They Really Dropped the Ball..

[strandinthewind]

I think they should reason all they can and if that does not work, they should sedate by force anyone who refuses to leave and then put them in the boat. If the dart kills them that is unfortunate, but the odds are they would have died anyway and their stubborness will not have caused the death of another waiting and the forcible removing of them will not endanger the rescue operators, God bless them for their efforts BTW.
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September 5, 2005
Rescuers, Going Door to Door, Find Stubbornness and Silence
By JERE LONGMAN
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 4 - The boat pulled up to the living room window on Read Boulevard early Sunday afternoon, and a volunteer rescuer, Stanley Patrick, began yelling: "Mr. Robert! Mr. Robert! Can you hear me?"

There was no sound in response, only the lapping of water in this reeking New Orleans East neighborhood, where the rooftops of cars were still covered nearly a week after a levee broke and the city was inundated.

Mr. Patrick grabbed a sledgehammer, broke through the window of the tidy brick house and sloshed down a hallway into a back bedroom. It seemed unlikely that he would encounter anyone alive in this toxic water, in this fetid heat.

He found what he expected to find, an 83-year-old man, floating face down in stagnant water that had risen three and a half feet into the home. A Louisiana state trooper asked that the man not be identified in full because his family had not yet been notified.

Rescuers were told there might be a woman in the house, too.

"I didn't see her, but if he's dead, she's dead," Mr. Patrick said. "If he didn't leave, she didn't leave."

As rescue operations went on, the frustrations of the police and volunteers continued to mount Sunday, as a growing number of those who had stayed in their homes seemed to be dead, and many of those who remained alive refused to leave.

But Col. Terry Ebbert, director of the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security, said Sunday that he expected that nearly everyone would be removed from the city by Tuesday, as rescuers made block-by-block searches. He said he thought there were fewer than 1,000 residents left in the city. "We're going to remove them," he said.

"People don't want to come out," said Capt. Tim Bayard, commander of the narcotics division of the New Orleans Police Department, who is supervising the water rescue effort. "They say they have enough water and food to sustain themselves. They don't understand. It's going to take six to eight weeks before the electricity comes on."

The water has receded only about a foot in many places, he said, adding that it was still 20 feet deep in spots. "They need to come out," Captain Bayard said. But some residents fear that if they leave, their houses will be ransacked by looters, he said.

"They've already lost their cars," he said. "All they have left is their house. They don't want those animals stealing from them. Write that, animals. Anybody that would take advantage of this is hardly better than animals. Not the people who are taking food and water and clothing. Those stealing TV's and shooting at police. What can you do with a TV? There's no electricity."

Police have said that early rescue efforts were hampered when they encountered gunfire. It was also difficult to get enough of boats in the water because of bureaucratic foul-ups, Captain Bayard said. One day, as many as 300 boats were in the water, he said, but he could have used 1,000.

"There was a breakdown in communication and coordination, and some people wanting to be lone stars and not cooperate," he said, declining to lay blame but saying federal officials were not at fault. "We have the boats now. Unfortunately, people don't want to utilize them."

More than 10,000 people have been evacuated by boat, Captain Bayard said.

Captain Bayard said he was reluctant to force anyone to leave against their will. If a boat capsized in a struggle, police officers and evacuees could drown or be subjected to disease, he said. But if ordered to remove residents, he would do so, he said.

A volunteer rescuer, Morgan Lopez, said he and colleagues had all but forced four people from a home at Dwyer and Bundy Roads on Sunday, where a sea of raw sewage had reached the steps of the house. A woman, an 8-year-old child and the child's grandparents finally agreed to leave, Mr. Lopez said.

"We acted like we were cops," Mr. Lopez said. "We were not letting them stay in that stuff. They had a lot of new clothes. Maybe they were trying to protect that."

Mr. Lopez was one of about 40 workers from R&R Construction in Lake Charles, La., who volunteered their time in boats usually used for bass fishing.

Two other R&R workers, Mr. Patrick and Scott Lovett, were dispatched to Read Boulevard to look for what they thought was an older couple. A shotgun rested in the boat next to Mr. Lovett, who said shots had been fired near him on occasion during the past week.

"I don't feel like I'm in the U.S.," Mr. Lovett, 22, said. "I feel like I'm in a war. All the guns, the chaos."

Mr. Patrick, 44, an ironworker, said he had also rescued victims after Hurricane Andrew hit Louisiana in 1992.

The man on Read Boulevard may have tried to get into his attic and cut his way through the roof, but was perhaps too feeble or retreated in heat that would have topped 100 degrees, Mr. Patrick theorized, noting a ladder that led to the attic.

The house appeared to be on a slight incline, and perhaps the man thought he was safe, Mr. Patrick said.

"It's tragic," Mr. Patrick said. "The water rose in one night. These people probably didn't know. There's a lot more dead right here. I can smell it."

He predicted that the death toll would be "astronomical."

In coming days, the boat searches will shift from primarily a rescue mission to a recovery mission, once a sufficient morgue can be established, Captain Bayard said. Still, he said, the police, volunteers and the army would continue to look for survivors, and military trucks would patrol the streets in case those who had insisted to remain changed their minds - perhaps, he said, once they ran out of food or could no longer stand the smell of decay.

"It's frustrating because they don't want to help themselves," Captain Bayard said. "But if they are going to come out, we're going to be there to pick them up. We're not going to turn our backs on them."

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