***Krisis selalu diikuti anarki. Media massa negara2 Barat senang 
mem-besar2-kan kejadian penjarahan di Indonesia, tapi melaporkan kejadian 
penjarahan di New Orleans dengan nada adem ayem. Yang ditonjolkan cuma 
tindakan pihak keamanan.

***Vacuum of power mencetuskan tranjedi May 98 di Indonesia.  SBY belum 
pegang penuh kekuasaan, maka tidak berani segera naikkan harga bensin, 
sangat merugikan negara...

Friday 2nd September, 2005

Ugly scenes in New Orleans as relief efforts lag

Big News Network.com     Thursday 1st September, 2005

State, local and federal authorities are grappling with the immense scope of 
the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

The situation is particularly acute in New Orleans, where desperation and 
anger have contributed to a growing climate of lawlessness.

National Guard troops streamed into New Orleans Thursday as the once-proud 
city slipped further into chaos in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Gunfire and looting broke out at points around the city as residents who 
stayed behind to ride out the storm found themselves in increasingly 
desperate straits. Acute shortages of such basic commodities as food and 
drinking water strained people to the breaking point.

Hurricane Katrina cut a deadly path across Louisiana, Mississippi, and 
Alabama as it came ashore Monday morning. Whole coastal communities were 
wiped out. The breadth of the destruction has caused some commentators to 
dub it the "American tsunami" because of its resemblance to the terrible 
havoc of last year's disaster in Asia.

The situation was underscored at the New Orleans Superdome, the sports 
complex where some 25,000 people who took refuge from the storm wait in 
deteriorating conditions to be evacuated to Houston, Texas. Keith Simon of 
Acadia Ambulance, which is handling medical aspects of the evacuation, told 
VOA its medical personnel asked to be airlifted out because the mood in the 
Superdome had turned ugly.

"Our 20 medics, doctors, and nurses, that were at the Superdome felt very 
uncomfortable about the situation and asked to be removed," he said. "So we 
moved our people out of the Superdome."

He said they will return when additional National Guard troops arrive and 
restore order. An additional 10,000 Guardsmen are being deployed to New 
Orleans and other storm-afflicted areas in addition to the 18,000 already in 
place.

President Bush expressed sharp anger over the growing lawlessness. In an 
interview on ABC-TV's Good Morning America, Mr. Bush said there should be 
what he called "zero tolerance" for looting and price-gouging by people 
trying to capitalize on others' misfortune. The president plans to visit the 
hurricane-afflicted areas Friday.

Convoys bearing emergency supplies were moving into New Orleans, a city that 
is now 80 per cent under water. But the city's remaining residents 
complained supplies were not reaching them fast enough.

Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday the federal government was 
working to rescue people stranded in the flooding and provide emergency 
relief.

"The Department of Homeland Security will continue to work with federal, 
state, and local partners to support efforts on the ground in Alabama, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida," said Chertoff. "We are working 
tirelessly to make sure that federal resources are being applied where they 
are needed all across the Gulf [of Mexico]."

The New Orleans flooding occurred when sections of levees holding back the 
waters that surround the city broke. Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst 
at the Environmental Protection Agency with long experience in environmental 
disaster response, says the fetid water presents a major health and 
enviromental hazard.

"You have a tremendous amount of water that contains sewage, industrial 
wastewater, hazardous materials, oil, gas, a whole host of hazardous 
materials that has inundated the whole New Orleans area that has to be dealt 
with," said Hugh Kaufman.

Officials say they cannot even begin to calculate the human and property 
damage until the water is removed.

Donations for victims of Hurricane Katrina can be made by accessing 
www.redcross.org or telephoning 1800 Help Now.

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=226e378e1fbc1178




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