Katrina: 'Ugly' death scenes

2005-09-04 16:19

Washington - Homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff said on Sunday the federal government was in control of hurricane-ravaged New Orleans after days in which authorities failed to reach stranded refugees and evacuate the city.

Amid widespread criticism about a slow and ineffectual response to the crisis, the Bush administration dispatched several top officials to the region: Chertoff, defense secretary Donald H Rumsfeld and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.

President George W Bush planned to return to the region on Monday.

In a series of interviews, Chertoff said the evacuation and relief operations are under way - with federal assistance in place.

"There's no question that with the addition of national guard and regular troops we've secured the city," Chertoff said on Fox News Sunday.

"We've got the adequate personnel now who are able to make sure that we have a comprehensive evacuation effort."

Deaths

Chertoff declined to estimate the death toll from the hurricane and its aftermath, but conceded that untold numbers of people could be found dead in swamped homes, floating in the water and in the facilities used as shelters.

"We need to prepare the country for what's coming ... we are going to uncover people who died hiding in the houses, maybe got caught in floods, it is going to be as ugly a scene as you can imagine," Chertoff said.

The criticism has continued unabated as it has taken days for food and water to reach thousands who took shelter in the Superdome, the New Orleans convention centre and even the hard concrete of the highways traversing the city.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin told NBC News on Sunday that the situation has been "a tragedy, a disgrace".

Chertoff said authorities are in place to handle the crisis, while cautioning that major challenges lay ahead.

"We are still in the middle of an emergency," he said on CNN's Late Edition.

"This is not the time when we can draw a sigh of relief."

National guard

Chertoff defended the job of federal emergency management agency director Michael Brown and declined to get into a discussion about whether the government moved quickly and forcefully enough to deal with the catastrophe.

He shrugged off suggestions that the demand for national guard troops in Iraq had depleted the numbers available to respond to the crisis.

"I think when we go back and look at it a lot of things worked well and some things didn't work well," he said.

On Saturday, Bush ordered more than 7 000 active duty forces to the region and 10 000 national guard troops were being sent to the Gulf Coast.

All total, the number of guard personnel in the stricken states is about 40 000.

Chertoff said on Saturday that more than 100 000 people had received humanitarian aid and the coast guard had rescued 9&nbap;500 people.

- AP