Reunion Arena, Astrodome are prepped to house evacuees

07:31 PM MST on Wednesday, August 31, 2005

By LEE HANCOCK / The Dallas Morning News

NEW ORLEANS – Like passengers escaping a sinking ship, thousands of refugees prepared Wednesday to abandon this rapidly deteriorating city, where the mayor said the death toll from Hurricane Katrina would probably reach the thousands.

"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."

That would make Monday's hurricane the nation's deadliest natural disaster since at least the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

The dire prediction came as authorities made the decision to move storm refugees to Houston's Astrodome, 350 miles to the west, in a two-day caravan of some 475 buses. Meanwhile, the first group of an expected 500 other refugees flew to Dallas on Wednesday afternoon, where plans called for housing them in Reunion Arena for what could be a lengthy stay.

There will be a "total evacuation of the city," Mr. Nagin said. "We have to. The city will not be functional for two or three months."

The mayor estimated that 50,000 to 100,000 people remained in New Orleans. Many of those – 15,000 to 20,000 – 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.

Since Monday, the dangers to residents have multiplied well beyond rising water: Armed bandits roam the city. Dozens of fires burn out of control. Tons of floating debris, raw sewage and disease-carrying mosquitoes and rodents pose imminent health risks.

Nine hospitals in the city were being evacuated Wednesday as overwhelmed medical personnel struggled with no power, dwindling fuel supplies for generators, too many patients and a steady stream of incoming evacuees.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the situation was so desperate that there was no choice but to clear out.

"The logistical problems are impossible, and we have to evacuate people in shelters," the governor said. "It's becoming untenable. There's no power. It's getting more difficult to get food and water supplies in, just basic essentials."

Katrina blasted into the Gulf Coast on Monday morning just east of New Orleans with howling, 145-mph winds. In Mississippi alone, the death toll has reached at least 110. 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 trapped on rooftops and in attics.

President Bush, cutting short a monthlong vacation at his Crawford ranch, decided to return to the nation's capital. After flying over the devastated region on his way back to the White House, he offered his own sobering assessment.

"We are dealing with one of the worst natural disasters in our nation's history," he said. "This recovery will take years."

The Pentagon, mounting one of the largest search-and-rescue operations in U.S. history, ordered four Navy ships with drinking water and other emergency supplies to the disaster area. The hospital ship USNS Comfort also headed to the area, along with search helicopters and elite SEAL water-rescue teams.

Meanwhile, American Red Cross workers from across the country converged on the devastated region in the agency's biggest-ever relief operation. The relief agency reported that it had about 40,000 people in 200 shelters across the area.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency was considering putting people on cruise ships, in tent cities, mobile home parks and so-called floating dormitories – boats that the agency uses to house its own employees.

By late afternoon Wednesday, dozens of buses were lining up on the elevated Crescent Expressway waiting to load evacuees from the beleaguered Superdome.

The sight of so many yellow-and-black charter buses drew hundreds of people who had taken shelter under overpasses and on bridges along the expressway because they feared being stuck, didn't want to expose their children or did not want to give up their alcohol or pets.

Some screamed at bus drivers and at anyone else who would listen after being told that only refugees registered at the Superdome would be allowed to board and leave the city on the bus convoys.

"We've been walking all morning. The sun is hot. We don't have no water, no food," said Diane Jackson, who was walking with a clutch of hot, sweaty children and had a 2-year-old grandchild riding on her back. "We have to register before we get on any bus, that's what they telling us now."

She and her children then turned and began walking away from the dome, in the direction of the city's Convention Center.

Hundreds of people roamed a shattered Interstate 10, the only major freeway leading into New Orleans from the east. Some pushed shopping carts or carried shopping bags with their belongings, and others frantically tried flagging down any car that passed.

At one point Wednesday morning, a crowd swarmed around a taxi parked on a highway near the central business district, with some begging the driver to take them out of the area. One young man offered $160 in cash for a ride to safety. But at midday, the cab was still parked in the same spot.

By nightfall, there were reports of widespread looting across the Big Easy. Some mansions along the Garden District were reportedly broken into, and people could be seen walking nearby in small groups, dragging bags, boxes and tubs of merchandise.

Police said there were also reports of stolen postal trucks and cars hijacked by people frantic to leave the city. Even a school bus was reported stolen in Algiers, across the Mississippi from the French Quarter.

Police Sgt. B.D. Marquez said the bus was abandoned by its would-be thief after police chased it into an Algiers housing project.

"They're so much in fear of being abandoned," he said of the neighborhood on the city's west bank.

Across the river from New Orleans, the suburb of Gretna had police out in force to enforce a 24-hour curfew. But one officer said that hadn't stopped people from looting.

"When you see the ones breaking in because they're so desperate for food and water – what are you gonna do?" the policewoman said, shaking her head.

On a sidewalk outside the battered Superdome, thousands of people set up makeshift camps, spreading filthy blankets on the ground where listless children watched the crowds and dazed adults fanned themselves in the rising heat.

Some of the refugees wandered aimlessly, running up to anyone who looked like a member of the media or an authority figure to complain about deteriorating conditions in the Superdome or to beg for help in contacting family members.

On Canal Street, some hotels organized their own evacuations Wednesday. Pere Marquette Hotel workers were loading guests and their bags into the back of pickup trucks because water was flooding the building. Employees said about 300 guests were being moved to another downtown hotel.

One of those was Jerry McDonald, a visitor from New Jersey, who said he had spent the day before the hurricane drinking daiquiris in a Bourbon Street bar.

"These trucks, I don't know where they got 'em," he said. "They've really been doing a phenomenal job of taking care of us."

Another guest asked how conditions were at the place where they were headed.

"Dry," an employee responded.

For the second straight day, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continued to assemble equipment and materials to try to plug several large breaks in the city's levees with giant sandbags.

Water had ceased coursing into New Orleans through a break in the levee of the 17th Street Canal.

"We believe the flow into the city is not happening," said Walter Baumy, chief of the engineering division for the New Orleans district of the corps. That's because levels in Lake Pontchartrain had dropped, Mr. Baumy said.

However, the 300-foot gap in the levee still must be plugged so that water can be pumped from the bowl-shaped city that sits below sea level. The corps planned to use Chinook helicopters to lower 15,000-pound sandbags into the space where the concrete and steel levee once stood. Corps officials said they hoped the work could begin by late Wednesday or early today.

Corps officials acknowledged that their disaster planning had been no match for Hurricane Katrina.

"Yes, there was a plan in place," Mr. Baumy said. "It's just that this was much more than had been envisioned. The city had never seen anything like this."

Mr. Bush was expected to visit the ravaged region by week's end, but details on the trip were in flux as the White House worked to make sure a presidential tour would not disrupt the relief and response efforts.

Staff writers Doug J. Swanson, G. Robert Hillman, David Tarrant and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

E-mail lhancock@dallasnews.com