Crisis Grows As Flooded New Orleans Looted

[steve2470]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5244433,00.html

Wednesday August 31, 2005 1:46 AM

AP Photo LADM109

By ADAM NOSSITER

Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Helicopters dropped sandbags on two broken levees as the water kept rising in the streets. The governor drew up plans to evacuate just about everyone left in town. Looters ransacked stores. Doctors in their scrubs had to use canoes to bring supplies to blacked-out hospitals.

New Orleans sank deeper into crisis Tuesday, a full day after Hurricane Katrina hit.

``It's downtown Baghdad,'' said tourist Denise Bollinger, who snapped pictures of looting in the French Quarter. ``It's insane.''

The mayor estimated that 80 percent of New Orleans was flooded, while a countless number of residents were still stranded on rooftops.

Hospitals were running out of power and scrambling to find places to take their patients. At one clinic, broken glass littered some areas and patients and staff had fallen on floors slick with floodwaters.

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[despairing optimist]

1. It's like watching a thousand Titanics slowly sinking all at once

I think I'll scream if a fundie says the wicked are being punished. A city dies, and more atheists are born.