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Bay St. Louis Emergency Management Agency volunteer crews rescue the Taylor family from the roof of their Suburban, which became trapped on US 90 due to flooding during Hurricane Katrina in Bay St. Louis, Miss.
(Ben Sklar / AP)
August 30, 2005
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Darrell and Britney Maryland sit in their flooded home in the 9th Ward of New Orleans. They did not want to be rescused.
(Irwin Thompson / AP / The Dallas Morning)
August 30, 2005
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A damaged neighborhood in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
(Marc Serota / Reuters)
August 30, 2005
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The First Baptist Church in Gulfport, Mississippi, sufferred severe damage.
(Frank Polich / Reuters)
August 30, 2005
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A Biloxi neighborhood is partially submerged a day after the hurricane came through the area.
(Marc Serota / Reuters)
August 30, 2005
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Wall sections of the Copa Casino in Gulfport, Mississippi , sit on top of a boat in its parking lot after being torn off by Hurricane Katrina. The floating casino was docked several hundred yards from where it landed.
(Tannen Maury / EPA)
August 30, 2005
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Residents inspect damage in Biloxi, along the coast of Mississippi.
(Robert Sullivan AFP/Getty Images)
August 30, 2005
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People search for belongings among debris washed up on the beach in Biloxi.
(Nicholas Kamm AFP/Getty Images)
August 30, 2005
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A woman cries as she and a neighbor looks at her destroyed business in Biloxi.
(Nicholas Kamm AFP/Getty Images)
August 30, 2005
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A building and neighboring parking garage were damaged in Biloxi, Mississippi.
(Marc Serota / Reuters)
August 30, 2005
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Ronald Wood is rescued from his New Orleans home.
(James Nielsen AFP/Getty Images)
August 30, 2005
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An oil refinery in Codin, Ala., is partially submerged after Hurricane Katrina blew through the area.
(Marc Serota / Reuters)
August 30, 2005
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Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina fill the streets near I-10 in downtown New Orleans.
(David J. Phillip / AP)
August 30, 2005
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A helicopter passes in front of damaged buildings in downtown New Orleans.
(David J. Phillip / AP)
August 30, 2005
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Verna Monte, rear, and her granddaughter Lauren are rescued from their flooded New Orleans home by the U.S. Coast Guard.
(Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle)
August 30, 2005
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Looters make off with merchandise from several downtown New Orleans businesses.
(Eric Gay / AP)
August 30, 2005
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New Orleans residents wait atop a roof as floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina fill the streets.
(David J. Phillip / AP)
August 30, 2005
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Boats damaged by Hurricane Katrina are stacked on top of one another in New Orleans.
(David J. Phillip / AP)
August 30, 2005
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Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina cover a portion of New Orleans Tuesday, a day after Katrina passed through the city.
(David J. Phillip / AP)
August 30, 2005
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Jesus Diaz looks over the concrete slab that used to be his apartment in Biloxi, Mississippi. Approximately 100 people are feared dead and estimates put the property loss at nearly $30 billion.
(Barry Williams / Getty Images)
August 30, 2005
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The Hard Rock Casino, due to open next month, was damaged by Hurricane Katrina in Biloxi, Mississippi. The casino will now have to be repaired.
(Matthew Cavanaugh / EPA)
August 30, 2005
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John Allen sits guard at the A. J. Produce Company in New Orleans.
(Irwin Thompson / AP)
August 30, 2005
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KATRINA HITS THE GULF COAST
'She Said, "I Love You.... We're Going to Die"'
By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer
NEW ORLEANS — The phone call lasted just long enough to break Bridgette Medley's heart.
Medley, her husband and her 3-year-old daughter had sought shelter from Hurricane Katrina at a downtown hotel. Water seeped through the ceiling and wind made the building shudder as they slept on the hard floor of a ballroom. But they were safe.
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Her siblings and parents were not.
Like about 50,000 other residents of the city, they had ignored the mayor's mandatory evacuation order and elected to ride out the storm at the family home in the Eighth Ward, a neighborhood of shotgun houses, railroad tracks and industrial canals on the city's east side.
By 7 a.m. Monday, the water started rising. Medley's siblings and parents pulled down the stairs to the attic and climbed up. At 7:57 a.m., Medley's 48-year-old sister, Stephany Johnson, managed to get through on her cellphone.
"She was panicking," Medley said. "The water was up to their ankles in the house and rising fast — in a house that is 5 feet off the ground to start.
"She said, 'I love you.' " Medley struggled to keep the tears from spilling out. "And then she said, 'We're going to die.' "
Then the line went dead.
Throughout the day, the two sisters maintained a frantic, frustrating conversation in spurts and stops.
Hundreds of families found themselves in a similar situation, divided by choice, chance and fate. Authorities said that by nightfall, 200 people in the city were stranded on rooftops, and more were trapped in attics awaiting rescue. Scores more in surrounding towns were in similar straits.
People sought help from one of the only radio stations on the air: WWL. They called to explain how their friend or relative got trapped in the attic or on the roof, then provided addresses and cross streets in case rescuers were listening.
"Please, sir. We don't know what else to do," said a woman who gave her name as Betty. "It's my sister. They're stuck on the roof. And her two kids are there."
"We'll see if we can't get some response over there," said the radio host, Bob Del Giorno. "We can't guarantee."
Seconds later: "Let's go to Yvonne."
"My daughter is on the roof!" Yvonne said. "She was in the attic until 10 and then she broke through the roof and climbed up there."
"Maybe we can help," Del Giorno said. "Hopefully."
Others waited by the phone. There was nothing else they could do.
Patricia Penny had begged her son, Billy, 34, to leave. But he was afraid to abandon his five cats and the dog he was watching for friends, so he and his girlfriend stayed at their home on the east side of New Orleans.
Penny last heard his voice in an 8 a.m. phone call. He was blunt: "It's bad." An enormous magnolia tree had fallen over in the front yard, and the storm had ripped a deck off the house. The water was rising and it was too late to leave.
Penny said Monday night that she was sure her son had climbed onto the roof (and cut a hole behind him for the animals to escape).
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Broken Levees Continue to Cause Flooding in New Orleans
# Rescuers scramble to find stranded survivors. Scores are reported dead in Mississippi. New Orleans toll is unknown.
By Scott Gold and Ellen Barry, Times Staff Writers
NEW ORLEANS -- NEW ORLEANS — Broken levees turned this low-lying city into a massive lake as rescuers wrestled with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the cost in property and human lives continued to climb.
Officials estimated that hundreds were killed in four Southern states because of the storm, with more than 100 reportedly dead in just one county in Mississippi. It will take days for an exact count from Katrina, which hit the Gulf Coast on Monday morning and worked its deadly way across the region.
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Downgraded to a tropical depression, Katrina lashed Tennessee with heavy rains today. Cleanup efforts were expected to take weeks, perhaps months, and will likely cost between $9 billion and $26 billion in insurance claims.
"The first light of day today revealed what we had feared," Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said at a news conference. "The devastation is greater than our worst fears. It's just totally overwhelming."
After an aerial survey, Blanco declared that Wednesday would be a day of prayer.
"If you have evacuated, please get on your knees and thank God you're safe," said Sen. Mary Landrieu, who accompanied the governor on her flight. "What I saw today is equivalent to what I saw flying over the tsunami area in Indonesia. There are places that are no longer there."
About 80% of New Orleans was underwater and parts of Mississippi were isolated by uprooted trees and other storm debris. Many areas lacked communications because telephone lines were disabled.
Video shot by many television stations showed people trapped on rooftops as waters battered damaged buildings. In some places, stranded people waved at rescue helicopters, marking the buildings to show they were occupied.
As many as 2 million people across the South were without electricity and fresh water, and food was becoming scarce. Hundreds of thousands were stranded in evacuation shelters, islands of growing misery that were becoming increasingly untenable. By afternoon, officials in New Orleans ordered that the shelters be evacuated.
Officials also feared outbreaks of disease and some looting was reported.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour earlier estimated that as many as 80 people could have died just in Harrison County, which includes Gulfport and Biloxi, with about 30 killed in one beach apartment house in Biloxi.
"I hate to say it, but it looks like it is a very bad disaster in terms of human life," he said on NBC's "Today Show."
The death toll in Mississippi rose throughout the day. Biloxi was especially hard hit with officials saying that hundreds of people could have been killed when the powerful waves of water turned the city into a sea of debris.
Joe Spraggins, civil defense director for Harrison County, said the death toll was more than 100. "We're just estimating, but the number could go double or triple from what we're talking now."
"It looks like we've drawn the unlucky card again," said Lea Stokes, spokeswoman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.
"There are no roads open," she said. "We have had to take chain saws to get emergency workers through major highways. The roads are littered with trees, debris and houses."
The state lost contact with emergency operation centers in Jackson and Hancock counties and was only able to communicate with its emergency operation center in Harrison County by satellite phone. A curfew was in place and the National Guard troops were patrolling the region to maintain order, Stokes said.
Hurricane Katrina delivered a hard but glancing blow Monday to New Orleans, bringing winds of up to 140 mph. Katrina was the strongest hurricane to hit the Gulf Coast since 1969, when Camille killed 259 people.
Louisiana had expected to be hit hard and hundreds of thousands fled low-lying areas in the southern part of the state. With tears in her eyes, Gov. Blanco urged the refugees to stay where they were because the state lacked the resources to get them back to their homes.
Mike Brown, the state's undersecretary for homeland security and emergency preparedness, said it would be weeks or months before New Orleans residents could return to their home |
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Victims deal with deaths of loved ones, devastation
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; Posted: 6:47 p.m. EDT (22:47 GMT)
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New Orleans residents walk through floodwaters Tuesday that besieged the Crescent City.
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(CNN) -- For many of the victims of Hurricane Katrina, nothing is left.
Harvey Jackson, of Biloxi, Mississippi, told CNN affiliate WKRG-TV that he believed his wife was killed after she was ripped from his grasp when their home split in half.
"She told me, 'You can't hold me,' ... take care of the kids and the grandkids," he said, sobbing. (Watch video of the man describing the loss of his wife -- 1:07)
Harriet Leckich, also of Biloxi, visited her property and said, "Everything is gone."
"There's no sign of our car that was in the driveway," Leckich said. "It's just phenomenal, because nothing was recognizable. The waterline was so far back, and there were cars that had been pushed into the sea wall. There was an airplane from Keesler [Air Force Base] that was almost in the railroad."
Leckich said six trees near her home, which was built in 1945, also were gone. (Watch video of the woman describing how her home was flattened -- 1:37.)
Another Biloxi resident, Suzanne Rodgers, who lived in a two-story, brick apartment near the beach, told CNN's Paula Zahn on Monday that the entire building was swept away.
"All I found that belonged to me was a shoe," she said. "There's nothing left." (Read interview)
Biloxi, with a population of 51,000 on the Gulf of Mexico, was among the hardest hit by Katrina. It came ashore Monday morning near the Louisiana-Mississippi state line as a Category 4 hurricane with 145 mph winds and heavy rain, swamping entire towns.
Charles Curtis, who works in a local casino that was also split in half, said he and his wife stood on top of their refrigerator as the water rose around them.
He added that a menagerie of animals gathered in the safety of his porch after the storm.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said that reports of 50 to 80 deaths in Harrison County," which includes Biloxi, appeared credible. (Full story)
Funeral homes in Gulfport had received 26 bodies since Monday, said Jason Green of the Harrison County Coroner's office. He said residents had reported finding bodies upon their return home or were bringing them directly to the funeral homes.
In the small town of Bay St. Louis, search and rescue crews put black marks on homes known to contain bodies because there weren't enough refrigerated trucks to remove the corpses.
In Florida, Katrina left 11 people dead; in Alabama, two deaths were reported.
Louisiana officials so far have not even tried to estimate how many people were killed in the storm. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said that some 700 people had been rescued during the night and that hundreds more were likely trapped -- or didn't survive.
"This is a tragedy of great proportions, greater than any we've seen in our lifetimes," she said. " ... We have no counts whatsoever, but we know many lives have been lost."
In downtown New Orleans, Tulane University Hospital employees were forced to carry patients to the roof of the hospital's parking garage, since elevators were not working, a spokeswoman said. Meanwhile, "our employees' cars are being looted in the same garage," Karen Troyer Caraway added.
One man told The Associated Press that he was in New Orleans' 9th Ward boarding house where at least at least two people appeared to be dead. Frank Mills, 56, said he was able to make it to the roof of the porch, but while making his escape he saw one woman floating face up and while on the roof a man slipped from his grasp and presumably died, the AP reported.
"He was kind of on the edge of the roof, catching his breath," Mills told the AP. "Next thing I knew he came floating past me. ... I don't know if he drowned or had a heart attack."
A survivor who made it to the Louisiana Superdome in downtown New Orleans described to the AP bashing a hole in the roof of her home with an ax.
"Oh my God, it was hell," said Kioka Williams, 23, according to the AP. "We were screaming, hollering, flashing lights. It was complete chaos."
In Alabama, Hurricane Katrina spared the state the devastation it left behind in neighboring Mississippi and Louisiana. Nonetheless, more than 656,000 electric customers were without power Tuesday, and the state's homeland security director described the damage there "extensive." (Full story)
Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Last Updated: Tuesday, 30 August 2005, 23:30 GMT 00:30 UK
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Race to rescue hurricane victims
Helicopter rescue in New Orleans
Watch the airlift
Rescuers are racing to reach survivors in the southern US struck by Hurricane Katrina, one of the most devastating storms in the country's history.
"You're going to be looking at hundreds dead along the coast," said an official in the badly-hit state of Mississippi.
Helicopters and boats are being used to reach people stranded on the rooftops of flooded neighbourhoods in the area.
Army teams are fixing a breach in a levee to ease flooding in New Orleans city, most of which is under water.
The BBC's Alastair Leithead in New Orleans says the mood is panicky, with heavily armed police trying to impose a form of martial law, as waters rise.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin told a local TV station that up to 80% of the low-lying city is submerged, in some cases by waters 6m (20ft) deep.
Follow Katrina's path
Helicopters operated by the National Guard have been dropping sandbags to repair a hole in a wall built to protect the city from neighbouring Lake Pontchartrain.
A city councillor interviewed by the Associated Press news agency meanwhile said looting was "out of control".
"We're using exhausted, scarce police to control looting when they should be used for search and rescue," Jackie Clarkson said.
'Dead bodies'
The exact number of people killed so far remains sketchy, as rescue teams struggle to reach the worst-hit areas.
Harrison County in Mississippi bore the brunt of Hurricane Katrina as it slammed into local towns Biloxi and Gulfport before heading inland.
Hurricane Katrina leaves trail of devastation
In pictures
Mississippi media earlier recorded a death toll of 54 for the state.
Thirty people are said to have died in one block of flats in Biloxi which was hit by a 9m (30ft) "storm surge".
The town's actual death toll may be "in the hundreds", municipal spokesman Vincent Creel said.
Beyond Mississippi, an unknown number of bodies were seen floating in the flood waters of New Orleans, Louisiana.
The city's mayor said rescuers were not even attempting to deal with the dead bodies.
"They're just pushing them on the side," Mayor Ray Nagin told the Associated Press news agency.
Forecasters have warned of heavy rain as the storm heads north towards Tennessee and Ohio. Tornado warnings are in force in some areas.
Soaring cost
The American Red Cross has mobilised thousands of volunteers for its biggest-ever natural disaster effort and federal emergency teams are being dispatched to affected areas.
Before the phones went, I was told [my family in Biloxi] had lost their roof, barn, 2 oak trees and many pines and they were letting in water
Natalie McVeigh
Oakley, England
Are you affected by Katrina?
Katrina: Readers' pictures
Damage estimates of more than $25bn suggest it could be the US insurance industry's most expensive natural disaster ever.
The price of crude oil on the international market hit a new record at $70.85 a barrel due to the vulnerability of oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico.
President George W Bush has called on Americans to donate to the Red Cross or other organisations to help while his priority was "saving lives".
The president was interrupting his holiday to return to the Washington two days earlier than planned, the White House said.
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Last Updated: Tuesday, 30 August 2005, 13:09 GMT 14:09 UK
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'I can't find my wife's body'
Survivor Harvey Jackson
Harvey Jackson fears his wife died in the storm
Witnesses have been speaking of scenes of devastation after Hurricane Katrina tore through the US Gulf coast - in one case sweeping away a woman sheltering with her husband at their family home.
One of the worst affected areas appears to be Mississippi's coastal town of Biloxi, where some 30 people were reported to have died at a beachfront apartment complex.
Biloxi resident Harvey Jackson said his wife, Tonette, was missing after surging waters hit their house.
I've never encountered anything like it in my life. It (the water) just kept rising and rising and rising
Bryan Vernon, Louisiana
"The house just split in half. We got up the roof and the water came and just opened up, divided," still visibly shaken Mr Jackson told America's ABC television.
"My wife, I can't find her body, she gone."
"I held her hand tight as I could and she told me 'you can't hold me'. She said, 'take care of the kids and the grandkids'," Mr Jackson said.
"We have nowhere to go. I'm lost, that's all I had, that's all I had. I don't know what I'm going to do."
'In rescue mode'
Emergency crews have been working frantically in the affected states to save hundreds of people trapped by floodwaters.
Bryan Vernon spent three hours on his roof after a levee along a canal on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain gave way.
"I've never encountered anything like it in my life. [The water] just kept rising and rising and rising," Mr Vernon said.
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said his worst fear was "that there are a lot of dead people out there".
Biloxi Mayor AJ Holloway described the hurricane as "our tsunami".
"We are still in the search and rescue mode," Mr Holloway told the Biloxi Sun Herald newspaper.
Local rescue crews awaited reinforcements from the federal government and other states to shore up assistance, officials said.
They said it would take days if not weeks before the full impact of the hurricane on the region would be known.
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