Document 6462534

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2005
THE TIMES-PICAYUNE
.
..
A-10
H U R R I CA N E R I TA
Rain jabs
Orleans levee;
evacuees die
on bus
Debra
Lyons
comforts
her
daughter,
Lakosho,
aboard
an Air
Force
plane in
Lake
Charles.
Dozens of
patients
from Lake
Charles
Memorial
Hospital
were
flown
Friday to
Nashville,
Tenn., to
be out of
the way
of
Hurricane
Rita.
RITA, from A-1
140 miles southeast of Port Arthur, headed northwest at about 12 mph.
Hurricane-force winds were expected as far as
100 miles inland, the hurricane center said.
Rita seemed poised to arrive as a Category 3
storm, having diminished from a top-of-the-chart
Category 5 on Wednesday.
The storm was expected to plow through a region thickly planted with 12 percent of the nation’s
gasoline refinery capacity.
Industry analysts said it probably would disrupt regional supplies and further batter pricesensitive industries such as airlines.
More than 2.5 million Texans and residents of
southwest Louisiana watched Rita’s approach for
days. Forecasters targeted the Texas coast even
as the storm entered the eastern Gulf of Mexico
on Tuesday.
Houston largely cleared itself Friday of a 100mile-long traffic jam stretching from Galveston in
the south, through the city and out its northbound
arteries.
Outside the city, however, traffic was still
bumper-to-bumper on highways leading to Austin
and Dallas, officials said.
National Guard trucks ferried gasoline to
stranded drivers up and down the interstates.
Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, the chief
See RITA, A-12
STAFF PHOTO BY DAVID GRUNFELD
Water over
the levees
creates
fear
In Hurricane
Rita’s storm
surge, water
from Bayou
Bienvenue
overtakes a
car parked
alongside
Paris Road in
Chalmette.
NEW ORLEANS, from A-9
Stainbrook, 59, a contractor
originally from Iowa, said arson
and squatters staking claim in
abandoned homes were his worries. “I’m protecting nine houses,” he said. “We’re higher-end
here. They’re going to come
back and act like they live in
these properties and go in the
doors and take the jewelry.”
It was clear from the littered
neutral ground nearby that residents had emptied homes of ruined items and trash that nobody wanted. “ Toxic Art,” a
handmade sign announced at
the neutral ground between
France and Mazant streets.
“This exhibition will kill you!”
Among the objects were 16
handmade wooden crosses, a
hot-water heater, storm windows and paintings that included a bleeding valentine-type
heart on a black canvas.
The city had tell-tale signs of
potential disaster.
Lakeview was a haunted,
sludge-coated scene of ruin.
And homes that appeared
spared along Grand Route St.
John had parked cars with soaking floorboards.
Gentilly Boulevard at Florida
Street, beneath the Interstate 610
overpass, was impassable due to
standing water. Debris, so many
tree limbs and battered buildings,
piled upon street corners.
The sight of people who were
not with law enforcement or
news media was a rarity.
One young man pushed a load
of antiques through a brief rainstorm across Esplanade Avenue,
at North Johnson Street, explaining to a passerby that he was saving his grandfather’s heirlooms
We’re high and dry with
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BARATTINI
STAFF PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER
before fading into the 7th Ward.
City officials appeared passive in the face of Rita.
Mayor Ray Nagin had nothing to say Friday. “No briefing
today. Just watching the levees,”
said Brenda Hatfield, chief administrative officer, in an e-mail.
In Kenner, Mayor Phil Capitano urged residents to stay off
the streets until Saturday afternoon, saying power lines were
coming down in some sections of
the city.
In St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, officials said the
full impact of the storm would
depend on flood levels. They
knew the storm’s surge would
threaten levees damaged by Katrina and in various states of rep a i r l a t e T h u r s d a y. B u t i n
Plaquemines, they were surprised when flooding by late
morning, indicating some of the
levee repairs were not holding.
“It’s a little earlier than we anticipated,” said Plaquemines
Parish Sheriff Jiff Hingle.
By mid-afternoon on Friday,
floodwaters arriving from a
spillage on the Industrial Canal
waters were restricted to parts
of Arabi. St. Bernard levees
seemed to be doing their job,
holding a surge that began
pounding the area late Thursday
night, said Col. Richard Baumy,
a Sheriff ’s Office spokesman.
Floodwaters reached at least
2 feet on Claiborne Avenue and
neighboring streets and got into
northern Arabi by early afternoon. There, a raised railroad
tract contained the attack, and
parish officials hoped Rita’s
winds would shift and the flood
would stop rising before it advanced further east.
Meanwhile, what passes for
regular life after Katrina continued in the northern parts of
Plaquemines that stayed dry
during Katrina and seemed to
be faring well under Rita. Even
as winds picked up by midday,
cars buzzed around gas stations,
video stores were hoping, and at
DeSalvo’s Seafood, along Belle
Chasse Highway, residents lined
up for the post-Katrina special:
shrimp spaghetti.
Yet even those businesses
were feeling Rita’s impact.
Watching caravans of repair
trucks heading north, a DeSalvo’s waitress commented:
“There go our customers.”
Staff writers Brett Anderson, Jeff Duncan,
Bruce Hamilton, Doug MacCash, Gordon
Russell and Manuel Torres contributed to this
report.
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Mayor Nagin:
We survived a post Katrina epidemic of
medical myths propagated by poorly
informed public officials - cholera,
typhoid, inhaled e.coli, toxic mold, toxic
gumbo and venomous snake bites. Our
infrastructure is in shambles, but our air
is not toxic and our waters are free of
man-eating sharks. There are no
diarrhea outbreaks even among folks
who are drinking tap water.
It is time to turn on the electricity in
cleared areas of the city including the
French Quarter and major parts of
Treme, Marigny and Uptown. There is
no gas on in the quarter, so an excuse of
gas generated fires is yet another myth.
The continuing use of candles and
generators are the real risk - fire and
carbon monoxide poisoning.
The world assumes Louisiana is closed
for business until you allow Entergy to
turn on the switches to light our high
and dry historic districts.
Brobson Lutz, MD