An entire neighbourhood is submerged in water after Hurricane Katrina struck in New Orleans, Louisiana August 31, 2005. Hurricane Katrina strengthened into a rare top-ranked storm and barrelled into the vulnerable U.S. Gulf Coast. - Reuters
NEW ORLEANS (AP):
THE MAYOR said yesterday that Katrina probably killed thousands of people in New Orleans - an estimate that, if accurate, would make the storm by far the nation's deadliest hurricane in more than a century.
"We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water," and other people dead in attics, Mayor Ray Nagin said. Asked how many, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."
The frightening estimate came as Army engineers struggled to plug New Orleans' breached levees with giant sandbags and concrete barriers, while authorities drew up plans to clear out the tens of thousands of people left in the 'Big Easy' and all but abandon the flooded-out city.
A TOTAL EVACUATION
There will be a "total evacuation of the city. We have to. The city will not be functional for two or three months," Nagin said.
Most of those storm refugees, 15,000 to 20,000 people, were in the Superdome, which had become hot and stuffy, with broken toilets and nowhere for anyone to bathe. "It can no longer operate as a shelter of last resort," the mayor said.
Nagin estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people remained in New Orleans, a city of nearly half a million people. He said 14,000 to 15,000 a day could be evacuated.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, began mounting one of the largest search-and-rescue operations in U.S. history, sending four Navy ships to the Gulf Coast with drinking water and other emergency supplies, along with the hospital ship USNS Comfort, search helicopters and elite SEAL water-rescue teams. American Red Cross workers from across the country converged on the devastated region in the agency's biggest-ever relief operation.
The death toll from Hurricane Katrina has reached at least 110 in Mississippi alone. But the full magnitude of the disaster had been unclear for days; Louisiana has been putting aside the counting of the dead to concentrate on rescuing the living, many of whom were still trapped on rooftops and in attics.
If the mayor's estimate holds true, it would make Katrina the nation's deadliest hurricane since 1900, when a storm in Galveston, Texas, killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people.
Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast with 145-mph (233-kph) winds Monday and spilled water into the streets, swamping an estimated 80 per cent of the bowl-shaped, below-sea-level city. Miles and miles of homes were inundated and much of New Orleans has been rendered uninhabitable for weeks or months.
"We are looking at 12 to 16 weeks before people can come in," Nagin said on ABC's 'Good Morning America', "and the other issue that's concerning me is we have dead bodies in the water. At some point in time the dead bodies are going to start to create a serious disease issue."
