Reply #93: latest from times picayune, i will trim it down [View All]

[steve2470]

State Police send troopers to region
Tuesday, 10:30 p.m.

More than 40 State Police troopers are being sent to New Orleans to help local law enforcement combat what Col. Henry Whitehorn called “pretty severe”
looting in the city.

Two mobile force units of 16 officers each will be deployed, as well as about a dozen tactical officers and one armored personnel carrier, which should be
able drive through the deep flood waters, said Whitehorn at a 9 p.m. briefing at the state Office of Emergency Preparedness.

The State Police, which already has more than 250 officers in the area
affected by the storm, will be supplemented by an additional 30 officers from various sheriff and city police office around the state.

Whitehorn would not say exactly when the additional police will be deployed, saying they could go Tuesday night or on Wednesday.<snip>




City a woeful scene
Tuesday, 10:14 p.m.

By Brian Thevenot, Gordon Russell, Keith Spera and Doug MacCash
Staff writers

Sitting on a black barrel amid the muck and stench near the St. Claude Avenue bridge, 52-year-old Daniel Weber broke into a sob, his voice cracking as he recounted how he had watched his wife drown and spent the next 14 hours floating in the polluted flood waters, his only life line a piece of driftwood.

"My hands were all cut up from breaking through the window, and I was standing on the fence. I said, ‘I’ll get on the roof and pull you up," he said. "And then we just went under."

Weber sat among hundreds of refugees rescued Tuesday from rooftops, attics and floating debris in the 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish by an armada of more than 100 boats. Officials from the Coast Guard estimated they pulled thousands of people off of rooftops and attics, many with stories as grim as Weber’s. Officials believed hundreds and maybe thousands more remained in peril. They declined to estimate the number of dead. That will come later.

"We’ve got cadaver dogs, but we’re only looking for the live people at this point," said Rachel Zechnelli of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, which deployed all available boats to the Industrial Canal Monday night. "We’re dealing only with live voices and heartbeats."
<snip>

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/