Daily National SITREP Report

[Downdraft]

National Situation Update: Saturday, September 3, 2005
Homeland Security Threat Level: YELLOW (ELEVATED).
Troops Bring Food, Medicine to New Orleans
To cries of "Thank you, Jesus!" and catcalls of "What took you so long?," a National Guard convoy packed with food, water and medicine rolled through axle-deep floodwaters Friday into what remained of New Orleans and descended into a maelstrom of fires and floating corpses.

More than four days after the storm hit, the caravan of at least three-dozen camouflage-green troop vehicles and supply trucks arrived along with dozens of air-conditioned buses to take refugees out of the city. President Bush also took an aerial tour of the ruined city, and answered complaints about a sluggish government response by saying, "We're going to make it right."

In what looked like a scene from a Third World country, some people threw their arms heavenward and others nearly fainted with joy as the trucks and hundreds of soldiers arrived in the punishing midday heat. But there were also profane jeers from many in the crowd of nearly 20,000 outside the convention center, which a day earlier seemed on the verge of a riot, with desperate people seething with anger over the lack of anything to eat or drink.

The soldiers' arrival-in-force came amid angry complaints from the mayor and others that the federal government had bungled the relief effort and let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine. By nightfall Friday, the mayor's tone had changed. Nagin returned from a meeting with President Bush a picture of calm. A day earlier, the mayor erupted in tears during a radio interview and told the government to "get off your asses and let's do something."

The president took a land and air tour of hard-hit areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and admitted of the relief effort: "The results are not enough." Congress passed a $10.5 billion disaster aid package, and Bush quickly signed the measure.

What were perhaps the first signs of real hope for recovery came on a day that was ushered in with a thunderous explosion before daybreak and scattered downtown building fires that only confirmed the sense that New Orleans was a city in utter collapse.

The explosion at a warehouse along the Mississippi River about 15 blocks from the French Quarter jostled storm refugees awake and sent a pillar of acrid gray smoke over a city that the mayor has said could be awash with thousands of corpses. Other large fires fire erupted downtown.

With a cigar-chomping general in the convoy's lead vehicle, the trucks rolled through muddy water to reach the convention center. Flatbed trucks carried huge crates, pallets and bags of relief supplies, including Meals Ready to Eat. Soldiers in fatigues sat in the backs of open-top trucks, their rifles pointing skyward.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the military presence helped calm a jittery city. The governor also said refugees in the convention center should be evacuated Saturday. Guardsmen carrying rifles also arrived at the Louisiana Superdome, where a vast crowd of bedraggled people — many of them trapped there since the weekend — stretched around the entire perimeter of the building, waiting for their deliverance from the heat, the filth and the gagging stench inside the stadium.

Within minutes of the soldiers' arrival at the convention center, they set up six food and water lines. The crowd was for the most part orderly and grateful for the first major supply convoy to reach the arena. With Houston's Astrodome already full with 15,000 storm refugees, that city opened two more giant centers to accommodate an additional 10,000. Dallas and San Antonio also had agreed to take refugees.

At the broken levee along Lake Pontchartrain that swamped nearly 80 percent of New Orleans, helicopters dropped 3,000-pound sandbags into the breach and pilings were being pounded into place to seal off the waters. Engineers also were developing a plan to create new breaches in the levees so that a combination of gravity and pumping would drain the water out of the city, a process that could take weeks.

Law and order all but broke down in New Orleans over the past few days. Storm refugees reported being raped, shot and robbed, gangs of teenagers hijacked boats meant to rescue them, and frustrated hurricane victims menaced outmanned law officers. Police Chief Eddie Compass admitted even his own officers had taken food and water from stores. Officers were walking off the job by the dozens.

Some of New Orleans' hospitals, facing dwindling supplies of food, water and medicine, resumed evacuations Friday. Rescuers finally made it into Charity Hospital, the city's largest public hospital, where gunfire had earlier thwarted efforts to evacuate more than 250 patients. Behind, they left a flooded morgue where residents had been dropping off bodies. After it reached its capacity of 12, five more corpses were stacked in a stairwell. Other bodies were elsewhere in the hospital. (Media Sources)

Hurricane Katrina Recovery – Gulf Coast area (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas)
There is a shortage of fuel of all types in the affected area. Several electric utilities have lost infrastructure, causing power outages throughout the region. Additionally, cellular and other telephone services have also been disrupted.

FEMA is working with other federal agencies to provide assistance to state and local governments in the affected areas. The U. S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has provided 605 buses to transport evacuees out of the affected areas (primarily New Orleans). An additional 500 buses will be provided shortly. DOT is coordinating the use of military and commercial aircraft to speed up the evacuation process out of Louisiana. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will assist by expediting passenger inspection.

The U.S. Coast Guard has deployed Search and Rescue (SAR) Units from throughout the country to provide 24-hour assistance to residents in Mississippi and Louisiana. The USCG is also working to open all waterways in the affected areas, especially for the movement of gasoline and coal barges. USCG law enforcement assets have been deployed to the Gulf region to assist local and state police agencies. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Spenser arrived in New Orleans Thursday evening (September 1).

The U.S. Navy has deployed 10 ships to support Katrina recovery efforts.

FEMA is coordinating with states and other federal agencies to provide commodities to the affected areas. The current priorities are food, water, fuel, and ice. FEMA is prepared to deploy 30 million Meals-Ready-To-Eat (MREs) to the affected area; many of which have already been distributed.

FEMA is also working with state and other federal officials to develop long-range plans for the recovery of the affected area. Initial recovery plans include development of temporary housing for the several thousand residents of New Orleans and other areas that have been displaced by the hurricane damage. (FEMA HQ)

[soonertwister]

Their own sitreps can't keep up with the progress, the Civic Center was empty hours ago, and nobody is at the Superdome either. Pretty much everyone who was on the interstates and stranded is gone as well.

The massive rescue effort has arrived, and in impressive fashion. Now it's up the the rest of the country to share the costs and responsibilities of this disaster.