NEW ORLEANS, 14 September 2005 — The discovery of at least 44 bodies in an abandoned hospital in New Orleans raised new questions about the response to Hurricane Katrina yesterday as President George W. Bush took full responsibility for government failures in handling the disaster.
Rescuers found the corpses at the Memorial Medical Center on Monday, the same day Bush toured the city. They raised the official death toll from the Aug. 29 storm to more than 500 and officials said some may have died while waiting for help that did not arrive for several days after the hurricane.
A spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals said yesterday at least 44 bodies from the 317-bed hospital had been taken to a morgue for autopsies. The department said earlier 45 bodies had been discovered. Reporters who tried to enter the facility yesterday were blocked by National Guard soldiers.
At the White House, Bush for the first time took personal responsibility for the federal government’s slow response to the emergency, which stranded tens of thousands of people in the flooded city.
“Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility,” Bush said. “I want to know what went right and what went wrong.” Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, resigned on Monday. A political ally of Bush, he was widely criticized for his performance as the disaster unfolded.
Facing Criticism, Bush to Speak
The White House said Bush would address the nation from Louisiana tomorrow evening. Facing heavy criticism and the lowest approval ratings of his presidency, Bush has visited the Gulf coast three times in the past two weeks, most recently on Monday when he toured New Orleans in a flatbed truck.
“The president will talk to the American people about the recovery and the way forward on the longer-term rebuilding,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.
West Virginia Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd said the United States should stop spending billions of dollars in Iraq and invest them on domestic recovery.
“Instead of continuing to spend billions in Iraq, let us husband those our hard-earned tax dollars and spend them here at home,” he said in an address on the Senate floor. “The Iraqi people must slowly find their own way now.” The storm, which displaced a million people, could be the costliest natural disaster in US history, with estimates ranging from $100 billion to $200 billion. The US Congress has approved $62.3 billion so far for relief.
The group said the hurricane would have long-term consequences for the housing market and economy, boosting both home prices and construction costs.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Berlin that the military response to Hurricane Katrina had peaked, and that some of the 71,000 troops, 20 Navy ships and 300 helicopters in the area could soon be withdrawn.
In another sign of recovery, officials said New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong International Airport would reopen yesterday to passenger traffic, 16 days after the last commercial flight took off.
Only four flights were scheduled, but officials said there could be 60 per day by the end of the week. Before the storm, the airport averaged 350 flights a day.
The US Army Corps of Engineers set Oct. 8 as its target date to have New Orleans “dewatered.” “We’re not really saying ‘dry,’ we’re saying ‘dewatered,’” said Dana Finney, a Corps spokesman. That meant the city would be dry enough for engineers to begin working on infrastructure, even if some pockets of water remained.
Physical conditions in New Orleans, once home to 450,000, ranged from nearly normal on the surface in the high and dry French Quarter to whole neighborhoods still under brown and polluted water in the lowest sections of town. About 40 percent of the city was still flooded.
Business owners were being allowed back into New Orleans’ commercial center to check their property. Power had been restored in areas of the city.
In Louisiana officials had confirmed 279 fatalities, including the latest hospital deaths. An additional 218 people have died in Mississippi. Katrina also caused scattered deaths in Alabama and Florida.
