late Friday after desperate doctors spent days making tough choices about which patients got dwindling supplies of food, water and medicines.
“We’re just trying to ease their pain, give them a little bit of dignity and get them out of here,” said Lt. Col. Connie McNabb.
Breed reports it has become very dangerous for fire crews to do their job.
Saks Fifth Avenue billowed smoke today, as did rows of warehouses on the east bank of the Mississippi River, where corrugated roofs buckled and tiny explosions erupted. Gunfire – almost two dozen shots – broke out in the French Quarter overnight.
As the warehouse district burned, Ron Seitzer, 61, washed his dirty laundry in the even dirtier waters of the Mississippi River and said he didn’t know how much longer he could stay in the French Quarter without water or power, surrounded by looters.
“I’ve never even had a nightmare or a beautiful dream about this,” he said as he watched the warehouses burn. “People are just not themselves.”
On Friday, President Bush took an aerial tour of the city and answered complaints about a sluggish government response by saying, “We’re going to make it right.” A crowd of nearly 20,000 stood outside the convention center as at least three dozen camouflage-green troop vehicles and supply trucks finally rolled through axle-deep floodwaters into what remained of New Orleans.
In what looked like a scene from a Third World country, some outside the convention center threw their arms heavenward and others hollered profanities as the trucks and hundreds of soldiers arrived in the punishing midday heat. Watching the caravan, Leschia Radford sang the praises of a higher power.
“Lord, I thank you for getting us out of here!” Radford shrieked.
National Guard Lt. Col. Jerry Crooks said troops had served more than 70,000 meals outside the convention center and had 130,000 more on hand.
But today, hope was overtaken by frustration as people continued to wait. A dead man lay on sidewalk under a blanket with a stream of blood running down the pavement toward the gutter. People said he died from violence.
“We’re hurting out here, man. We got to get help. All we want is someone to feel our pain, that’s all,” said Tasheka Johnson, 24.
About a dozen people who headed down the street to look for food and water were turned back by a soldier who pulled a gun.
“We had to get something to eat. What are they doing pulling a gun?” said Richard Johnson, 28.
The soldiers’ arrival-in-force came amid angry complaints from local officials that the federal government had bungled the relief effort and let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine as the city was overtaken by looting, rape and arson.
“The people of our city are holding on by a thread,” Mayor Ray Nagin warned in a statement to CNN. “Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows.”
The president took a land and air tour of hard-hit areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and admitted of the relief effort: “The results are not enough.” Congress passed a $10.5 billion disaster aid package, and Bush quickly signed the measure.
The supplies and troops arrived. Flatbed trucks carried huge crates, pallets and bags of relief supplies, including Meals Ready to Eat. Soldiers sat in the backs of open-top trucks, their rifles pointing skyward.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the military presence helped calm a jittery city.
“We are seeing a show of force. It’s putting confidence back in our hearts and in the minds of our people,” Blanco said. “We’re going to make it through.”
Guard members carrying rifles also arrived at the Louisiana Superdome, where bedraggled people – many of them trapped there since the weekend – stretched around the perimeter of the building. Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, commander of the National Guard, said 7,000 Guard members would be in the city by today.
All the victims in the Superdome were supposed to have been evacuated by dawn today, but shortly after midnight, the buses stopped rolling without explanation. Between 2,000 and 5,000 people still in the stadium could be there until Sunday, according to the Texas Air National Guard.
Within minutes of the soldiers’ arrival at the convention center, they set up six food and water lines. The crowd was for the most part orderly and grateful.
Diane Sylvester, 49, was the first person through the line. “Something is better than nothing,” she said of her two bottles of water and pork rib meal. “I feel great to see the military here. I know I’m saved.”
With Houston’s Astrodome already full with 15,000 storm refugees, that city opened two more centers to accommodate an additional 10,000. Dallas and San Antonio also had agreed to take refugees.
One group of Katrina’s victims lurched from one tragedy to another: A bus carrying evacuees from the Superdome overturned on a Louisiana highway, killing at least one person and injuring many others.
At the broken levee along Lake Pontchartrain that swamped nearly 80 percent of New Orleans, helicopters dropped 3,000-pound sandbags into the breach and pilings were being pounded into place to seal off the waters. Engineers also were developing a plan to create new breaches in the levees so that a combination of gravity and pumping and would drain the water out of the city, a process that could take weeks.
