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New Orleans evacuees arrive in Battle Creek and await transportation to Fort Custer Training Center, where they'll stay for a week. "The delay in getting help for these people is a national disgrace. We're here to make sure that doesn't go any farther," said Kalamazoo Mayor Robert Jones.Heartache and hope
10,000 feared dead in New Orleans; Main levee break is fixed; floodwaters begin to recede.
NEW ORLEANS -- With a major levee break finally plugged, engineers struggled to pump out the flooded city today as authorities braced for the horrors the receding water would reveal. "It's going to be awful and it's going to wake the nation up again," the mayor said.
Mayor Ray Nagin said it would take three weeks to remove the water and another few weeks to clear the debris. It could also take up to eight weeks to get the electricity back on.
"I've gone from anger to despair to seeing us turn the corner," he said on NBC's "Today." Still, he warned that what awaits authorities below the toxic muck would be gruesome. A day earlier, he said the death toll in New Orleans could reach 10,000.
The Army Corps of Engineers began pumping the water out after closing a major gap in a key levee that burst during Hurricane Katrina and swamped 80 percent of the bowl-shaped, below-sea-level city.
Efforts to evacuate holdouts were stepped up, with boat rescue crews and a caravan of law enforcement vehicles from around the country searching for people to rescue.
"In some cases, it's real easy. They're sitting on the porch with their bags packed," said Joe Youdell of the Kentucky Air National Guard. "But some don't want to leave and we can't force them."
Nagin warned: "We have to convince them to leave. It's not safe here. There is toxic waste in the water and dead bodies and mosquitoes and gas. We are pumping about a million dollars' worth a gas a day in the air. Fires have been started and we don't have running water."
At the same time, the effort to get the evacuees back on their feet continued on several fronts.
Patrick Rhode, deputy director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said evacuees would receive debit cards so that they could begin buying necessary personal items. He said the agency was going from shelter to shelter to make sure that evacuees received cards quickly and that the paperwork usually required would be reduced or eliminated.
"We're eliminating as much red tape as humanly possible," Rhode said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
The Air Force late Monday concluded its huge airlift of elderly and serious ill patients from New Orleans' major airport. A total of 9,788 patients and other evacuees were evacuated by air from the New Orleans area.
Meanwhile, a plan to move some evacuees from the Houston Astrodome to cruise ships was postponed today because many didn't want to go, and a proposed airlift of refugees out of strained Texas appeared to be on hold after the federal government took over.
Gov. Rick Perry had said Sunday that Texas needs other states to help manage the refugee crisis. Officials at Texas relief centers say they are simply running out of room.
In neighboring St. Bernard Parish, officials expressed frustration that federal aid, slow to reach New Orleans, was even slower to get to outlying areas.
"This is Day 8, guys. Everything was diverted first to New Orleans, we understand that. But do you realize we got 18 to 20 feet of water from the storm, and we've still got 7 to 8 feet of water?" said Ron Silva, a district fire chief.
"If you had dropped a bomb on this place, it couldn't be any worse than this."
In addition to help from other Louisiana and Alabama departments, a Canadian task force of firefighters and police arrived four days after the storm, St. Bernard Fire Chief Thomas Stone said.
"If you can get a Canadian team here in four days, U.S. teams should be here faster than that," Stone said. Pointing to two large oil refineries, "When they're paying $5 to $6 a gallon for gas, they're going to realize what this place means to America."
The frustrations also were being felt along the Mississippi coast, where people who have chosen to stay or are stuck in demolished neighborhoods scavenge for necessities.
Some say they will stay to rebuild their communities. Others say they would leave if they could get a ride or a few gallons of gasoline. But all agree that -- with no water or power available, probably for months -- they need more help from the government just to survive.
The scope of the misery inflicted by Katrina was evident Monday as President Bush visited Baton Rouge and Poplarville, Miss., his second inspection tour by ground.
Meanwhile, former Presidents Bush and Clinton, who teamed up during a fund-raising effort for victims of last year's Asian tsunami, announced the creation of the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund.
"It will take all of us working together to accomplish our goal," said former President George H.W. Bush. "This job is too big for any one group."
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The Detroit News.
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