Mama San
Administrator
NEW ORLEANS - Hellish scenes of death, damage, and chaos wracked the U.S. Gulf Coast on Wednesday as overwhelmed authorities tried to rescue the living and count the dead amid the destruction left by powerful Hurricane Katrina.
New Orleans was filling with water after an initial attempt to stop a leaking levee failed, while police fought a losing battle to stop widespread looting in the stricken city.
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said everyone still in the city, now huddled in the Superdome and other rescue centers, needs to leave. She said she wanted the Superdome evacuated within two days, but it was still unclear where the people would go.
“This is a nightmare, but one that will give us an opportunity for rebirth,” she told NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday.
Officials said it was simply too early to estimate a death toll. In Mississippi, officials confirmed that at least 100 people had died in the killer storm and said the toll was almost certain to go much higher.
Vincent Creel, a spokesman for Biloxi, Miss., said that in that city alone the death toll is “going to be in the hundreds.”
A 30-foot storm surge in Mississippi wiped away 90 percent of the buildings along the coast at Biloxi and Gulfport, leaving a scene of destruction that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said was “like there’d been a nuclear weapon set off.”
Many areas were “absolutely obliterated,” he told NBC’s “Today” show.
New Orleans: Dead pushed aside
U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu said she had heard at least 50 to 100 people were dead in New Orleans, where rescue teams were so busy saving people stranded in homes they had to leave bodies floating in the high waters.
Mayor Ray Nagin said hundreds, if not thousands, of people may still be stuck on roofs and in attics, and so rescue boats were bypassing the dead.
“We’re not even dealing with dead bodies,” he said. “They’re just pushing them on the side.”
Rescuers in boats and helicopters plucked bedraggled flood refugees from rooftops and attics. Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu said 3,000 people have been rescued by boat and air, some placed shivering and wet into helicopter baskets. They were brought by the truckload into shelters, some in wheelchairs and some carrying babies, with stories of survival and of those who didn’t make it.
“I’m alive. I’m alive,” shouted one joyous woman as she was ferried from a home nearly swallowed by the rising waters.
Katrina, one of the most punishing storms to hit the United States in decades, struck Louisiana on Monday with 140 mile per hour winds, then slammed into neighboring Mississippi and Alabama.
New Orleans at first appeared to have received a glancing blow from the storm, but the raging waters of Lake Pontchartrain tore holes in the levee system that protects the low-lying city, then slowly filled it up.
Nagin said at least 80 percent of the city, much of it below sea level, was covered with water that was in places 20 feet deep.
New Orleans was filling with water after an initial attempt to stop a leaking levee failed, while police fought a losing battle to stop widespread looting in the stricken city.
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said everyone still in the city, now huddled in the Superdome and other rescue centers, needs to leave. She said she wanted the Superdome evacuated within two days, but it was still unclear where the people would go.
“This is a nightmare, but one that will give us an opportunity for rebirth,” she told NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday.
Officials said it was simply too early to estimate a death toll. In Mississippi, officials confirmed that at least 100 people had died in the killer storm and said the toll was almost certain to go much higher.
Vincent Creel, a spokesman for Biloxi, Miss., said that in that city alone the death toll is “going to be in the hundreds.”
A 30-foot storm surge in Mississippi wiped away 90 percent of the buildings along the coast at Biloxi and Gulfport, leaving a scene of destruction that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said was “like there’d been a nuclear weapon set off.”
Many areas were “absolutely obliterated,” he told NBC’s “Today” show.
New Orleans: Dead pushed aside
U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu said she had heard at least 50 to 100 people were dead in New Orleans, where rescue teams were so busy saving people stranded in homes they had to leave bodies floating in the high waters.
Mayor Ray Nagin said hundreds, if not thousands, of people may still be stuck on roofs and in attics, and so rescue boats were bypassing the dead.
“We’re not even dealing with dead bodies,” he said. “They’re just pushing them on the side.”
Rescuers in boats and helicopters plucked bedraggled flood refugees from rooftops and attics. Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu said 3,000 people have been rescued by boat and air, some placed shivering and wet into helicopter baskets. They were brought by the truckload into shelters, some in wheelchairs and some carrying babies, with stories of survival and of those who didn’t make it.
“I’m alive. I’m alive,” shouted one joyous woman as she was ferried from a home nearly swallowed by the rising waters.
Katrina, one of the most punishing storms to hit the United States in decades, struck Louisiana on Monday with 140 mile per hour winds, then slammed into neighboring Mississippi and Alabama.
New Orleans at first appeared to have received a glancing blow from the storm, but the raging waters of Lake Pontchartrain tore holes in the levee system that protects the low-lying city, then slowly filled it up.
Nagin said at least 80 percent of the city, much of it below sea level, was covered with water that was in places 20 feet deep.
