Hurricane Katrina

[snuffbox 0]

Theres other channels covering this besides Rupert's...

[SuperJerk 0]

Amber Tamblyn has cancelled Christmas to help those in NO:

 

I am here to say, that the Tamblyn household has officially cancelled it's Christmas/Holiday this year, due to the devastation and disaster in the South.

It would be absolutely selfish and pointless to add another year on of product and "fun stuff", when the body of our country has just had its proverbial leg blown off.

We are losing a ton of blood, with no real help in rescue.

With no sign of a mass effort or front, to salvage the now homeless and suffering, we MUST do what WE can, to help.

 

So though we are not “surgeons”, we can be aid with some pain relief.

 

We will be giving all the money that normally goes into our Christmas, to Red Cross and other organizations to support New Orleans, and the surrounding cities.

 

I encourage anyone to discuss this gesture with their own families, and think about what the Holiday season really stands for.

 

Even with children in the family, it is a great way to open their young eyes to the importance of support within our own country and abroad, by taking away some of the toys this year, and donating that money for food and clothing.

Explain to them why it is important.

Sponsor a family that now has nothing, not even their health, with the money you were going to buy your husband a new satellite dish with.

You know what I’m sayin?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Did Christmas get moved to September and nobody told me?

[Prophet of Mike Zagurski 0]

QUOTE(bob_barron @ Sep 2 2005, 09:00 PM)

Amber Tamblyn has cancelled Christmas to help those in NO:

 

I am here to say, that the Tamblyn household has officially cancelled it's Christmas/Holiday this year, due to the devastation and disaster in the South.

It would be absolutely selfish and pointless to add another year on of product and "fun stuff", when the body of our country has just had its proverbial leg blown off.

We are losing a ton of blood, with no real help in rescue.

With no sign of a mass effort or front, to salvage the now homeless and suffering, we MUST do what WE can, to help.

 

So though we are not “surgeons”, we can be aid with some pain relief.

 

We will be giving all the money that normally goes into our Christmas, to Red Cross and other organizations to support New Orleans, and the surrounding cities.

 

I encourage anyone to discuss this gesture with their own families, and think about what the Holiday season really stands for.

 

Even with children in the family, it is a great way to open their young eyes to the importance of support within our own country and abroad, by taking away some of the toys this year, and donating that money for food and clothing.

Explain to them why it is important.

Sponsor a family that now has nothing, not even their health, with the money you were going to buy your husband a new satellite dish with.

You know what I’m sayin?

 

Wouldn't this hurt the economy? Also, if I go to Wal-Mart or some other store, chance are they have already donated goods and services to the survivors.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

Kanye West's jaw should need to be wired shut again.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You used that joke two weeks ago and it wasn't that funny then.

 

Once again, just by going through this thread, you can tell who's alligned with which political party. Liberals seem to understand where he's coming from. Conservatives just want the big, bad, black rapper guy to shut up.

 

I don't care what you say, there shouldn't be people still stuck there almost a week later. Some of you guys just can't wait to get in line and take shots at rappers. They're all interchangable, though, right? "What's Kanye West getting all mad about? He probably raps about killing 'niggas' and riding on 24s, while doing fat-ass bitches. He must just be mad because he didn't get to shoot them himself."

[CanadianChick 0]

To be honest, I don't think that this is the right time to be creating controversy over this issue when measures are clearly being taken to help. Yes, there are warranted critisisms, but can't we save that for after? Kayne didn't help out anyone by doing this. All he did was create attention for himself.

[Slayer 0]

Once again, just by going through this thread, you can tell who's alligned with which political party.

You just described the entire folder.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

Once again, just by going through this thread, you can tell who's alligned with which political party.

You just described the entire folder.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And thus, political "debating" is stupid. Regardless of what people say, their political alliances always bleed through into the discussion, which is bound to skew their views. How many political discussions do you see with someone going, "Oh my god, you're right! I was way off."?

[Slayer 0]

political "debating" is stupid.

That's more like it

[DerangedHermit 0]

Once again, just by going through this thread, you can tell who's alligned with which political party.

You just described the entire folder.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

How many political discussions do you see with someone going, "Oh my god, you're right! I was way off."?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Exactly negative bajillion?

[chaosrage 0]

[Vampiro69 0]

I like those odds.

[The Czech Republic 0]

 

Some of you guys just can't wait to get in line and take shots at rappers.  They're all interchangable, though, right?  "What's Kanye West getting all mad about?  He probably raps about killing 'niggas' and riding on 24s, while doing fat-ass bitches.  He must just be mad because he didn't get to shoot them himself."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was under the impression that Kanye West raps about blaming whites for giving AIDS and crack to blacks. Is this true? I also know Time gave him a blowjob for not dressing like a thug. Time's standards have fallen.

 

Conservatives just want the big, bad, black rapper guy to shut up.

I want the big stupid attention whore to shut up. Didn't he also act like a petulant brat after losing to Maroon 5 so people would notice him? It was the wrong place and wrong time to put himself in the spotlight. People aren't talking abuot the plight of the poor black New Orleans refugees, they're talking about Kanye West, which is exactly what he wanted, because he's a whore.

[chaosrage 0]

Meanwhile, in Mississippi:

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_...ssissippi_hk2_6

 

JACKSON, Miss. - Mississippi hurricane survivors looked around Saturday and wondered just how long it would take to get food, clean water and shelter. And they were more than angry at the federal government and the national news media.

 

Richard Gibbs was disgusted by reports of looting in New Orleans and upset at the lack of attention hurricane victims in his state were getting.

 

"I say burn the bridges and let 'em all rot there," he said. "We're suffering over here too, but we're not killing each other. We've got to help each other. We need gas and food and water and medical supplies."

 

Gibbs and his wife, Holly, have been stuck at their flooded home in Gulfport just off the Biloxi River. Water comes up to the second floor, they are out of gasoline, and food supplies are running perilously low.

 

George Bush does not care about white people.

 

What do you idiots defending Kayne and bringing the race card out have to say about this?

[Vampiro69 0]

Logistics make it impossible to help everyone, even though they want to help.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

Sorry, but what exactly did West say/do?

 

I don't have sound on my computer, and Myers looks more befuddled than shocked.

[CheesalaIsGood 0]

Conservatives may want Kanye West to shut the fuck up but who fucking cares? There are more important things to think and talk about. Doing anymore than rolling your eyes is a waste of anyones time.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Sorry, but what exactly did West say/do?

 

I don't have sound on my computer, and Myers looks more befuddled than shocked.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He just said "George Bush doesn't care about black people" out of the blue. Prior, he made some vague remarks about how the Navy was coming into town to kill "us," a curious statement, because the Navy was in New Orleans, and he was in New York.

[ZGangsta 0]

He just said "George Bush doesn't care about black people" out of the blue. Prior, he made some vague remarks about how the Navy was coming into town to kill "us," a curious statement, because the Navy was in New Orleans, and he was in New York.

So THAT's why Mike Meyers looked so concerned. He was all "Oh shit, the Navy's coming here to kill us? CHEESE IT Kayne!"

[Danville_Wrestling 0]

I've said it once and I'll say it a million more times: we're already seeing the political/social/cultural vultures swoop in and try to make this tragedy about them and how they can use it to degrade their opponents and boost themselves.

 

GOP leaders like Chuck Hagel are blasting Bush over the disaster, the left is bashing him over slashing budget prepardness for New Orleans and cutting FEMA (although the FEMA criticism I feel is TOTALLY justified and is well explained in the September 1st or 2nd edition of the Christian Science Monitor), and the Hollywood/cultural crew is bashing him over the regular fodder.

 

Personally, I want to worry about the blame later. Those people in NO don't care right now about whose to blame, they want help and we need to give it to them. We can investigate all of this crap later in Congress (where we'll waste more tax dollars writing up a bunch of more regulations and creating more bureaucracy so we can cut through even more red tape next time) and let it all be evaluated in a public forum.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

CHEESE IT Kayne!

 

Haha. He always talks about how he hates being called Kayne.

[SuperJerk 0]

Sorry, but what exactly did West say/do?

 

I don't have sound on my computer, and Myers looks more befuddled than shocked.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He just said "George Bush doesn't care about black people" out of the blue. Prior, he made some vague remarks about how the Navy was coming into town to kill "us," a curious statement, because the Navy was in New Orleans, and he was in New York.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The First Amendment guarantees our right to say stupid things.

[Vyce 0]

Kanye West's jaw should need to be wired shut again.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You used that joke two weeks ago and it wasn't that funny then.

 

Once again, just by going through this thread, you can tell who's alligned with which political party. Liberals seem to understand where he's coming from. Conservatives just want the big, bad, black rapper guy to shut up.

 

I don't care what you say, there shouldn't be people still stuck there almost a week later. Some of you guys just can't wait to get in line and take shots at rappers. They're all interchangable, though, right? "What's Kanye West getting all mad about? He probably raps about killing 'niggas' and riding on 24s, while doing fat-ass bitches. He must just be mad because he didn't get to shoot them himself."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No, no, see, you really, REALLY shouldn't be defending the guy, other than to take Y2Jerk's position of "The first amendment gaurantees you the right to say stupid things".

 

When Kanye says on national TV that George Bush hates blacks and that assistance was deliberately withheld in order to kill blacks, he comes across as nothing but a stupid fucking moron, and it makes other rappers look bad by association.

 

I don't even know if what Czech is saying is true, whether Kanye believes the white man created AIDS or that the government released crack into the ghetto, etc., but right now? If you told me that he said he believed in those things, I would believe you. 100%. Because he's proven himself to me to be the kind of fucking idiot who'd believe that shit.

[spman 0]

I'm sorry, I know not everyone feels the way I do, but after seeing stuff like This There's no way I can justify donating any of my money to relief organizations for this disaster. I don't mean any racist overtones because what I have to say applies to people of all races, white, black, whatever, but my tax money has been giving these people aid for their entire lives, and will probobly continue to do so for a couple years after that. Why should I feel bad for these people, anyone that had anything significant to lose due to this pakced their bags and fled days before it happened. These people that stuck around didn't have anything to lose in the first place, and are merely taking advantage of their prediciment.

[RepoMan 0]

A lot of this pepole didn't have any means to evacuate and it's still a minorty of the pepole who stayed who acutally looted anything unessacary. If some retard wants to try and carry around some TV he stole at this point, good luck, I really don't care unless they're firing on emergency workers, the to Hell with them.

[snuffbox 0]

 

Some of you guys just can't wait to get in line and take shots at rappers.  They're all interchangable, though, right?  "What's Kanye West getting all mad about?  He probably raps about killing 'niggas' and riding on 24s, while doing fat-ass bitches.  He must just be mad because he didn't get to shoot them himself."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was under the impression that Kanye West raps about blaming whites for giving AIDS and crack to blacks. Is this true? I also know Time gave him a blowjob for not dressing like a thug. Time's standards have fallen.

 

Conservatives just want the big, bad, black rapper guy to shut up.

I want the big stupid attention whore to shut up. Didn't he also act like a petulant brat after losing to Maroon 5 so people would notice him? It was the wrong place and wrong time to put himself in the spotlight. People aren't talking abuot the plight of the poor black New Orleans refugees, they're talking about Kanye West, which is exactly what he wanted, because he's a whore.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No, that is not what Kanye raps about. I reccomend listening to him before making up a bizzare analysis.

 

And Kanye is a big fan of Maroon5...the singer guests on his new record.

[cbacon 0]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americ...ticle310194.ece

 

    “You don’t want to know what it was like. We had killings, abortions, babies born, toilets stacked up and it was hot, hot, hot.” Pressed for details, she doesn’t hesitate. She speaks of two girls being raped and murdered inside the dome, one aged seven. The other was 16 and was “slit open” by a knife after she was raped in the woman’s bathroom, she says. Much of what she tells is similarly described by several other dome evacuees. A boy aged seven was also raped by two men. (Mr Allen says the rapist was chased down by other men and beaten before being handed over to the soldiers. He claims they also beat him and then threw him from a terrace outside the Superdome to the asphalt, killing him.)

 

    “There was babies born and put in the garbage,” Ms Farrell continues. Apparently, someone else found one infant alive and took it to the small clinic they had inside. Almost everyone talks of gunshots in the night, including one shooting of a National Guard soldier. Ms Farrell says the soldier died, others spoke of him being wounded in the leg and surviving. Meanwhile, she adds, a black-market trade flourished in marijuana cigarettes, crack cocaine, guns and alcohol, in plain view of the authorities. Men were flashing their penises at the women, who dared only go to the bathroom in groups of five. When the bathrooms became so foul that going into them was impossible, people began squatting down just anywhere to relieve themselves. “Human beings don’t live like that, people in the street don’t live like that,” she says.”

 

Disturbing.

[Gary Floyd 0]

All of the sudden, I have a tiny amount of respect for Sheperd Smith ans Geraldo.

[Guest *KNK*]

I'm sorry, I know not everyone feels the way I do, but after seeing stuff like This There's no way I can justify donating any of my money to relief organizations for this disaster. I don't mean any racist overtones because what I have to say applies to people of all races, white, black, whatever, but my tax money has been giving these people aid for their entire lives, and will probobly continue to do so for a couple years after that. Why should I feel bad for these people, anyone that had anything significant to lose due to this pakced their bags and fled days before it happened. These people that stuck around didn't have anything to lose in the first place, and are merely taking advantage of their prediciment.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Guess what? Alot of people took advantage of 9/11 and tried to make money off that. It's pure human nature. White or Black.

 

Just in this case, the majority of the people are black.

 

This likely doesn't make sense to you, but not everyone was capable of simply leaving. A lot of people didn't have anywhere to go or they underestimated the potential effects of the hurricane, which to be honest, Hurricane threats were common for the Gulf Coast to go through.

 

After years of having Hurricane's make very minimal impact, they become conditioned not to be concerned about it as they should have.

 

There's assholes who steal and loot in any chaotic environment, and this is no different.

 

You will never know what it's like to be trapped in a building for 3-5 days with dead bodies everywhere, the smell so unfathomable.

 

When placed in those conditions and seeing NO HELP IN SIGHT, our animal instincts come out.

 

You don't know that environment and either do I, but I know more then to simply assume they are animals at heart and don't deserve to help rebuild their lives.

 

The "assholes" are minimal, a large majority of the people who need help have done everything they could do to survive and because their goverment has been so slow to respond, alot were left with no choice.

 

This doesn't excuse the rapists and shootings of the emergency crews but People do need help.

 

Why should the real victims suffer because of the actions of a select handful of people?

 

Put that money of yours into the red cross. That $20 you would have spent on a DVD you didn't need could make a big difference to someone who is seening their life hang by a thread right now.

[cbacon 0]

New Orleans crisis shames Americans

 

At the end of an unforgettable week, one broadcaster on Friday bitterly encapsulated the sense of burning shame and anger that many American citizens are feeling.

 

Downtown New Orleans, near the Superdome

Flood victims were left virtually to their own devices for days

 

The only difference between the chaos of New Orleans and a Third World disaster operation, he said, was that a foreign dictator would have responded better.

 

It has been a profoundly shocking experience for many across this vast country who, for the large part, believe the home-spun myth about the invulnerability of the American Dream.

 

The party in power in Washington is always happy to convey the impression of 50 states moving forward together in social and economic harmony towards a bigger and better America.

 

That is what presidential campaigning is all about.

 

But what the devastating consequences of Katrina have shown - along with the response to it - is that for too long now, the fabric of this complex and overstretched country, especially in states like Louisiana and Mississippi, has been neglected and ignored.

 

Borrowed time

 

The fitting metaphors relating to the New Orleans debacle are almost too numerous to mention.

 

First there was an extraordinary complacency, mixed together with what seemed like over-reaction, before the storm.

 

Flood victims walk the street in front of the Convention Center in New Orleans, 1 September

The city's hurricane shelters grew increasingly filthy and crime-ridden

 

A genuinely heroic mayor orders a total evacuation of the city the day before Katrina arrives, knowing that for decades now, New Orleans has been living on borrowed time.

 

The National Guard and federal emergency personnel stay tucked up at home.

 

The havoc of Katrina had been predicted countless times on a local and federal level - even to the point where it was acknowledged that tens of thousands of the poorest residents would not be able to leave the city in advance.

 

No official plan was ever put in place for them.

 

 

The famous levees that were breached could have been strengthened and raised at what now seems like a trifling cost of a few billion dollars.

 

The Bush administration, together with Congress, cut the budgets for flood protection and army engineers, while local politicians failed to generate any enthusiasm for local tax increases.

 

 

Too often in the so-called "New South", they still look positively 19th Century

 

New Orleans partied-on just hoping for the best, abandoned by anyone in national authority who could have put the money into really protecting the city.

 

Meanwhile, the poorest were similarly abandoned, as the horrifying images and stories from the Superdome and Convention Center prove.

 

The truth was simple and apparent to all. If journalists were there with cameras beaming the suffering live across America, where were the officers and troops?

 

The neglect that meant it took five days to get water, food, and medical care to thousands of mainly orderly African-American citizens desperately sheltering in huge downtown buildings of their native city, has been going on historically, for as long as the inadequate levees have been there.

 

Divided city

 

I should make a confession at this point: I have been to New Orleans on assignment three times in as many years, and I was smitten by the Big Easy, with its unique charms and temperament.

 

But behind the elegant intoxicants of the French Quarter, it was clearly a city grotesquely divided on several levels. It has twice the national average poverty rate.

 

The government approach to such deprivation looked more like thoughtless containment than anything else.

 

New Orleans under water

It will be many weeks before the flood waters are cleared

 

The nightly shootings and drugs-related homicides of recent years pointed to a small but vicious culture of largely black-on-black crime that everyone knew existed, but no-one seemed to have any real answers for.

 

Again, no-one wanted to pick up the bill or deal with the realities of race relations in the 21st Century.

 

Too often in the so-called "New South", they still look positively 19th Century.

 

"Shoot the looters" is good rhetoric, but no lasting solution.

 

Uneasy paradox

 

It is astonishing to me that so many Americans seem shocked by the existence of such concentrated poverty and social neglect in their own country.

 

In the workout room of the condo where I am currently staying in the affluent LA neighbourhood of Santa Monica, an executive and his personal trainer ignored the anguished television reports blaring above their heads on Friday evening.

 

Either they did not care, or it was somehow too painful to discuss.

 

When President Bush told "Good Morning America" on Thursday morning that nobody could have "anticipated" the breach of the New Orleans levees, it pointed to not only a remote leader in denial, but a whole political class.

 

The uneasy paradox which so many live with in this country - of being first-and-foremost rugged individuals, out to plunder what they can and paying as little tax as they can get away with, while at the same time believing that America is a robust, model society - has reached a crisis point this week.

 

Will there be real investment, or just more buck-passing between federal agencies and states?

 

The country has to choose whether it wants to rebuild the levees and destroyed communities, with no expense spared for the future - or once again brush off that responsibility, and blame the other guy.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4210674.stm

[Downhome 0]

This is a long article, but read it anyway. I don't see how people can't place more blame on Kathleen Blanco and Ray Nagin. To me it's plain as day that neither one of these morons should have been in power in the first place:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5090301680.html

 

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 3 -- Tens of thousands of people spent a fifth day awaiting evacuation from this ruined city, as Bush administration officials blamed state and local authorities for what leaders at all levels have called a failure of the country's emergency management.

 

President Bush authorized the dispatch of 7,200 active-duty ground troops to the area -- the first major commitment of regular ground forces in the crisis -- and the Pentagon announced that an additional 10,000 National Guard troops will be sent to Louisiana and Mississippi, raising the total Guard contingent to about 40,000.

 

Authorities reported progress in restoring order and electricity and repairing levees, as a hospital ship arrived and cruise ships were sent to provide temporary housing for victims. As Louisiana officials expressed confidence that they had begun to get a handle on the crisis, a dozen National Guard troops broke into applause late Saturday as Isaac Kelly, 81, the last person to be evacuated from the Superdome, boarded a school bus.

 

But there remained an overwhelming display of human misery on the streets of New Orleans, where the last 1,500 people were being evacuated from the Convention Center amid an overpowering odor of human waste and rotting garbage. The evacuees, most of them black and poor, spoke of violence, anarchy and family members who died for lack of food, water and medical care.

 

About 42,000 people had been evacuated from the city by Saturday afternoon, with roughly the same number remaining, city officials said. Search-and-rescue efforts continued in flooded areas of the city, where an unknown number of people wait in their homes, on rooftops or in makeshift shelters. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the flooding -- 250,000 have been absorbed by Texas alone, and local radio reported that Baton Rouge will have doubled in population by Monday. Federal officials said they have begun to collect corpses but could not guess the total toll.

 

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

 

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

 

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

 

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

 

"The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana," White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana."

 

Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state's victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.

 

Bush, who has been criticized, even by supporters, for the delayed response to the disaster, used his weekly radio address to put responsibility for the failure on lower levels of government. The magnitude of the crisis "has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities," he said. "The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."

 

In a Washington briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said one reason federal assets were not used more quickly was "because our constitutional system really places the primary authority in each state with the governor."

 

Chertoff planned to fly overnight to the New Orleans area to take charge of deploying the expanded federal and military assets for several days, he said. He said he has "full confidence" in FEMA Director Michael D. Brown, the DHS undersecretary and federal officer in charge of the Katrina response.

 

Brown, a frequent target of New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin's wrath, said Saturday that "the mayor can order an evacuation and try to evacuate the city, but if the mayor does not have the resources to get the poor, elderly, the disabled, those who cannot, out, or if he does not even have police capacity to enforce the mandatory evacuation, to make people leave, then you end up with the kind of situation we have right now in New Orleans."

 

New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas acknowledged that the city was surprised by the number of refugees left behind, but he said FEMA should have been prepared to assist.

 

"Everybody shares the blame here," said Thomas. "But when you talk about the mightiest government in the world, that's a ludicrous and lame excuse. You're FEMA, and you're the big dog. And you weren't prepared either."

 

In Baton Rouge, Blanco acknowledged Saturday: "We did not have enough resources here to do it all. . . . The magnitude is overwhelming."

 

State officials had planned to turn to neighboring states for help with troops, transportation and equipment in a major hurricane. But in Katrina's case, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida were also overwhelmed, said Denise Bottcher, a Blanco spokesman.

 

Bush canceled a visit with Chinese President Hu Jintao that had been scheduled for Wednesday and made plans to return to the Gulf Coast on Monday. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice scheduled visits to the region, as troops continue to pour in.

 

Top Bush administration officials met at the White House with African American leaders amid criticism that the federal response to Hurricane Katrina has neglected impoverished victims, many of them black.

 

Chertoff, Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson, White House domestic policy adviser Claude Allen and Pentagon homeland security official Peter Verga met for two hours with NAACP President Bruce Gordon, National Urban League President Marc H. Morial and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), the former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. The caucus's current chairman, Rep. Melvin Watt (D-N.C.), participated by phone.

 

"I think they wanted to make sure that the leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Urban League and the NAACP knew that they were very sensitive to trying to make sure that things went right from here on out," Cummings said, according to his spokeswoman, Devika Koppikar. "And I think they wanted to try to dispel any kind of notions that the administration did not care about African American people -- or anyone else."

 

Caucus Executive Director Paul A. Brathwaite said Bush officials promised to keep black leaders informed. He credited the administration with reaching out to the caucus for the first time to solve a national problem.

 

In New Orleans on Saturday, smoke from several fires that have burned for days swirled over the French Quarter. Outside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, the stench and heat worsened the long wait of the thousands of evacuees lining up for buses. Many of them said they had no idea where they would go.

 

Columbus Lawrence, 43, a landscaper, shambled down St. Joseph Avenue searching for the end of the line. He pushed a cart piled with packets of dry, chicken-flavored noodles. "It's like a chip," he said hopefully, putting another handful into his mouth.

 

Others have been here since the day of the storm, the early part of the week made increasingly awful because there were no toilets, no water, no food.

 

Herbert J. Freeman arrived in a neighbor's boat with his mother, Ethel M. Freeman, 91, frail and sick, but with an active mind. She kept asking him for a doctor, for a nurse, for anyone who could help her. Police told Freeman there was nothing they could do. She died in her wheelchair, next to her son, on Thursday morning.

 

It was half a day before he could find someone to take away her body, he said. "She wasn't senile or nothing," he said. "She knew what was going on. . . . I kept saying, 'Mom, I can't help you.' "

 

Next to Freeman, Kenny Lason, 45, a dishwasher at Pat O'Brien's, a French Quarter restaurant famous for its signature "Hurricane" cocktail, took a long slurp out of a bottle of Korbel extra-dry champagne. He broke a store window to get it, and he is not ashamed. "They wasn't giving us nothing," he said. "You got to live off the land."

 

Outside New Orleans, frustration boiled over among the boatmen who spontaneously left their homes in central Louisiana to rescue stranded residents in the first hours after reports of flooding hit the airwaves. For the past two days, many have been turned away because of security concerns in a city that had turned violent and chaotic.

 

"It's a tragedy that's unfolding now," said Moose Billeaud, a former New Orleans prosecutor who is now in private practice in Lafayette, La. "It is not organized at all."

 

The boatmen who made it in came back with harrowing memories. Kenny, who did not want to disclose his last name, said friends were shot at by stranded people who wanted to steal their boats. "It's total chaos," he said.

 

Isaac Kelly, the last to depart from the Superdome, said "it feels good" as he boarded the bus. A young guardsman put an arm around the stooped Kelly and said, "Good luck and God bless."

 

The dome, which once housed more than 20,000 evacuees, became a symbol of the chaos that gripped New Orleans, with television network cameras capturing scenes of filth and misery.

 

Just before Kelly stepped aboard, Isaiah Bennett, leaning heavily on a wooden cane, was helped onto the bus. "It was hell," said Bennett. "I don't like this kind of mess," he said. "I never thought it would be this bad.

 

Many Evacuated, but Thousands Still Waiting

 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has said that it will take as long as 80 days to remove the water from New Orleans and surrounding areas.

 

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) sent a letter to Bush Saturday urging him to provide cash benefits and transportation assistance to stranded people and to use federal facilities for housing. They wrote that they "are concerned that rescue and recovery efforts appear to remain chaotic and that many victims remain hungry and without adequate shelter nearly a week after the hurricane struck. Clearly, strong personal leadership from you is essential if we are to get this effort on track."

 

The administration said that 100,000 have received some form of humanitarian aid and that 9,500 have been rescued by the Coast Guard. The administration said it is providing funds to employ displaced workers and has arranged for Amtrak trains to help in the evacuation. The rail service expects to remove 1,500 people daily. In addition, the Energy Department reported that 1.3 million customers were without electricity, down from 1.5 million Friday.

 

The 7,200 additional troops announced by Bush on Saturday are scheduled to arrive within three days. They will come from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., the 1st Cavalry Division at Food Hood, Tex., the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

 

The decision to employ active-duty ground troops and Marines was particularly significant given the administration's initial desire to limit ground forces largely to Guard units. Regular military troops are constrained by law from engaging in domestic law enforcement. By contrast, Guard troops, who are under the command of state governors, have no such constraints.

 

At a Pentagon news conference Saturday, Lt. Gen. Joseph Inge, the deputy commander of the Northern Command, said the active-duty ground forces would be used mainly to protect sites and perform other functions not considered law enforcement.

 

The Air Force is repatriating 300 airmen from Iraq and Afghanistan so they can assist their families back in their home base in Biloxi, Miss.

 

Law enforcement officials said order is beginning to be restored in the city. A temporary detention center has been set up in the city to house those arrested for looting and other crimes after the hurricane, and the city's court personnel have been relocated to neighboring jurisdictions unaffected by Katrina, said New Orleans U.S. Attorney Jim Letten. Trials are expected to begin within two weeks, he said. "We're going to bring these guys to justice," he said.

 

Members of federal law enforcement agencies are in the city, he said. More than 200 Border Patrol agents have been sworn in to reinforce New Orleans police, and state police officials said hundreds of law enforcement agents from other states are expected in the coming days.

 

Hsu reported from Washington. Staff writers Justin Blum, Dana Milbank, Jacqueline L. Salmon and Josh White contributed to this report.