New Orleans now 'a war zone'
2005-09-02 07:49
New Orleans - New Orleans on Thursday made a "desperate SOS" for help as authorities struggled to stem a descent into anarchy and evacuate survivors of Hurricane Katrina which is now believed to have killed thousands.
About 4 National Guard troops fought an uphill battle to restore order to the largely submerged jazz mecca plagued by gunbattles, fistfights, gangs of roving thugs, looters and carjackers.
Residents reported survivors dropping dead in shelters or gunned down outside the local convention centre. Hospitals were evacuated after power ran out and helicopters ferrying patients and babies drew gunfire.
"This is a war zone," said Melissa Murray, 32, a Louisiana state corrections officer helping in the relief effort.
'We have been forgotten'
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issued an urgent appeal for immediate help for up to 20 000 refugees stuck in the convention centre in the heart of the stricken city.
"Currently, the convention centre is unsanitary and unsafe and we are running out of supplies," Nagin said in a statement issued via CNN. "This is a desperate SOS."
With survivors complaining bitterly over the lack of security and the slow pace of relief operations, officials said they expected to have about 22 000 troops in the ground in Louisiana by Friday.
But the state governor, Kathleen Blanco, said up to 300 000 survivors may still be stuck in disaster areas in the state, and at least 40 000 uniformed troops were needed for New Orleans alone.
Although no precise death toll was available, Blanco and Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu said several thousand people were now believed to have been killed by Katrina after it slammed into the Gulf Coast on Monday.
President George W Bush vowed "zero tolerance" for armed gangs and other profiteers from the devastation wrought by Katrina.
But Thomas Jessie, a 31-year-old roofer, vented his fear and anger after spending a night in the squalor of the convention centre with no National Guard or Red Cross workers in sight.
"We got dead bodies sitting next to us for days. I feel like I am going to die. People are going to kill you for water," Jessie told AFP.
"This is America, I don't understand the lack of communications between the authorities and the people," he said. "It is disgusting, we feel we have been forgotten."
Keshia Gray, 28, said the scene in the convention centre turned more horrific by the hour.
"As the night went on, people were dying off. There were people shooting, fights broke out, the bathrooms were all clogged up and there was no water," she said. "Then the police started shooting. I couldn't stay in there."
Bush, criticised for his tardy response to the initial hours of the disaster, cranked up the federal government's relief machinery a day after cutting short his holiday to return to Washington.