Wild rumors flew around town - of snipers and rapists and piles of bodies.
Some panicked residents stood on front porches brandishing weapons. Downtown hotels, fearing the rule of law had disintegrated, hurriedly shut down and ejected guests. In New Orleans, there was desperation in the air, a whiff of the apocalypse.When NOLA's Emergency Operations Center took on water, Mayor Ray Nagin and his aides moved to a makeshift command center on the fourth floor of the Hyatt Hotel.Some hospitals have been evacuated in Southeast Texas during Harvey, but nothing on a scale of Katrina. In New Orleans, patients had to be evacuated from two dozen hospitals that had lost power, water and sewer service some personnel had to make agonizing decisions about which patients to save and which patients to allow to die.The Houston Police, while its downtown precinct was flooded by Harvey, never lost communication or organizational command in the city. Other police hung up their uniforms and walked off the job. Officers were on their own, patrolling the few passable streets solo or in pairs. The New Orleans Police Department lost command and control.Harvey produced, in some places, more than 50 inches of rain in five days, a rainfall record for a tropical storm in the lower 48.īut there are big differences between hurricanes Harvey and Katrina.įor many days after the storm, New Orleans ceased functioning as a modern American city. This week, we watch images of residents sloshing out of submerged neighborhoods, a convention center turned into an evacuation camp, orange Coast Guard choppers plucking people off of rooftops, and freeway overpasses turned into boat ramps for a spontaneous civilian-led rescue effort. Evacuees fill up cots at the George Brown Convention Center on Aug.
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