The Salina Journal from Salina, Kansas • Page 7

SAUNA JOURNAL Hurricane Katrina FRIDAY. SEPTEMBER 2. 200B1 escalated More than 76,000 people are In Red Cross shelters across eight ftates, The Natlbnai Id expected td Population Hj IS Cross Mississippi 97 i Texas Tenn Louisiana Alabama 90 32 Fla. 1 10 Ga. gs Ark.

1 2 Katrina's path sCurrent National Guard troops deployed Alabama 1,748 Florida 713 Louisiana 5,700 IVlississippi 4,953 'Figures as of 12:15 p.m. Sept. 1, and do not Include Super Dome population SOURCES: FEMA; Red Cross; U.S. National Guard AP Mississippi town is practically wiped off map By CAIN BURDEAU Die Associated Press WAVELAND, Miss. Hurri- caiie Katrina seemed to take a particular vengeance out on this town.

The storm virtually wiped Wajjeland off the map, prompt- officials to say it took a hairder hit from the wind and water than any other town along the coast. Rescue workers there Wednesday found sheU-shocked survivors scavenging what they could from homes and businesses that were completely washed away The air smelled of natural gas, lumber and rotting flesh. "Total devastation. There's nothing left," said Brian Mollere, a resident who was left cut and bruised. Katrina tore his clothes off and he had to dig in the debris for shorts and a T-shirt.

Katrina dragged away nearly every home and business within a half mUe of the beach, leaving driveways and walkways to nowhere. The water scattered random reminders of what had been normal, quiet lives: family photos, Barbie doUs, jazz records, whiskey bottles. The town of 7,000, about 35 miles east of New Orleans, has been partially cut off because the U.S. 90 bridge over the Bay of St. Louis was destroyed.

There is no power, no phones, no way and nowhere to go. State officials would not confirm a death toll in the town, buiMayor Tommy Longo esti- that at least 50 residents died, The Clarion-Ledger reported. City Hall is gone, with nothing but a knee-high mural of a beach scene still standing. Mollere had set up camp on the wreckage where his family's two-story home and jewelry store once stood. A couple of chairs and a sheet of plastic protected him and his dog from the sun and spits of rain.

He recalled swimming out of the store with the dog as the water rose and finding shelter in a house that survived. "If it had been night, I would have drowned," he said. His 80-year-old mother did drown in the storm. She had evacuated with some family to a grocery store in neighboring Bay St. Louis.

As her family members swam away to escape the storm, his mother, who used an oxygen tank, stayed Frank Lombardo said he and his fiancee, Bridgette Favre, tried to weather the storm in their apartment but moved to a high school in Bay St. Louis when the wind and rain grew too strong. He said he broke into the gym's football supply room to find cloth bandages to wrap some elderly people's woimds. Marcel and Shannon Whavers and their 2-year-old daughter Ayanna stood Wednesday at the end of the devastated bridge that connected Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian.

They said they felt cut off from the world. "We're in trouble for a long time," said Shannon Whavers, 29. "What are you going to do?" said her 30-year-old husband. "We saw a guy just lying in the highway, not knowing where to go." Economic effects could be broad Page C7 A man covers the body of a victim at the convention center Thursday in New Orleans. The Associated Press Deliverance Refugees who make it to Houston get showers, meals By MARY FOSTER Tlie Associated Press At the front of the line, the weary refugees waded through ankle-deep water, grabbed a bottle of water from state troopers and happily hopped on buses that would deliver them from the horrendous conditions of the Superdome.

At the back end of the line, people jammed against police barricades in the rain. Refugees passed out and had to be lifted handover-hand overhead to medics. Pets were not allowed on the bus, and when a police officer confiscated a little boy's dog, the child cried until he vomited. The scene played out Thursday as the plodding procession out of the Super- dome entered its second day an evacuation that became more complicated as thousands more storm victims showed up at the arena. Capt.

John Pollard of the Texas Air Force'National Guard said 20,000 people were in the dome when the evacuation efforts began. By Thursday afternoon, the number had swelled to about 30,000. Pollard said people poured into the perdome because they believe it's the best place to get a ride out of town. The refugees began arriving Thursday at the Astrodome in Houston, where they got a shower, a hot meal and a cool place to sleep. "I would rather have been in jail," Janice Jones said in obvious relief at being out of the dome.

"I've been in there seven days and I haven't had a bath. They treated us like animals. Everybody is scared." Miranda Jones, her daughter, was standing next to her, carrying her father's ashes the only thing they were able to save from her house before'Hurricane Katrina blasted.New Orleans, An angry Teirry Ebbert, head of New Orleans' emergency operations, watched the slow exodus from the perdome and said the Federal Emergency Management Agency response was inadequate. The chaos at the nearby New Orleans Convention Center was considerably more hostile than the Super- dome, with few options for refugees to leave the scene. "This is a national disgrace.

FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no '-A i Photos by The Associated Press Hurricane Katrina refugees begin to fill up cots on the floor of Houston's Astrodome on Thursday. According to Red Cross volunteers, 5,000 refugees from Louisiana arrived inside the Astrodome by Thursday afternoon. command and control," Ebbert said. "We.can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of NewOrleans." After a dayin line in the heat without water or food, dozens of people fell out. Medics poured water on them, fanned them and tried to cool them down.

Meanwhile, the crowd kept growing as stranded people heard about the buses and headed to the dome. By early afternoon, a line of people a half-mile long snaked from the Superdomis through the nearby Hyatt Regency Hotel, then to where buses waited. After a teenager was tak- en away by police for fighting, Capt. John PaUerre of the Texas Air Force National Guard told the crowd on' public address: "We can't have people fighting. I have kids here who are crying and frightened and can't.

find their parents. Be adulfe. We're going to get you out of here. It takes a while. I'm not God.

If I was, you'd all be home with your family" After a traffic am kept Displaced New Orleans residents wait outside the Superdome on Thursday for evacuation. buses from arriving at the Superdome for nearly four hours, a near-riot broke out in the scramble to get on the buses that finally showed up. Dead a low priority as rescue efforts By RUSSBYNUM The Associated Pms PASCAGOUltA, Miss, Crews are driving around coastal Mississippi, picking up bodies left on sidewalks like garbage and depositing them in refrigerated mobile morgues, Coroners are conducting autopsies in parking lots because the only available light Is fi-om the sun. Most Hurricane Katrina relief efforts are focused on the living, many of whom are struggling to get enough food, water, shelter, power and medical attention, The dead are a lower priority, and many bodies have been putrefying since the water receded Monday, The omclal death toll In Mississippi was 126 and rising Thursday as search- and-rescue teams and dogs went through the ruins of neighborhoods washed away by the huge storm surge, Most of the bodies in Jackson County where the beach towns of Pascagoula, Gautier and Ocean Springs were swanjped have been taken to the Heritage Funeral Home In Moss Point. The business has no water, power or phone service, making the Job of storing and Identifying the dead difficult for Coroner Vlckl Broadus and a forensic pathologist working with her.

A reftlgeratad truck was running in the parking lot Thursday with 10 bodies, six of which covUd not be Identified, Broadus said most of the victims drowned or suffered severe Injuries when buildings col- lapsed around them, Their Identification and clotlies were swept away, and many Briefly bodies had drifted miles from home. '5 -4 "We are looking for any scars, tattoois, dental work. I'm doing DNA, fingerprint- ing and photos," she said Thursday, not easy. This isn't like looking at standing there and telling what he Ipdk like. These people really are not IdehttS- able right now" When people call to report missing piip-i pie, Broadus suggests giving more tliiatf the basic details about age, weight height, She wants to know what surgeriisi people have had, what clothing they wearing and even what kind of wear they had on, i "It they routinely wear boxers or briefs, whether they have dentures or, partial plates anything that mlght'r help us," she said, 3e careful how you give to charities Hampton McDowell, director )f the Salina Area United Way, arges those who want to give to hurricane Katrina relief ef- brts to first do their homework.

Be suspicious of any orga- ilzatlon you're not familiar A 'ith or that solicits you over phone. Ask the organlza- :lon.to send its request in writ- ingi sure you ask about the services the organization of- 'ersand its operating costs. also can verify the mthentlcity of charities by gong to or vww.charitynavigator.org. Donations can be made to The United Way Hurricane Karina Response Fund. All mon- iy will go to both front-line lipaster relief and long-term, needs.

You can do- late by creditxard by visiting he Web site at uo Donations by check can be sent to Sallna Area United Way, Box 355, Sallna 67402-0356. Make checks payable to United Way of America, and reference the Hurricane Katrina Response Fund In the memo. Congress sending $10.5 billion in relief Congress rushed to provide a $10.5 billion down payment in relief aid for Gulf Coast victims of Hurricane Katrina on Thursday as President Bush ordered new action to minimize disruptions In the nation's energy supplies. Amid lawlessness: hj flooded, chaoticNew Orleans, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced plans to deploy additional National Guard personnel each day for the next several days. Bush, who Intends to visit the devastated area today, expressed sympathy for the victims.

"Iknow this Is an agonizing Task their continued patience as recovery operations unfold," he said. Failure of levees long predicted WASHINGTON President Bush, acknowledging the "fVuis- tration" of New Orleans residents stranded in the flooded city, told ABC's "Good Morning Thursday, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." In fact, Just such a potential nightmare hasibeen foreseen by storm experts; investigative reporters; academlcsand even by US: governmiBnt agencies for years. "We certainly understood the potential Impact of "a category 4 or 5 hurricane" on New Orleans, Lt, General Carl Strock, chief of engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, told reporters Thursday, in a telephone briefing. Strock said that long before Katrina hit with Its category 4 fury, the Corps had listed the potential of a.poweri\jl direct hit on New Orleans among a hand- fill of top catastrophic disasters, which also include a mBjor earthquake in San Francisco.

Al Naomi, senior, project manager for the Corps of Engineers in Louisiana, added that the 300 miles of levees protecting New Orleans never were meant to withstand forces above a category three storm. When questioned, Dana Perino, a White House spokes-. woman, said the president was referring to the fact that once the hurricane had passed, people thought New Orleans was OK and at that point did not anticipate the breaches in Americans extend online Invitations ATLANTA Sean Casey went online to offer his guest house for rent and wound up giving it away, housing a New Orleans family left homeless by Htirricane Katrina. Visiting the Internet free classifieds site Craigslist, the Atlanta real estate agent was overwhelmed by listing after listing of people offering to open their homes, condos and spare bedrooms to America's new refugees. Casey posted his offer of temporary houshig Wednesday morning and the family a man, his pregnant wife, sister and niece-amoved in Thursday The family fled to an Atlanta hotel ftom their 2-month-old home in downtown New Orleans.

They were nearly out of money when a relative told them about online offer. Overnight, Baton v. Rouge is largest cjly BATON ROUGE Seventy 4. miles northwest of New leanis, the state capital of Bai' ton Rouge and its parish received its own stdfiin, surge overnight huge wave of displaced In a day, this city hasbecqiiii' the largest in Louislanai grim local officials dieted it would double to about 800,000, "The Baton Rouge we and grew up in is no city councilman Mike Police chief Jeff Leduftfsap buses and volunteer drivers Wednesday evening 'i picking up OR-' leans residents and then! dropping them off wheri they see el gaggle of light neighborhood;.