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by David Zucchino
September 12, 2005,
353 PM PDT
NEW ORLEANS -- Water
levels dropped precipitously Monday in the worst of the flooded
neighborhoods in and around New Orleans. Areas that had been under 6 to 8
feet of water less than two days earlier were dry at dawn, with ooze now
smearing the streets and water collecting at low, marshy spots.
For the first time in the 8th and 9th wards in East New Orleans and
Mid-City neighborhoods, search and rescue crews were able to patrol on
foot. By midday, National Guardsmen and Marines said they had found
several corpses inside homes that had been inaccessible until today.
In the city's
lower 9th Ward, thousands of once-flooded homes bore brown watermarks that
documented the systematic dropping of water levels. Marines, who on
Saturday had patrolled neighborhoods in amphibious vehicles that floated
atop floodwaters up to 8 feet deep, were patrolling on foot today, the
slick mud sucking at the bottoms of their rubber boots.
"The water's gone down so fast, we can't keep up with it," a Guard staff
sergeant said on North Claiborne Avenue in the lower 9th Ward. "It's like
the whole place dried up overnight."
National Guardsman manned checkpoints as Marines wearing long green rubber
gloves went house to house, knocking on doors and shouting for survivors.
No one has been found alive in three days in the ward, said Lt. Col. Kent
Ralston, whose Humvee was able to negotiate streets that had required
amphibious vehicles two days earlier.
Marines on foot patrols said they found two decaying corpses inside homes
in the ward. In the 8th Ward, Oregon National Guardsmen said they had
found two more bodies, also inside homes. Five corpses discovered by
Marines on Saturday remained tethered to fences and trees, swelling in the
late summer sun.
At the corner of Reynes and Marais streets in the lower 9th Ward, three
National Guard soldiers said they had been waiting three hours for a
private mortuary contractor working for FEMA to arrive to remove the body.
At the corner of Flood and Johnson streets, the arm and leg bones were
visible on the corpse of a man whose ankle was snagged on a tree branch,
his torso slung over a fence.
On St. Claude Avenue, the sodden body of a woman lay face down in the mud.
Two days earlier, it had floated on top of five feet of water.
In the 8th Ward, in a home at Desire Street and North Claiborne Avenue,
Guard soldiers found the body of a middle-aged man on the living room
floor. Flood marks on the tiny clapboard house showed that floodwaters had
at one point risen above the front porch, about 5 feet high. A small white
terrier, smeared with mud, lay on the porch, panting in the heat.
In the 9th Ward, Guard soldiers went house to house, peering into doors
and windows to make sure no one was inside. They moved quickly, spraying
"NG" and "9/12" in bright green paint to signify that each house had been
inspected by the Guard on Monday.
The receding waters made it easier for Marines to make sure that no one
alive was still inside homes, Ralston said.
"The water was so high before that we couldn't get a good look inside the
houses," Ralston said. "Now we can do a more thorough search."
Ralston said Marines, who have no law enforcement powers, are not
permitted to break into and search homes. They were told to look through
windows and doorways, and to report the addresses or GPS coordinates of
any home containing a corpse.
One Marine, sloshing through slick mud, said he was tired of squinting
through mud-smeared windows. "We should be kicking these doors in," he
said.
Signs of cleanup and debris removal were everywhere.
National Guard soldiers stripped off their camouflage uniform tops and
used chain saws to cut up huge trees that had collapsed into roadways or
across roofs. Men in Bobcats and skip loaders tore into the dark sludge on
roadways to clear the way for cleanup crews, then shoved debris to the
roadsides.
Tangles of downed power lines snarled the streets in the 8th and 9th
wards, snagging on the tops of passing National Guard trucks. Several
houses that had been torn from their foundations by floodwaters had
floated to the middle of streets and settled there, blocking cleanup
crews. The neighborhoods stank of rotting garbage, stagnant water and
decaying corpses.
In Violet, a town in the southern region of flood-ravaged St. Bernard
Parish, backhoes scraped their blades up and down Highway 39, shoving
aside gooey mud left by retreating floodwaters. During President Bush's
visit to the parish Monday, the parish president told him that not a
single house in the parish was habitable.
Hundreds of dogs, freed at last from once-flooded homes, roamed alleys in
many neighborhoods, barking wildly at passing Marines and Guard soldiers.
In the 7th Ward in Mid-City, volunteers from the Animal Rescue League of
Boston rounded up dozens of dogs and cats that had wandered down from
porches, where they had been marooned by floodwaters for 15 days. The
volunteers had arrived with boats, expecting to navigate floodwaters, but
then dismounted in heavy rubber boots and chased down animals.
"We can get a lot more done on foot, so I expect we'll be able to get to a
lot more animals," Brian O'Conner of the rescue league said as volunteers
provided water to dehydrated cats and dogs collected at a muddy gas
station lot.
Also in the 7th Ward, New Orleans police Officer D.M. Fernandez was on a
cellphone outside Mule's Bar this morning. He was calling a retired police
officer who owned the flooded establishment to tell him that someone had
broken in and stolen his liquor.
The receding floodwaters apparently gave foot access to the thieves in a
neighborhood that was under several feet of water 24 hours earlier. Up and
down 7th Ward streets, sodden homes stood deserted, with hundreds of
residents' cars parked at crazy angles, watermarks staining their roofs.
Most streets were littered with tree limbs and debris, but were passable
despite black mud that clung to car tires.
"The water was 3 feet high here," Fernandez said, standing outside the bar
in the middle of La Harpe Street. "Everything dried out real good."
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