Katrina kills 50 in one Mississippi county / Attention is still needed

[Guest guest]

Katrina kills 50 in one Mississippi county

Tropical storm heads

toward Tennessee, Ohio River Valley

Tuesday, August 30, 2005; Posted: 1:52 a.m. EDT (05:52 GMT)

 

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) --

Hurricane Katrina left at least 56 people dead Monday, about 50 of them in one

Mississippi county, CNN confirmed, and the toll was expected to climb following

one of the most powerful hurricanes to hit the northern Gulf Coast in a half

century.

Thirty of those confirmed deaths in Harrison County were at the St. Charles apartment complex, near

the beach in casino resort town of Biloxi, said Kelly Jakubic with the county's Emergency Operations Center.

Separately, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency in Jackson had confirmed four

Katrina-related deaths -- one each in Warren, Leake, Pearl River and Hinds counties, an spokeswoman said.

The Associated Press reported two people lost their lives in

storm-related traffic accidents in Alabama.

More than 12 hours after making landfall on the Louisiana coast east of New Orleans, Katrina was downgraded

to a tropical storm with winds of 60 mph Monday evening.

The storm's daylong rampage claimed lives and ravaged property in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, where coastal areas

remained under several feet of water.

In Louisiana, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said there was no official death

tally. But, she told CNN she expected that to change.

" We believe we've lost some lives, " she said. " We're hearing isolated

reports here and there. "

Many were feared dead in flooded neighborhoods still under

as much as 20 feet of water.

The storm's survivors face months of displacement.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is preparing to

house " at least tens of thousands of victims ... for literally months on

end, " the agency's director, Michael Brown, said Monday night.

Lakes and rivers were still spilling over levees late

Monday, and " it's going to get worse before it gets better, " Brown said.

Veteran FEMA staffers who have surveyed the destruction are

reporting some of the worst damage they have ever seen, he said.

The American Red Cross said it is launching the largest

relief operation in its history.

More than 75,000 people are being housed in nearly 240

shelters across the region, and Red Cross President Marty Evans told CNN,

" We expect that to grow " as people who can't return home seek

somewhere to stay.

More than 1.3 million homes and businesses in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were without

electricity, according to utility companies serving the region.

In Mississippi, streets and homes were flooded as far as six miles inland, and

the eastbound lanes of Interstate 10 between Gulfport and Biloxi were impassable because

of storm debris.

More than 50 people were rescued from flooded neighborhoods

in the New Orleans area, according to a spokesman for Louisiana's Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness agency.

" We've got a massive search-and-rescue operation going on, " Gov.

Blanco said. " I believe that we're going to pull out hundreds of people. "

Search-and-rescue missions also were under way the the

coastal counties of Jackson, Harrison and Hancock Monday evening, emergency

management spokeswoman Lea Stokes said.

Hotel worker Suzanne Rodgers returned to her beachfront home

near Biloxi but, she told CNN, " there is nothing there. There's debris hanging from

trees. "

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour called Katrina's aftermath

" catastrophic. "

In Louisiana, Blanco said preliminary reports indicate that Hurricane Katrina

" devastated " parts of at least six parishes.

Both states experienced looting.

A crowd of about 50 to 75 people swarmed through a supermarket

in New Orleans, taking out shopping carts full of goods before police arrived.

Looting was reported by police in Gulfport, Mississippi, where the storm surge

left downtown streets under 10 feet of water.

 

As of 11 p.m. ET Monday, Katrina was near Columbus, Mississippi, according to the National Weather Service.

The storm was headed north Monday night through Mississippi toward Tennessee and the Ohio River Valley. But even as a tropical

storm, Katrina was still causing plenty of trouble.

Katrina's outer bands spawned tornados in Georgia Monday evening. Three

twisters were reported in Georgia, one in central Peach County and two in the northwest

counties of Carroll and Paulding. One person in Carroll County was critically injured.

Officials warned Louisiana evacuees to stay away for at least a week to avoid " a

wilderness " without utilities that will be infested with poisonous snakes

and fire ants.

" We would really encourage people not to come back [to New Orleans] for at least a

week, " said Ivor van Heerden, director of the Center for the Study of

Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes in Baton

Rouge.

" If your house is gone, it's gone, " he said.

" If you come back in a day or a week, it's not going to make any

difference. "

Blanco said she had ordered state police to block re-entry

routes to all but emergency workers.

After topping levees in New Orleans, Katrina inundated the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts with a 20-foot

storm surge.

In Mobile, Alabama, the storm pushed Mobile Bay into downtown, submerging large sections of the city, and

officials imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew.

An oil drilling platform broke away from its moorings and

lodged under a bridge that carries U.S. Highway 98 over the Mobile River.

The Alabama National Guard activated 450 troops to secure Mobile. Two other Alabama battalions, or about 800

troops, were activated to assist in Mississippi.

The storm came ashore Monday morning just east of New Orleans. Winds topping 140 mph

transformed street signs, tree branches and roof debris into projectiles.

Rising water strained the system of levees and pumping

stations that protect the low-lying city. About 70 percent of the city sits

below sea level.

Water poured over levees in Orleans and St. Bernard

parishes, and pats of the city's east side were under 9 feet of standing water.

In

other developments:

·  Crude oil futures topped $70 early Monday as Katrina forced oil

workers to evacuate rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and threatened a major U.S.

tanker port. The price of a barrel of crude soared in electronic trading in New

York and on Asian markets, rising nearly $4 over Friday afternoon's close as the storm

churned toward New Orleans, a main hub that accounts for a quarter of U.S. oil

and gas production.

·  Three residents of a New Orleans nursing home died Sunday while

being evacuated.

·  The latest damage estimates by insurance industry analysts project

that total insured damage from Hurricane Katrina could be between $10 billion

and $25 billion dollars. The upper end of that range would make Katrina the

costliest U.S. hurricane on record.

CNN's Miles O'Brien,

Anderson Cooper and Kathleen Koch contributed to this report.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/29/hurricane.katrina/index.html

 

Dear List Members,

 

Dasha is now Ve/Sa/Ve/Ve/Su.

 

On September 1, USA will be in Ve/Sa/Ve/Ve/Mo. Natal Saturn and transit Jupiter will

be exactly afflicted by transit Venus, and transit Moon will be successively afflicted

by natal Rahu/Ketu axis, transit Rahu and transit Mars. Transit Venus is still closely

afflicted by transit Ketu/rahu axis. Attention is needed.

 

 

 

 

Best wishes,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

satva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jorge Angelino

 

 

Rua da Sociedade Filarmónica

Perpétua Azeitonense, 29

2925-598 Azeitão

Portugal

 

 

 

 

jorge.angelino

 

 

 

 

 

 

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