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ORDER SLOWLY RETURNS TO NEW ORLEANS AS RESCUE DRIVE REDOUBLED |
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by AFP Saturday, September 3, 2005 at 2:08 p.m ET
NEW ORLEANS, United States (AFP) - US troops tightened their grip on anarchic New Orleans, as authorities beefed up efforts to evacuate tens of thousands of desperate victims of the hurricane disaster. US President George W. Bush, branding the long wait endured by many victims rescue as unacceptable, ordered more than 7,000 more active duty troops to the region devastated by deadly Hurricane Katrina. "Our priorities are clear," Bush said in a rare live radio address as he and his administration come under fire for the slow pace of the rescue operation in New Orleans, which is 80 percent covered by water. "We will complete the evacuation as quickly and safely as possible. We will not let criminals prey on the vulnerable and we will not allow bureaucracy to get in the way of saving lives," he vowed. Bush said the 7,000 new troops -- from the Army's 82nd Airborne and First Cavalry and the First and Second Marine Expeditionary Forces -- would join 4,000 already in the region over the next 24 to 72 hours. He conceded that the early response to the killer storm, that he said devastated an area the size of Britain producing horrific scenes of Third World chaos, was too slow. "Many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans, and that is unacceptable," he said. After a days-long orgy of looting, killing and rape, Louisiana police said Saturday there were no reports of violence overnight in collapsing New Orleans, after troops, military police and FBI swat teams poured in to stem the chaos. A day after troops were given shoot-to-kill orders to restore order, the top official in the relief drive said there were still "hotspots" in New Orleans and warned looters and snipers would soon be up against battle hardened combat troops. "Some of these kids think this is a game, they have a gun and they think it is a game they are playing," said Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) chief Michael Brown at a press conference in Baton Rouge. "Idiots with a gun on a rooftop" would not be allowed to derail the rescue drive, he said. But death and despair still stalked stranded hurricane survivors after five days of appalling suffering and there was growing uncertainty about the future of the jazz capital. Planes on Friday began joining buses in ferrying tens of thousands of people out of the city, as armed members of the National Guard brought food and water to the city and a semblance of order. But even as order was slowly restored and the evacuation picked up pace, the plight of survivors trapped in the city for up to five days worsened as US Army engineers warned it may take months to drain the floodwaters. Victims remained stranded on rooftops with up to 20,000 still in the city's crowded convention center and countless more across the city. "There is no humanly possible way of knowing at this stage how many people like that still exist in this vast urban area," Brown said. He said relief workers had opened a mortuary and were collecting what are expected to be thousands of decaying corpses, many of which have been floating down flooded and fetid streets in apocalyptic scenes. But he reacted angrily when pressed on the death toll from the storm that slammed into the US Gulf Coast on Monday, saying officials were still concentrating on rescuing and evacuating survivors. Officials have said the body count would be run into the thousands. One senator said the toll would top 10,000 in Louisiana alone. Brigadier Mark Graham of US Northern Command said 35,000 people had now been evacuated from the city in 788 bus journeys and 55 airlifts. At the start of the operation military brass believed there were between 60,000 and 80,000 people that needed to be rescued, but the chaos has made accurate figures impossible to tally. FEMA teams alone had plucked 7,000 people off roofs and out of floods, Brown said. "Hour by hour, the situation is improving," Bush said in his rare live weekly radio address. "Yet the enormity of the task requires more resources and more troops." Bush, who toured storm-ravaged areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on Friday, has vowed to rebuild New Orleans and signed off on a 10.5-billion-dollar emergency spending package approved by Congress. The Army Corps of Engineers said Friday it may need up to 80 days just to drain the floodwaters from the shattered city. Sick, exhausted and traumatised refugees welcomed the maiden convoy of troops with relief and anger that the promised supplies and National Guard reinforcements had taken so long to arrive. "We thought they would let us die here," said Karen Marks, 25, who spoke of sleepless nights spent huddled in fear as armed gangs roamed shelters and flooded streets, looting, mugging and raping with impunity. "We have been crying a lot for the past few days," Marks said. Refugees who had sheltered for days in squalid conditions in the New Orleans convention center spoke of at least 14 deaths, including that of a young girl, whose throat was slit after being raped in the cavernous, unlighted building. "That is one of the most frightening situations I've ever been in my whole life," said Linda Jeffers, 55, who was evacuated to Houston, Texas. While acknowledging the anger and frustration at the pace of rescue operations, the commander of the military relief effort, Lieutenant General Russel Honore stressed the enormous logistical problems involved. "If it was easy, it would have been done already," Honore said. "We've been a victim of the high water which restricts our routes ... it just makes it difficult." |
