The Times Picayune
CATASTROPHIC
STORM SURGE SWAMPS 9TH WARD, ST. BERNARD
LAKEVIEW LEVEE BREACH THREATENS TO INUNDATE CITY
By Doug MacCash
and James O.Byrne
Staff writers
A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new .hurricane proof. Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina's fiercest winds were well north. The breach sent a churning sea of water from Lake Pontchartrain coursing across Lakeview and into Mid-City, Carrollton, Gentilly, City Park and neighborhoods farther south and east.
As night fell on a devastated region, the water was still rising in the city, and nobody was willing to predict when it would stop. After the destruction already apparent in the wake of Katrina, the American Red Cross was mobilizing for what regional officials were calling the largest recovery operation in the organization's history.
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/t-p/katrina.ssf?/hurricane/katrina/stories/083005catastrophic.html
The overview: 'Look, look man: It’s gone'
By Bruce Nolan
Staff writer
Hurricane Katrina struck metropolitan New Orleans on Monday with a staggering blow, far surpassing Hurricane Betsy, the landmark disaster of an earlier generation. The storm flooded huge swaths of the city, as well as Slidell on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, in a process that appeared to be spreading even as night fell.
A powerful storm surge pushed huge waves ahead of the hurricane, flooding much of St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward, just as Betsy 40 years ago. But this time the flooding was more extensive, spreading upriver as well to cover parts of the Bywater, Marigny and Treme neighborhoods.
As with Betsy, people scrambled into their attics or atop their roofs, pleading for help from the few passers-by.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_08.html
Levee breach floods Lakeview, Mid-City, Carrollton, Gentilly, City Park
By Doug MacCash
and James O’Byrne
Staff writers
A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new ‘hurricane proof’ Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina’s fiercest winds were well north. The breach sent a churning sea of water coursing across Lakeview and into Mid-City, Carrollton, Gentilly, City Park and neighborhoods farther south and east.
As night fell on a devastated region, the water was still rising in the city, and nobody was willing to predict when it would stop. After the destruction already apparent in the wake of Katrina, the American Red Cross was mobilizing for what regional officials were calling the largest recovery operation in the organization’s history.
Police, firefighters and private citizens, hampered by a lack of even rudimentary communication capabilities, continued a desperate and impromptu boat-borne rescue operation across Lakeview well after dark. Coast Guard choppers with search lights criss-crossed the skies.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_08.html
Scenes from a broken city
Monday, 10:30 p.m.
As skies cleared and Katrina’s final gusts blew across New Orleans late Monday afternoon, dead pigeons and shattered streetlamps littered the empty Pontchartrain Expressway.
In the shadow of the bruised Superdome, broken Mardi Gras beads laced a pile of leaves and debris.
The number “44” was all that remained of a shredded Louisiana Lottery billboard along the expressway.
At the Kentwood water distributorship, plastic crates were still stacked neatly in the back of open tractor-trailers; the Kentwood marquee was toppled. Winds had wrenched the Superdome/Claiborne exit sign into a fresh angle.
A man wearing socks but no shoes claimed to have walked from Kenner to the Pontchartrain Expressway in front of The Times-Picayune. Firemen in a passing pick-up shooed him off the highway.
Four Crescent City Connection police officers blockaded the expressway near the Dome, turning away the few civilian vehicles. They, too, wondered about the scope of the destruction.
“Have you heard anything about Metairie?” one asked.
By 6 p.m. on Monday, looters had shifted to heavy lifting. Young men exited the Coleman’s clothing store on Earhart Boulevard, struggling under the weight of fully laden cardboard boxes and plastic bags.
When flashing lights appeared in the distance, a man in an orange jersey shouted “Police!,” and dropped his box in Earhart’s lake-bound lane. He splashed across the opposite lane, tripped and fell in knee-deep water, then ran toward the B.W. Cooper housing development.
As the sun set, four young women slipped out of the Magnolia Discount convenience store on South Carrollton Avenue and loaded pilfered boxes into a waiting car. One woman waved at approaching vehicles.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_08.html
New Zealand Herald
At least 50 reported dead from hurricane Katrina
30.08.05 UPDATE 7.30pm
By Mark Wallheiser
BILOXI, Mississippi - At least 50 people were reported dead in Mississippi while Louisiana officials scrambled to rescue hundreds stranded by high waters after Hurricane Katrina cut a deadly swath through the U.S. Gulf coast.
The killer storm inflicted widespread, catastrophic damage along the coast as it slammed into Louisiana on Monday with 224km/h winds, then swept across Mississippi, Alabama and western Florida.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10343123
Halliburton whistle-blower to sue after demotion
30.08.05 4.20pm
WASHINGTON - A former top US Army procurement official who raised concerns about Halliburton Co's contracts in Iraq plans to sue the Army after being demoted, her lawyer said.
Lawyer Michael Kohn said Bunny Greenhouse, the Army Corps of Engineers' top contracting official-turned whistle-blower, was removed, effective Saturday, from the senior executive service and moved into a lower-ranking job.
Earlier, in a June 3 memo, Army Corps of Engineers Commandant Lieutenant General Carl Strock, said the move came after a staff analysis clearly showed the decision was based on Greenhouse's "unacceptable performance" and "not in retaliation for any disclosures of alleged improprieties she may have made."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10343193
Reuters demands release of Iraq journalist
30.08.05 12.20pm
BAGHDAD - Reuters has demanded the immediate release of an Iraqi cameraman who was still being held by United States forces in Baghdad more than a day after being wounded in an incident in which his soundman was killed.
Iraqi police said the news team was shot by US soldiers.
The US military said it was investigating and refused to say what questions it was putting to cameraman Haider Kadhem. It would not say where he was held nor identify the unit holding him.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10343163
Eleven injured in Paris apartment fire
30.08.05 11.20am
PARIS - A fire in an apartment block in the centre of Paris has injured 11 people, the French fire brigade said.
The spokesman said he did not know what had caused the fire in the block, which mostly housed people of African origin.
The blaze comes just three days after 17 people were killed, at least six of them children, when fire tore through another apartment block housing African immigrants in the city.
Monday's fire broke out around 10pm (8am NZT) and was brought under control about an hour later.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10343148
Ecuador makes drug bust at sea, biggest in decade
30.08.05 10.20am
QUITO, Ecuador - Ecuadorean police and the US Coast Guard have intercepted a boat carrying approximately US$175 million ($254.76 million) worth of US-bound Colombian cocaine in the Pacific Ocean in Ecuador's biggest drug bust in a decade, police said on Monday.
The fishing boat "Daniel" was stopped 370km south of the Galapagos Islands and its crew of eight Ecuadoreans arrested, police said, without saying exactly when the operation took place.
The fishing boat had been loaded with seven tonnes of cocaine supplied by fast launches off the Colombian coast and was sailing to a rendezvous with a ship which would carry the drugs to the United States.
Ecuador is a major transit country for cocaine from Colombia, where illegal armed groups fighting in a four-decade-old war rely on selling the drug to buy weapons.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10343133
The weather at Scott Base, Antarctica (Crystal Ice Chime) is:
Scott Base
Some cloud
-30.0°
Updated Tuesday 30 Aug 8:59PM
The weather at Glacier Bay National Park (Crystal Wind Chime) is:
54 °F / 12 °C
Overcast
Humidity:
88%
Dew Point:
50 °F / 10 °C
Wind:
Calm
Pressure:
29.70 in / 1006 hPa
Visibility:
8.0 miles / 12.9 kilometers
UV:
0 out of 16
Clouds (AGL):
Scattered Clouds 100 ft / 30 m
Mostly Cloudy 2000 ft / 609 m
Overcast 5500 ft / 1676 m
end
