Anarchy! New Orleans descends into desperate chaos
By NICOLE BODE
in New Orleans
and CORKY SIEMASZKO
in New York
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
NEW ORLEANS - The mayor of New Orleans issued an SOS yesterday as his submerged city slid into anarchy and the misery wrought by Hurricane Katrina spread.
Corpses littered the sodden streets. Snipers fired on cops and rescue workers. Gangs of looters took anything that wasn’t nailed down. Thousands sweltered in the steaming sinking city without food, water or shelter.
“This is a desperate SOS,” Mayor Ray Nagin said in a message to the world. “We are running out of supplies for 15,000 to 25,000 people.”
Over at the Superdome, shots were fired and a near riot erupted as the thousands who had taken shelter there fought to board the busses for the Astrodome in Houston.
Elsewhere in the city, Coast Guard helicopters were fired on by stranded survivors who have waited for days to be rescued from rooftops.
“There are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, ‘You better come get my family,’” said Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan of the Coast Guard.
Workers trying to evacuate Charity Hospital also came under fire and doctors sent out desperate E-mail messages do colleagues, describing hellish conditions where patients were dying of thirst and laying in raw sewage.
President Bush vowed “zero tolerance” for law-breakers and prepared to visit the hurricane-stricken area today to reassure residents that federal help was on the way – and answer critics who have accused him of being slow to respond to the biggest natural disaster in U.S. history.
“I understand the anxiety of people on the ground,” he said. “I can’t imagine what it is like to be waving a sign saying come and get me now.”
Congress was also expected to reconvene from its summer recess early to pass emergency legislation for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
“We need an effort of 9/11 proportions,” said former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, now president of the National Urban League. “A great American city is fighting for its life.”
But frustrated New Orleans officials ripped the federal response and accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency of abandoning the city.
“This is a national emergency, this a national disgrace,” said Terry Ebbert, the city’s emergency management chief. “FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can’t bail out the city of New Orleans.”
Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said FEMA had to suspend rescue operations because of the violence in New Orleans. “In areas where our employees have been determined to potentially in danger, we have pulled back,” he said.
Filling the breach was a flotilla of private boats that plied the flooded streets in search of survivors and carried them to higher ground.
Much of the gulf coast was shattered when Katrina roared through the region on Monday, causing billions of dollars in damage and killing hundreds – and possibly thousands – of people.
In the Mississippi cities of Gulfport and Biloxi, aid was slowly trickling in but desperate survivors in ruined towns like Waveland, Miss., were still forced to pick through the garbage for something to eat.
But conditions were far worse in New Orleans, where thousands were hungry and homeless and much of the city was still flooded, though the water appeared to be receding.
“In the name of our people, I do appeal for help,” said Archbishop Alfred Hughes of New Orleans. “We will be grateful for all the help that will be given to us.”
The epicenter of the city’s agony was the convention center, where thousands of poor African-Americans and abandoned senior citizens waited for help. Most were surviving on water and juice that the most desperate among them seized after smashing through the steel doors of a nearby grocery store.
“We are out here like pure animals,” said the Rev. Issac Clark, 68, as the survivors, including children, chanted “We want help! We want help!”
Over on eh grassy median, crying babies serenaded an old man who lay dead on a chaise lounge. Around the corner, an elderly woman was dead in a wheelchair, covered by a plaid blanket. Beside her, another body lay wrapped in a sheet on a garbad3-strewn street that reeked of feces.
“I don’t treat my dog like that,’ 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said. “I buried my dog.”
Inside the center, armed gangs ruled and repelled an attempt by New Orleans police to restore order.
“We have individuals who are getting beaten,” Police Chief Eddie Compass said. “Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon.”
Hundreds of National Guard troops barreled into the city in armored vehicles yesterday to reinforce the retreating police. Once guardsman was shot in the leg while scuffling with a looter.
But violence had already spread to the swamped suburbs of Jefferson Parish where the looters set on of the biggest malls ablaze and fired on firefighters.
“we are just pulling them off and allowing the fire to burn itself off.” Said City Councilman Chris Roberts. “We are losing control of the situation.”
Poster Comment:
"Why did you shoot at the firefighters?"
"Because I am a scorpion."