News from Central Gulf Focus: La./Miss (Ala contributors)

[Audrey2Katrina]

Parish to request more buses for storm evacuations

02:56 PM CDT on Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Houma Courier


HOUMA -- Terrebonne officials plan to ask the state for more buses to use during a possible evacuation, the parish’s emergency-preparedness chief said Tuesday.

Michael Deroche Sr., the parish director of emergency preparedness, said he has a meeting Thursday with representatives of six state agencies to make plans to have buses in Terrebonne Parish prior to a storm.

Evacuations will be called much earlier in advance of a storm this year, Deroche said, and a major part of the evacuation efforts will be taking people without transportation from down the bayou to safety outside the reach of a storm surge.

"Buses is our big issue," Deroche said. "We need more than we have."

School buses were used last year to pick up residents of low-lying areas during hurricanes Katrina and Rita and get them to area shelters -- similar to previous storms, such as Ivan, Isidore and Lili, Deroche said. The Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office also drove the buses on rescue missions to pick up stranded New Orleans residents and bring them to safety in Terrebonne Parish.

In coming storms, the buses will have a new use: taking flood-prone residents out of Terrebonne Parish to shelters in other parts of the state. Though the School Board has more than 130 buses, the larger-scale move will require more, Deroche said.

Exactly how many buses Terrebonne will need for a full-scale evacuation has not yet been determined, the emergency-preparedness chief said. Deroche said he will present the state officials with population numbers and other factors, and they will fit that data to a formula for buses. More ambulances to transport evacuees with special medical needs may also be requested.

The evacuations this year are likely to be larger than ever seen before in the state, Deroche said, because of the experiences of last year’s storms.

"The time to get ready is now, while there’s a lot available," Deroche said. "Don’t wait until the last minute."

Deroche’s requests will come on the heels of the Louisiana Emergency Preparedness Conference last week in Lake Charles. Officials from Deroche’s office, the parish administration and the Sheriff’s Office all attended the meeting with him, convening with 300 other emergency-management officials from around the state.

While the speakers mainly described experiences from around the state in last year’s hurricanes -- St. Bernard, southwest Louisiana, Cameron -- Deroche said the focus was to share ideas about how to plan for storms earlier.

"There’s a lot more planning activity," Deroche said. "I’ve never been so many meetings as I have in the last year about planning."

Deroche planned the conference this year. Next year, he will be president of the state association of emergency-preparedness directors.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Blanco sending National Guard and State Police to New Orleans at request of Nagin, council

update 6/19/06 NOLA.com

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she will “accelerate” efforts to deploy National Guard troops and State Police officers in New Orleans as early as Tuesday, in response to a request by Mayor Ray Nagin and the City Council for help to control the recent spate of violent killings in the city.

In a statement issued this afternoon, Blanco said the city’s situation is “urgent” and called the murder of five teens in Central City on Saturday “shocking.”

"I will not tolerate criminal behavior. We must protect our citizens. Having more law enforcement patrolling the streets is a direct deterrent to the criminal element. Criminals are not welcome in New Orleans or anywhere else in this state,” Blanco said in the statement.

Blanco’s statement did not say how many guard units and state troopers the governor is dispatching to the city. City officials said this morning that they had secured a commitment from the State Police for 60 officers. Nagin and council members also asked for up to 300 National Guard troops.

Blanco said her office is working with New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley to determine the city’s need, and that plans to assist police were in the works since last week.

"I have two warnings: First, to parents, keep your teenagers off the streets and out of trouble. Second, to judges, I am urging you to keep hardened criminals where they belong-in jail and off the streets. We must protect our citizens,” Blanco said.

The mayor and Council also said they plan to reinstitute a curfew for the city’s youth, from 11 p.m. or midnight until dawn. Blanco urged a curfew as well.

Nagin and the council publicly asked the state for help Monday morning, after an special meeting called to explore ways to combat violent crime, just days after the five teens were found murdered in Central City. Government officials said they are “drawing a line in the sand,” and will take all action necessary to control the crime wave that has gripped the city in the last three months.

Fifty three people have been murdered in New Orleans this year, thirty-six of those since April.

City officials said they would like to see the National Guard patrol the largely devastated areas to prevent looting. That would free up city and state police officers to patrol the city's violent crime hot spots. NOPD presently employs 1,486 officers, including 110 currently in leave or out sick. The current figure is down from 1,700 before the storm.


Tax deadline extended again

3:11 p.m.

Residents in parishes impacted by Hurricane Katrina now have even more time to file their 2005 federal income tax returns.

On Monday, the Internal Revenue Service extended the filing deadline to Oct. 16. The filing deadline in normal years is April 15, but earlier this year the agency had said it would give Katrina filers until Aug. 28.

The latest extension applies to 2005 returns that were previously subject to the Aug. 28 deadline. It also applies to residents who got extensions on their 2004 returns.

To ensure that they receive the relief to which they are entitled, affected taxpayers should mark “Hurricane Katrina” in red ink on the top of their returns.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Police seek leads in 5 killings

Teens gunned down at Danneel, Josephine

Monday, June 19, 2006
By Leslie Williams

Among the five teenagers shot dead Saturday before sunrise, one was awaiting a court hearing in connection with a drug arrest, and another, his mother said, was such a pleasant person that some of his friends called him "Love."

As relatives mourned Sunday, New Orleans police continued to search for the person or people who gunned down Arsenio Hunter, 16; Warren Simeon, 17; Iruan Taylor, 19; Marquis Hunter, 19; and Reggie Dantzler, 19.

Saturday's killings were the latest of four instances of gun-

related homicide in Central City since April, all occurring within short walking distance of the intersection of Jackson Avenue and Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard.

-- On April 21, Joshua Jack, 16, died about 8:20 p.m. after someone shot him in the head at Loyola Avenue and Philip Street.

-- On April 19, Darwin Bassie, 20, died after being shot several times about 8:30 p.m. in the 1800 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

-- On April 18, Terron Jackson, 27, was shot to death shortly before 1 p.m. in the 2000 block of Josephine Street.

Police spokesman Garry Flot said Sunday afternoon that the detective handling the latest case has no suspects. Information about whether arrests have been made in connection with the three other Central City shootings was not immediately available.

Police are awaiting a ballistics report that will disclose whether more than one weapon was used to kill the five teenagers in Saturday's shooting at the intersection of Danneel and Josephine streets, Flot said.

Dantzler died from a gunshot wound to the head, and his body was found on the sidewalk. He was awaiting a July 6 court hearing in connection with his arrest May 20 on a marijuana possession charge, according to court records.

Simeon, Taylor and Arsenio Hunter were found dead with multiple gunshot wounds inside a blue Ford Explorer, police said. Marquis Hunter fled the sport utility vehicle, went about 20 feet and collapsed from multiple gunshot wounds, said John Gagliano, chief investigator for the Orleans Parish coroner's office. Hunter died at a hospital.

Police have not determined a motive for the killings, police spokesman Capt. John Bryson said.

And Angela Simeon, Warren's mother, said she's equally puzzled.

Warren worked at a Burger King in New Orleans and "was always very happy," said Simeon, who screamed when she got a call about 4:20 a.m. from the fast-food restaurant where she works informing her of her son's violent death.

"He looked for a way to make other people happy, to satisfy them," she said.

"He was a neat dresser who always looked fly, and people called him 'Love,' " Simeon said as she continued to monitor news accounts in hopes of getting some explanation for the tragedy.

Warren Simeon attended Oretha Castle Haley Elementary School and Colton Junior High, and was a junior at John McDonogh High School, said Angela Simeon, who was displaced to Houston with her children after Hurricane Katrina hit.

The family recently returned to New Orleans, she said, taking up residence in the Treme area.

Simeon said the other teenagers killed Saturday were her son's friends. She'd met them but didn't know them well, she said.

Warren Simeon attempted to enroll in school upon his return, but no schools would take him, she said.

"They told him he'd have to wait until next (school) year," she said.

Warren Simeon also is survived by his father, Warren McKey; his stepfather, Odell Robinson of New Orleans; a sister, Deyanta Waviers of New Orleans; two brothers, Brandon and Hakeem of Houston; and his maternal grandmother, Gertie Williams of Houston.

"When they told me he was dead, I lost my mind," Simeon said. "I yelled and started running. This is so hard on me. I'm suffering."

. . . . . . .

Anyone with information should call Crimestoppers at (504) 822-1111 or toll free at (877) 903-7867. Callers do not have to give their names or testify and can receive as much as $2,500 for tips that lead to an indictment.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Old Charity will be replaced by $1.2 billion complex

6/19/2006, 1:08 p.m. CT
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI
The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Charity Hospital, the 270-year-old institution that for generations was the medical epicenter of this city's uninsured, will be replaced by a $1.2 billion medical center that marries two agencies, officials announced Monday.

Charity, which sustained significant damage during last year's hurricane, has been under lock and key since the storm, its fate a matter of intense debate. Although officials have no immediate plans for the old hospital's Art Deco building, they announced plans to combine two of the city's medical powerhouses under one roof: Louisiana State University, which ran Charity, will join with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which ran the former VA hospital.

The VA hospital also was flooded.

The shared medical complex will be comprised of two hospitals — one operated by LSU, the other by VA — joined by a "linking corridor" with services used by both. Those services will include radiology, rehabilitation, a laboratory, an energy plant and housekeeping.

The hospital is scheduled to open in 2011 in downtown New Orleans.

"We need this facility in a very real way," said Dr. Bob Lynch, a Veterans Affairs regional director.

The New Orleans area had about 30 hospitals before Katrina. About two-thirds of those are now open, but most are smaller. Altogether, the reopened hospitals have 2,450 beds, half the number before the storm.

Officials say that by sharing services, the VA and LSU could save $400 million in operating costs over the next 30 years. The two will be responsible for raising roughly $630 million each.

Even before Hurricane Katrina rendered it useless, Charity Hospital — where city luminaries such as Wynton Marsalis and Fats Domino were born — was under scrutiny. Critics called the building antiquated. And just three months before Katrina, the hospital's emergency room received a verbal warning because of budgetary problems from the American College of Surgeons, which threatened to remove its accreditation.

But activists for the poor have maintained Charity should stay open. They fear closing it would mean a move away toward caring for the city's most disadvantaged citizens.

Officials stressed the "Charity mission" of caring for the poor would still be front and center in the new complex. Rebuilding from the ground up will give the city a chance to have a world class health care system without the ills that plagued the old.

"We know we're not just rebuilding the bricks and mortar of the old system, but modernizing the delivery system of our health care, as well," said Rod West, chairman of LSU's board of supervisors.

In the meantime, the city will slowly reopen other types of medical services, such as clinics and leased beds in private hospitals, creating a partial safety net for the uninsured, said Lynch. In the downtown area, University Hospital is expected to reopen by the end of the year, providing as many as 200 trauma beds.

"We'll come back piece by piece," he said.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Population count to help city recover

Monday, June 19, 2006
By Mark Waller
East Jefferson bureau

The most extensive effort yet to count the elusive post-Katrina population began last week with workers hanging surveys on doorknobs in Metairie.


It's the first large-scale attempt to go door to door counting residents, a strategy designed to provide a clearer picture of who now lives in the New Orleans area than the common measures used so far: analyzing postal change of address forms, electricity hookups and school enrollment, and conducting telephone surveys.

Teams started spreading surveys in Jefferson Parish on Thursday and plan to extend the effort into Orleans, Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes and the Hurricane Rita strike zones of Calcasieu and Cameron parishes. Officials hope 90 percent of the households they visit will complete the questionnaires and mail them back.

Individual parish population estimates will come out gradually over the next few months, with the entire study set to be completed by September.

"This will give us something a little bit more timely, a little fresher," said David Bowman, director of research and special projects for the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which is overseeing the study along with the state Department of Health and Hospitals.

The U.S. Census Bureau released population estimates earlier this month, but they were for Jan. 1, leaving out almost six months of continually shifting post-Katrina landscape. That survey found 158,353 New Orleans residents, although other analysts put the city's population at more than 200,000. New Orleans' population estimate by the Census Bureau was 437,186 on July 1, two months before Katrina struck.

In seven New Orleans area parishes, the Census Bureau found about 915,000 residents as of January, down from 1.3 million just before Katrina.

The Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are advising state officials on the new study.

Besides getting basic population numbers, one of the major goals is to assess the health-care needs of the region so officials can identify doctor shortages and decide where to reopen hospitals.

"Where do you put your resources?" asked Bob Johannessen, spokesman for DHH. "It is important to know just what type of population we're dealing with."

Johannessen said that finding shortages helps parishes qualify for federal and state incentives to lure doctors. In April, for example, the federal Health Resources and Services Administration declared Orleans Parish a shortage area for primary care physicians, psychiatrists and dentists, a finding based in part on population reviews by the state.

The street-level work of the latest study, including hiring and coordinating the survey distributors and data analysts, is being conducted by the Louisiana Public Health Institute, a nonprofit organization that works alongside government on health-care issues. Clayton Williams, the institute's director of urban health initiatives, said the results will help direct the efforts to combat asthma, diabetes, obesity and tobacco use.

But the data also will help guide other aspects of the recovery by gauging the size of the labor force available for rebuilding, the amount of new housing needed and where students are likely to return to schools.

The effort will target samples of homes, not every address. Bowman said surveyors will return to homes that don't respond in an effort to offset any problems with the mail and encourage as many people as possible to participate. He said completing and returning the survey is a small way residents can help the recovery.

"We can't meet the needs of Louisiana's citizens if we don't know what they are," Bowman said.

The campaign is financed by $200,000 from DHH and an $89,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control Foundation. Bowman said officials are seeking money to add 12 more hurricane-affected parishes to the study.

[Audrey2Katrina]

MAKING THEIR OWN WAY


Despite the devastation delivered to lower Cameron Parish by Hurricane Rita, and costly new building codes, many residents are determined to live out their days in this coastal community -- even if it's in a trailer home.

Monday, June 19, 2006
By Brian Thevenot
Staff writer

CAMERON -- Curtis "Crab Man" Tregle, 67, a lifetime fisher, lost three homes to Hurricane Rita: his own and two rental houses. His children and grandchildren, who used to live right next door, have moved away from this coastal hamlet to higher ground.

He now works and lives with his wife in a 12-by-20-foot green metal box right on the edge of the Calcasieu shipping channel, a stone's throw from the Gulf of Mexico. He intends to spend the rest of his life here, running his crab traps in the morning and drinking beer in the afternoon.

But that may take some doing. Rita left lower Cameron Parish in utter ruin, and in order to reduce the chances of it happening again, state and federal officials have imposed costly building and flood-elevation codes that -- combined with a rapidly evolving economy -- could make the area off-limits to the working poor who have long called it home.

Tregle's first impulse is to try to get around those codes. To that end, he's going to move his temporary home-office a few feet to the south -- onto a dock hanging over the water.

That way, he says, he'll have to satisfy only the Coast Guard.

And that's only half of his plan: As a creative alternative to requirements from the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals for handling household sewage, Tregle has purchased an "Incinolet" -- a $1,700 self-contained toilet that burns waste with electric heat. It has become his most prized possession. A cartoon logo on the outside of the box depicts an old-school outhouse being struck by lightning bolts.

"That's worse than 'Boudreaux,' huh? I went from a $70,000 home to a $1,700 toilet," he says, comparing himself to the mythic character who's the butt of Cajun jokes. "Don't worry about me. If a hurricane comes in the Gulf, I hope it hits Cameron again. I got nothing to lose. I'll take my toilet with me when I evacuate. I bought a trailer for it."

Many residents of lower Cameron Parish, destroyed by Rita's 15-foot storm surge and Category 3 winds, have adopted an attitude similar to Tregle's. After nine months of bureaucratic frustration, many say they'd just as soon tell the government to keep its money and the maze of new rebuilding rules tied to it.

In contrast to New Orleans, where residents seethe with anger over the collapse of federally maintained levees, residents of Cameron Parish don't complain much about the amount of federal money being offered to the region, or the pace at which it's being disbursed. They're generally thankful for what they've gotten, and they're not asking for the nation's taxpayers to make them whole, they say. They just want a reasonably affordable regimen of building regulations and insurance rates so they can get to work doing their own rebuilding.

In Holly Beach, one of the last relatively unregulated, undeveloped "poor man's" beaches in the country, residents now must contend with new parish rules requiring them to own larger plots of land in order to install septic systems.

In Holly Beach and elsewhere in lower Cameron, residents fret over the cost of building storm-proof homes on 15-foot stilts -- which they dub "bird houses." Before the storm, Cameron had no building codes at all.


Permanent trailer park

The biggest fear, residents and public officials said, is that the heightened costs of compliance and insurance -- on top of what they call an unjust denial of countless insurance claims -- will keep many longtime residents from returning. And they worry that those who do may be reduced, like the "Crab Man," to living in essentially disposable homes or camper trailers that can be moved if a storm threatens.

"It's turning Cameron Parish into a trailer park," said Clerk of Court Carl Broussard. "We saw what Rita did, and we want to rebuild the right way. But you just can't afford to do it right."

Adding to their frustration is the sense among many Cameron residents that they should be getting FEMA's payout of up to $30,000 to cover the cost of complying with the federal requirement to raise their homes. Not so, says FEMA: If the damaged property already met the higher elevation requirements before the storm, there's no such payout -- even if the house was destroyed.

Those who can afford to raise their homes to qualify for federal flood insurance still may be priced out of rebuilding because of astronomical costs for private homeowner's insurance. Broussard said he recently got quotes ranging from $6,500 to $24,000 a year, and some carriers have pulled out of lower Cameron Parish altogether.

Before the storm, one of Broussard's employees, Lisa Stewart, lived in a spacious home 13 feet above sea level. She met FEMA flood elevation requirements -- and thus was ineligible for a FEMA cost-of-compliance payout to fix her ruined home. Moreover, she's had trouble even finding a contractor. The upshot: She's downgrading her plans.

"I'm just going to get a trailer," she said, then stopped herself. "I guess they don't call them trailers anymore, they call them 'modular homes.' "

Ernie Broussard, a consultant directing the parish's recovery, said parish officials want to discourage the trailer-park motif in favor of traditional, permanent housing. But they concede it's a balancing act that can be tough on many residents.

"We're looking for a sustainable community that's not going to be destructive to the pace of the rebuilding process. That's the balance," he said. "We can't do traditional 'stick and brick' construction. We've got to do storm-proof housing, so we're looking at some prototype modular materials that are impervious to rot, termites and debris -- and insurable."


Little still standing

Though overshadowed by Katrina, the damage Rita wrought in Cameron Parish roughly resembles the wrecked parts of lower St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes. Wind and storm surge flattened nearly every building but Cameron's courthouse, and tossed huge boats up into the marshes, where many still sit, rotting in the sun like beached fish.

All told, Rita knocked down more than 4,400 structures, about 2,000 of them houses, in a community of just 10,000 people spread around the largest land area of any parish in the state. The parish has retained about 7,500 of those residents, officials estimate, though many from lower Cameron have moved north to more suburban communities closer to Lake Charles, straining services, businesses and roads.

In devastated lower Cameron, the coast remains marred by mile after mile of blight, even after countless tons of debris have been carted away by federal contractors and residents. In one part of town, a public pay phone stood alone in the middle of a field, where a store must once have operated.

But if proximity to the Gulf makes for a precarious existence, it also provides access to the bounty of natural resources that officials and residents are confident will secure the parish's future. In his book about Louisiana Gov. Earl Long, A.J. Leibling famously observed that the state "floats on oil like a drunkard's teeth on whiskey."

Nowhere is that more true than in Cameron Parish, where 16 percent of the nation's strategic petroleum reserve -- 240 million barrels -- is stored underground in salt domes, Broussard said.

After construction of three planned liquefied natural gas ports, scheduled for completion by 2010, the parish will provide for nearly a quarter of the nation's total consumption of natural gas, Broussard said. Each will bring $700 million to $900 million in construction spending into the parish and a healthy dose of permanent new jobs.

Of lesser but still substantial economic importance, the seafood industry feeds Cameron Parish.

Business in both industries is booming, in part because of the storm. As he leans over the huge tub of crabs he'd collected one recent morning, Crab Man Tregle pointed to several in the tank -- with no legs.

"See those crabs? The fish are so thick out there they're eating the legs off them when they hang from the trap," he said.

The same goes for the crabs themselves and for shrimp, which by all accounts are as plentiful as at any time in memory. Tregle now uses only half as many crab traps as before the storm to bring in the same catch.

Even with only one shrimp-processing house back open, most shrimpers are catching 400 to 500 pounds of large shrimp each night, and peddling all of them on the street themselves for retail prices. They might sell another 1,000 to 2,000 pounds of small shrimp to the processing house, Tregle said.

Meanwhile, the oil and gas economy is steaming along at a good clip, feeding on high prices and demand for petroleum, and a construction boom resulting from storm damage, government and industry officials said.

Henry "T-boy" McCall, who owns the marine services company Cameron Offshore Boats -- and one of the few houses on the coast that somehow escaped destruction -- said he can't hire enough people to make all the money the oil companies want to give him.

"My business is better than it's ever been. The day rates are higher. My only problem is I can't crew up all my boats," he said. "People don't want to work, even though we're paying them twice the money. There's too much free money running around."

As for the parish's future, McCall figures it will be much the same, but with fewer people because of the costly requirement that houses be elevated.

"The rumor we're hearing is that the government just won't spend the money if there's another hurricane down here -- they'll just make it into a wildlife refuge," said McCall, whose beachfront home stood high on stilts even before Rita struck.

Back near the Crab Man's dock, George Andrade, a boat captain who runs workers and supplies to offshore oil rigs, told a similar tale of prosperity.

"That boat never made so much money," Andrade said. "The storm did so much damage, offshore and onshore, that there's a lot of construction and repair."

Andrade lives in Mobile, Ala., but spends much of his time in Cameron working and living on his boat. Since the storm, Cameron folk have proved an industrious lot, he said.

"It looked like a war zone down here," he said. "It's come around a lot faster than I thought. I see it in the boats being repaired and re-outfitted. People really jumped to get ready to make a living. They haven't waited for the government or anybody else to do it for them."


Barren beach

In Holly Beach, a brief ferry ride from the town of Cameron, residents have made less progress, not for lack of grit. Once a carefree community that resident Gene Reynolds compared to Jimmy Buffett's mythical Margaritaville, Holly Beach now sits almost completely empty, save for bent, splintered pilings sticking up in the air.

"It really was the last poor man's beach," Reynolds said, as he sat on the beach with his family, strumming his guitar and trying to think positive thoughts about the community's future. "A family of 10 could rent a camp here for $50 or $75 a night and catch shrimp and crabs in the marsh, and trout and redfish in the Gulf, and feed themselves all weekend."

Long ago, the beach was laid out in tiny plots, measuring just 25 by 50 feet, and many people owned one, two or three of them. Now residents need at least four in order to be eligible to put down a septic system that costs about $3,000. And that's in addition to the higher FEMA flood elevations and tougher state building codes.

Before Rita, many residents used cheap, crude sanitation systems consisting of little more than a 55-gallon plastic drum buried in the ground connected to PVC pipes running into the house, said Eric Monceaux, a property owner and member of a newly formed volunteer sewer board. The waste drained out through holes in the bottom into the sand, a natural filtration system, he said.

Even before Rita, Holly Beach had secured financing for a community sewer system. Since then they've been told it should be built with a capacity to serve 5,000 residents, at a cost of $5 million. The problem is, there aren't nearly enough residents left to pay for it.

On paper, the community has 2,000 lots, even though no more than 1,000 have ever been developed, said Monceaux, who has bought up a few on the assumption that one day the prices will rise. The four-lot requirement limits the maximum population to a figure well below 5,000.

"They told us, 'We're not going to give you $5 million so a couple hundred coonasses can party on the beach. That won't look good. That's pork,' " Monceaux said, summing up the attitude of politicians and regulators.

Before Rita, Monceaux said, you might be able to buy two lots and a camp for $25,000 to $35,000, making Holly Beach perhaps the nation's least expensive coastal property.

And now? The price of land has gone up some, but its value remains murky, especially if the owner can't put four lots together. Single lots sell for about $3,000, but lots sold in groups of at least four have gone for up to $9,000 apiece, residents said.

Monceaux and others figure the beach will change in one of two ways: Either it will be bought up at increased prices by second-home owners who can afford the six-figure cost of compliance with the new elevation and construction codes, or it will become essentially an RV and camper park.

"The RVs are looking better and better, if all you want to do is come enjoy the Gulf and catch some crabs and shrimp without putting up a $150,000 structure," Monceaux said.

Wilford "Sonny" Meaux has rebuilt the only semi-permanent residence and business on the beach. He sells shrimp and cold drinks out of a cheap building next to his trailer, which sits on the ground. He said he's gotten around the elevation requirements because he was zoned by the parish before the storm as a "mobile home park," even if he's basically a park of one.

"This is what I don't understand," he groused as he slapped away mosquitoes with a T-shirt. "Why won't FEMA let people build without the FEMA codes if they're willing to go without (flood) insurance?"


No health care

While residents work through their own rebuilding headaches, parish officials have struggled to restore the basic services that will support their return, namely health care and education. While New Orleans has struggled with health care capacity, Cameron has had no health care at all since June 1 when, to mark the start of hurricane season, FEMA yanked a temporary emergency-care facility. The lack of a hospital near the coast is no small matter, given the possibly of life-threatening injuries to oil and seafood industry workers. Some companies have threatened to pull out unless the gap is filled soon, officials said.

The parish soon will ask voters in a hospital district to approve a new 20-mill property tax for the operation of a new hospital. They believe the ballot measure will win easy approval, and plans for the permanent hospital, its construction financed by FEMA, are well under way.

Pacer Health, which ran the now-destroyed hospital, will run its replacement.

Public school students finished out the year on combined campuses, in some cases requiring a platoon system in which two groups of students attended for 2 ½ days each. But that should be alleviated next year, when an elementary and a high school in lower Cameron will reopen, said Cameron Parish Superintendent Doug Chance.

Crab Man Tregle's grandchildren now go to schools outside the parish, and their parents have no plans to return to lower Cameron.

Tregle can't see himself anywhere else. After pulling his living from the Gulf for more than five decades, what else could he do?

In the heat of a recent afternoon, he piloted his boat away from the dock and into the Calcasieu ship channel, heading out to lay his crab traps. He drove past a dozen damaged boats, still perched on dry land where the storm surge deposited them in September. He shrugged at the baffling sight of a tractor-trailer, turned over on the side of the river where there's no road.

"A nice ride, eh?" he said, smiling as a porpoise pulled alongside the boat. "It's a good life, an easy life. You make your day in two hours in the morning, then you make more crab pots, work on your equipment, drink your beer. You get to be 67 years old, it gets pretty hard to find a job making this kind of money. And you're your own damn boss."

[Audrey2Katrina]

New items make storm lists

Katrina teaches how to prepare

By MELISSA M. SCALLAN
6/19/06 Gulfport Sun Herald

GULFPORT - If you stayed in South Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina or returned soon after, chances are there were items you needed more of.

There also may have been food and other supplies that you didn't buy but wished you had.

Emergency management experts advise keeping a three- to five-day supply of food and water on hand for any storm but as Katrina taught us, that may not be long enough when electricity and water are out for weeks at a time.

Many South Mississippi residents have added some new supplies to their lists for hurricane season and some old standbys that weren't plentiful after Katrina.

Lynne Ladner of Lumberton has decided to keep her freezer and refrigerator as bare as possible for the next six months. She had two generators and used them to keep her freezers going, but one broke anyway.

This year, she's going to Plan B.

"We have cows and so we have beef in the freezer, so I canned it," she said. "I also want to can some chicken. And as our garden comes in, we're dehydrating those vegetables rather than freezing them."

She bought a dehydrating machine at Wal-Mart and said it's inexpensive and easy to use.

Ladner and her family ran out of bread and milk after Katrina, but it can be difficult to keep those items fresh. She's considering trying the milk that doesn't have to be refrigerated but isn't sure about the taste.

Ladner also is stocking up on the usual hurricane supplies.

"I'm saving milk jugs and drink bottles, so if a storm heads our way, I'll fill them," she said. "We were pretty much stocked up (last year), and I don't think we were without anything.

"We do have a gas grill now, so if a storm is coming this way, we're set."

Judy Nichols of Biloxi said she plans on buying some more bottled water since the water wasn't safe to drink or cook with even after it came back on.

"Water was the big thing," she said. "But I thought that in our area they came around pretty quickly bringing in supplies like water and ice."

She agrees with Ladner that cold items should be kept to a minimum right now.

"I don't think this is the time of year you want to pack your refrigerator," she said.

Tommy Harold of Biloxi emerged from the Wal-Mart on Pass Road last week toting a case of bottled water.

"I plan on buying more of the basic stuff this year because I didn't have anything last year," he said.

Mercedes Carranza had 12 people living with him and his family in Orange Grove after Katrina, and he said the biggest need was gas - for generators and cars. He already has bought a second generator and also plans to buy more supplies this year and not use them unless a storm hits.

"Every time a storm entered the Gulf we'd go to the store and stock up and then we'd use the groceries when we didn't get the storm," he said. "This year I want to get what we need and not use the groceries unless we have to. We can eat them after the season is over."

Ralph and Carolyn Scott live in Saucier and have evacuated for every storm except for Hurricane Georges in 1998. They said they won't stay in their home for another one.

The couple evacuated to Jackson for Katrina, and that's where they'll go again, even if a Category 1 or 2 hurricane takes aim at South Mississippi, Ralph Scott said.

"All I want is a tank of gas to get out of town."

[Audrey2Katrina]

Drought, burn bans remain in counties

Chances for rain decrease this week

By ROBIN FITZGERALD
Sunherald.com 6/19/06

GULFPORT - An extreme drought remains in effect in spite of scattered showers on Sunday and a decreasing chance of showers over the next few days.

A burn ban remains in effect in Harrison, Hancock and Jackson counties, with fire officials expressing concern that residents heed their warnings.

A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms in coastal areas is likely today, decreasing to a 20 percent chance over the next couple of days, according to Jim Vasilj, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Slidell.

As badly as South Mississippi needs rain, the small amount that fell in scattered areas on Sunday wasn't enough to make up for extended dry spells, said Vasilj.

"It will alleviate some of the drought problems, but it won't pull us out of it."

Total rainfall for the year is only about one-third of the normal amount for most areas of South Mississippi.

For instance, rainfall totals as of 4 p.m. Sunday show about 8.5 inches of rain in the Gulfport area this year.

"Normally we would have about 26 inches by this time of year," said Vasilj, referring to rain totals gathered at the Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport.

"We're definitely hurting for rain," he said, with "farmers affected the worst."

The heaviest rainfall on Sunday occurred in coastal areas between Biloxi and Gulfport with 1 to 3 inches of rain, Vasilj said, though rain gauges at Keesler Air Force Base picked up only .006 of an inch.

"Farther in, there wasn't much."

Parts of George County near Benndale and Basin received 2 to 4 inches according to rain-gauge estimates, with 2 to 3 inches around McNeill in Pearl River County.

"Even in areas where it did rain, everything is dry and more susceptible to problems if a fire starts," Vasilj said.

Harrison County Fire Marshal George Mixon called Sunday's rain "so insignificant that it just cooled the temperature off. But as far as fire conditions, there's no change. It's still very dangerous. The burn ban is still in effect."

[Audrey2Katrina]

St. Charles' new boom trucks make quick work of debris

Residents are still picking up after storm

Saturday, June 17, 2006
By Matt Scallan
River Parishes bureau

Nearly 10 months after Hurricane Katrina, St. Charles Parish workers are still picking up debris from the storm.

But the job is a little easier thanks to four new boom trucks that were delivered to the parish about six weeks ago. The trucks, which cost $90,000 apiece, are enabling parish workers to move more trash than was possible when work crews had to use two pieces of equipment, an excavator and a truck, to remove trash from the roadside.

Parish President Albert Laque said the trucks will enable the parish to clear drainage ditches quickly.

"They will help us a lot if another storm heads our way," he said.

But the trucks are anything but idle now.

On Tuesday, Brian Henry and Alfred "Pop" Darensbourg III made their way through Killona, picking up everything from branches to washing machines that lined the narrow roadway. The truck's boom can extend 20 feet and pick up 3,300 pounds.

At one stop, Henry carefully maneuvered the steel claw around a garbage can to grab a pile of broken wood, rusty tin and cinder blocks, which he dumped into the truck, then used the claw to tamp down the debris.

"It keeps us running all day," he said.

At another stop on Schoolhouse Lane, the workers removed a broken washing machine and a toilet from the ditch on the edge of a sugar cane field, then moved down the street to pick up the remains of a tree that had fallen during Katrina.

"They just got around to chopping it up and putting it out on the curb," said Ann Butler, an evacuee from New Orleans who is staying with a relative.

As the truck lumbered down Post Street, a man quickly hauled a mattress and box springs to the curb.

Technically speaking, the parish's contracted waste hauler, Coastal Waste Services, is supposed to pick up such curbside trash, but Laque said the company's bid for the job did not anticipate the flood of post-Katrina debris.

"We have 10 times the volume that is normal," Laque said. "They're doing a good job, but if we had to wait for them to get to this much debris, they would never be able to get to it."

The parish is still negotiating with the Federal Emergency Management Agency over the lingering cost of the post-Katrina debris.

"One reason it's taking so long is that people are taking a look at the damaged trees in their yards and now that hurricane season is here again, they're wondering if they will survive another storm," he said.

Many residents are choosing to cut the trees that look iffy.

[Audrey2Katrina]

City finds home for bell from USS Biloxi

From City of Biloxi website: 6/19/06

A piece of Biloxi history has returned to a secure location, the lobby of City Hall, where it stood decades ago before being loaned to the Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum.

The solid-brass ship’s bell from the USS Biloxi, a light-cruiser that distinguished itself in World War II, was moved to the City Hall lobby from the grounds of the Seafood Industry Museum. The bell had laid next to the Golden Fisherman statue, which was stolen and later recovered in pieces.

The bell is one of two artifacts the city possesses regarding the storied USS Biloxi. The other is the ship’s superstructure, which stands in Guice Park, near the Biloxi Small Craft Harbor.

The 608-foot, 10,000-ton USS Biloxi, known by her 1,200 officers and crew as “The Busy Bee,” earned nine battle stars during her service from January 1944 to May 1945. During that period, the Biloxi completed one of the longest continuous tours of combat duty by any U.S. warship, never missing a major operation in the Pacific.

Operating in support of carriers making air strikes against the very heart of the enemy homeland, Tokyo itself, the Biloxi saw action in battles at Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Formosa, Leyte Gulf, Saipan, the Phillipines, and was one of the first ships to evacuate allied prisoners of war from Nagasaki, Japan shortly after the atomic bomb was dropped.

On March 27, 1945, during the assault on Okinawa, the Biloxi was attacked by four Japanese kamikaze planes. Three were shot down, but a fourth, riddled with bullets, crashed into the Biloxi, and a 1,100-pound bomb was later found unexploded below the ship’s hangar deck.

The ship was decommissioned on Oct. 29, 1946, and broken up for scrap. The ship’s superstructure, however, was saved and erected in Guice Park near the Biloxi Small Craft Harbor.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Alabama won't count test scores of displaced Katrina students

Last Update: 6/19/2006 6:18:37 PM
Mobile NBC15 website

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Alabama education officials won't count standardized test results this year from students displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

State Superintendent of Education Joe Morton told Alabama's 130 district superintendents that their schools will not have to count the scores of students from Louisiana, Mississippi and areas of Alabama hit by Katrina.

Alabama sought a waiver on counting test scores from the U-S Department of Education and recently got word it had been granted.

Georgia school officials said last week they had been granted the same waiver.

The tests results are used to determine whether schools are meeting, or making progress toward meeting, federal standards in reading and math under the No Child Left Behind law.

Many student evacuees already have returned to their home states because original estimates reveal that as many as seven thousand additional children were attending schools in Alabama.

By April, some 42-hundred students were attending schools throughout the state.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

[Audrey2Katrina]

Woman demands the Governor listen today in Tampa

an ABC Action News report 06/19/06


TAMPA - Governor Jeb Bush was in town today to sign a new energy bill into law.

But during the signing ceremony, a woman interrupted and asked him some hard questions about the state's Citizen's insurance program.

The Governor told the woman he would talk to her after he finished up, and he kept his word.

He met one-on-one with Nicole Deg, and she gave him an earful.

Deg says, "My situation first and foremost is that I'm a citizen of Pasco county and we are seeing a tremendous, outrageous increase from like $1700.00 to $5000.00. People are having to come up with thousands and I am here to represent them along with other members of homeowners against Citizens."

Pregnant, and with her young son on her hip, she continued to rail against the insurer of last resort, sounding a familiar theme that we've heard in Pasco's private homes and at public hearings across the region.

And while many folks we've heard from at the gripe sessions feel there is little they can do personally, this one woman is refusing to give up, taking her personal plea to the top.

She says, "We need the Governor to step up, take care of Citizens, and then you will see that the problem starts to become legitimate. You start to see legitimacy brought back to homeowner's insurance. The Governor needs to do that."

Deg also says Bush needs to make the next governor, whoever that may be, aware of the problem before more people have to choose between paying their mortgage and paying insurance.

[Audrey2Katrina]

National Guard begin patrols tonight in devastated areas

From Nola.com 6/20/06

About 100 National Guard soldiers will begin tonight patrolling the largely devastated areas of the city, including Lakeview, Gentilly, the 9th Ward and New Orleans East, a move that New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Warren Riley said should free up 45 New Orleans Police Officers to join crime fighting units in more populated areas of the city.

The troops, which arrived today to help local police get a handle of the city's raging crime problem, will begin immediately setting up roadblocks and patrolling for looters in the 3rd, 5th and 7th police districts. Meanwhile, about 60 state police officers will begin patrols in the Faubourg Marigny, the French Quarter, along Canal Street and in parts of the Central Business District.
The assignments were announced at a 1 p.m. press conference at the Port of New Orleans, attended by Gov. Blanco, Mayor Ray Nagin, Riley, and other law enforcement and military brass.

Earlier in the day, the National Guard troops arrived in parking lot across the street from the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, then marched in rows in the sweltering heat to the press gathering.

Both Blanco and Nagin insisted they are not concerned about the images being projected over millions of television sets of a storm-battered city once again inhabited by military police.

"I'm concerned about crime," Blanco said.

The number of National Guard soldiers in the city is expected to rise to 300 in coming days, Blanco said.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Guard, state troopers to patrol New Orleans

'WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE,' NAGIN VOWS

Tuesday, June 20, 2006
By Gordon Russell
Staff writer

In an extraordinary move usually reserved for the immediate crisis after natural disasters, a detachment of at least 100 Louisiana National Guard soldiers and 60 State Police troopers will be sent to New Orleans today in an effort to quell the steadily rising tide of bloodshed in the city, a wave of violence that culminated Saturday with the shocking murder of five youths in
The deployment comes just months after the Guard pulled its last post-Hurricane Katrina units out of the city and follows requests from law enforcement officials, Mayor Ray Nagin and the City Council, who are growing alarmed at statistics that indicate the murder rate in recent weeks has shot above the city's pre-storm pace.

Nagin and council members said Monday they are also likely to re-establish a juvenile curfew, a measure that was credited with helping to curb the city's top-in-the-nation murder rate in the mid-1990s.

The mayor and council members announced their remarkable request for state law enforcement help at an unusual joint news conference in City Hall on Monday morning, at which the group decried the killings and declared war on what Councilman Oliver Thomas christened the equally dangerous offshoot of Hurricane Katrina: "Hurricane Crime."

Gov. Kathleen Blanco called Saturday's Central City killings "shocking" as she approved the city's request, which had been in the works for weeks, on Monday afternoon. The city initially asked for 300 Guard soldiers and 60 troopers, and the Blanco administration said late Monday that the deployment will build up to that number in the coming weeks. Leaders of the various agencies involved will meet today to discuss patrolling strategies.

For now, the plan calls for stationing troops mainly in desolate areas devastated by Katrina, Police Superintendent Warren Riley said in his own news conference late Monday. Their presence in those areas should curb looting, and will allow police to focus on "hot spots" in more heavily populated sections of town where most of the violence is occurring, he said.


Deadly force if necessary


That said, Riley noted that the added troops will have the power to arrest and detain suspects and to use deadly force if necessary.

"They will be armed, locked and loaded and prepared," he said.

Riley said the city first asked the state for law enforcement help in March -- well before last weekend's bloodbath, but just as the murder rate began a stubborn uptick after a post-Katrina lull. Officials said the National Guard troops were to arrive July 1, but as the murder count kept climbing, Blanco accelerated the deployment at the city's request.

As of early Monday night, 53 people had been murdered this year in the city, well below the more than 134 killed in the first six months last year, according to NOPD figures. But accounting for New Orleans' reduced population, this year's murders are occurring at or above the same pace as before Katrina, depending on what population estimate is used.

And the killings have accelerated since the beginning of April, with 36 of this year's 53 murders taking place in the past 12 weeks, police figures show. Even if the current population is 220,000 residents, a generous figure according to most experts, the 12-week total represents 16 murders per 100,000 residents, more than the 15.1 killings per 100,000 residents in the same period last year.

Nagin and council members Monday made it clear that if violent crime is not brought into check, it will suffocate New Orleans' nascent recovery.

"This is a great city," newly elected City Councilman Arnie Fielkow said. "But if we don't make people feel safe in their homes and their communities, nothing else is going to matter."

The power to fix the problem lies with residents, Thomas said, challenging New Orleanians to take their city back from criminals.


'Rise up'


"Are we going to rise up and protest against the thugs? Are we going to march on them? Are we going to tell them it's unacceptable? Or are we scared?" Thomas asked. "I can pick on the mayor, but I can't pick on the drug kingpin. I can pick on the police chief, but I can't pick on the hit man. 'Cause guess what? If you live in this community scared, you're dead anyway!"

To address the problem, officials prescribed several solutions, ranging from a juvenile curfew to increasing economic opportunities in poor neighborhoods to the reinstitution of night recreation leagues.

In addition, the council, led by Fielkow, plans to hold a "crime summit" within two weeks, involving representatives of the criminal justice system as well as community leaders, Fielkow said. Among other things, that meeting will focus on better coordinating the various arms of the criminal justice system, which was woefully inefficient before Katrina and was left in shambles after the storm.

Nagin said Monday that he believes some thugs are coming home from places like Houston because the judicial system is in such disarray here that they're in less danger of spending long stretches in prison. He said he and other city leaders will try to focus attention on abuses of the system, such as the lenient bond practices of certain judges.

"We are going to as a community watch and monitor much closer what's happening in the criminal justice system," Nagin said. "And if we see some things that we don't like, you may see the mayor and the City Council show up at a hearing and be personally involved in making sure that people are not getting lower bonding so that they can get back out on the street."

The council's crime summit likely also will include talk of how to better integrate the operations of the various law enforcement agencies in Orleans Parish, which include the Police Department, two sheriff's offices, and harbor and levee police forces.

Recently elected Councilwoman Shelley Midura noted Monday that on a per-capita basis, New Orleans has the sixth-highest ratio of law enforcement officers to residents in the country, but that those high numbers for whatever reason do not translate into low crime statistics.

Likely the most concrete of the ideas pitched Monday was the re-establishment of the juvenile curfew, something former Mayor Marc Morial championed shortly after he took office in the bloody days of the mid-1990s. The curfew, along with police reform and falling crime rates nationwide, was seen as a key to the halving of the murder rate that occurred under the watch of Morial and then-Police Superintendent Richard Pennington.


Housing the violators


City officials were optimistic Monday that the juvenile curfew could be quickly re-established. The main sticking point appears to be figuring out where offenders would be housed for the night.

During the mid-1990s, curfew violators were taken to a building on Tulane Avenue operated by then-Criminal Sheriff Charles Foti, the city's jailer. The building was not part of the Orleans Parish Prison jail complex.

Renee Lapeyrolerie, a spokeswoman for Criminal Sheriff Marlin Gusman, said the sheriff has told juvenile justice groups that he will not house curfew violators in his jail. The only juveniles taken to the jail are those charged with adult offenses, she said.

However, Gusman is amenable to having his deputies supervise a facility where such offenders are taken, provided it is not a jail, Lapeyrolerie said. For instance, recently elected Councilwoman Stacy Head had proposed the idea of housing curfew violators in a church gym, a solution Lapeyrolerie said could work.

A member of Head's staff said the councilwoman and Gusman are working to come up with a solution "posthaste."

Nagin said he envisions the curfew would last from 11 p.m. or midnight until dawn and would remain in effect at least through the summer.

While city officials, residents and police have been sounding the alarm about rising crime for several months, the killings that occurred in the pre-dawn hours Saturday served as a rallying cry for Monday's events. It was the first time five people were killed in the city in a single violent episode since March 1, 1995, when a man sprayed bullets on a North Roman Street house, a crime for which he was sentenced to life in prison.

Several council members on Monday invoked familiar rhetoric, saying the city's residents need to declare that "enough is enough." But the passion and anger were palpable, recalling the outrage that overtook the city in 1996 after the infamous triple slaying at the Louisiana Pizza Kitchen restaurant in the French Quarter.


'Line in the sand'


"The community people I've talked to have said they're not scared," Thomas said. "For some reason or another, this has drawn a line with everybody. OK. Little M.C. Killer don't get a pass anymore. He can't walk around the street. Maybe he might have to shoot all of us."

"This is our line in the sand," Nagin said. "And we're saying we're not going to take it anymore." The mayor said he was contributing $1,000 of his own money to the reward offered by Crimestoppers for information leading to the capture of the killers in Saturday's crime.

Nagin's donation was followed by several others announced at the meeting.

While much of the focus Monday was on catching criminals and keeping them behind bars, there was also some soul-searching about the state of the city's youth, and discussion about spending money on measures that might reduce crime forever.

Thomas bemoaned the diminishing worth of human life, as measured by young hoodlums, and wondered aloud: "What have we produced, that human life is so unvaluable?" Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge Morrell declared that the city was "reaping the benefits" of having "abandoned" the city school system 30 years ago.

To turn things around, Fielkow appealed to the New Orleans Saints, his former employer, and the Hornets for help in financing night recreation programs.

Newly elected Councilman James Carter spoke of the "economic deprivation" that permeates high-crime neighborhoods, and prevailed on business leaders to offer job opportunities to residents of those areas as the city rebuilds.

Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis called for the state to open more schools and to extend their operating hours from 6 a.m. until midnight to allow adults and others to get education and "enrichment."

And Hedge Morrell called on companies that have "made millions" from emergency federal contracts -- firms like the Shaw Group, Fluor Corp. and Phillips and Jordan Inc. -- to contribute some of their earnings to programs to help New Orleanians.

"Step up and put your money into this community," she said. "Because this community is making you rich."

[Audrey2Katrina]

Local, federal agents round up illegal immigrants in Gretna

West Bank bureau

Gretna Police and federal immigration agents arrested 16 people at a Home Depot store Monday morning, Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson said.

Gretna officers and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents originally picked up 54 people in the store’s parking lot. There has been an influx of mostly Latin American immigrants to the area since Hurricane Katrina, many of them parts of work crews in the recovery effort.

Of the 54 people orginally picked up, one was arrested by Gretna Police for trying to steal an unmarked Gretna police car. The man ran for the car when police showed up, Lawson said.

Eight others were found to be in violation of deportation orders and seven were held for illegal entry into the United States, Lawson said.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Man booked with stabbing girlfriend at Slidell gas station

St. Tammany bureau

A Mississippi man repeatedly stabbed his girlfriend in the stomach outside a Slidell gas station Monday night after she refused to drive him to New Orleans, police said.

Clifton Brown, 46, of Picayune, was booked with attempted manslaughter after the assault on Clara Clark, 37, whom he had met through an Internet chat room, Slidell police Capt. Rob Callahan said.

Clark suffered multiple stab wounds to her abdomen and is being treated at NorthShore Regional Medical Center, where information on her condition was unavailable.

Brown and Clark were sitting in her car parked outside the Racetrac service station at 1720 Gause Blvd. about 8 p.m. when he said he wanted to end their relationship and demanded that she give him a ride to New Orleans, Callahan said.

After Clark refused to do so, Brown pulled out a knife and began stabbing her in the stomach as she sat in the driver’s seat of the 1994 Nissan sedan, police said.

As another motorist approached the car to intervene, Brown got out and sat on the ground until police arrived and arrested him, Callahan said.

Brown met Clark in December through an Internet chat room. They moved in together a short while later, but the relationship soured, Callahan said.

“Brown told detectives, ‘I’d rather go to jail for 20 years than spend another minute with her. I’d do it all over again,’¤” he said.

Attempted manslaughter carries a penalty of up to 40 years in prison upon conviction.

Police Chief Freddy Drennan urged residents to be wary of people they meet via the Internet.

“You never truly know who the other person is,” he said. “I encourage all parents to teach their children about the dangers of the Internet. Although this case involved adults, the results can be the same for anyone — young or old.”

[Audrey2Katrina]

Kenner bus service back on again

Nola.com update 6/20/06

After giving notice this morning that the service would be discontinued as of Friday, Kenner officials said this evening that Park and Ride commuter buses will continue running through September.

Hotard Coaches Inc., which has operated the service to and from the New Orleans Central Business District since Hurricane Katrina, says it is not making a profit on it and recently asked Kenner to increase its public subsidy from $6,000 a month to $24,000. Riders pay an additional $4 per one-way trip.

Kenner's deputy chief administrative officer, Carol Luna, said Hotard was asking for more than city officials felt justified paying because of the lower-than-expected ridership since Katrina.

This afternoon, however, Hotard offered to continue the service through September without any increase in the subsidy.

That will give Mayor-elect Ed Muniz enough time to seek bids for long-term service, Luna said.

Muniz succeeds Mayor Phil Capitano on July 1.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Officials unveil evacuation plan

Tourists included in crisis readiness

Tuesday, June 20, 2006 - Times Picayune
By Frank Donze
Staff writer

New Orleanians and visitors without transportation who are ordered to evacuate in advance of a hurricane will be able to gather at a dozen sites across the city that will be used to move them out of town, emergency preparedness officials said Monday.

But where evacuees ultimately wind up remains unclear three weeks into the new storm season.

The 12 pick-up locations were submitted to the Ground Transportation Committee of the City Council, whose responsibilities include oversight of the city's hurricane evacuation procedures.

The sites are divided into two categories: one for senior citizens and residents with special needs and another for the general population.

Under the plan, the elderly and infirm would be given the option to assemble at three locations -- and possibly a fourth that is not yet nailed down -- from where they would ride Regional Transit Authority buses to the Union Passenger Terminal downtown. All others would be instructed to assemble at nine scattered sites where RTA buses would deliver them to the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

From the Union Passenger Terminal, elderly evacuees would board Amtrak trains for transport out of the city. Anyone taken to the convention center would be transferred to other buses destined for shelters elsewhere in Louisiana or in neighboring states.

Asked Monday to name the final destinations, State Police officials told council members that Gov. Kathleen Blanco is expected to identify a list of shelter sites in the near future.

While the Blanco administration has identified only one shelter location to date, staffers said recently that they would include three categories.

For example, the general population would go to sites such as school gymnasiums and other public buildings that would house smaller groups of evacuees. Those shelters can accommodate 55,000, officials said.

Next on the list are "state-identified, medical special-needs shelters." That group, which covers people who need access to electricity for life-saving medical equipment, would accommodate more than 2,000.

The third category, "state-identified critical transportation-needs shelters, are large sites that could take thousands of evacuees at a time, officials said. Only one such site has been publicly named, the State Farm Building in Monroe. That building, which the state hopes to turn into the new Delta Community College, will be able to house 6,000 evacuees.

Blanco has said that other sites are under consideration, including the Cajundome in Lafayette.

Before departing New Orleans, all evacuees will be processed at the Union Passenger Terminal and the Convention Center, which will be staffed with medical and security personnel, said Jerry Tate, a planner in the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security.

Addressing a problem that dogged the Katrina evacuation procedure, Tate said the plan calls for "no separation of families."

Furthermore, he said pets, as long as they are caged, will be allowed to travel to the same sites as evacuees. The exception, he said, will be pets belonging to anyone with special medical needs; in those cases, however, he said, an owner will know the pet's whereabouts through a bar-coding procedure.

As for tourists lacking transportation when an evacuation order is issued, the plan calls for staging areas at three as-yet-unidentified downtown hotels where RTA buses, hotel shuttles, cabs and limos would be used to take visitors to Armstrong International Airport.

The tourist component of the strategy is the "wild card," Joseph Matthews, director of the city's Office of Emergency Preparedness, told the council committee.

That part of the evacuation plan could involve anywhere from a few thousand tourists to 20,000-plus, Matthews said. If the city's hotels are full when the next big storm approaches, he said, the federal government is committed to sending charter flights to New Orleans; in addition, local car rental companies would be urged to brace for a wave of unexpected customers.

"We don't want tourists in shelters," Matthews said. "We want to get them out of here."

When it comes to moving the elderly and those with medical problems, Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis, who chairs the committee, said she is hopeful that the city's depleted post-Katrina population will make the numbers "a little more manageable."

But Willard-Lewis said the city's next mandatory evacuation may be saddled with a new and potentially dangerous problem: the ubiquitous debris piles that still litter many main roads nearly 10 months after Katrina.

She urged State Police officials to help find a way to remove the mess that could block roads just as traffic gets heavy. "It's time to stop the finger-pointing," she said, "about who can't pay for it and who won't pay for it."

Regional Transit Authority spokeswoman Rosalind Blanco Cook told council members that the agency's bus drivers are "committed" to assisting with evacuations.

Last month, Mayor Ray Nagin said RTA drivers would be declared essential personnel and would be required to report to work in the event of a hurricane.

In a departure from what was done before Katrina, Nagin said neither the Superdome nor the Convention Center will be used as a refuge.

Nagin said he is likely to order an evacuation 30 to 36 hours before the eye of the hurricane comes ashore near the city, in line with the state plan that coordinates New Orleans' evacuation with other southeastern Louisiana parishes.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Officer was ambushed, St. John sheriff learns

Lured from his car, he was shot in the back

Tuesday, June 20, 2006
By Allen Powell II
River Parishes bureau

New details paint Friday's fatal shooting of a St. John the Baptist Parish sheriff's deputy as a hastily arranged ambush in which a Houston man fired three shots from behind into Capt. Octavio Gonzalez after he was lured from his vehicle by a woman pretending to need help, authorities said.

On Monday, John Lee Cheek, 31, was booked with first-degree murder of a peace officer, two counts of attempted first-degree murder of a police officer and armed robbery in connection with the killing of Gonzalez and the wounding of Detective Monty Adams in LaPlace, Sheriff Wayne Jones said.

Crystal Lynn Reed, 27, was booked with principal to first-degree murder, two counts of principal to attempted first-degree murder and principal to armed robbery. Cheek and Reed are also accused of a host of other crimes in Jefferson Parish and Kenner, including kidnapping, aggravated burglary and armed robbery as part of a violent crime spree that lasted about 11 hours and included two home invasions, a hostage situation and a police chase that wound through Uptown New Orleans.

Cheek is also wanted by Houston police and surrounding Harris County on theft charges.

Both suspects will be held at the Sherman Walker Correction Facility in LaPlace without bond. First-degree murder and principal to first-degree murder carry sentences of life imprisonment or death.

"This has been my hardest day as sheriff," Jones said Monday. "This department is hurting right now."

Gonzalez, a narcotics commander for seven years, was shot three times in the back and side while investigating a suspicious vehicle in the Spring Meadows subdivision early Friday morning, Jones said. The killers then stole his unmarked Ford Expedition, which they later crashed in Kenner, authorities said.

About 45 minutes earlier, Adams was shot once in the leg while trying to pull over Cheek during a traffic stop on U.S. 51, he said. Adams was treated and released from River Parishes Hospital.

Authorities believe that Gonzalez came upon the couple as they were trying to steal a vehicle near the intersection of Cane and Pampas streets in LaPlace.

At the time, Gonzalez was en route to check on Adams when Gonzalez heard dispatch radio reports about a suspicious vehicle driving on the wrong side of the street.


Ambush tactic

Jones said Gonzalez was lured from his vehicle by Reed, who pretended to be a motorist in distress, a tactic she apparently used again less than an hour later to gain entry into a house in Kenner.

"A person that can come around and shoot you in the back, what type of person is that?" Jones said. "This is absolutely the lowest type of person."

Jones said it is possible that neither suspect realized that Gonzalez was a deputy until they had killed him and heard his police scanners going off in the SUV.

Gonzalez caught up with the suspects about 1:45 a.m. on a dead-end street just off Interstate 10. Deputies shortly afterward got a report of a man and woman seen dragging a body.

When authorities arrived, they realized it was Gonzalez. He was taken to River Parishes Hospital, where he died.

He had been shot in the back and side.

After shooting Gonzalez, authorities say, the couple went on an extended crime spree that included robbing a Kenner family at gunpoint in their home, a car chase with police and eventually a hostage situation in River Ridge that ended shortly before noon when Cheek surrendered without incident. His hostage, Clifford Lala, 81, was unharmed.

Reed was arrested before the hostage situation when the car chase ended in a crash near Joy Street in River Ridge shortly after 3 a.m. Jones said Reed tried to portray herself as a hostage being held against her will, but authorities are skeptical of her explanation because it is at odds with witness accounts and other evidence.


Grieving officers

Jones said Gonzalez's death has been a stinging blow for his department, which had never had a deputy shot and killed during his administration. Gonzalez was the third St. John Parish deputy shot and killed in the line of duty in the parish's history.

A funeral Mass is scheduled for today at 2 p.m. at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church in Metairie. Visitation will begin at 10:30 a.m. at the church, with burial in St. John Memorial Gardens in LaPlace. A memorial fund has been established at Capital One Bank.

Gonzalez, known as "Ox" because of his beefy stature, was married and had two young sons.

Jones credited Gonzalez with being the architect of the parish's Special Operations Response Team, or SORT, and said his dedication was well-known by SORT and SWAT officers throughout the New Orleans area.

So entrenched was Gonzalez's special forces leadership that on Friday during the tense hostage situation in River Ridge, Jones said he kept waiting for him to show up and take command of the operation until he finally realized that Gonzalez was gone.

"Without question, he will never be replaced, but always remembered," Jones said.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Gautier police chief ready to retire

He started when city formed in 1987

By VIVIAN AUSTIN
SUN HERALD

GAUTIER - Gautier Police Chief Allen Johnson plans to retire at the end of the month, he said this week.

Johnson said law enforcement really is not like the dramas on television where officers are involved in three or four shootouts before the shows end in an hour's time.

"If I have to say anything I'd say it involves helping people," he said.

He prided himself on assisting travelers, and said officers often provide gas and food for them, and fix flats and give information and comfort to residents.

"That's the most satisfying thing I've done in law enforcement," Johnson said. "This other stuff, arresting people, fighting and stuff like that is a job that you really wouldn't want to do, but you just got to do sometimes."

He said police work is 80 percent citizen assistance and about 10 percent cops-and-robbers action. During a 38-year career, he's been involved in three shootouts. Those were among the times his life was on the line, but that goes with the job, he said.

"If you can't handle that, you can't be in law enforcement," he said.

He said his focus was community relations, protection of property and officer safety.

"I'm really proud of myself in safety-oriented policing for my officers, and it shows because in the last 18 years we've had some minor injuries to officers but no serious injuries. We've never had a bank robbery in the city of Gautier."

Johnson, 63, said it is time to do something new, but he has no idea what. "It's time to move on and let some new blood in."

He has been a junior reserve officer, patrolman in Pascagoula, and then assistant sheriff of patrol with the Jackson County Sheriff's Department. He started in Gautier on Oct. 1, 1987, when the city, which had incorporated in 1986, formed its police department with deputies from the sheriff's department.

Johnson was a lieutenant and public safety director, which included leadership of the fire department. The two positions were split in 1989, and he became police chief.

He is a longtime resident of Pascagoula and has lived in Moss Point and Gautier. He and his wife, Cathy, have five sons, though one is deceased, two stepsons, eight grandchildren and one great-grandson. She is a retired math teacher who now works at Northrop Grumman Ship Systems.