Katrina was weaker than reported when it hit gulf
Miami – Katrina hit the Gulf Coast as a Category 3 hurricane, not a Category 4 as first thought, and New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain likely were spared the storm’s strongest winds, the National Hurricane Center said Tuesday.
New Orleans’ storm levees were generally thought to be able to protect the city from the flooding of a fast-moving Category 3 storm. But Katrina was generally a slow-moving storm, said a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers.
Parts of the levee system were either topped or failed, leaving up to 80 percent of the city under water.
Katrina made landfall Aug. 29 with top sustained wind of about 125 mph, not the 140 mph that was calculated at the time.
New Orleans was on the storm’s west side, which normally has weaker wind. Although an accurate reading of the highest wind was made difficult by the failure of measuring stations, a NASA facility in eastern New Orleans measured sustained wind of about 95 mph.
CULLMAN, Ala.
Marine killed in sleep at his barracks in Iraq
A Marine in Iraq was shot in the back of the head and killed while sleeping in his barracks, his family said it was told by the military. The Pentagon said only that the Marine died of a “non-hostile” gunshot wound.
The mother of Cpl. Adam R. Fales, 21, of Cullman, said she was frustrated in her attempts to learn more about the circumstances of Friday’s shooting in Fallujah, and to bring her son’s body home soon.
“The Marines came out to my house Saturday morning and told me my son was shot in the back of his head in his secure barracks,” Glenda Fales said Tuesday. “They said it was under investigation and they won’t tell us anything else. We don’t know if it was accidental or if somebody shot him on purpose.”
SIOUX CITY, Iowa
Woman to get death for helping in slaying
A woman was sentenced to death Tuesday for helping her former boyfriend kill five people, including two children, in an attempt to thwart an investigation of the man’s methamphetamine business.
Angela Johnson, 41, insisted she was innocent and said she had been manipulated by Dustin Honken, her ex-boyfriend, who was sentenced to death in October.
Johnson and Honken, who were tried on federal charges, are the first people sentenced to death in Iowa in more than 40 years. Iowa does not have the death penalty; both would have to be executed elsewhere.
WASHINGTON
FEMA needs radical changes, Chertoff says
The government may have to radically change FEMA, the agency that proved unprepared to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday.
Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, which battered Gulf Coast states over an eight-week period, stretched the agency “beyond the breaking point,” Chertoff said in a public review of his department’s 2005 performance.
“We will retool FEMA, maybe even radically, to increase our ability to deal with catastrophic events,” he said in a 35-minute speech at George Washington University.
Chertoff offered no specifics for changing the Federal Emergency Management Agency but said FEMA employees must be given authority to cut through bureaucracy to assist disaster victims quickly.
KHABAROVSK, Russia
Russian city prepares for toxic slick’s debut
Residents of this Far East city stocked up on water Tuesday in the hours before the arrival of a toxic slick of chemicals that could force authorities to shut off water and central heating in subzero temperatures.
With the chemicals that spilled last month from a factory explosion upriver in China expected to reach Khabarovsk by today, the regional governor said hot water supplies might have to be suspended for as long as seven days and cold water for three days.
The Nov. 13 chemical plant explosion dumped 100 tons of toxic chemicals into northeastern China’s Songhua River.
LONDON
Stolen baby penguin’s days are numbered
A baby penguin believed to have been snatched from a British zoo as a quirky holiday gift is unlikely to survive until Christmas Day, his keeper warned Tuesday.
Toga, a 3-month-old jackass penguin, was stolen Saturday from Amazon World on the Isle of Wight in southern England.
Zoo manager Kath Bright said the bird, which was taken from a compound where he lived with his parents and four other penguins, probably would die of malnutrition if not urgently returned.
“Toga is very, very vulnerable. The penguin is still being fed by his parents and we don’t believe it could survive more than five days,” she said.
GAZA CITY
2 teachers abducted from American school
Palestinian gunmen abducted two foreign teachers from an American school as they were driving north of Gaza City on Wednesday, witnesses said.
The foreigners were identified only as Belgian and Dutch. Their car was stopped by unidentified armed men who forced them into their vehicle and drove them to an unknown destination. The school administration confirmed that two faculty members were missing and sent its students home.
The kidnappings took place a day after a group of gunmen threatened to abduct foreigners if their demands to be folded into the Palestinian security services were not met. These armed men denied involvment in Wednesday’s kidnapping.
