It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Originally posted by cargo
'Shoot to kill', troops told
Iraq-tested US troops with shoot-to-kill orders were deployed in New Orleans today to restore law and order after days of chaos and looting in the hurricane-devastated city.
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said the 300 troopers from the Arkansas National Guard had been authorised to open fire on "hoodlums'' who have been terrorising the flooded city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Their deployment came amid intense criticism of the government for a tardy response to the disaster, which is feared to have killed thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands more stranded and homeless.
"These troops are fresh back from Iraq, well trained, experienced, battle tested and under my orders to restore order in the streets,'' Blanco said.
"They have M-16s and they are locked and loaded.
AdvertisementAdvertisement
"These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will,'' said Blanco.
How long until these looters are tagged with "terrorist"? Or are they already?
Federal Emergency Management Director Michael Brown told CNN that federal officials were unaware of the crowds at the convention center until Thursday, despite the fact that city officials had been telling people for days to gather there.
"We just learned about that today, and so I have directed that we have all available resources to get to that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water, the medical care that they need," he said.
Originally posted by nikelbee
Also posted elsewhere:
The mayor is going out of his mind on CNN and has just spewed a string of curses and swear words on television.He basically lost it...
His disbelief equals are own.
These are his people. THese are supposed to be our own people.
www.guardian.co.uk...
Doctors at two desperately crippled hospitals in New Orleans called The Associated Press Thursday morning pleading for rescue, saying they were nearly out of food and power and had been forced to move patients to higher floors to escape looters.
``We have been trying to call the mayor's office, we have been trying to call the governor's office ... we have tried to use any inside pressure we can. We are turning to you. Please help us,'' said Dr. Norman McSwain, chief of trauma surgery at Charity Hospital, the larger of two public hospitals.
www.washingtonpost.com...
New Orleans Cops Use Single Radio Channel
By BRUCE MEYERSON
The Associated Press
Thursday, September 1, 2005; 8:56 PM
-- When the phones don't work, improvise. That's what emergency responders and civilians were forced to do in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which trashed the telephone system on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi.
Police in New Orleans, their main communications system knocked out, have been taking turns talking on a single radio channel with their walkie talkies. The Mississippi National Guard even resorted to ancient battlefield tactics, sending runners back and forth among commanders with information....
(pg2)
"That has posed some problems with people talking over each other," said Warren Riley, the deputy police chief. "We probably have 20 agencies on one channel right now."
www.newsday.com...[/ur l]
AP National News
New Orleans Levees No Match for Katrina
By DAVID CRARY
AP National Writer
August 31, 2005, 5:24 PM EDT
Even before Hurricane Katrina struck, experts were warning that the network of earthen, steel and concrete barriers that protected the city was inadequate -- and they proved tragically correct...
Marine scientist Ivor van Heerden of Louisiana State University, who has developed flooding models for New Orleans, was among those issuing dire predictions as Katrina approached, warnings that turned out to be grimly accurate.
"We're talking about an incredible environmental disaster," said van Heerden before the storm arrived. He predicted that floodwaters would overcome the levee system, fill the low-lying areas of the city and then remain trapped there well after the storm passed -- creating a giant, stagnant pool contaminated with debris, sewage and other hazardous materials....
[url=http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3335758]http://www.chron.com
The foretelling of a deadly disaster in New Orleans
FEMA ranked hurricane scenario highly likely in '01
By ERIC BERGER
Editor's note: This article was originally published on Dec. 1, 2001, in the Houston Chronicle. Because of its relevance to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, it is being republished.
New Orleans is sinking.
And its main buffer from a hurricane, the protective Mississippi River delta, is quickly eroding away, leaving the historic city perilously close to disaster.
So vulnerable, in fact, that earlier this year the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked the potential damage to New Orleans as among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country.
Originally posted by Simulacra
Originally posted by nikelbee
Also posted elsewhere:
The mayor is going out of his mind on CNN and has just spewed a string of curses and swear words on television.He basically lost it...
His disbelief equals are own.
These are his people. THese are supposed to be our own people.
The mayor mad about the looting? The slow emergency response? This is one bad thing about living in the UK, the inability to get my own countries news
Originally posted by sardion2000
FredT, you are aware that the Canadian Disaster Response Team was refused entry by Homeland Security right?