Lines for evacuation buses grow in New Orleans

[BirdGuano]

http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/2008/08/30/D92SMVL80_gustav_gulf_coast/index.html
Lines for evacuation buses grow in New Orleans
By BECKY BOHRER Associated Press Writer


Aug 30th, 2008 | NEW ORLEANS -- Lines of people waiting for buses to take them out of the city grew longer Saturday and traffic grew heavier on main highways as Hurricane Gustav strengthened into a dangerous storm on track for the Gulf Coast.

A line well over a mile long stretched in six loops through the parking lot at Union Passenger Terminal. Under a blazing sun, many led children or pushed strollers with one hand and pulled luggage with the other. Volunteers handed out bottled water, and medics were nearby in case people became heatsick.

Joseph Jones Jr., 61, wore a towel over his head to block the sun. He'd been in line 2 1/2 hours, but wasn't complaining. During Katrina, he had been stranded on a highway overpass.

"I don't like it. Going someplace you don't know, people you don't know," Jones said. "And then when you come back, is your house going to be OK?"

The city had yet to call for a mandatory evacuation, but began ushering out the sick, elderly and those without their own transportation on Saturday. The state has a $7 million contract for more than 700 buses to carry an estimated 30,000 people to shelters.

Many residents said the evacuation was more orderly than Hurricane Katrina, which struck three years ago Friday. But not everyone was happy.

Elizabeth Tell, 67, had been waiting on the corner since 6:30 a.m. for a special needs bus to take her and her dog, Lee Roy, to the station. It was three hours before the first bus arrived, completely full of people in wheelchairs.

"They're not taking care of us down here!" she shouted as the brown-and-white spotted hound mix panted inside his hip-high plastic kennel.:rolleyes:

Many residents weren't waiting for a formal evacuation call. Cars packed with clothes, boxes and pet carriers drove north among heavy traffic on Interstate 55, a major route out of the city. Gas stations around the city hummed. And nursing homes and hospitals began sending patients farther inland.

There were other signs of people racheting up their plans to leave. ATM machines were running out of cash. Long lines were sprouting up at gas stations as motorists filled up their cars. Cases of bottled water were selling briskly at convenience stores.

Police and firefighters were set to go street-to-street with bullhorns over the weekend to help direct people where to go. Unlike Hurricane Katrina, there will be no shelter of last resort in the Superdome. The doors there will be locked.

Those among New Orleans' estimated 310,000 to 340,000 residents who ignore orders to leave accept "all responsibility for themselves and their loved ones," the city's emergency preparedness director, Jerry Sneed, has warned.:clap:

Advocates have criticized the decision not to establish a shelter, warning that day laborers and the poorest residents will still fall through the cracks. As lines at bus stations kept building, about two dozen Hispanic men talked under oak trees near Claiborne Avenue, where on better days they would be waiting to be picked up for day labor.

They'd been listening to Spanish radio and television but none of them knew what to do and were waiting for someone to come by and tell them, said Pictor Soto, 44, of Peru. Told they could take a bus at Union Passenger Terminal, they all shook their heads, fearful that immigration agents would be looking for them. "The problem is, there will be immigration people there and we're all undocumented," Soto said.

Gustav swelled into a major hurricane south of Cuba and could strike the U.S. coast anywhere from Mississippi to Texas by Tuesday.

Forecasters said if Gustav follows the projected path it would likely make landfall on Louisiana's central coast, sparing New Orleans a direct hit. But forecasters caution it is still too soon to say exactly where the storm will hit.

"Any little jog could change where it makes landfall," said Karina Castillo, a hurricane support meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center said.

One shop along Magazine Street, its windows covered up, showed a flash of New Orleans' storm humor. "Geaux Away Gustav," it read, giving it a French flair.

President Bush called Gulf Coast governors Saturday and told them they would have the full support of the federal government, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

Officials plan to announce a curfew that will mean the arrest of anyone still on the streets after a mandatory evacuation order goes out. Police and National Guardsman will patrol after the storm's arrival, and Gov. Bobby Jindal has said he requested additional search and rescue teams from other states.

Jindal also said the state would likely switch interstate lanes on Sunday so that all traffic would flow north, in the direction an evacuation would follow.

At 11 a.m. EDT, the center of Gustav was about 185 miles east of the western tip of Cuba. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 125 mph, just 6 mph shy of the Category 4 threshold. The center of Gustav was to pass over western Cuba later Saturday and strengthening is forecast after it reaches the Gulf of Mexico.

The second major hurricane of the Atlantic season has already killed 78 people in the Caribbean.

[Glenn 50]

Pardon my ignorance not being an American and all that but why don't they move the city?
I don't mean all at once but surely the low lying residential areas should not be rebuilt or repaired if New Orleans keeps getting hit. There must be a reasonably close area with the right topography for rebuilding a new city.

[flourbug]

Glenn 50, a lot of Americans are asking the same thing. That whole area is a swamp - as are MANY of our major cities. America built up around its ports in the 1700 and 1800's, and the mass of the buildings and infrastructure weight heavily on many southern coastal areas.

[rc]

Pardon my ignorance not being an American and all that but why don't they move the city?
I don't mean all at once but surely the low lying residential areas should not be rebuilt or repaired if New Orleans keeps getting hit. There must be a reasonably close area with the right topography for rebuilding a new city.

Shhhhh! Please stop using common sense! It will interfere with the "we will rebuild" mantra!

The state has a $7 million contract for more than 700 buses to carry an estimated 30,000 people to shelters.

Doesn't that sound a bit steep? That's $10,000 per bus, or $233 per passenger. I checked greyhound.com, and a roundtrip fare from New Orleans to Houston starts at $102.

[LvDemWings]

Many of those will have to be special buses and transport for wheelchair and bed ridden patients of nursing homes. Those are costly.

[Glenn 50]

New Orleans told to flee Gustav
BBC

Mayor Ray Nagin used emotive language to announce the evacuation

The mayor of New Orleans has issued a mandatory evacuation order for the entire city, as Hurricane Gustav bears down on the US Gulf Coast.

Ray Nagin said residents of the city's West Bank should begin moving out at 0800 (1300 GMT) on Sunday, with the East Bank leaving at midday (1700 GMT).

He called it "the storm of the century" and added: "You need to be scared".

Gustav, which is forecast to strengthen to a Category 5 storm over the Gulf, powered through western Cuba overnight.

Anyone who's thinking of staying - rethink it, get out of town
Ray Nagin
New Orleans mayor
Gustav ploughed through Cuba's Isla de la Juventud, or Isle of Youth, overnight on Saturday before hitting the mainland in Pinar del Rio province, home to Cuba's lucrative tobacco plantations.

The storm, which has now moved into the Gulf of Mexico, currently has maximum sustained winds of nearly 240km/h (150mph), with even stronger gusts.

At least 300,000 people have been evacuated in Cuba, says the BBC's correspondent there, Michael Voss. There has been extensive flooding and reports of severe damage where the storm has hit, but no reports of fatalities.

Officials on Isla de la Juventud said that nearly all the island's roads were washed out and many areas were underwater.

No help

Hours before Mr Nagin spoke, a hurricane watch was put in place along America's North Gulf coast, from Texas along to the Alabama-Florida border.

HURRICANE CATEGORIES
FIVE: Winds over 155mph (249km/h). Storm surge more than 18ft (5.4m) above normal. Only three such US landfall hurricanes - Labour Day 1935, Camille 1969 and Andrew 1992
FOUR: Winds 131-155mph. Storm surge 13-18ft
THREE: Winds 111-130mph. Storm surge 9-12ft. Katrina hit New Orleans as a three.
TWO: Winds 96-110mph. Storm surge 6-8ft
ONE: Winds 74-95mph. Storm surge 4-5ft
Source: Saffir-Simpson Scale/US National Hurricane Centre

The BBC's Kevin Connolly, in New Orleans, says Mr Nagin spoke in "passionate and desperate" terms, telling a televised news conference the storm was "so powerful" and growing more powerful every day.

"I'm not sure we've seen anything like it," he told reporters at City Hall.

Mr Nagin said Gustav - expected to make landfall on Monday or Tuesday - was more powerful than Hurricane Katrina.

That storm, which hit New Orleans in 2005, killed some 1,800 people and caused hundreds of billions of dollars worth of damage.

Addressing anyone considering riding out Gustav, Mr Nagin said: "I have news for you - that would be one of the biggest mistakes of your life".

The mayor said he was aiming for a 100% evacuation, which extends to members of the emergency services - fewer than 50 city workers will remain in the city.

Mr Nagin described the threat facing New Orleans in stark terms, calling Gustav "the mother of all storms" and urging people to follow the evacuation order.

Mr Nagin that there would be no emergency services to help anyone who chose to remain in the city.

"If you are stubborn enough, if you are not taking this as seriously as we need you to take it, and if you decide to stay; you are on your own."

The mayor, who was in office when New Orleans was hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said those who stayed would almost certainly be stranded in a flooded city.

"Anyone who decides to stay, I'll say it like I said it before Katrina: make sure you have an axe, because you will be carving your way, or busting your way out of your attic to get on your roof with waters that you will be surrounded with in this event," he said.

"So anyone who's thinking of staying, rethink it, get out of town."

Our correspondent says that thousands of people were already beginning to leave the city before the evacuation order was announced, joining a continuous stream of vehicles heading north.

Meanwhile, Republican party presidential candidate John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin announced they would travel to Mississippi on Sunday to observe storm preparations there.

The hurricane has already claimed the lives of more than 80 people in the Caribbean.

It has swept through Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica over the past week, killing dozens of people and causing widespread damage.

It has strengthened rapidly from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane, and is expected to grow to a Category 5 storm - the maximum on the scale.

[Glenn 50]

"Mr Nagin said Gustav - expected to make landfall on Monday or Tuesday - was more powerful than Hurricane Katrina."

Ouch!!

[stephanie]

New Orleans orders mandatory evacuation

http://news.yahoo.com/story/ap/gustav_gulf_coast;_ylt=Arsg8KLKJ.6lmlzR0arEme.s0NU E


NEW ORLEANS – Residents were ordered to flee an only partially rebuilt New Orleans Sunday as another monster storm bore down on Louisiana nearly three years to the day after Hurricane Katrina wiped out entire swaths of the city.
Hurricane Gustav, which already killed more than 80 people in the Caribbean, strengthened quickly into a Category 4 and was poised to become a Category 5 storm, packing winds in excess of 156 mph. It slammed Cuba's tobacco-growing western tip before moving away from the island country into the Gulf of Mexico.
Gustav slowed to Category 3 status with top winds near 125 mph early Sunday but forecasters expected it to regain strength later in the day. The National Hurricane Center upgraded a watch to a hurricane warning for over 500 miles of Gulf coast from Cameron, La., near the Texas border to the Alabama-Florida state line, meaning hurricane conditions are expected there within 24 hours.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin used stark language to urge residents to get out of the city, calling Gustav the "storm of the century."
"This is the real deal, not a test," Nagin said as he issued the evacuation order Saturday night. "For everyone thinking they can ride this storm out, I have news for you: that will be one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your life."
Forecasters were slightly less dire in their predictions, saying the storm should make landfall Monday afternoon somewhere between western Mississippi and East Texas, where evacuations were also under way. It's too early to know whether New Orleans will take another direct hit, they said, but city officials weren't taking any chances.
Gustav's center was about 425 miles southeast of the Mississippi River's mouth at 5 a.m. EDT as it moved northwest near 16 mph.
The mandatory evacuation of the city's west bank, where levee improvements remain incomplete, was to begin at 8 a.m., with the east bank to follow at noon. It's the first test of a revamped evacuation plan designed to eliminate the chaos, looting and death that followed Katrina.
The city will not offer emergency services to those who choose stay behind, Nagin said, and there will be no "last resort" shelter as there was during Katrina, when thousands suffered inside a squalid Superdome. The city said in a news release that those not on their property after the mandatory evacuation started would be subject to arrest.
Many residents didn't need to be ordered, with an estimated 1 million people fleeing the Gulf Coast on Saturday by bus, train, plane and car. They clogged roadways, emptied gas stations of fuel and jammed phone circuits.
At the city's main transit terminal, a line snaked through the parking lot for more than a mile as residents with no other means of getting out waited to board buses bound for shelters in north Louisiana and beyond.
"I'm not staying for 'em any more," said Lester Harris, a 53-year-old electrician waiting at a bus pickup point in the Lower 9th Ward. He was rescued from his house by boat after Katrina. "I got caught in the water and spent two days on my roof. No food, no water. It was pretty bad."
Mike Mayer, owner of Jefferson Indoor Range and Gun Outlet in suburban Metairie, said sales of guns and ammunition were up.
"My business doubled," he said. "People are afraid of coming back after the storm. ... They want some protection when they walk back in."
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff planned to travel to Louisiana on Sunday to observe preparations. And likely GOP presidential nominee John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, were traveling to Mississippi.
Despite the stern warnings from Nagin and others, the expected arrival of 2,000 National Guard troops suggested officials were expecting stragglers.
Stephen Sonnier left for Katrina, but not this time.
"I'll never leave again. Just being away, worrying about it last time? I'd have rather been here," Sonnier said as he helped his friend Bill Espy use an electric drill to fasten metal hurricane panels over the window of his reconstructed flower shop.
Sonnier had just marked the third anniversary of Katrina on Friday by placing flowers on a makeshift memorial to a woman named Vera who was struck by a car after the storm. Her body lay unattended for days before neighbors built a makeshift brick tomb around her. Pictures of that grave with its spray-painted epitaph: "Here lies Vera, God Help Us!" became one of the symbols of the post-Katrina mayhem.
Many residents said the early stage of the evacuation was more orderly than Katrina, although a plan to electronically log and track evacuees with a bar code system failed and was aborted to keep the buses moving. Officials said information on evacuees would be taken when they reached their destinations.
Some began arriving Saturday in Arkansas, where the National Guard prepared to shelter thousands for weeks. At least 15,000 people sought refuge in the inland state in 2005, following Katrina and Rita.
Meanwhile, as many as 500 critical-care patients were being airlifted from hospitals along the Gulf Coast to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, a spokesman said. The patients were being taken to about 20 hospitals around North Texas.
Traffic late Saturday night was stop and go on Interstate 10, heading west into Houston from the Louisiana border, as Texas prepared to house up to 45,000 evacuees, even though that state's eastern stretches were within the range of where Gustav could make landfall.
In Beaumont, not far from where Hurricane Rita roared ashore as a Category 3 in 2005, residents were boarding up homes and leaving. In neighboring Orange County, officials were inundated "by thousands" of people calling to register for evacuation assistance, a county spokeswoman said.
To the east, Louisiana residents were checking into hotels along Alabama's coast. Mitch and Laura Tucker of Mandeville brought along their dog, Roux, whom they saved during Katrina.
"We don't know what we'll be going back to," he said.

[LizB]

Pardon my ignorance not being an American and all that but why don't they move the city?
I don't mean all at once but surely the low lying residential areas should not be rebuilt or repaired if New Orleans keeps getting hit. There must be a reasonably close area with the right topography for rebuilding a new city.

One of the big problems is, the most perilous locations are where the poor black folks live. (or lived.) So letting the little harmed (relatively) richer white areas rebuild but not letting the below sea level poor black areas rebuild, sure feels to many blacks like rascism, even if it makes topological sense.

The only way I know to move the black areas to higher land would be if they were GIVEN land to move to. I'm going to bet there isn't any undeveloped higher land a short city bus commute from the hotel and restaurant jobs.

[BirdGuano]

I'm listening to a public safety scanner feed of the New Orleans and LA State radio systems for the evacuation.

Sounds like the same cluster fluck as Katrina.

They have had some special needs buses driving around now for over 24hrs, and none of the designated shelters will take the passengers.

National Guard was just asked to intervene.

However compared to what I listened to in 2005, the response is still vastly
improved.

[Potemkin]

I'm listening to a public safety scanner feed of the New Orleans and LA State radio systems for the evacuation.

Sounds like the same cluster fluck as Katrina.


I was listening to some of the local TV stations interviewing so of these evacuees.

Same BS entitlement mentality from the evacuees.

One claimed an extended family of 40 people and wanted them all together.

40 people who were relatives that needed to use evacuation of last resort?

Put a cork in it!

[Potemkin]

One of the big problems is, the most perilous locations are where the poor black folks live. (or lived.) So letting the little harmed (relatively) richer white areas rebuild but not letting the below sea level poor black areas rebuild, sure feels to many blacks like rascism, even if it makes topological sense.

No one is keeping blacks from rebuilding in the 9th ward.

Bring your money, get your permits and build anywhere you want.

What is happening is that the government isn't giving them money (our money) to rebuild a home which they know is going to flood anyway.

No bank or mortgage company is going to give you a loan to build there unless you can get insurance (including flood insurance). No insurance company is going to give you insurance and the government flood insurance plan isn't going to give you flood insurance when they know it is just going to get wrecked. (Like this week.)

As a taxpayer I have a problem throwing good money after bad. No rebuilding money from the government.

As for the mortgage and insurance companies that is a contractual decision between the loan applicant and the company.

Not our business.

[BirdGuano]

Sounds like they are wrapping up the bus operation pretty soon.

Still some medical and special needs evacs, but sounds like they are going mostly by military air transport.

Online feed now has a lot of National Guard traffic getting dug-in and set up for looter patrols and general security.

[LizB]

No one is keeping blacks from rebuilding in the 9th ward. Bring your money, get your permits and build anywhere you want.

The question raised was why isn't the city moved to safer ground; why aren't people *forbidden* to rebuild in the unsafe areas?

Part of the answer to that is, superficially it looks racist to tell the below sea level black communities "you aren't allowed to go home again" while higher ground white communities are allowed to rebuild.

And part of the answer is, if the government condemns the 9th ward saying "you aren't allowed to rebuild on your own land," doesn't the government have to pay for that land (and what is it worth, the before or after Katrina value?)?

And part of the answer is, where are you going to put all the people who are told "you aren't allowed to go home." Especially if you want them a short bus ride from the city's low wage jobs.

The cities that move, like because they are going to be flooded by a new dam, how do they do it?