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On the Streets

For Those Remaining, 'This Is Total Chaos'

Outside, sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and there was no sign of police. Thousands of storm refugees had been assembling outside for days, waiting for buses that never came.
Outside, sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and there was no sign of police. Thousands of storm refugees had been assembling outside for days, waiting for buses that never came. (By Phil Coale -- Associated Press)
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By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 2, 2005

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 1 -- Desperate to help his ailing sister-in-law, who had gone five days without kidney dialysis, Samuel Sorapuru tried to flag down National Guard vehicles. He begged ambulance drivers to stop. He appealed to anyone he encountered in uniform. In the end, he stood for an hour on a highway overpass crowded with stranded refugees -- and tried to wave in a helicopter. No luck.

"This," he said, "is total chaos."

Thousands of New Orleans residents remained stranded in a crippled city Thursday as badly overmatched authorities did what little they could and prayed for reinforcements to arrive soon.

Refugees ran short of energy, patience and hope even as fleets of buses hauled thousands out of town on the only passable exit road. Hundreds more in need of medical help were evacuated by helicopter, only to be marooned on stretchers on the crowded floors of the New Orleans International Airport.

Authorities there set up a morgue, and began using it.

Downtown, communication was minimal, leadership distant. There was no central organizing point, no evident headquarters to which a resident could appeal for help or news. Police officers and National Guard members, along with law officers imported from around the state, rarely knew more than what they could see with their own eyes.

Asked how much information she had, Natchitoches, La., probation officer Melissa Murray answered ruefully, "Little to none."

Questions outnumbered answers by a fearsome amount. Demand overwhelmed supply.

"It's heartbreaking. I've never seen anything like it," said Ralph Mueller, a Louisiana parole and probation official who oversaw a crew guarding hundreds of prisoners washed out of the local jail. "People are coming up with babies. A woman just came up, and EMS checked her out and said we needed to help her."

The answer was no.

"We can't take her because -- I hate to say it -- that's not our job today. Our job today is crowd control and inmate control."

Refugees trudging away from flooded homes, hoping for a lift out of town, said the lack of information or any known plan to evacuate them was almost as frustrating as the dearth of food and transportation.


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