Katrina Redux (part I)
Katrina Redux (part II)
Katrina Redux (part III): A History of the Crisis and Controversy
LANDFALL+24-36 HOURS: STILL GOLDEN
On Tuesday morning, people in communities along the Gulf Coast were waking up to devastation--assuming they hadn't witnessed it personally from rooftops and attics across three states. Katrina had cut a wide swath through the Gulf Coast, and the devastation was enormous. Whole communities had been shattered to matchsticks by Katrina's winds, storm surge, and accompanying tornadoes. Crucial bridges had been destroyed. Houses had been smashed or flooded. Communications was spotty, and there was limited power, water, and food in most affected communities, if any of those things were to be had at all.
But now it was time to come out and assess the damage, and to either begin or intensify search-and-rescue efforts while waiting for federal help to arrive. Tuesday morning in coastal Lousiana, Mississippi, and Alabama found search and rescue efforts underway.
On Tuesday morning, as rescues continued, New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast was in chaos. Early Tuesday morning,
Michael Brown, Director of FEMA, called the damage to low-lying areas of the Gulf Coast "catastrophic," and stated that
additional medical personnel were being moved in to treat evacuated hospital patients. With at least one New Orleans hospital threatened by Katrina's floodwaters, patients were being transferred to the Superdome, said Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and medical personnel were being sent in to treat them.
NEW ORLEANS
By the end of Monday, the U.S. Coast Guard alone had rescued as many as 1200 people in the New Orleans area.
New Orleans resembled a war zone Tuesday morning, as rescuers shifted aside dead bodies floating in rising floodwaters to rescue the living. At least two buildings caught on fire Tuesday. Thirty buildings were estimated to have collapsed in the storm.
Three levees were breached on Monday, two of them major, and the water level in the city had continued to rise. Residents of low-lying areas retreated to their attics, and then to their rooftops. Flooding was especially bad in the 8th and 9th wards of the city, some of the poorest and lowest-lying areas of New Orleans. St Bernard's parish was also extremely hard-hit. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), after touring the parish by helicopter, made the sign of the cross and said, "[t]he whole parish is gone."
On Tuesday, Walter Baumy, Engineering Division chief with the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE), noted that the Corps was
attempting to contract for materials, such as rock, super sand bags, cranes, etc., and also for modes of transportation -- like barges and helicopters, to close the gap and stop the flow of water from Lake Pontchartrain into the city
Officials were
reported to be uncertain where else water was coming in, but estimated that once the leaks were plugged it would take around 2 weeks to drain the water out of the city. Terry Ebbert, New Orleans' homeland security chief, estimated that the situation could be "stabilized in a few hours."
Officials planned to use helicopters to drop 3,000-lb. sandbags into the levee breach to stem the flow of water.
Conditions across the city began to deteriorate as, after a 50" water main break, the city was left without drinkable water or water pressure. At the Superdome, where an estimated 10-15,000 people had spent Monday night, unrest was "escalating" as the situation worsened. Two small holes had been torn in the roof by the storm on Monday, toilets were overflowing, and there was no air conditioning to relieve the 90-degree heat. Mayor Nagin said that evacuees at the Superdome might be there for as long as a week.
As the day went on, helicopter and boat rescues went on as flooding cut off even dry areas of the city from authorities, and chaos began to spread. Looting began to spread across the city, and without communications, police were unable to do much about it. They made off with food and water, diapers and formula, cell phones and televisions, clothes and shoes. A policeman, surprising looters in the act, was shot, but was expected to recover. National Guard troops moved into the downtown business district, and state police squads backed by SWAT teams were sent in to scatter looters. Firefighters, unable to reach buildings due to rising floodwaters, were forced to allow them to burn.
Hospitals were running out of food and water, and their generators were running out of fuel. The city's newspaper, the Times-Picayune, was forced to evacuate its offices as the water rose, re-locating to Baton Rouge in circulation trucks. Nearly all of the parishes in the New Orleans area were under curfews. Inmates from Orleans parish jail, which had flooded, were relocated to a highway entrance ramp, where they sat under guard and waited to be evacuated to other Louisiana jails.
Fleets of boats--speedboats, airboats, rowboats, and other vessels--were launched to patrol the streets-turned-waterways, looking for survivors. They were instructed to ignore bodies, because the city had no facilities to deal with them. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (DWF), helping to coordinate the boat rescues, said that they needed to concentrate on the living: 'They don't have sewage facilities or water to drink. We need to get them to a safe haven, and then the Louisiana National Guard will provide shelter."
The partially submerged St. Claude Bridge was a drop-off point for rescued survivors, weak from hunger and exhaustion. Hundreds were dropped off there hourly, clinging to whatever belongings they had been able to drag with them into flooding attics and onto rooftops. People with missing relatives stood by the roadside, begging emergency workers to look in places they knew their loved ones, trapped in the flood, were waiting. Other survivors managed to make their way to I-10, and were heading westward on foot. Throughout the day, people who had been rescued from their rooftops were trucked to the Superdome in the back of Army trucks, and in the backs of Louisiana's wildlife enforcement division pickup trucks.
At one point, the city considered bringing in barges to provide electricity. They requested that anyone with flat-bottomed boats volunteer to aid in rescue efforts.
By mid-afternoon, Mayor Nagin estimated that 80% of the city was under water. He also estimated the death toll in the city as being in the thousands. A half-hour later, Governor Blanco said in a news conference that "storm refugees across New Orleans now need to be evacuated." A task force was said to be involved with finding shelter space and temporary housing for evacuees.
Charity and Tulane Hospitals were reported to be surrounded by water. Tulane, being evacuated by the U.S. military, was "completely surrounded," with looting going on in streets around the hospital. Charity was described as "no longer functioning" and was being evacuated, according to Governor Blanco.
MISSISSIPPI
By Tuesday morning, it was clear that, in Mississippi, damage caused by Katrina had surpassed the benchmark of Hurricane Camile (1969), and likely Camile's death toll as well. (cite) Structures that had survived Camile with minor damage were no longer standing. The state's governor declined to give a confirmed death toll, but suggested that the then-current death toll of 80 would rise.. As bad as the damage already seemed, Governor Barbour was clear that it would become worse: "We know that there is a lot of the coast that we have not been able to get to. I hate to say it, but it looks like it is a very bad disaster in terms of human life." He stated, after a helicopter tour of the destruction, that houses were "...simply not there. ... I can only imagine that this is what Hiroshima looked like 60 years ago."
Across Mississippi, some crews conducted boat and helicopter rescues while other crews worked to clear highways to make paths for rescuers. On at least one Mississippi highway, motorists used chainsaws to remove trees blocking roads. An estimated 100 people in coastal Mississippi had been hoisted by helicopter from their rooftops by the Coast Guard, and over 300 were still waiting for rescue.
In Bay St. Louis, search and rescue teams were reduced to marking homes known to contain bodies with paint marks, because there were not enough refrigerated trucks to remove them all. Highway and road bridges to Biloxi were demolished, and entire neighborhoods were flattened.
In Gulfport, sailboats had been washed up onto city streets, and the storm surge had obliterated. "hundreds of waterfront homes, businesses, community landmarks, and condominiums." Mississippi State Port lost its cranes and lifting facilities. The first floor of the Armed Forces Retirement Home was flooded, and there was heavy damage to Memorial Hospital. On Pass Road, numerous homes and businesses were destroyed. On Beach Blvd., "dozens" of homes were missing. At least three firehouses suffered significant damage. The Gulfport Fire Chief estimated that 75% of all of Gulfport's buildings have major damage, "if they have a roof left at all."
Part of Biloxi's sea wall was washed away, and in Biloxi's downtown area, almost every building had "extensive damage to its first level." Damage to Biloxi's floating casinos were enormous; at least three snapped their moorings,, and some were tossed as many as 200 yards inland. Along U.S. 90, Ryans, the Red Lobster, and the Olive Garden were washed away. The Waters Edge II apartments, Diamondhead Yacht Club, and St. Thomas the Apostolic Catholic Church were gone. There was "almost total devastation primarily south of the railroad tracks near Lee Street, Point Cadet and Casino Row." Houses in Biloxi that had withstood Camile were "nothing but slab now", in the words of one Biloxi resident, who also noted that "Apartment complexes are wiped clean."
Looting was reported in Biloxi and Gulfport on Tuesday. Some Biloxi residents sifted through the remains of slot machines outside devastated casinos, filling garbage bags with coins and "walking off like they're Santa Claus." Others were spotted taking beer and cigarettes from a convenience store.
Other Mississippi communities fared no better. In Pascagoula, six blocks of Market Street were destroyed; Jackson County Emergency Management had to relocate to the courthouse after the roof of their building was ripped off; the gym at St. Martin High School came off; and there were reports of flooding in the Chipley area. In Long Beach, most buildings within 200 yards of U.S. 90 had disappeared; homes and apartment complexes lining the shore were gone; and First Baptist Church was leveled. Pass Christian was hard hit: the bridge to Bay St. Louis was destroyed, along with "several other bridges." The harbour and beachfront communities were gone; in the eastern part of the city, water rose to 20 feet above sea level; and there was a house in the middle of the road on Second Street. Hattiesburg suffered storm damage as well: a number of homes and businesses suffered damage from wind clocked at 95 mph, and U.S. 49 and Highway 11 were shut down. Moss Point saw much of its downtown destroyed; 20 feet of water flooded most of the city; and floodwater surrounded 2 hotels full of guests.
Life as residents of the Mississippi coast had known it had changed overnight, and as search and rescue efforts went on, the scope of the devastation was slowly revealed. "This is our tsunami," said Biloxi mayor A. J. Holloway, in an interview with the Biloxi Sun Herald. A supervisor for American Medical Response, a Mississippi coast ambulance service, had talked with paramedics on the scene, and said that "the devastation is so great that they won't quit counting (bodies) for a while."
Power outages across the state and storm damage crippled communications, taking out landline and cell phone communication across Mississippi. Outages as far as 300 miles inland affected Jackson, causing long lines at gas stations.
Parts of U.S. 90 were buried under inches, or feet, of sand. Communications were down, power was out, medical services were crippled by loss of power, lack of food and water, and lost communications. The high-water marks set by Camile were shattered.
ALABAMA
Tuesday found large parts of Mobile still submerged, and the city under a dusk-to-dawn curfew. Alabama Governor Bob Riley had declared a state of emergency in Alabama on Saturday, and asked President Bush for an expedited major disaster declaration as Katrina approached. The curfew was instituted in the Mobile area to keep people off the streets and prevent further injuries in the wake of the storm.
Before Katrina hit, Mobile County opened 11 shelters, housing some 2700 people; authorities were not certain whether people had heeded evacuation warnings or had decided to ride out the storm. Mandatory evacuations for 56,000 people living in low-lying areas had been ordered, and 128,000 others in coastal Alabama were urged to seek shelter elsewhere.
Katrina left Mobile streets stacked with tree debris and a muddy residue on the streets. The Cochrane-Africatown bridge on U.S. 98 was still closed for damage assessment after a drilling rig drifted into the bridge and wedged itself under the west end. The bridge is used to bypass a tunnel under the river on Interstate 10, which was largely underwater on Tuesday morning. The bottom floors of the CSX building, on the waterfront, were inundated by storm surge. The east side of the 17-story Lafayette Plaza Hotel suffered severe water damage, causing people inside to retreat to the building's west end during the storm.
In Bayou La Batre, bomes and businesses were flooded. Scores of yachts and fishing boats were carried by floodwaters into swamps and woodland, and homes were reduced to slabs. Katrina left widespread power outages across coastal Alabama, standing water, and downed trees and power lines. And Katrina's damage path stretched far inland; in northeastern Alabama, the Marion County Emergency Management director reported "...trees on homes, trees on cars, trees on roads."
Alabama's National Guard activated 450 troops for security and traffic control, and activated a Military Police and an Engineer battallion to help with recovery in Mississippi. "During (Hurricane) Ivan we relied on them to come help us so it's our time for payback," said General Mark Bowen of the Alabama National Guard. "We're on standby and ready to go."
OIL INDUSTRY
The Gulf of Mexico normally produces nearly one-quarter of U.S. domestic oil output, and its drilling capacity took a big hit from Katrina. nearly half the nation's refinery capacity is along the coast, and Gulf Coast refineries took a equally hard hit. More than 700 offshore rigs and drilling platforms were evacuated as Katrina approached, and at a time when producers worldwide were struggling to keep up with demand, the evacuations and closures had an immediate effect on oil prices. Oil prices increased by more than $3 per barrel on Tuesday, climbing over $70/barrel due to uncertainty about the extent of damage to Gulf drilling and refining operations.
In the wake of Katrina, at least 3 oil rigs disappeared completely, and one came loose of its moorings but was later found 9 miles north of its original position. Refinery capacity, due to storm damage and loss of power, was severly curtailed. At least 8% of the nation's oil production capacity had been lost, along with 88% of natural gas production.
Analysts warned on Tuesday that refining and drilling capacities may be worse than initially estimated, and could lead to a national gas crisis "in the short term."
IN SUMMARY
Across the Gulf Coast and the nation, what had looked like reason for optimism on Monday night had dwindled into shocked acceptance of a grim reality by Tuesday. The golden 72 hours, the optimal time for success in search and rescue, ticked relentlessly away. Thousands of people were still in need of rescue--from their homes, from hotels, and from overloaded shelters in danger of flooding. Many of them were in need of medical help, many were further endangered by rising floodwaters, and all of them were in need of food and water. Many were difficult to reach because of flood waters or downed power lines, or simply because communications had deteriorated to the point where authorities didn't have the information they needed to find survivors. But search and rescue operations went on into the night, as the residents of the Gulf Coast fought their way toward another dawn.