The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

[rollerbladr123]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/21/katrina.impact/index.html

Katrina's official death toll tops 1,000

Louisiana prepares for Rita, but levees still vulnerable



Wednesday, September 21, 2005; Posted: 4:36 p.m. EDT (20:36 GMT)

Quote 1 NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- The number of deaths in Louisiana blamed on Hurricane Katrina has risen to 799, the state's Department of Health and Hospitals said Wednesday, bringing the overall death toll to 1,033.

Mississippi reports 219 people killed in the storm, Florida's toll is 11 dead and Alabama and Georgia each report 2 killed.

The new total came as Louisiana prepares for a second hurricane, Rita, which has strengthened to a Category 5 storm -- even more intense than Katrina when it slammed into the Louisiana-Mississippi border on August 29

more at link.....

 

[Buzz Mills]

Death Toll Could Jump--Searchers in Hardest-Hit Areas of New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS (Sept. 21) - Searchers smashed through doors in New Orleans on Wednesday, bringing their hunt for the dead to homes that had been locked and to blocks hardest hit by Katrina's flooding. Behind those doors, officials said they expected a sharply escalating body count - among them, more children. "There still could be quite a few, especially in the deepest flooded areas," said U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Jeffrey Pettitt, who is overseeing the retrieval of bodies. "Some of the houses, they haven't been in yet."
The death toll in Louisiana stood at 799 on Wednesday, a jump of 153 bodies since the weekend and nearly 80 percent of the 1,036 deaths attributed to Hurricane Katrina across the Gulf Coast region. Pettitt and other officials would not speculate on what the final tally could be. They said the effort could last another four to six weeks. About 500 people are involved in the search of locked homes, the third and most intense phase of the recovery effort. Initially, authorities made a hasty sweep through neighborhoods to identify the living and dead. That was followed by a door-to-door search, though locked doors were off-limits.

 

[T'sNana]

I don't know if this has been posted before but it's pretty amazing....and sad.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- John and Leola Lyons stayed together, locked in their neat little blue house, riding out the killer storm and the flood that followed.

A pair of agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms found the elderly couple inside their house Tuesday, more than three weeks after Hurricane Katrina roared through New Orleans.

John was keeping watch over his wife's body.



http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/21/katrina.rescue.ap/index.html

 

[concernedperson]

There will be many more stories of this. We just don't know the horror yet.

 

[rollerbladr123]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050922/ap_on_re_us/hurricane_katrina_hk2Katrina's Death Toll Climbs Past 1,000 By ADAM NOSSITER, Associated Press Writer

Quote 1
NEW ORLEANS - Searchers smashed through doors in New Orleans on Wednesday, bringing their hunt for the dead to homes that had been locked and to blocks hardest hit by Katrina's flooding. Behind those doors, officials said they expected a sharply escalating body count even as the overall death toll passed 1,000. "There still could be quite a few, especially in the deepest flooded areas," said U.S. Coast Guard Captain Capt. Jeffrey Pettitt, who is overseeing the retrieval of bodies. "Some of the houses, they haven't been in yet." Officials said searchers are beginning to find more children.

Quote 2 At one home, Capt. Edan Jacobs of the Miami-Dade Fire Department kicked at a door a dozen times, then used a sledgehammer. The searchers, wearing special masks to ward off the mold and stench, sometimes have to go to three different entrances before they find one not blocked by refrigerators or couches.Police officers and National Guardsmen stood by, weapons ready, as emaciated dogs circled."We try not to destroy the homes, but we have to get inside," said fire department Lt. Eric Baum. "Drastic circumstances call for drastic measures."Many homes are unsafe to enter, while others lay under piles of muck and debris. Some homes are so structurally unsound they are marked, "Do not enter," and seemingly every house has mold growing from every surface. The difficulty of gauging the number of dead in those neighborhoods will delay a final count for weeks, said Dr. Louis Cataldie, medical incident commander for Louisiana

More at link.....

 

[Buzz Mills]

and their wives thought they went to New Orleans on a mercy mission:

Strippers help tease back New Orleans nightlife

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - In a sign that things may be returning to normal in New Orleans, strip shows are back in the city's famous French Quarter.

Erotic dancers and strippers are entertaining crowds of police, firefighters and military personnel instead of the usual audiences of drunken conventioneers and tourists in Bourbon Street's Deja Vu club, which reopened this week.

It's the first strip joint to resume business, three weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck in the worst natural disaster ever to hit the United States.

"It's nice to get back to work, and all these men need some entertainment," Dawn Beasley, 27, a dancer at the club, said on Tuesday night. "They haven't seen anybody but their buddies for two weeks."

The crowd hooted and hollered as women peeled off their tops and gyrated, as customers tucked tips into their G-strings.

 

[BillyGoatGruff]

The Invisible Body Battalion​

A private firm's undertaker unit is witnessing the human cost of Katrina. But they're not talking.


WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Dirk Johnson
Newsweek
Updated: 11:12 a.m. ET Sept. 19, 2005
Sept. 19, 2005 - Meet the body handlers. That’s impossible in the field—the private unit deployed to find, package, and transport the dead in the Mississippi Delta shuns the press. Complete privacy is part of a battle plan aimed at treating each corpse with dignity. Or, at least, so says the company, leaving aside the issue of how the reality might affect public opinion. Their mantra—this was somebody's mother or father, sister or brother, or even a child. Therefore the workers even must be sworn to secrecy about what they’re finding.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9399130/site/newsweek/

What do you think about the secrecy? I understand about not wanting to upset the family members, but I also wonder about damage control.

I know what they're trying to keep from having to talk about right now (especially with so many people still missing). Frankly, do you want to know that it might be your grandmother's arm that came off at the shoulder when she was picked up or that your missing newphew or grandchild or son might be the baby that exploded from trapped gass the moment it was touched? Sorry to be graphic, but that's what they're dealing with. My grandmother's first husband was a mortician before the days of refigeration in the south and I got to hear her talk about how he and she had to help harvest the dead after a particularly bad flood along the Mississippi. Ugh.

 

[Buzz Mills]

Because of the uncertain conditions, the recovery of bodies was suspended Friday but previous discoveries pushed the death toll from Hurricane Katrina to 841 in Louisiana, and to at least 1,078 across the Gulf Coast.

 

[Shadow205]

and their wives thought they went to New Orleans on a mercy mission:

Strippers help tease back New Orleans nightlife

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - In a sign that things may be returning to normal in New Orleans, strip shows are back in the city's famous French Quarter.

Erotic dancers and strippers are entertaining crowds of police, firefighters and military personnel instead of the usual audiences of drunken conventioneers and tourists in Bourbon Street's Deja Vu club, which reopened this week.

It's the first strip joint to resume business, three weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck in the worst natural disaster ever to hit the United States.

"It's nice to get back to work, and all these men need some entertainment," Dawn Beasley, 27, a dancer at the club, said on Tuesday night. "They haven't seen anybody but their buddies for two weeks."

The crowd hooted and hollered as women peeled off their tops and gyrated, as customers tucked tips into their G-strings.

hmmmm....so this is how they are spending their per-diam(sp)

 

[Buzz Mills]

hmmmm....so this is how they are spending their per-diam(sp)

I happened to think that the "women of the night" would be one of the first businesses to come back online, as they begin rebuilding New Orleans. There are going to be 10's of thousands of mostly men working on this project, and it seems, that where lots of men congregate, this is almost guaranteed to happen. Before long it will be business as usual.

 

[JDB]

I happened to think that the "women of the night" would be one of the first businesses to come back online, as they begin rebuilding New Orleans. There are going to be 10's of thousands of mostly men working on this project, and it seems, that where lots of men congregate, this is almost guaranteed to happen. Before long it will be business as usual.

hey Buzz Tom Tolbert on KNBR was talking about the Deja Vu yesterday. Seems the owner has dropped the cover charge . Drinks were only 3 bucks.And a privat lap dance instead of being 20 was a dollar.

 

[GonzoReiter]

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, members of the U.S. military are saying that there's something spooky going on and it's not just images of death and destruction that's haunting them... But the men in uniform have the feeling that they're not alone. It prompted a chaplain to utter this directive: "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you Satan to leave the dark areas of this building." ..

 

[Dark Knight]

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, members of the U.S. military are saying that there's something spooky going on and it's not just images of death and destruction that's haunting them... But the men in uniform have the feeling that they're not alone. It prompted a chaplain to utter this directive: "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you Satan to leave the dark areas of this building." ..

I've said all along that that city is full of ghosts/demons due to all the occult and voodoo stuff that goes on there.

OT: DO you really live in a town called RITAville, Texas?? Talk about spooky, lol!

 

[jannuncutt]

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, members of the U.S. military are saying that there's something spooky going on and it's not just images of death and destruction that's haunting them... But the men in uniform have the feeling that they're not alone. It prompted a chaplain to utter this directive: "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you Satan to leave the dark areas of this building." ..

I've been waiting to read something like this. This is one of the aspects of NO that I alway found intriguing. I am a Christian but, that doesn't mean that I would ignore voodoo.

 

[Buzz Mills]

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, members of the U.S. military are saying that there's something spooky going on and it's not just images of death and destruction that's haunting them... But the men in uniform have the feeling that they're not alone. It prompted a chaplain to utter this directive: "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you Satan to leave the dark areas of this building." ..

Funny, I think of New Orleans and zombies, all in the same thought. It's "The Night Of The Living Dead" all over again.

 

[LovelyPigeon]

"I was using the restroom and I just saw a little shadow," Leanor said, "kind of looming in front of me."

A little shadow that "loomed" LOL My advice is that those military personnel stop telling each other ghost stories.

 

[BillyGoatGruff]

I've been waiting to read something like this. This is one of the aspects of NO that I alway found intriguing. I am a Christian but, that doesn't mean that I would ignore voodoo.

VooDoo is very real in New Orleans, especially amongst the poorer neighborhoods. However, it has very little to do with what you see in movies, unless the movie is "The Serpent And The Rainbow". It is very tightly tied to Roman Catholicism, much like Santeria, its Latin stepchild/2nd cousin.

Although what the soldiers might be experiencing is nerves from beign around the dead, or simply some of the shadows belong to the crazies that have aleays made the city their home. NO has a long history of tolerating mentally ill street people. They even built a statute in memory of one (Ruthie The Duck Lady). There have always been schizophrenics wandering the streets of the Quarter, and I suspect with all that's happened, many have reverted to something similar to the semi-feral cats that haunted the above ground cemeteries. These people were barely fucntional to begin with, and with the whole city going crazier than they are, I suspect they'll be hiding in the shadows for a very long time.

 

[concernedperson]

VooDoo is very real in New Orleans, especially amongst the poorer neighborhoods. However, it has very little to do with what you see in movies, unless the movie is "The Serpent And The Rainbow". It is very tightly tied to Roman Catholicism, much like Santeria, its Latin stepchild/2nd cousin.

Although what the soldiers might be experiencing is nerves from beign around the dead, or simply some of the shadows belong to the crazies that have aleays made the city their home. NO has a long history of tolerating mentally ill street people. They even built a statute in memory of one (Ruthie The Duck Lady). There have always been schizophrenics wandering the streets of the Quarter, and I suspect with all that's happened, many have reverted to something similar to the semi-feral cats that haunted the above ground cemeteries. These people were barely fucntional to begin with, and with the whole city going crazier than they are, I suspect they'll be hiding in the shadows for a very long time.

Boy, you have your history down pat. I think you could write a very intriguing book on the quirks and lore of New Orleans. If you fictionalize it like Anne Rice, you could make a fortune. Even if you didn't.....I would still buy it.

 

[Becba]

That is such an important post. Good job and thank you.

 

[tybee204]

Link

By MARTHA MENDOZA, AP National Writer
Sat Sep 24,12:26 PM ET



SAN FRANCISCO - "Let me tell you about abandoned people," whispered J.R., his voice rising above the sighs and soft snores of sleepers curled on the church pews around him.
"Those people who were abandoned in New Orleans," he said, "they were abandoned long before that hurricane hit. We all were."


Ordinarily the faces of America's poor are as hidden as their stories. But Hurricane Katrina has spotlighted the deep poverty that this country has failed to solve, a world of people who live without Social Security numbers and without running water, people who are too poor to shop at Wal-Mart and whose children go hungry.

Even as the economy strengthened in 2004, Census Bureau figures show 37 million Americans lived under the poverty line, a jump of 1.1 million from 2003. People living in poverty have, in fact, been increasing steadily in this country since 2001.

For years, advocacy groups and researchers have shouted the statistics: 45.8 million people don't have health insurance; 25 percent of American's blacks (and 44 percent of Houston's) live in poverty; 36 million Americans are hungry or at risk of hunger.



The raw, inner city poverty of New Orleans can be found in most major cities, from New York's Harlem — where a one-in-50 infant-mortality rate is comparable to Sri Lanka's — to southern Dallas, where crime rates are twice as high as the rest of the city.

Rural poverty is less obvious but just as intractable.

In the colonias of southern Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, you'll find tarpaper shacks, dirt roads, outhouses, unbathed school children.

More at link