Please everyone, people need help!
Hurricane Katrina plowed into the Gulf Coast at daybreak Monday with shrieking, 145-mph winds and blinding rain, submerging entire neighborhoods up to the rooflines in New Orleans, hurling boats onto land and sending water pouring into Mississippi's strip of beachfront casinos.
Katrina weakened overnight to a Category 4 storm and made a slight turn to the right before coming ashore at 6:10 a.m. CDT near the Louisiana bayou town of Buras. It passed just to the east of New Orleans as it moved inland and later dropped to a 105-mph Category 2 storm, sparing this vulnerable below-sea-level city its full fury.
But destruction was everywhere along Gulf Coast, including an estimated 40,000 homes flooded in St. Bernard Parish just east of New Orleans, said state Sen. Walter Boasso.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1077606 The storm passed just east of New Orleans, straining the system of levees and pumping stations that protect the low-lying city. About 70 percent of the city sits below sea level. (Full story)
The National Weather Service reported that water had overtopped levees in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes.
The Lower 9th Ward, on the east side of New Orleans was under five to six feet of rising water after three pumps failed, according to WGNO reporter Susan Roesgen, who is with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. She said New Orleans police had received more than 100 reports of people trapped on their roofs.
The Associated Press reported that entire neighborhoods along the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain were flooded, and residents had scrambled onto the roofs of their shotgun-style houses.
Report: "Total structural failure"
The National Weather Service said it had received many reports of "total structural failure" in the New Orleans metro area. It did not elaborate, but video from the city showed crumbled walls in one neighborhood.
About 10,000 people, who were unable to evacuate the city, took shelter in the Louisiana Superdome -- the cavernous football stadium that is usually home to the New Orleans Saints.
Reporter Ed Reams from affiliate WDSU told CNN that Katrina ripped away a large section of the building's roof. (See video of conditions within the darkened Superdome)
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/29/hurricane.katrina/index.html The Red Cross is currently accepting donations:
http://www.redcross.org/ So is the Salvation Army:
http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/ More will follow, I am sure.
