Jackson Free Press

Authorities fear a disease outbreak could add to the toll of fatalities from the hurricane. The number of confirmed deaths in the six southern-most counties rose to 134. Family and friends are driving through the streets of ravaged neighborhoods asking the few residents still in their homes if they know what happened to their loved ones. The stench of decay - human and animal - was growing stronger in flattened neighborhoods where cranes would be needed to untangle the debris. Bodies swept out to sea in the storm Sunday are still coming back, authorities said.

On the bright side, Gulfport officials reported some improvements in base conditions. At a late afternoon session, it was noted that the Chamber of Commerce has secured 700 Florida houses for displaced Gulfport residents and that a truckload of baby supplies is enroute to the city.

Water service is being restored neighborhood by neighborhood, and power is back on in some pockets of the city.

In other developments Saturday:

_A suspected dysentery outbreak resulted in the evacuation of an American Red Cross Shelter on Irish Hill Road across the street from Keesler Air Force Base.

_Fear of a cholera outbreak caused emergency officials to order that areas south of the CSX Railroad in Long Beach and Pass Christian be evacuated.

_The American Red Cross was running low on fuel for its relief efforts.

_No federal or private relief agency had erected tents or other temporary housing for the homeless.

_City and county officials across the Coast criticized the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Keesler Air Force Base for not doing enough.

_Unofficial damage estimates indicate that 75 percent of all structures in the three Coast counties sustained damage, according to information from a morning briefing with relief agencies

_Interstate 110 in Biloxi, the connector between Casino Row and I-10 has been reduced to one lane in each direction due to cracks detected under the northbound. People with no compelling reason to use the roadway are asked not to.

The shelter with the suspected dysentery outbreak has lacked functioning plumbing for five days. Hundreds of people stayed there after the storm. Eight buses arrived at Michele Seventh Grade School around 1 p.m. to begin taking the people to Georgia.

"There's a lot of diarrhea, a lot of bad water. Dysentery is the word," said Patrick Velasco, a member of the medical team under the direction of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Confusion ensued. People asked where they were going in Georgia.

"I cannot reveal that for fear of it being mobbed," Velasco said. "It is a state of the art Red Cross facility across the border.

Many who have spent the week at the shelter were walking around town, unaware of the urgent shutdown. Families were split up; those left at the shelter debated whether to evacuate.

Coastwide, there is no functioning plumbing in most neighborhoods, and portable toilets are scarce.

Officials reported trucks with supplies stranded without fuel in or near Meridian, about a four-hour from Gulfport. The American Red Cross faced the possibility of parking its supply trucks until more fuel arrives. Mississippi Public Broadcasting, a key source of news and critical information for many throughout the state, put out an urgent call for diesel fuel so it could continue to broadcast.

"Everybody is looking at the clock," said John McFarland, a board member of the Mississippi Coast Chapter of the American Red Cross.

Trucks with aid for the Biloxi area were stalled and out of gas near Meridian, according to Stephen Peranich, the chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss.

"This was known yesterday but it's still a problem today," Peranich said.

Previous Commentsshow

Just heartbreaking. www.magnoliapolitics.blogspot.com

JoeJ

Sep 4 2005

What exactly is the GOVERNOR doing? WHAT IS THE GOVERNOR doing to help the people who need clean drinking water on the gulf coast? What is the GOVERNOR doing to get gasoline and fuel to the trucks supplying the survivors on the gulf coast? This has been a problem for DAYS. I have a full tank of gas- WHY can't they get gas to the coast? What is Barbour doing? What is MEMA doing? I'm serious, I want to know. THIS is an ongoing nightmare and outrage less than 3 hours from the Mississippi Governor's Mansion. This gross negligence- CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE. It has to be stopped!

Towanda

Sep 4 2005

David Hampton says today that Barbour is doing a good job: The governor has appeared to have command of a difficult situation. He answers questions with knowledge of the situation and with knowledge of what he is going to do. The state has an excellent emergency team headed by MEMA Director Robert Latham, who also served under the former administration. It's not about politics, but professionalism in an emergency and it is a credit to this governor that Latham is there. I have been a frequent critic of Barbour's policies, but not now. Mississippi's governor is doing an excellent job in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. While federal officials have appeared like deer in the headlights, unsure and defensive, Barbour has shown the state effort is working as well as it can. That is the kind of assurance that is needed right now. Barbour has always appeared to be more interested in the game of politics, rather than the end-game of what politics can accomplish. I have asked him on several occasions what he really wanted to accomplish as governor and never have gotten a sense that he had an overall guiding purpose or goal. That is no longer a question. Katrina has now defined Haley Barbour's administration. May God help him. A lot of other people are doing the same thing? Thoughts? Reasons that he is, or isn't? (And please put politics aside, and talk specifics.)

DonnaLadd

Sep 4 2005

I just emailed Stan Tiner (?) of the Sun Herald and asked him whether tonight people are still getting sick and dying for lack of help, for lack of safe drinking water. According to yesterday's post by his newspaper, there is a great lack of help still. So I don't get how Barbour is doing such a great job, do you? All I see is private people trying to help down there.

Towanda

Sep 4 2005

Oh- and David Hampton allowed an editorial praising the Diebold contract, calling it "a good one" when he didn't even know that no one on his staff had even seen the Diebold contract . . . So his credibility is suspect to me, as is his newspaper, if that's what it is.

Towanda

Sep 4 2005

You do make a good point. I think people are comforted by his public appearances and assurances, which is one important part of this effort (which Melton here has failed miserably at, but that's another topic). But I do agree with you that the evidence is not good that he actually was able to get the relief on the ground soon enough. And you'd think with his connections with this administration, he could have made Bush take it seriously sooner. I'm also still kind of curious about the urgency of the warnings and timings ahead of time from Barbour and others in the state. Also, what they did then to prepare for the emergency that was clearing coming. I heard reports on MPB on Monday and Tuesday that emergency people had evacuated the Coast like everyone else, didn't have satellite phones and had to borrow journalists' cell phones, and weren't returning to Jackson right after the storm. I can understand confusion and being slowed down by the severity of the storm ó but what was the plan in advance? Who was in charge of the communications? What was MEMA's exact plan for response to a Cat 4 hurricane hitting Bay St. Louis/Waveland? What was the evacuation plan for the elderly and poor who couldn't afford to travel on their own? Barbour's tears are touching, but these are questions that need to be answered. Also, once desperate reports were coming from places like Biloxi that dead bodies were lying in the streets, what was Barbour and MEMA doing? Was he ever on the phone yelling at FEMA, a la Nagin? There are serious questions of timing to be asked right here in Mississippi.

DonnaLadd

Sep 4 2005

I am very concerned about the lack of help on the coast. We are less than 3 hours away. Are you comfortable, as editor, that you really know what's going on there, what the drinking water situation is? We know there are few toilets, no sewage system. Why were people drinking out of a rusty pipe and now have dysentary? I'll bet if you or I were on the coast Monday night, we would have made sure there was bottled water there immediately- even if we had to air drop it, or boat it in. There is something rotten in Denmark. And the people need to know what the heck is going on, and what has been going on all week. This is OUR government. Barbour is a hired hand, and he needs to account for his time and decisions. Why did the cop at the junior high shelter in Biloxi say she had not seen ONE government (any government) representative there all week? Why did no one ask Keesler to help? Couldn't Barbour have faciliated that help? NO one has set up any temporary housing or tents for the survivors there. Why? Why was Joe Scarborough, a conservative, exclaiming over the LACK of help on the gulf coast- on his show Thursday or Friday on MSNBC? Anderson Cooper of CNN was doing the same. Tucker Carlson. All of them have been shocked and horrified at the LACK of decent humane help on the gulf Coast. Let's get charter a helicopter together, a small coalition, and get down there to see what is going on less than 3 hours from Jackson. Are you game?

Towanda

Sep 4 2005

Let's get charter a helicopter together, a small coalition, and get down there to see what is going on less than 3 hours from Jackson. Are you game? Yes. Call me tomorrow morning and let's figure it out.

DonnaLadd

Sep 4 2005

Okay. I just read that commercial air travel is not available at the local airport down there . . . Maybe a hybrid car . . . Today there are long lines in the hot sun at the food trucks in Biloxi, I'm hearing. Lots of relief workers in there arriving today according to SH. But why did it take so long? Who made decisions to wait? Why? Remember the story from the 60's of Kitty Genevese? She was stabbed to death in her apt doorway in Brooklyn, and her neighbors listened and watched and did nothing. That's what this reminds me of - by the governor and the feds.

Towanda

Sep 4 2005

FROM THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE (Must Register) Mississippi is not forgotten BEGIN STORY A little bit of food and a kiss By Dahleen Glanton Tribune national correspondent Published September 4, 2005 BILOXI, Miss. -- The drive to a hurricane scene is always tense. I never know what I will find there, but it is always worse than I had expected. This certainly was the case Tuesday when I arrived in Biloxi the day after Hurricane Katrina came ashore. When I saw the devastation, I pulled over and cried for a minute. Then I composed myself and went looking for survivors. I had driven here Sunday and talked to people as they prepared to leave. A young couple standing on the balcony of their 3rd floor apartment overlooking the Gulf of Mexico had placed their valuable photos on a top shelf. They feared the apartment would sustain some water damage. The hurricane washed away the entire building. Another family planned to ride out the storm in its 130-year-old house a few blocks from the gulf. "This is a safe street," they told me. It was the only one that did not flood during Hurricane Camille in 1969. On Tuesday, the street was covered with debris, and I could not find the house. It became clear to me why so many people were walking around in a daze Tuesday. Some of them could not find their own homes. It is difficult to cover a catastrophe like this without wanting to help those in need. As a reporter, I usually know where to draw the line. But when it comes to children, it gets fuzzy. Wednesday, I interviewed a young woman with two young children who had not eaten since Sunday. The children were cute, hungry and thirsty. On Tuesday I had traveled from Mobile, Ala., to Biloxi with little water and no food. On Wednesday, I returned prepared. I drove almost 50 miles out of the way to get gas, ice, water and sandwiches from one of the few places open on the coast. The reporter side of me stepped aside, and the human being took over. I sneaked the mother and children into my car and gave them a sandwich, a bottle of cold water and a cookie. In return, the children gave me a kiss on the cheek. Covering hurricanes makes me realize how good I have it, even when my hotel has no electricity or running water, my cell phone can't get a signal and I have to eat potato chips and peanut butter crackers for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In a few days, I get to go home to Atlanta. Most of the people I met last week will never go home again. END STORY

Philip

Sep 4 2005

OOPS! forgot a VERY important part to the above posted article!!! Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune

Philip

Sep 4 2005