CHICAGO - According to reports from several sources, the Superdome is now being evacuated. Initial reports say that the victims will be transported to the Astrodome in Houston, TX. Few official details of the evacuation operation are currently available, but it would appear that a number of buses have arrived to begin moving the flood victims to Texas.
In other news from New Orleans, looting again broke out in some New Orleans neighborhoods today, prompting authorities to send more than 70 additional officers and an armed personnel carrier into the city. Police say one officer was shot in the head by a looter yesterday, but he is expected to recover. The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reports today that a Wal-Mart in the Lower Garden District was looted, and the entire gun collection was taken.
To repair one of the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain, officials late Tuesday dropped 3,000-pound sandbags from helicopters and hauled dozens of 15-foot concrete barriers into the breach. Maj. Gen. Don Riley of the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers said officials also had a more audacious plan: finding a barge to plug the 500-foot hole. Riley said it could take close to a month to get the water out of the city. If the water rises a few feet higher, it could also wipe out the water system for the whole city, said New Orleans’ homeland security chief, Terry Ebbert.
Officials said it was simply too early to estimate a death toll. One Mississippi county alone said it had suffered at least 100 deaths, and officials are “very, very worried that this is going to go a lot higher,” said Joe Spraggins, civil defense director for Harrison County, home to Biloxi and Gulfport. Authorities in New Orleans are quoted as saying that they are not presently counting the deceased, as they are devoting their efforts to search and rescue of the living.
Medical/EMS Issues
Hospitals across the city of New Orleans faced deteriorating conditions Tuesday after two levees broke, sending water coursing through the streets of the Big Easy. An estimated 80-85 percent of the below-sea-level city was under water, up to 20 feet deep in places, with miles and miles of homes swamped.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said 2,500 patients would be evacuated from hospitals in Orleans Parish, but it wasn’t immediately clear where or when they would be moved.
Police were working to get more generators to Charity Hospital and its 300 patients. The most critically ill would be evacuated first, with the rest to go later this week.
Other hospitals were also scrambling to get patients out. Tenet Healthcare Corp. said it was evacuating its 317-bed Memorial Medical Center and 187-bed Lindy Boggs Medical Center in New Orleans. The company’s 203-bed Kenner Regional Medical Center in Kenner, 207-bed Meadowcrest Hospital in Gretna, and 174-bed NorthShore Regional Medical Center in Slidell remained open with back-up (generator) power but also suffered water and wind damage.
Most hospitals originally had supplies and generator power for three to five days, but the effects of Hurricane Katrina will undoubtedly last much longer. “They’re short of supplies and diesel, and without people to get to them and trucks unable to deliver these essential materials,” officials said.
Medical disaster teams, able to triage and treat as many as 250 patients in three days are reportedly in-bound from seven other states to areas damaged by the storm, the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) said.
In related news, health officials also said that conditions created by Katrina could cause a large West Nile outbreak. Just prior to Katrina, testing showed an increase on the number of infected mosquitoes in the area.
With lots of standing water, that mosquito population could increase exponentially. Many people bitten by an infected bug won’t even know they have been given the disease -- their immune system fights it off. Some will feel flulike symptoms and experience a rash and only a few of those cases progress to the “neuro-invasive” level, and experience swelling of the brain, brain lining or spinal cord, which can cause paralysis or death.
Communications and Interoperability
Among major problems at the Gulf Coast disaster, one of the biggest problems at present is that of effective command, control and communications.
According to reports coming from several different sources, there is a specific problem with inter-agency communications. Additionally, without power to recharge batteries, intra-agency handi-talkie radios are also failing. It would appear that many more multi-frequencies transceivers are currently needed.
Add to the failing portable radios, the fact that many different agencies are operating on many non-compatible frequencies and thus are unable to communicate with each other. ERRI analysts said that this is an issue that they first pointed out during Hurricane Andrew, when rescue personnel could talk with other parts of the country, but not the rescue team on the next block.
** ERRI emergency service analysts also said that they have sent an offer to DHS/FEMA/DoD to provide an expeert analysis/management team of former/retired emergency service leaders to assist in the Katrina disaster, should the USG desire such assistance.
Additional references:
On Andrew: http://www.emergency.com/femafurr.htm
09/17/97-- Emergency Service Multi-System Disruption and Recovery During Catastrophic Events: http://www.emergency.com/emrchaos.htm
ERRI Preliminary Report; Virtual Disaster Networks:
http://www.emergency.com/vdstrnet.htmzrial”