NEW ORLEANS, HIGHER DEATH TOLL SEEN

By ROBERT D. McFADDENand RALPH BLUMENTHAL
Published: September 1, 2005

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 31 - Chaos gripped New Orleans on Wednesday as looters ran wild, food and water supplies dwindled, bodies floated in the floodwaters, the evacuation of the Superdome began and officials said there was no choice but to abandon the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina, perhaps for months.

Some people made their way out of the New Orleans area on railroad tracks Wednesday as officials began evacuations. But thousands of people were said to still be trapped in the city.
President Bush pledged vast assistance but acknowledged, "This recovery will take years."
For the first time, a New Orleans official suggested the scope of the death toll. Mayor C. Ray Nagin said the hurricane might have killed thousands in his city alone, an estimate that, if correct, would make it the nation's deadliest natural disaster since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, which killed up to 6,000 people.

"We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water," and others hidden from view in attics and other places, Mayor Nagin told reporters. Asked how many, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."

As survivors struggled with a disaster that left damage of up to $25 billion, a gargantuan relief effort began. Ships, planes, helicopters and convoys of supplies and rescue teams converged on the Gulf Coast, and Pentagon officials said 30,000 National Guard and active-duty troops would be deployed by this weekend in the largest domestic relief effort by the military in the nation's history.

With police officers and National Guard troops giving priority to saving lives, looters brazenly ripped open gates and ransacked stores for food, clothing, television sets, computers, jewelry and guns, often in full view of helpless law-enforcement officials. Dozens of carjackings, apparently by survivors desperate to escape, were reported, as were a number of shootings.
On Wednesday night, Mayor Nagin ordered 1,500 police officers, most of the city's force, to turn from search and rescue to stopping the looting.

"They are starting to get closer to the heavily populated areas - hotels, hospitals - and we're going to stop it right now," he said in a statement issued to The Associated Press.
New Orleans, a city of 500,000, mostly below sea level and reliant on levees along the Mississippi River running south of it and Lake Pontchartrain to the north, was a nightmarish waterworld that Mr. Nagin said would have to be abandoned while the levees were repaired and the city drained.

He called for a "total evacuation," adding: "We have to. The city will not be functional for two or three months."

Total recovery appeared to be far more remote. Officials of the Army Corps of Engineers said that it would be weeks or months before the city could be pumped dry and that it would take years to rebuild its thousands of homes and businesses, its streets, highways and other infrastructure, an investment that could cost billions of dollars and perhaps never recover the rich cultural heritage of New Orleans.

One paradox, experts said, was that the destruction of a city that has always been vulnerable to water might provide an opportunity to rebuild it to make it more secure, with stronger buildings and with levees capable of withstanding the strongest storms. The present levees are designed to withstand a Category 3 hurricane; Hurricane Katrina was Category 4, one short of the highest category.

As flooding ravaged a city already 80 percent under water, Army engineers tried to plug breached levees in canals leading from Lake Pontchartrain into New Orleans, struggling to move sandbags and concrete barriers into two gaping holes, of 300 and 100 feet in length. The existence of a third gap of 100 feet was disclosed on Wednesday, and officials called the repair task an engineering nightmare.

But in an otherwise dismal picture of wreckage and despair, Col. Terry Ebbert, director of homeland security for New Orleans, offered a glimmer of hope. He said the city's flooding seemed to be stabilizing.

"The water isn't going to get higher," Colonel Ebbert said.

With the level of Lake Pontchartrain down several feet, the lake and its feeder canals had reached a point of equilibrium with the water in the city, he said.

For thousands of people trapped in New Orleans it was little consolation. Hundreds were still huddled on rooftops or isolated on patches of ground, where they have awaited rescue for two days without food or water. An armada of small boats was out, rescuing many from flooded areas in the city's poorest sections.

Other people wandered aimlessly, on land and through shallows, pushing shopping carts of belongings. Some perched on sections of Interstate 10 that were above water.

The bulk of the city's refugees were in or around the Superdome, which has become a shelter of last resort for more than 20,000 people. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said conditions there had become desperate, with food, water and other supplies running out, with toilets overflowing and the air foul, with temperatures hitting 100 degrees and tempers flaring.

Thousands of refugees at the Superdome were huddled in increasingly grim conditions.
"It's becoming untenable," the governor said. "There's no power. It's getting more difficult to get food and water supplies in, just basic essentials." She said she wanted the Superdome totally evacuated within two days, and plans were being made to move most of the refugees to Houston's Astrodome, 350 miles away, in a convoy of hundreds of buses. About 700 of the elderly and sick were removed from the sweltering stadium on Wednesday, but they were being sent elsewhere in the state.

At Ellington Field Airport in Houston, the first of an expected four military transport planes carrying about 150 seriously ill and injured patients from New Orleans touched down at 9:15 p. m. Wednesday.

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, besides offering use of the Astrodome and other shelters in Houston, said school-age children of the refugees would be promptly admitted to Texas public schools and given textbooks, lunches and transportation.

"In the face of such tragic circumstances," Governor Perry said, "we know we're neighbors and we're going to pull together so that these families can find as much normalcy as they can. We realize that by the grace of God we could be the ones that have this extraordinary need."
Across the region, there were tales of misery, with hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses destroyed, with roads washed away and airports shut down, with power grids shattered and five million people in four states lacking electricity.

And to the rising toll of victims killed, injured or homeless and jobless were added other plagues: possible epidemics; overwhelmed hospitals and sanitation facilities; lost communications and transportation systems; and almost everywhere hellish scenes of wreckage-strewn communities.

In Mississippi, at least 110 people were dead, hundreds of waterfront homes and businesses were destroyed, nearly a million homes were without power and dozens of casinos built on barges were heavily damaged or wrecked, depriving 14,000 people of jobs and the state of $500,000 a day in tax revenues. In Biloxi, looters rifled casino slot machines for coins and ransacked other businesses. The city of Gulfport was almost destroyed, and Biloxi was heavily damaged.

In Alabama, more than 400,000 homes and businesses were without power, flooding reached 11 feet in Mobile and hundreds of homes along the eastern shore of Mobile Bay were flooded. Florida, struck by the eastern edge of the cartwheeling storm on Monday, reported 11 deaths, and more than 100,000 homes and businesses were still without power.

Returning to Washington from a Texas vacation, Mr. Bush flew over the stricken area for a first-hand look at the destruction and at a news conference later on Wednesday said his administration was committed to the relief and recovery effort.

"The folks on the Gulf Coast are going to need the help of this country for a long time," the president said. "This is going to be a difficult road. The challenges we face on the ground are unprecedented.

"But there's no doubt in my mind that we're going to succeed. Right now, the days seem awfully dark for those affected. But I'm confident that, with time, you'll get your life back in order. New communities will flourish. The great city of New Orleans will be back on its feet. And America will be a stronger place for it."

Mr. Bush formally declared a major disaster in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida as the government and a host of state, local and private agencies began what was expected to be a search, rescue and relief task rivaling those of a nation under enemy attack. "We are dealing with one of the worst natural disasters in our nation's history," the president said. The response, he said, would be commensurate, but he added a note of caution: "This recovery will take a long time. This recovery will take years."

At an earlier news conference in Washington with cabinet secretaries and other government leaders, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, said the relief effort would be one of the largest response mobilizations in the nation's history, a coordinated campaign by 14 federal agencies to save lives, provide relief and lead a comprehensive recovery effort.

Under the mobilization, the Pentagon was sending in eight ships carrying food, medicine, fuel and other supplies, as well as construction materials. The Defense Department also ordered the hospital ship Comfort redeployed from Baltimore. About 60 helicopters were sent to assist in search and rescues and to haul heavy cargo and to assess damage.

New Orleans Photographs and video from a devastated city. The Levees Repair attempts failed and at least one new gap opened in the system of levees that surrounds New Orleans. • Maps and Satellite Images • Evacuation RoutesHOW TO HELP

Eight 14-member Swift boat rescue teams were dispatched from California aboard Air Force C-5 cargo planes. More than 11,000 members of the National Guard were already in the region, providing rescue and relief assistance, officials said. Hundreds of heavy, high-wheeled trucks capable of plowing through water were also on the way.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has deployed 39 disaster medical assistance teams from around the country, and has mobilized 1,700 trailer trucks to carry in water, ice, meals, medical supplies, generators, tents and tarpaulins.

Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, said that a health emergency had been declared for the region and that a network of 40 medical shelters was being set up. Public health teams were also being assembled, Mr. Leavitt said, and 2,600 hospital beds in 12 states, and 40,000 nationwide, had been identified for use, if needed.

"We are gravely concerned about the potential for cholera, typhoid and dehydrating diseases that could come as a result of the stagnant water and other conditions," he said. "We'll also be working with local officials on sanitation and food safety."

The focus of the day was on New Orleans. Asked on ABC's "Good Morning America" how long the city would be uninhabitable, Mayor Nagin said: "Before this last challenge with the rising waters, I was estimating 10 weeks. We're probably looking at 12 to 16 weeks before people can come in. And the other issue that's concerning me is we have dead bodies in the water. At some point in time, the dead bodies are going to start to create a serious disease issue."

The refugees were eager to get out. "It's not like people are just there because they want to be there right now," Governor Blanco said. "They're there because they're trapped. They're trapped in the city. They can't move about that easily."

Oil production in the Gulf of Mexico had largely been shut down during the hurricane. With the resulting drop in production, gasoline shortages developed in some areas of the country, and prices surged above $3 a gallon. In response, the Department of Energy said it would release oil from the nation's strategic reserve to offset the production losses. The announcement helped push oil prices lower.