New Orleans' Holdouts Coaxed From Homes

[sabra]

http://www.wral.com/apnationalnews/4944609/detail.html

New Orleans' Holdouts Coaxed From Homes

NEW ORLEANS -- Soldiers coaxed some of Hurricane Katrina's stubborn holdouts from their homes Wednesday after the mayor ordered all 10,000 or so residents still in this ruined city evacuated _ by force, if necessary _ because of the risk of fires and disease.

"I haven't left my house in my life. I don't want to leave," said a frail-looking 86-year-old Anthony Charbonnet, shaking his head as he locked his front door and walked slowly backwards down the steps of the house where he had lived since 1955.

Charbonnet left only after a neighbor assured him: "Things will be OK. It'll be like a vacation." Still protesting, Charbonnet stepped into the ambulance in which soldiers from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division would take him to a helicopter.

As floodwaters began to slowly recede with the first of the city's pumps returning to operation, Mayor C. Ray Nagin instructed law enforcement officers and the U.S. military late Tuesday to evacuate all holdouts for their own safety. He warned that the fetid water could spread disease and that natural gas was leaking all over town.

[yppahemnkm]

1. Do they have to leave?

Can they stay if they want?

[Love Bug]

3. The mayor has ordered a mandatory evacuation

over concerns of possible health problems related to the toxic sludge that will cover everything once the water recedes.

I don't blame the people for not wanting to leave, tho.

[OneBlueSky]

2. this poor man will never see his home again . . . n/t

.

[genius]

4. There was an episode of "The New Avengers" where they used that gas lie.

The people who sent out the alarms wanted to loot London unnoticed.