| Page 3 of 3 < |
Troops Escalate Urgency of Evacuation
Miles Smith is moved to a wheelchair after rescuers brought him to the convention center. Officials are trying to avoid force but want the city emptied of residents.
(By Carol Guzy -- The Washington Post)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
The Environmental Protection Agency also continued to monitor the foul and polluted floodwater that still covers much of New Orleans, testing for more than 100 kinds of chemicals, according to EPA Administrator Steve Johnson. The fetid water, along with the toxic sediment left behind, is one of the main reasons authorities are so adamant about a full evacuation, officials said.
"The water is unsafe," Johnson said in an interview. "This is not just putting in a couple of water bottles. . . . Ultimately we will do whatever testing is needed to assure ourselves, and the public, that the land and water is safe."
EPA officials hope to begin testing the sediment left in the hurricane's wake as early as next week, but they are waiting for an independent scientific board to approve their soil-testing plan. Johnson said he and others are "not letting bureaucracy get in the way" but are intent on devising a credible scientific approach to the survey.
As of Thursday, the official death toll from Hurricane Katrina rose to 118 in Louisiana and 201 in Mississippi. But those numbers, provided by authorities in charge of processing the dead, contrast wildly with projections and the preparations that are underway.
In Louisiana, a contractor working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency has set aside 25,000 body bags, and New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin has said as many as 10,000 people could be dead in the city.
Ten days after the Category 4 storm struck the Gulf Coast, many officials said they still do not know what to expect, nor are they willing to provide projections for a final death toll.
"We're not giving estimates -- we're not looking for a body count," said Melissa Walker, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, working at the state emergency operations center. "These are individual lives that are lost, and each one of them is important."
One example of the difficulty in obtaining reliable information can be seen in St. Bernard Parish, a devastated area 20 miles southeast of downtown New Orleans. Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.) said earlier this week that he was told that as many as 100 people died at a warehouse in Chalmette while awaiting rescue, but Melancon later said that number was incorrect.
Staff writers Dan Eggen, Juliet Eilperin, Sue Anne Pressley and Cheryl W. Thompson in Washington; Robert E. Pierre in New Orleans; and Jacqueline L. Salmon in Baton Rouge, La., contributed to this report.
