Recovery Efforts
Much of New Orleans Will Be Drained by October, Officials Say
Federal Emergency Management Agency contract workers remove a corpse from Bethany Home in New Orleans. Relief teams and cadaver dogs fanned out to collect human remains.
(By Paul Sancya -- Associated Press)
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Sunday, September 11, 2005
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 10 -- Federal officials said Saturday that much of New Orleans will be drained by mid-October, nearly twice as fast as originally projected, as the obliterated city showed small but substantive signs of recovery.
Decaying bodies were being collected off the streets amid other signs of slow progress throughout the city, from the restoration of power in the central business district to the reconnection of a main rail link. Water levels slowly receded, exposing the tips of fences and sides of houses that only days earlier were submerged in Katrina's wake. Bulldozers pushed away mountains of debris, and crews removed abandoned cars and trucks.
Police Superintendent P. Edwin Compass III said order has been restored to the same streets where looting and violence were ubiquitous last week. The haunting process of finding, bagging and removing bodies intensified. Boatloads of workers combed through neighborhoods, with cadaver-sniffing dogs pointing the way.
A reporter watched two Federal Emergency Management Agency employees and a half-dozen private workers pick up corpses from a ramp to Interstate 10. One body had lain rotting for at least five days, its outline marked by the black stain of drained body fluids.
The workers, who smeared Vicks VapoRub underneath their noses to suppress the smell, placed the bodies in heavy body bags, zipped them up and carried them away.
One FEMA worker noted how the combination of intense heat and toxic water portend an even messier cleanup of bodies. The overall death count remains to be determined, though officials said earlier fears that the toll could top 10,000 are now unlikely. As of Saturday, officials said there were at least 154 confirmed dead in Louisiana, a small percentage of whom have been identified, and 211 confirmed dead in Mississippi.
The Bush administration said it will not prevent reporters from watching efforts to recover bodies, one day after CNN filed a suit in federal court to protest the restrictions imposed on the news media. The government will not allow photographers to accompany officials during recovery missions, however.
Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, who is managing relief efforts for the federal government, said some progress is being made as more pumps are up and running to drain water out of the streets and houses.
"The number one challenge right now is more pumping capacity and to unwater the city of New Orleans," said Allen, after meeting with local leaders to better coordinate the work ahead and to repair relations.
Just east of New Orleans, a company from Baton Rouge was setting up pumps, three so far. It plans to have as many as 30 operational soon, which could remove 900,000 gallons per minute.
Just getting pumps into the region is proving a logistical nightmare, as companies scramble to find barges to ship the machines and fuel to run them.
Allen said most of the city's pumps remain inoperable, complicating recovery efforts. Still, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials said water was being removed at a quicker pace than anticipated, which should allow some areas of New Orleans to be drained in less than 40 days.
