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New orleans rocked by explosions Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000082&sid=acmfzdSpNkbQ&refer=canadahttp://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000082&sid=acmfzdSpNkbQ&refer=canada
New Orleans Rocked by Explosions as Chaos Spreads (Update2)
Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) -- New Orleans was rocked by explosions along the banks of the Mississippi, as chaos spread throughout the city, the Associated Press reported.
Looting and rapes were carried out by bands of armed, violent men and thousands of people went without food, water and medicine for a third day, prompting Mayor Ray Nagin to issue a ``desperate S.O.S.'' in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
``People are dying down here,'' Nagin told Cable News Network. ``People are desperate and they are trying to find food and water.''
Some 15,000-20,000 people were stranded without help, Nagin said. The city once housed 500,000. A massive explosion, which may have been a railroad car, occurred in the southwest of the city, CNN reported. The disaster, which may have killed thousands, may be the biggest since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake when as many as 6,000 died. It may cost $50 billion, Standard & Poor's said, the most expensive hurricane in U.S. history.
The Senate yesterday approved $10.5 billion in disaster relief and as many as 15,000 security officers are headed for the city. President George W. Bush, who is due to visit the devastated region today, may get a hostile welcome, CNN said. The Bush administration's slow response has been criticized and Bush's approval rating has dropped to 41 percent, matching the lowest ever recorded, according to a poll today by CBS News.
The hurricane wreaked havoc throughout Louisiana and Mississippi, where the cities of Gulfport and Biloxi were almost destroyed, as well as Alabama and Western Florida.
Oil and Gas
Much of the region's oil and gas industry, accounting for a third of national oil production and a fifth of its natural gas, has shut down. Gasoline futures have surged pushing gas prices above $3 a gallon. Some analysts say the disaster may curb economic growth.
Thousands of extra National Guard troops were rushed to New Orleans to combat looting and restore order. ``There are some knuckleheads out there and they are doing some awful things,'' Nagin said.
U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency Chief Michael Brown defended the government's response to Hurricane Katrina as ``unprecedented'' amid reports of pleas for help from local residents and officials. Mayor Nagin said supplies were running out for the evacuees at the city's convention center.
Television channels showed crowds at the convention center, with people pleading for food, water and medicine. CNN said the police force, which has been hit by a wave of resignations, didn't want to enter the center because they were being shot at. Brown said food was on the way for them and there was plenty at the Superdome, which housed thousands of other refugees.
Convention Center
Residents at the convention center said on CNN that there were rapes and people were dying.
``As we move people out of the Superdome, people are beginning to move in,'' Brown said at a press conference. ``People are coming out of nowhere. There is just simply no way we can estimate the numbers of people out there.''
The storm, which made landfall near New Orleans on Aug. 29, may have killed thousands of people. People who are trying to survive in the streets of New Orleans on their own have gone hungry and thirsty, some not having eaten for days, said Lieutenant Kevin Cowan, spokesman for the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
Amid the looting in the flooded city rescue workers and helicopters were occasionally being fired on although additional patrols of 500 state troopers and National Guardsmen committed to some districts ``made a difference,'' Cowan said. Even so, large areas are without enough law enforcement, he said. Many New Orleans police officers have quit, saying they weren't going to risk their lives fighting looters, AP quoted a Louisiana state police commander as saying.
Looting
``Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here,'' Nagin said. ``They are not here.''
``Looters are hitting food stores, they're hitting department stores, they're in jewelry stores and gun stores --they're stealing guns wherever they can,'' Sergeant Frank Coates, a spokesman for the Louisiana Police, said in a telephone interview from Baton Rouge, the state capital. ``It's not just to survive, they're taking goods for personal gain.''
In New Orleans, where the Mississippi flooded 80 percent of the city, floating bodies were reported as rescuers worked to save people stranded on rooftops, the Louisiana emergency preparedness office said.
Engineers are working to plug breaches in the New Orleans levee system, which protects the below-sea-level city from the Mississippi to its south and Lake Pontchartrain to the north. About 1.3 million people live in the city and surrounding areas.
Draining Pumps
Johnny Bradberry, secretary of Louisiana's Department of Transportation and Development, said he expects to turn on the pumps to drain New Orleans by Sept. 4.
The contaminated floodwaters and bodies present a health problem, Coates of the Louisiana police said. He said there was waste and a ``stench'' in the water.
``All of the ingredients of a disease problem are there,'' Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said.
About 2,500 patients are being evacuated from hospitals in New Orleans with the assistance of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Defense Department and the Coast Guard, said Bill Hall, an HHS spokesman, in a telephone interview. Many are being taken by helicopter or boat to local airports, where they are flown to waiting hospitals around the country.
San Francisco
Mayor Nagin said that Katrina has killed ``most likely thousands'' of people. That would make the hurricane the deadliest U.S. storm since one that swept through Galveston, Texas, in 1900, killing an estimated 8,000 to 12,000. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire killed 5,000 to 6,000. Damages may cost as much as $50 billion, including repairs to roads and bridges, making it the most costly hurricane in U.S. history, according to Standard & Poor's. It may surpass Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which cost $43 billion in today's currency, Standard & Poor's said in an e-mailed statement. Experts estimate insured losses from Katrina of $25 billion, Standard & Poor's said.
Hunger and Thirst
As refugees headed north to escape the flooding, lootings and break-ins were reported in other cities, including Baton Rouge, Cowan said.
Katrina shut 90 percent of oil production and 79 percent of natural gas production in the region, which produces a third of the nation's oil and a fifth of its natural gas. Gasoline futures rose more than 9 percent yesterday. Futures prices fell as much as 2.9 percent today.
The Bush administration said its emergency management agency has spent or obligated $2 billion for disaster assistance.
About 24,000 National Guard members will be in Louisiana and Mississippi by the end of the week to combat looting and quell gunfire that disrupted the rescue of survivors of Hurricane Katrina, the Defense Department said in a briefing yesterday.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday at a news conference that 1,400 will go to New Orleans daily for the next three days, expanding a force of 3,000 that's trying to maintain order in the city.
Katrina, the 11th named storm of the six-month hurricane season that ends Nov. 30, swept over Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and western Florida on Monday with 140-mile-an-hour winds. Storm surges caused breaks in the levees that protect New Orleans, which lies below sea level, leading to widespread flooding.
Commerce Destroyed
The hurricane has killed an untold number of people and destroyed commerce along the Gulf Coast region, which in addition to producing oil and gas handles 40 percent of U.S. grain exports.
The disruption to refineries, drilling rigs and pipelines pushed up oil and natural gas prices to records and sent retail gasoline prices above $3 a gallon. Economists suggested the Federal Reserve might soon stop raising interest rates because of the hurricane's drag on the economy.
``While recent hurricanes have not had lasting macroeconomic impacts, Katrina may prove to be the exception,'' said Bruce Kasman, head of economic research at JPMorgan Securities Inc. in New York.
Some FEMA rescue operations were suspended in areas where gunfire broke out, Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said in Washington, AP reported.
Governor Blanco
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said as many as 300,000 people in the region have been evacuated. About 49,800 people are in 131 shelters in the state, which can hold 70,000 more, Blanco said. She said she didn't know how many were left in New Orleans.
``We are receiving what I have asked for right now,'' Blanco said yesterday at a press conference. ``But the scope and dimension are so dramatic and so large.''
The Houston Astrodome where refugees from New Orleans shelter, is full, and refugees are being bussed elsewhere in Texas, Lieutenant Cowan said.
Officials at the Houston Astrodome turned away three buses that arrived from the New Orleans Superdome, Cable News Network reported. The drivers of the buses, which held as many as 75 people each, were told to go to another location, which wasn't disclosed, CNN said. The buses were used to evacuate people from New Orleans, which was flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Texas has agreed to triple the number of refugees its accepting to about 75,000, AP reported.
Coast Guard
In Mississippi, more than 2,500 people have been rescued from homes by the National Guard, the Coast Guard and the state's Fish and Wildlife Services Agency. Thousands of missing persons reports have been received, said Scott Hamilton, a spokesman for Mississippi's Emergency Management Agency.
The bottom 60 miles of Mississippi to the Gulf Coast is essentially a disaster zone, Hamilton said. All roads are either impassable or have been blocked by the National Guard.
``The coroners reports are going to skyrocket,'' said James Stebl, a spokesman for FEMA in Jackson, Mississippi.
Bush has urged a crackdown on lawlessness.
``There ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this,'' he said in an interview on ABC's ``Good Morning America.''
The Pentagon has so far sent about 7,200 active-duty forces to the region, mostly sailors in vessels to help in relief efforts, and several hundred members of the Corps of Engineers.
The U.S. Navy said today it will send the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier based in Norfolk, Virginia, and the USS Whidbey Island docking craft to the Gulf to serve as floating staging areas for helicopters and command communications. It has a crew of about 3,350 sailors, according to a Navy fact sheet. The Whidbey Island has a crew of about 350.
This will bring to more than 11,000 the number of active-duty military personnel deployed for disaster relief.
Floating Bodies
The Houston Astrodome will shelter Superdome evacuees through December. Texas Governor Rick Perry said yesterday that the state would take 25,000 more in San Antonio.
Ghulan Masir, 76, went to the Superdome on Sunday, before the storm, and was put on a bus with 100 others, who were told they were headed to Lafayette, Louisiana. When he woke 10 hours later, he was at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He spent two nights there and was moved to Baton Rouge's River Center, an entertainment complex on the banks of the Mississippi.
He said he hasn't showered since Sunday and is wearing the same dark-beige polo shirt and khakis he had when he boarded the bus in New Orleans. He said he's been able to bathe by towel and washed his shirt in the sink once.
Katrina also killed people in Mississippi, where the cities of Gulfport and Biloxi were almost destroyed. Gasoline for boats, cars, trucks and generators is running critically low in some places, Hamilton said.
`It's Under Water'
The Red Cross has set up 98 shelters housing 12,800 evacuees across the state. A large majority of New Orleans was evacuated to Mississippi. About 1,700 truckloads of water and ice have been distributed, and 39 medical disaster teams and four veterinary teams are working with rescuers.
Barbara Williams, 41, of West Wego, Louisiana, outside of New Orleans, was staying at the Clarion Hotel in Jackson. She's spent much of her time there since she arrived Aug. 28 trying to find out about her infirm 85-year-old mother-in-law whom the family was forced to leave behind in the care of her brother.
``I've seen my house on TV,'' said Williams, who is a teaching assistant in the Jefferson Parish school system. ``It's under water, the roof and everything. I can only pray they survived.''
Bush on Tour
Bush will take a ground and air tour of the Gulf Coast region today, meeting with the governors of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. The president also asked his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and former President Bill Clinton to lead a fund-raising effort. He'll meet today with the two men, who led tsunami relief fund-raising earlier this year, McClellan said.
The government has declared a disaster area covering 90,000 square miles in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The area is about the size of the state of Michigan. About $2 billion has already been spent or obligated to contractors in the emergency response, Chertoff said.
No Power
More than 1 million homes and businesses in the region remained without electricity. Entergy Corp., owner of New Orleans's electric utility, said late yesterday that 794,000 customers were still without power in Louisiana and Mississippi. Power was restored to 298,000 homes and businesses, Entergy said in a statement.
Tribune Co.'s WGNO-TV and WNOL-TV stations in New Orleans are off the air because of water damage, spokesman Gary Weitman said.
U.S. gasoline prices surged 36 cents overnight at the pumps to a record average of $2.99 a gallon today, according to Gaspricewatch.com, which calculated the price for regular grade gasoline from reports by volunteer price-spotters. Motorists formed lines as long as a mile at stations in Georgia where a record $5.68 a gallon was reported last night in Atlanta.
Rising energy costs and the shutdown of cities such as New Orleans and Biloxi may cut a full point off U.S. growth in the year's final three months, said economists including Nariman Behravesh at Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Interest Rates
Former Federal Reserve Governor Lyle Gramley said chances of the Fed pausing in its series of quarter-point rate increases have increased.
``Katrina is a little bit different because you're also threatening the energy system,'' said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBC Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Connecticut, in an interview. ``We're still trying to figure out exactly where we are on that. The near-term implications are pretty extreme.''
The weather service was tracking two more storms: Tropical Depression Lee about 780 miles east of Bermuda and an unnamed depression farther east in the Atlantic Ocean.
Last Updated: September 2, 2005 07:03 EDT
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