MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 4:41 p.m. ET Sept. 8, 2005
NEW ORLEANS - Some holdouts prepared to leave this devastated city Thursday after being told to get out by 6 p.m., but others refusing to leave were hiding from police and soldiers, said one rescue worker.
About 10,000 people are believed to be inside the flooded city, surrounded by a toxic soup of oil, chemicals, garbage, human waste and floating corpses since Hurricane Katrina wrecked the city 10 days ago.
As the full extent of the storm's damage was revealed, President Bush was preparing a plan to make sure those uprooted by the storm receive a full range of health care, job training and other government benefits.
Under fire for the government’s response to the devastation so far, the president was to announce initiatives aimed at helping people “get back on their feet†in an afternoon address from the White House, spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Congress hastened to approve $51.8 billion in emergency relief and recovery aid requested by the Bush administration, in addition to $10.5 billion already approved.
Officials believe thousands were killed and they have 25,000 body bags on hand for the gruesome clean-up operation. But fewer than 100 corpses have been recovered so far in all of Louisiana, and no one knows for sure how many people died. In one recovery operation Thursday, 30 corpses found at a nursing home were being removed.
In Bywater, a neighborhood near the French Quarter that escaped relatively unscathed, troops stepped up the pressure on residents to abandon the city.
“They came around last night and told us we had to get ... out by 6 p.m. today,†said Blaine Barefoot, a 41-year-old street musician who was getting ready to leave. “I’m not going to fight it.â€
Residents in Jefferson Parish outside New Orleans got the same message from Emergency Management Director Walter Maestri, who urged locals to clear out by 6 p.m. and then be prepared to stay out for at least three weeks.
Still, some were staying in defiance of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s mandatory evacuation order. “Those that don’t want us to find them, they hide,†said Gregg Brown, a South Carolina game warden helping in the search.
Police Chief Eddie Compass told NBC’s “Today†show that police would forcibly remove holdouts once the “thousands†still seeking to evacuate voluntarily have done so.
National Guard helped rescue more than 650 people in between Wednesday and Thursday morning, Maj. Gen. Ron Mason told reporters.
If these people stay, there WILL be long-term health consequences. At some point, people DO have to accept responsibility for their own choices. This is a HORRIBLE catastrophe, disaster and calamity -- and unfortunately, it has hit our country in a huge way in the worst possible site it could hit. However, while we all feel better pointing our finger at the government for not managing to control the weather and the hurricane, there was NOTHING the government could do to keep the hurricane from hitting NO and keeping the hurricane from destroying a great deal of the city. New levees that demos try to harp on were NEVER designed to keep a surge of 20 foot waves from crashing over the city. If you've ever been to NO, you would see that the city wanted the ability to look into the delta, not cover it up with 30 foot concrete walls around the entire city. That was never the plan. Most of the damage would have already happened even if the levee work had been completed. There is no way to keep a hurricane from doing damage -- the fact is that for EVERY hurricane over a category 3, FEMA has been criticized for failing to plan under ANY administration.
This is horrible and there IS a lot of blame that has to be shouldered -- but holding President Bush responsible for the damage to personal property is WAY too much, IMO.
