|
|
楼主 |
发表于 2005-9-2 20:30
|
显示全部楼层
Despair and Lawlessness Grip New Orleans
as Thousands Remain Stranded in Squalor
绝望和暴行笼罩新奥尔良 市民面对惨状束手无策
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 1 - Despair, privation and violent lawlessness grew so extreme in New Orleans on Thursday that the flooded city's mayor issued a "desperate S O S" and other local officials, describing the security situation as horrific, lambasted the federal government as responding too slowly to the disaster.
Thousands of refugees from Hurricane Katrina boarded buses for Houston, but others quickly took their places at the filthy, teeming Superdome, which has been serving as the primary shelter. At the increasingly unsanitary convention center, crowds swelled to about 25,000 and desperate refugees clamored for food, water and attention while dead bodies, slumped in wheelchairs or wrapped in sheets, lay in their midst.
"Some people there have not eaten or drunk water for three or four days, which is inexcusable," acknowledged Joseph W. Matthews, the director of the city's Office of Emergency Preparedness.
"We need additional troops, food, water," Mr. Matthews begged, "and we need personnel, law enforcement. This has turned into a situation where the city is being run by thugs."
Three days after the hurricane hit, bringing widespread destruction to the Gulf Coast and ruinous floods to low-lying New Orleans, the White House said President Bush would tour the region on Friday. Citing the magnitude of the disaster, federal officials defended their response so far and pledged that more help was coming. The Army Corps of Engineers continued work to close a levee breach that allowed water from Lake Pontchartrain to pour into New Orleans.
The effects of the disaster spilled out over the country. In Houston, the city began to grapple with the logistics of taking tens of thousands of refugees into the Astrodome. American Red Cross officials said late Thursday night that the Astrodome was full after accepting more than 11,000 refugees and that evacuees were being sent to other shelters in the Houston area.
Elsewhere, San Antonio and Dallas each braced for the arrival of 25,000 more, and Baton Rouge overnight replaced New Orleans as the most populous city in Louisiana and was bursting at the seams.
The devastation in the Gulf Coast also continued to roil oil markets, sending gasoline prices soaring in many areas of the country. In North Carolina, Gov. Michael F. Easley called on citizens to conserve fuel while two big pipelines that supply most of the state's gasoline were brought back on line.
Throughout the stricken region, scores of frantic people, without telephone service, asked for help contacting friends or relatives whose fates they did not know. Some ended up finding them dead. Others had emotional reunions. Newspapers offered toll-free numbers or Web message boards for the searches.
Meanwhile, the situation in New Orleans continued to deteriorate. Angry crowds chanted cries for help, and some among them rushed chaotically at helicopters bringing in food. Although Mayor C. Ray Nagin speculated that thousands might have died, officials said they still did not have a clear idea of the precise toll.
"We're just a bunch of rats," said Earle Young, 31, a cook who stood waiting in a throng of perhaps 10,000 outside the Superdome, waiting in the blazing sun for buses to take them away from the city. "That's how they've been treating us."
Chaos and gunfire hampered efforts to evacuate the Superdome, and, Superintendent P. Edward Compass III of the New Orleans Police Department said, armed thugs have taken control of the secondary makeshift shelter at the convention center. Superintendent Compass said that the thugs repelled eight squads of 11 officers each he had sent to secure the place and that rapes and assaults were occurring unimpeded in the neighboring streets as criminals "preyed upon" passers-by, including stranded tourists.
Mr. Compass said the federal government had taken too long to send in the thousands of troops - as well as the supplies, fuel, vehicles, water and food - needed to stabilize his now "very, very tenuous" city.
Col. Terry Ebbert, director of homeland security for New Orleans, concurred and he was particularly pungent in his criticism. Asserting that the whole recovery operation had been "carried on the backs of the little guys for four goddamn days," he said "the rest of the goddamn nation can't get us any resources for security."
"We are like little birds with our mouths open and you don't have to be very smart to know where to drop the worm," Colonel Ebbert said. "It's criminal within the confines of the United States that within one hour of the hurricane they weren't force-feeding us. It's like FEMA has never been to a hurricane." FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Local Officials Criticize Federal Government Over Response
当地官员指责联邦法院反应缓慢
Willie J. Allen Jr./St. Petersburg Times
Victims of Hurricane Katrina trying to get onto buses bound for Houston from New Orleans on Thursday.
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 2 - Fires and explosions jolted an area east of the French Quarter this morning in a city gripped by despair, privation and violent lawlessness, and the city's mayor, by turns angry and sad, blasted Washington for what he said was its slow response to the storm disaster.
The explosion was in a chemical storage facility near the Mississippi River, Lt. Michael Francis of the Harbor Police was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. A series of smaller blasts followed and then acrid, black smoke that could be seen even in the dark. The vibrations were felt all the way downtown.
An exasperated-sounding Mayor C. Ray Nagin did not hold back his anger in an interview with a New Orleans radio station.
"I keep hearing that this is coming, that is coming," he said in reference to federal aid. "And my answer to that today is b.s. - where is the beef?"
"Let's figure out the biggest crisis in the history of our country," he added. After Sept. 11, he said, the president was given "unprecedented powers" to send aid to New York. The same response should be applied in this case, too, he said.
President Bush was scheduled to leave the White House this morning, and, after meetings in Alabama, and a walking tour of Biloxi, to take part in aerial tours of Mississipi, New Orleans and the Gulf state coastline.
This afternoon he was to make a statement on the hurricane recovery efforts at the Louis Armstrong international airport in New Orleans.
Congress was rushing through a $10.5 billion aid package, and the Pentagon promised 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop looting in the city.
Aid was being promised, too, from overseas. Australia said it was giving $7.6 million to the American Red Cross and sending a team of 20 disaster experts to the United States. Financial aid was also scheduled to come from Japan, Sri Lanka and a handful of other countries.
Squalid and dangerous conditions grew so extreme in the flooded city that Mr. Nagin issued a "desperate S O S" and other local officials, describing the security situation as horrific, lambasted the federal government as responding too slowly to the disaster. Thousands of refugees from Hurricane Katrina boarded buses for Houston, but others quickly took their places at the filthy, teeming Superdome, which has been serving as the primary shelter. At the increasingly unsanitary convention center, crowds swelled to about 25,000 and desperate refugees clamored for food, water and attention while dead bodies, slumped in wheelchairs or wrapped in sheets, lay in their midst.
"Some people there have not eaten or drunk water for three or four days, which is inexcusable," acknowledged Joseph W. Matthews, the director of the city's Office of Emergency Preparedness.
"We need additional troops, food, water," Mr. Matthews begged, "and we need personnel, law enforcement. This has turned into a situation where the city is being run by thugs."
Citing the magnitude of the disaster, federal officials defended their response so far and pledged that more help was coming. The Army Corps of Engineers continued work to close a levee breach that allowed water from Lake Pontchartrain to pour into New Orleans.
The effects of the disaster spilled out over the country. In Houston, the city began to grapple with the logistics of taking tens of thousands of refugees into the Astrodome. American Red Cross officials said late Thursday night that the Astrodome was full after accepting more than 11,000 refugees and that evacuees were being sent to other shelters in the Houston area.
[ Last edited by 灰鸦 on 2005-9-3 at 00:05 ] |
|
IP卡
狗仔卡
发表于 2005-9-2 20:27
提升卡
置顶卡
沉默卡
喧嚣卡
变色卡
显身卡
