NEW ORLEANS, 2 September 2005 — New Orleans’ mayor issued an urgent plea for relief of his flooded city yesterday as gunshots and looting hampered the evacuation of desperate crowds trying to escape Hurricane Katrina’s destruction.
“This is a desperate SOS,” Mayor Ray Nagin said in a statement read by CNN. Some of the thousands of hungry, thirsty storm survivors outside the city’s convention center chanted similar pleas.
“Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don’t anticipate enough buses. Currently the convention center is unsanitary and unsafe and we are running out of supplies for 15,000 to 25,000 people,” Nagin said.
Congress was expected to cut short its summer break to pass emergency financial aid for hurricane victims, according to congressional aides who said an initial package could be around $10 billion.
Shell-shocked New Orleans officials tried to clamp down on looting in the historic jazz city reduced to a swampy ruin by Monday’s storm. Bodies floated in the streets, attackers armed with axes stripped hospitals of medicine and authorities said they could still only guess at how many people had died.
“We don’t have numbers. It could be in the hundreds, or the thousands,” US Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana said of the statewide death toll. “I think it’s going to be shocking.”
Violence broke out in pockets of New Orleans among the wandering crowds desperate to escape the flooded city and 32 C temperatures. “We want help,” people chanted outside the convention center.” Boat rescues were delayed because of the danger and police rescuers shifted their focus to fighting looting and other crime that gripped the city.
A National Guard official said as many as 60,000 people had gathered at the increasingly squalid Superdome stadium for evacuation.
But the operation was suspended after reports that someone fired at a military helicopter sent to ferry out survivors. A National Guard soldier was shot and wounded in the arena on Wednesday.
Nearly 5,000 National Guard troops were mobilized in Louisiana. The military said the number would rise to 21,000 by today and 30,000 in the next few days, mostly in Louisiana and Mississippi but also in storm-stricken parts of Alabama and Florida. Convoys of police and state trooper cars raced down Interstate 10 toward New Orleans with lights flashing.
“We will do what it takes to bring law and order to our area,” an angry Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco told reporters. “I’m just furious. It’s intolerable.”
All Saudi students in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and areas hard-hit by the hurricane are safe, Rihab ibn Muhammad Masoud, Saudi charge d’affaires, told the Saudi Press Agency.
More than 20 countries, from allies Germany and Japan to prickly Venezuela and poor Honduras, have offered to help the United States cope with the aftermath of hurricane.
Accustomed to being a rich donor rather than on the receiving end of charity, the United States initially seemed reticent about accepting foreign aid, but later said it would take up any offers. “Anything that can be of help to alleviate the tragic situation of the area affected by Hurricane Katrina will be accepted,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
