Storms 411

Day 23 – 9/14/05, New Orleans 911 Tapes Reveal Range of Emotions

NEW ORLEANS – As hurricane floodwaters gushed into New Orleans, the 911 calls pouring in to police were desperate and, in a heartbreakingly Southern way, unfailingly polite.

One woman thanked the operator for her time. Another apologized for calling so much.

"I'm stuck in the attic, and me and my little sister are here, and my mom, and we've got water in our whole house," said a woman who was trapped with eight others in the low-income Ninth Ward, one of the hardest-hit areas of the city. "We don't have nothing to get out on the roof."

"OK, ma'am, we're getting somebody out there ... OK?" replied the woman who identified herself as "Operator 1-6."

"OK, thank you," the woman replied.

"You're welcome," Operator 1-6 said in a comforting voice.

The first hurricane-related 911 tapes released by New Orleans reflected the horror of Katrina, not so much in the panicked voices of the dying as in the calm and utter helplessness of victims with no escape.

But as the water rose, so did the frustration and anguish of the operators, who could do nothing. They offered often-futile advice – "get to higher ground" – and painfully empty assurances – "We're trying our best to get out to everyone." [Read more - WWLTV]

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Day 20 – 9/10/05, Search Broadens for Bodies in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS — Cadaver dogs and boatloads of forensic workers fanned out Saturday across New Orleans to collect the corpses left behind by Hurricane Katrina. Cleanup crews towed away abandoned cars and even began readying a hotel for reopening.

Despite missing 300 officers from his 1,750-strong force, Police Chief Eddie Compass was upbeat as he reported that 200 arrests had been made since the hurricane.

"We are definitely in control of this city," Compass said. "We've been almost crime-free for the last four days."

The confirmed death toll in Louisiana stood at 154 people, including some patients on life support who died when power went out, but the toll was expected to climb as crews collected bodies trapped in houses and floating in murky water. Police and military officials have been marking the location of bodies with global positioning devices and paint on the outside of houses. [Read more - WWLTV]

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Day 19 – 9/9/05, Bodies found piled in freezer at Convention Center

Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks stepped through the food service entrance of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Monday, flipped on the light at the end of his machine gun, and started pointing out bodies.

"Don't step in that blood - it's contaminated," he said. "That one with his arm sticking up in the air, he's an old man."
Then he shined the light on the smaller human figure under the white sheet next to the elderly man.

"That's a kid," he said. "There's another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut." [Read more - NOLA]

Why would a 7-year-old girl have her throat cut?

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Day 18 – 9/8/05, Teams Removing 30 Bodies Found in Nursing Home

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- In a grim indicator of what may lie ahead, authorities were removing the remains of more than 30 people from a flooded nursing home in a suburban New Orleans parish.

The discovery at St. Rita's Nursing Home in lower St. Bernard Parish came as 25,000 body bags arrived at the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.

Early Thursday, the official death toll along Gulf Coast from Hurricane Katrina stood at 294, but that number is expected to rise dramatically.

Mortuary teams with refrigerated trucks began arriving Wednesday at the nursing home, where St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stevens said "30-plus" bodies were found. Between 40 and 50 other people were rescued from the facility, Stevens said. [Read more - CNN]

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Day 18 – 9/8/05, At Least 30 Found Dead in Nursing Home

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Receding floodwaters in a suburban New Orleans parish revealed what many fear could be the first of many such discoveries -- more than 30 bodies in a nursing home that was swamped in Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stevens said "30-plus" bodies were found in St. Rita's Nursing Home in lower St. Bernard Parish -- one of the areas hardest hit by the storm and flooding.

Between 40 and 50 other people were rescued from the facility, Stevens said. [See video - CNN]

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Day 14 – 9/5/05, Wright-Pat Medics, Others Describe New Kind of Battle

NEW ORLEANS | Medical specialists from Wright-Patterson Air Force feel like they are fighting a new war here.

But instead of wounded troops, frail elderly people fill the stretchers, sometimes stacked four high, inside the 445th Airlift Wing transport jets that are flying daily missions to the Gulf Coast to evacuate medical patients from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Even the most seasoned medics have trouble absorbing what they find here, where patients lie on stretchers inside the terminal while throngs of bedraggled storm victims outside wait for help amid piles of garbage.

"I've never seen anything like this," Senior Master Sgt. Terry Kennedy, said Saturday inside a noisy C-141 transport jet as it touched down in New Orleans.

An Air Force Reservist with 26 years of service, Kennedy is an aeromedical evacuation technician who saw duty in both Persian Gulf wars. Saturday's mission was her second to New Orleans.

Kennedy said she's used to planeloads of young men with battle wounds. She isn't used to racks of litters filled with elderly people, some dressed in nothing but diapers and paper gowns.

"You want to wash them and bathe them and take care of them, and there's nothing you can do," she said.

"We can't give medicine to these patients because we don't know ... the medical history or anything about these people.

"When they cry, it just breaks your heart." [Read more - Dayton Daily News]

A helicopter unloads evacuaees from Hurricane Katrina at New Orleans International Airport on Saturday. A C-141 crew and medics from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base flew two planeloads of medical patients from the airport to Nashville and Tampa on Saturday. Photo by Timothy R. Gaffney, Dayton Daily News

Unidentified relief workers wheel medical patients to an awaiting airplane saturday at New Orleans International Airport. Military and commercial airplanes are evacuating victims of Hurricane Katrina. The 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has been flying daily evacuation missions to New Orleans. Photo by Timothy R. Gaffney, Dayton Daily News

Relief workers at New Orleans International Airport carry patients on litters into a C-141 transport plane from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The 445th Airlift Wing is flying daily medical evacuation missions as part of a massive military hurricane relief effort. Photo by Timothy R. Gaffney, Dayton Daily News

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Day 11 – 9/2/05,Evacuations Continue After Gunfire Report

NEW ORLEANS — At the front of the line, the weary refugees waded through ankle-deep water, grabbed a bottle of water from state troopers and happily hopped on buses that would deliver them from the horrendous conditions of the Superdome.

At the back end of the line, people jammed against police barricades in the rain. Refugees passed out and had to be lifted hand-over-hand overhead to medics. Pets were not allowed on the bus, and when a police officer confiscated a little boy's dog, the child cried until he vomited. "Snowball, snowball," he cried.

The scene played out Thursday as the plodding procession out of the Superdome entered its second day — an evacuation that became more complicated as thousands more storm victims showed up at the arena. [Read more - Fox News]

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Day 8 - 8/30/05, Rescuers Search for Survivors of Katrina

GULFPORT, MISSISSIPPI (AP) -- As dawn broke over the ravaged Gulf Coast Tuesday, rescuers in boats and helicopters furiously searched for possible survivors of Hurricane Katrina even as the governor said the death toll in just one Mississippi county could hit as high as 80.

"The devastation down there is just enormous," Gov. Haley Barbour said Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show. Barbour said there were unconfirmed reports of up to 80 fatalities in Harrison County and the number was likely to rise.

The official death toll jumped sharply late Monday when Harrison County emergency operations center spokesman Jim Pollard said an estimated 50 people had died in the county, with some 30 dead at a beach-side apartment complex in Biloxi. [Read more]

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Day 9 - 8/31/05, Rescuers Bypass Bodies, Take Victims From Roofs

Throughout the day rescuers were using helicopters to drop lifelines to victims and pluck them from the roofs of homes cut off by floodwaters. The Coast Guard said it rescued some 1,200 people. But New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said thousands of people may still be stuck in rooftops and attics, so rescue boats were bypassing the dead.

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