Us > Troops Bring Food, Medicine to New Orleans

National Guard Troops Bring Food, Medicine to New Orleans; Thousands More Still Awaiting Aid

Terri Dorsey, 10, and Imari Clark, 1, reacts after as a family member is treated for heat exhaustion where they have been waiting for days to be evacuated from the convention center in New Orleans, La., Friday, Sept. 2, 2005. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Thousands from the Superdome were taken to Texas on air-conditioned buses, but early Saturday the operation was halted with 2,000 still to be evacuated.

Two of the city's most troubled hospitals were evacuated late Friday after desperate doctors spent days making tough choices about which patients got dwindling supplies of food, water and medicines.

At noon Friday, almost five days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, a National Guard convoy packed with food, water and medicine finally rolled through axle-deep floodwaters into what remained of New Orleans.

A crowd of nearly 20,000 stood outside the New Orleans Convention Center as at least three dozen camouflage-green troop vehicles and supply trucks arrived along with the air-conditioned buses. President Bush also took an aerial tour of the city and answered complaints about a sluggish government response by saying, "We're going to make it right."

Watching the caravan, Leschia Radford sang the praises of a higher power, while Nellie Washington demanded to know what the holdup had been.

"Lord, I thank you for getting us out of here!" Radford shrieked.

The 70-year-old Washington, a rag shielding her from the searing heat and a cart holding her only belongings, asked: "What took you so long? I'm extremely happy, but I cannot let it be at that. They did not take the lead to do this. They had to be pushed to do it."

In what looked like a scene from a Third World country, some outside the convention center threw their arms heavenward and others hollered profanities as the trucks and hundreds of soldiers arrived in the punishing midday heat.

"They should have been here days ago," said 46-year-old Michael Levy, whose words were echoed by those around him yelling, "Hell, yeah!"

The soldiers' arrival-in-force came amid angry complaints from local officials that the federal government had bungled the relief effort and let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine.

"The people of our city are holding on by a thread," Mayor Ray Nagin warned in a statement to CNN. "Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows."

The president took a land and air tour of hard-hit areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and admitted of the relief effort: "The results are not enough." Congress passed a $10.5 billion disaster aid package, and Bush quickly signed the measure.

Friday didn't start out like there would be any hope for recovery. A thunderous explosion before daybreak and scattered downtown building fires only confirmed the sense that New Orleans was a city in collapse.

Then, the supplies and troops arrived. Flatbed trucks carried huge crates, pallets and bags of relief supplies, including Meals Ready to Eat. Soldiers sat in the backs of open-top trucks, their rifles pointing skyward.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the military presence helped calm a jittery city.

"We are seeing a show of force. It's putting confidence back in our hearts and in the minds of our people," Blanco said. "We're going to make it through."

Guard members carrying rifles also arrived at the Louisiana Superdome, where bedraggled people many of them trapped there since the weekend stretched around the perimeter of the building. Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, commander of the National Guard, said 7,000 Guard members would be in the city by Saturday.

All the victims were supposed to have been evacuated by dawn Saturday, but shortly after midnight, the buses stopped rolling without explanation. The 2,000 people still in the stadium could be there until Sunday, according to the Texas Air National Guard. They had hoped to evacuate the last of the crowd before dawn Saturday.

Within minutes of the soldiers' arrival at the convention center, they set up six food and water lines. The crowd was for the most part orderly and grateful.

Diane Sylvester, 49, was the first person through the line. "Something is better than nothing," she said of her two bottles of water and pork rib meal. "I feel great to see the military here. I know I'm saved."

With Houston's Astrodome already full with 15,000 storm refugees, that city opened two more centers to accommodate an additional 10,000. Dallas and San Antonio also had agreed to take refugees.

One group of Katrina's victims lurched from one tragedy to another: A bus carrying evacuees from the Superdome overturned on a Louisiana highway, killing at least one person and injuring many others.

At the broken levee along Lake Pontchartrain that swamped nearly 80 percent of New Orleans, helicopters dropped 3,000-pound sandbags into the breach and pilings were being pounded into place to seal off the waters. Engineers also were developing a plan to create new breaches in the levees so that a combination of gravity and pumping and would drain the water out of the city, a process that could take weeks.

Associated Press reporters Kevin McGill, Allen G. Breed, Brett Martel and Mary Foster contributed to this report.

2005-09-03