[SeMissourian.com]
Hurricane Katrina

La. population rebounding from Katrina (12/27/07)
WASHINGTON -- The population of Louisiana fell by a quarter-million people after Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans in August 2005. The damage was so bad, some worried whether anyone would ever come back. Some did. New population estimates released Thursday by the Census Bureau show that in the year ending July 1, the state saw a net increase of about 50,000 people, a 1.2 percent increase. ...
Bush to mark Katrina anniversary in New Orleans, Miss. Gulf Coast (08/25/07)
CRAWFORD, Texas -- President Bush will return to the Gulf Coast next week, two years after Hurricane Katrina's massive strike. Bush will fly into New Orleans on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the anniversary of the storm, he is expected to examine recovery efforts in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast...
Court rules against Katrina victims in flood insurance case (08/03/07)
NEW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Katrina victims whose homes and businesses were destroyed when floodwaters breached levees in the 2005 storm cannot recover money from their insurance companies for the damages, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The case could affect tens of thousands of rebuilding residents and business owners in Louisiana, said Daniel E. ...
After two years, debate rages over whether Hurricane Katrina continues killing (06/03/07)
NEW ORLEANS -- The bodies are no longer being dragged from houses and buildings toppled by Hurricane Katrina, but nearly two years later many in the medical community think the storm is still killing. Storm survivors are dying from the effects of both psychological and physical stress, from the dust and mold still in dwellings to financial problems to fear of crime, health experts and officials say...
Fewer parents choosing 'Katrina' as baby name following hurricane (05/13/07)
WASHINGTON -- As baby names go, Katrina isn't in vogue these days. But she hasn't disappeared either. From its peak in the 1980s -- when it regularly ranked among the 100 most popular names that parents chose for their daughters -- it had gradually slumped to 247th by 2005, even before Hurricane Katrina smashed the Gulf Coast in late summer of that year...
Corps of Engineers asked to explain New Orleans pump contract (05/01/07)
NEW ORLEANS -- When the Army Corps of Engineers solicited bids for drainage pumps for New Orleans, it copied the specifications -- typos and all -- from the catalog of the manufacturer that ultimately won the $32 million contract, a review of documents by the Associated Press found...
Probe: Katrina contracts given to companies with poor credit histories (04/23/07)
WASHINGTON -- FEMA exposed taxpayers to significant waste -- and possibly violated federal law -- by awarding $3.6 billion worth of Hurricane Katrina contracts to companies with poor credit histories and bad paperwork, investigators say. The new report by the Homeland Security Department's office of inspector general, set to be released later this week, examines the propriety of 36 trailer contracts designated for small and local businesses in the stricken Gulf Coast region following the 2005 storm.. ...
At least 600 accused of Katrina fraud (04/02/07)
An Illinois woman mourns her two young daughters, swept to their deaths in Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters. It's a tragic and terrifying story. It's also a lie. An Alabama woman applies for disaster aid for hurricane damage. She files 28 claims for addresses in four states. It's all a sham...
Satirical newspaper lampoons New Orleans' politicians (03/01/07)
NEW ORLEANS -- Mayor Ray Nagin announces a plan to rebuild the city with Legos. And the Army Corps of Engineers is thinking of a new slogan: "YOU try building things with government screwdrivers." Those are some of the parody news stories in the New Orleans Levee, a wickedly satirical newspaper about this woeful city...
FEMA wants $309 million in hurricane aid back (02/07/07)
NEW ORLEANS -- In the neighborhood President Bush visited right after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government gave $84.5 million to more than 10,000 households. But Census figures show fewer than 8,000 homes existed there at the time. Now the government wants back a lot of its money...
Man sentenced in Katrina fraud case (02/06/07)
WASHINGTON -- A 59-year-old man was sentenced Monday to 8 1/2 years in prison on charges stemming from his use of stolen identities in an attempt to acquire more than $100,000 in payments intended for victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Jeffrey Alan Rothschild, who's also known as Jeffrey Zahler, pleaded guilty in August to bank fraud, mail fraud and money laundering in late 2005. ...
Contractor takes the heat for slow pace of post-Katrina program in La. (01/31/07)
BATON ROUGE, La. -- Nearly eight months after it was hired by the state, a consulting company in charge of dispensing billions in federal aid to people whose homes were damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has received 101,000 applications but handed out fewer than 300 grants...
Embryo saved from Katrina now a boy, Noah (01/17/07)
COVINGTON, La. -- Rescued from a great flood while he was just a frozen embryo in liquid nitrogen, a baby boy entered the world Tuesday and was named after the most famous flood survivor of them all. Noah Benton Markham -- 8 pounds, 6 1/2 ounces -- was born to 32-year-old Rebekah Markham by Caesarean section after growing from an embryo that nearly defrosted in a sweltering hospital during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. ...
Opening statements given in Katrina lawsuit as insurer, state negotiate settlement (01/10/07)
GULFPORT, Miss. -- A jury heard opening statements Tuesday in one of hundreds of insurance lawsuits filed by policyholders of State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. after Hurricane Katrina, even as the attorney general negotiated a separate potential settlement with the insurer...
Audit: FEMA continues to squander millions in Katrina aid (12/07/06)
WASHINGTON -- The government is squandering tens of millions of dollars in Hurricane Katrina disaster aid, in some cases doling out housing payments to people living rent-free, investigators said Wednesday. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has recouped less than 1 percent of the $1 billion that investigators contend it squandered on fraudulent assistance, according to the Government Accountability Office. ...
FEMA, city council get dunked in New Orleans in rebuilding fundraiser (11/12/06)
The Associated Press NEW ORLEANS -- For $5, residents of one of the city's hardest hit neighborhoods received three tennis balls Saturday -- and a chance to vent 15 months of frustration at the slow pace of rebuilding since Hurricane Katrina. The object of their annoyance sat perched atop a dunk tank -- Bob Josephson, director of intergovernmental affairs in Louisiana for the reviled and much-lampooned Federal Emergency Management Agency...
IRS to delay enforcement actions in Katrina-hit areas (10/28/06)
By JIM ABRAMS The Associated Press WASHINGTON -- The IRS will put off until after the new year enforcement action against people in Hurricane Katrina-hit areas who are late in paying their income taxes, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson said Friday. Everson, said that, after consultation with career officials at the agency, he decided not to further extend the Oct. 16 deadline for the approximately 1.2 million taxpayers in hurricane-hit areas of Lousiana and Mississippi to file their 2005 returns...
Whites pursued Katrina insurance complaints more than minorities (10/25/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- The Littles and the Kitchens watched helplessly as Hurricane Katrina battered their homes. Both families waited patiently for an insurance adjuster to settle their losses. And both were sorely disappointed with the outcome. Then, their paths diverged...
More wildlife calling New Orleans home since Hurricane Katrina (10/14/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- Alligators have been dragged from abandoned swimming pools. Foxes had to be removed from the airport. Coyotes are stalking rabbits and nutria (a sort of countrified rat) in city streets. And armadillos are undermining air-conditioning units...
Authorities expect fraud to increase on Gulf Coast (10/10/06)
GULFPORT, Miss. -- Hurricane Katrina battered Raquel Romero's home, but she figures the house took a worse beating from the contractor she hired to repair the damage. The contractor tore off her damaged roof and left her Long Beach home exposed to the elements for several days. Rainwater caked her kitchen and laundry room in sludge and destroyed belongings that survived Katrina...
On anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, residents mourn losses, celebrate life (08/30/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- The first anniversary of the biggest calamity to befall this city was marked Tuesday with a moment of silence, wreath-layings, the tolling of church bells and, in true New Orleans fashion, a wailing jazz funeral through the potholed streets for the victims of Hurricane Katrina...
About 200 Katrina refugees still in Southeast Missouri (08/29/06)
Today's 1-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina reminds Lachia Rodriguez and Humberto Gordillo of why they're living in Cape Girardeau. It's the day area social service agencies will remember the more than 1,000 displaced hurricane victims who made their way to Southeast Missouri after the monstrous storm. About 200 Hurricane Katrina victims are still living in Southeast Missouri, said American Red Cross volunteer Saundra Blankenship, who serves as a case manager for the hurricane victims...
Louisiana insurance regulator calls for extension for Katrina damage claims (07/12/06)
BATON ROUGE, La. -- Louisiana's top insurance regulator said Tuesday he was ordering private insurers to give homeowners an extra year to settle their claims for damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. By law, homeowners have only one year from the date when the damage was caused to either settle their claim or sue their insurer...
Engineers disagree on strength of levees in New Orleans (07/08/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- Government and independent engineers disagreed Thursday when pressed by a U.S. House subcommittee on whether levees are safe enough for residents to rebuild in areas struck by severe flooding during Hurricane Katrina. Army Corps of Engineers Col. Richard Wagenaar stressed that the levees ringing the metro area now are significantly stronger and in some cases higher than what existed before Katrina hit Aug. 29...
Louisiana officials consider sinking ships off coast to form steel barrier (06/28/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- Marine scientists and Louisiana officials are floating the idea of sinking some of Uncle Sam's cast-off ships along the water's edge to create a steel barrier against hurricane flooding. The barrier would be made up of aging and obsolete tankers, research vessels and cargo ships...
La. governor orders National Guard troops to patrol city after slayings (06/20/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- Acting at the mayor's request, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Monday she would send National Guard troops and state police to patrol the streets of New Orleans after a bloody weekend in which six people were killed. "The situation is urgent," Blanco said. "Things like this should never happen, and I am going to do all I can to stop it."...
La. begins two-day hurricane drill (05/24/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- State and federal authorities tracked the path of a fictitious "Hurricane Alicia" on Tuesday as part of two-day drill aimed at avoiding the chaos that followed last year's deadly Hurricane Katrina. The drill was organized to allow first responders and others, including Mayor Ray Nagin and Gov. Kathleen Blanco, to react as though a Category 3 hurricane was hitting the state's Gulf Coast...
669 file suit against State Farm Insurance Co. for denying claims from Hurricane Katrina (05/10/06)
GULFPORT, Miss. -- A lawsuit filed Tuesday by more than 650 Gulf Coast homeowners accuses State Farm Insurance Co. of using a "one-size-fits-all" engineering report as the basis for refusing to cover damage to homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina...
Water declared safe in part of New Orleans' Ninth Ward (05/09/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- The state Health Department cleared the way Monday for people to begin to return to the New Orleans neighborhood that faced Hurricane Katrina's worst fury, saying tap water in part of the Lower Ninth Ward is safe. "Our displaced residents in some of the hardest-hit areas are now able to return to their homes and begin to rebuild their lives," Mayor Ray Nagin said Monday in a statement...
Katrina survivor grateful for help from Cape area (05/05/06)
Hurricane Katrina survivor Felix Lewis says there is no place he'd rather be than in Cape Girardeau. "You've shown me there is nothing you won't do for me," Lewis told a group of about 400 people Thursday morning at the 54th annual Mayor's Prayer Breakfast in Cape Girardeau...
New Orleans '06 evacuation plan: More buses, no Superdome shelter (05/03/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- Mayor Ray Nagin unveiled a new evacuation strategy for New Orleans on Tuesday that relies more on buses and trains and eliminates the Superdome and Convention Center as shelters. "There will be no shelter of last resort in the event of a major hurricane coming our way," Nagin declared...
FEMA closes office in New Orleans (05/03/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency is closing its long-term recovery office in New Orleans, claiming local officials failed to meet their planning obligations after Hurricane Katrina. The office is responsible for helping the city devise a blueprint to rebuild houses, schools and neighborhoods...
Few immediate improvements (04/30/06)
WASHINGTON -- Most of the changes in natural disaster preparedness proposed by the White House and Congress since Hurricane Katrina are years away at best, leaving the Gulf Coast and other areas vulnerable to new devastation. Only a few of the 211 suggested improvements from three federal reports will be ready when the hurricane season starts June 1, and limited dollars and political squabbling already are complicating the progress...
Katrina report lambastes White House (04/28/06)
WASHINGTON -- A Senate inquiry into the government's Hurricane Katrina failures ripped the Bush administration anew Thursday and urged the scrapping of the nation's disaster response agency. But with a new hurricane season just weeks away, senators conceded that few if any of their proposals could become reality in time...
FEMA wants 625 people in Texas to pay back aid (04/24/06)
BEAUMONT, Texas -- The federal government is asking 625 people in Texas to pay back a total of $1.26 million in recovery aid they shouldn't have received after Hurricane Rita. Texas families received more than $592 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency after the September storm...
N. Orleans mayor race narrows to 2 in runoff (04/23/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- Mayor Ray Nagin and Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu will compete in a runoff next month following Saturday's mayoral election, a tricky experiment of modern-day democracy that gave voters scattered by Hurricane Katrina a say in this city's future...
Historic black church in New Orleans celebrates its preservation on Palm Sunday (04/10/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- The ancient cypress doors were propped wide in the bright sunshine, palm fronds stacked high, pews filled and joyous music poured from St. Augustine as the historically black Catholic church celebrated Palm Sunday. The service came two weeks after the church was closed amid protests over post-Hurricane Katrina budget cutbacks that would have merged it with a larger neighboring parish...
New Orleans' black institutions, social networks withering as Katrina recovery lags (04/10/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- Ray Heisser misses the surprise visits. The doorbell on Camberley Drive would chime and there'd be an old friend on Heisser's porch mopping the humidity off his forehead, stopping by for no good reason. "What y'all gettin' into? Come on, take a drive with me."...
Katrina recovery could take 25 years (03/31/06)
WASHINGTON -- Much of New Orleans' rebirth from Hurricane Katrina hinges on factors beyond the government's control and could take up to a quarter-century to complete, the Bush administration's Gulf Coast recovery chief said Thursday. More immediately, as much as $5.9 billion more for work on levees might need to be approved to clear the way for widespread rebuilding, Don Powell said...
Louisianans ponder the unthinkable: Life without crawfish (03/27/06)
FORKED ISLAND, La. -- Cajun rancher Charles Broussard needs a favor from the good Lord: Oodles of rain to wash away the salt Hurricane Rita deposited in his crawfish and rice ponds, ruining them. Broussard is not alone after Rita pushed the Gulf of Mexico more than 17 miles inland, inundating 6,000 acres of crawfish and about 140,000 acres of rice, the Louisiana State University AgCenter says...
Class of Katrina: 'Normal' prom is special for Mississippi seniors (03/27/06)
PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. -- Wearing a canary yellow strapless evening gown, Jessica Jenkins walked across the remains of her home, raising her petticoat to keep it out of the red clay. Prom season holds a special importance for Jenkins and other Gulf Coast students whose last year of high school was defined by Hurricane Katrina...
Flood map delays spur angst for Gulf Coast (03/26/06)
WASHINGTON -- Delays in releasing new federal maps of New Orleans' most flood-prone neighborhoods have slowed rebuilding, frustrated homeowners and created uncertainty about the future of the region ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. And the angst may all be for nothing, the government says...
Nagin: New Orleans has better plan for next hurricane season (03/22/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- New Orleans is better prepared for the upcoming hurricane season because of stronger flood walls and better evacuation plans after Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Ray Nagin said in an interview Tuesday. "We should be able to sustain another Katrina," the mayor said...
Louisiana faces an unimaginable scenario: An exodus from the coast (03/19/06)
LAFITTE, La. -- Once the salt water is in your veins, Louisiana's coastal folk say, it's hard to give up the lifestyle of moonlit shrimping trips, the town "fais do-do" dances and afternoons spent on the bayous angling for catfish. But since last year's catastrophic hurricanes, this swampy land defined by Cajuns, cypress and tupelo gum forests, bayou-side saloons and, more recently, subdivisions may have become too vulnerable for that lifestyle to continue...
Location of FEMA trailers could spell disaster if hurricane hits (03/16/06)
KILN, Miss. -- On a satellite snapshot of this tiny town is a cluster of red dots that looks ominous to scientists like Joe Swaykos. The dots represent 132 trailers set up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for people whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The trailers are crammed into a one-square-mile neighborhood, and most of them are along the banks of the Jourdan River...
States fail to take advantage of nearly $2 billion in Katrina disaster aid (03/10/06)
WASHINGTON -- Nearly $2 billion in federal disaster aid for Katrina evacuees is sitting unclaimed more than six months after lawmakers approved the emergency funding. Congress approved a $2 billion block grant program in September for displaced Gulf Coast families -- regardless of income -- to help them get back on their feet after the Aug. 29 storm...
La. delegation studies flood control systems in the Netherlands (03/08/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- The beleaguered engineers trying to shore up the city's flood protection say they learned a major lesson during a tour of Dutch levees and floodgates: It's unfair to compare projects here to those in the Netherlands, where the government has spent billions of dollars on flood control...
Democrats renew calls for independent Katrina probe after release of briefing video (03/03/06)
WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers from both parties said Thursday a newly disclosed videotape of a pre-Katrina briefing for President Bush and top administration officials raises new questions about government response to the storm that flooded New Orleans and killed more than 1,300 people...
Partying crowd smaller than usual for Mardi Gras in New Orleans (03/01/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- The crowds were small and the costumes wickedly satirical as Mardi Gras built toward its boozy climax Tuesday in this hurricane-buckled city that could use a few laughs. The culmination of the eight-day pre-Lenten bash fell nearly six months to the day after the Aug. 29 storm that smashed thousands of homes and killed more than 1,300 people, the vast majority of them in New Orleans...
Schools could get millions for students forced out by hurricanes (02/28/06)
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri schools could receive up to $6 million from the federal government to help cover their costs for educating students displaced by the Gulf Coast hurricanes last fall, state education officials said Monday. The state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education said schools -- public and private -- are to receive up to $6,000 per student they took on because of the hurricanes, under a federal bill meant to help with hurricane recovery efforts. ...
For police, Mardi Gras requires quick reactions, patience and good shoes (02/27/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- Four hours into his second 12-hour shift of the weekend in the French Quarter, Officer Jonathan Carroll Jr. has been busy answering questions, giving directions, listening to drunken declarations of love and drunken jokes amid the endless roar of the crowd...
Party on: Big Easy's Mardi Gras endures (02/20/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- Jesters on stilts, a band and dancers in beaded costumes greeted hundreds of people at a newly reopened casino Friday as the Big Easy began its first weekend of Mardi Gras. "Let's get this party started," said Anthony Sanfilippo, central division president for Harrah's Entertainment Inc...
Crowds small at Mardi Gras parades (02/19/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- The first of the major Mardi Gras parades with marching bands, brightly decorated floats and flying plastic beads rolled down New Orleans' streets Saturday, greeted by small but celebratory crowds. Despite the widespread destruction from Hurricane Katrina, officials decided to allow a scaled-back Mardi Gras celebration this year. New Orleans parades, put on by private groups, were restricted to one corridor to help cut the cost of police protection and trash pickup...
Homeland Security head cites 'many lapses' in Katrina response (02/16/06)
WASHINGTON -- Acknowledging delayed aid and fumbled coordination, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday the federal response to Hurricane Katrina fell far short of providing immediate help to the Gulf Coast that could have saved lives...
Fake IDs, tattoos, poor accounting: Millions in Katrina aid squandered (02/14/06)
WASHINGTON -- Ann Archer says she was puzzled when she suddenly received a $2,358 check for Katrina housing relief last fall. While many of her neighbors were still awaiting aid, the government was repeatedly offering her money and a trailer she didn't ask for...
Report: Government-wide failings to blame for Katrina response (02/13/06)
WASHINGTON -- Unheeded warnings, poor planning and apathy in recognizing the scope of Hurricane Katrina's destruction led to the slow emergency response from the White House down to local parishes, a House investigation concludes. The 600-page report by a special Republican-dominated House inquiry into one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history concluded the federal government's response to Katrina was marked by "fecklessness, flailing and organizational paralysis."...
Hurricanes a 'wild card' for predictions of tax preparers (02/03/06)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Almost five months after Hurricane Katrina chased Yolonda Prevost from her East New Orleans neighborhood to her sister's place in Kansas City, she spends her days trying to get back home -- searching for apartments and arranging for repairs to her drowned house...
Offers to help Katrina victims went unused, documents show (01/30/06)
WASHINGTON -- Hundreds of available trucks, boats, planes and federal officers were unused in search and rescue efforts immediately after Hurricane Katrina hit because FEMA failed to give them missions, new documents show. Additionally, the Federal Emergency Management Agency called off its search and rescue operations in Louisiana three days after the Aug. 29 storm because of security issues, according to an internal FEMA e-mail given to Senate investigators...
Eight Hurricane Katrina refugees in Houston arrested in murder (01/28/06)
HOUSTON -- Eight members of rival New Orleans gangs who had moved to Houston since Hurricane Katrina have been arrested in connection with the slayings of 11 fellow refugees and other violent crimes, police said Friday. Investigators said those slain also belonged to the gangs or had some connection to them. Violent crimes attributed to these gangs also have been committed on Houston residents, said police spokesman Alvin Wright...
Works of 'exiled' New Orleans artists begin tour of the South (01/27/06)
ATLANTA -- The swirls of metal laid into the slightly cracked purplish wood no longer mean air and open spaces to artist Kathleen Brandon. After sitting under four feet of water for six weeks in her New Orleans home, the sculpture now reminds her of swelling waves, funnel clouds, the helicopter that evacuated her son...
Developing dreams for Katrina towns (01/22/06)
PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. -- Dreams of the future here are just sketches: Friendly streets lined with a welcoming mix of homes, stores and sidewalks. Neighborhood parks for play, picnics and a shady respite from the Southern sun. A bustling waterfront. Reality lies on the ground, for mile upon mile of this hurricane-blasted stretch of Gulf Coast, a mess of splintered homes, flattened trees and tent cities housing hundreds still homeless nearly four months after Katrina...
Mississippi: In New Orleans' shadow (01/17/06)
GULFPORT, Miss. -- Nicki Henderson has had plenty of reasons to be angry since Hurricane Katrina destroyed her Biloxi home, but it was a simple news item about dislocated dolphins that really made her blood boil. Henderson lost her temper when she logged on to her computer and spotted this headline: "New Orleans Dolphins Find New Home." She knew the dolphins actually came from a hurricane-ravaged marine park in Gulfport, not New Orleans...
Urban League opposes plan to close New Orleans neighborhoods (01/08/06)
NEW ORLEANS -- The National Urban League and likely other civil rights groups would oppose any New Orleans rebuilding plan that would do away with neighborhoods most heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina, the league's president said Saturday. In an interview before a speech, Marc Morial, a former mayor of the city, said he was concerned about suggestions that officials focus on rebuilding the least damaged neighborhoods and that some devastated areas could be turned into marshland or open space...
Bush administration maps changes for response to the next Katrina (01/01/06)
WASHINGTON -- Before the next big hurricane's winds howl ashore, Homeland Security officials want an emergency communications network operating, emergency medical facilities treating patients, and teams dispatched to search for victims at the likely ground zero...
Many were inspired to help hurricane victims (12/25/05)
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Saundra Blankenship watched the endless array of gloomy images of the displaced people of New Orleans who had lost everything. "I saw that people were dying from this disaster and it was unbelievable," said Blankenship, of Benton, Mo. "They were calling those that didn't die refugees and evacuees, right here in America. I just couldn't stay home and not help."...
Christmas after Katrina (12/25/05)
The nightmares won't let Lachia Rodriguez forget. She's been to counseling, even tried medication. But the images of bloated bodies, rape and rising water creep back into her consciousness, especially at night. A year ago today, Rodriguez was with her family in New Orleans, watching her children and grandchildren open gifts, eating a home-cooked holiday meal...
Katrina tally doesn't include all victims (12/12/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Singer Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown was 81 and already seriously ill when he fled the area ahead of Hurricane Katrina, and associates think the stress of evacuating and the heartbreak of losing his home hastened his death. Still, the master of blues, country, jazz and Cajun music isn't part of Katrina's official death toll of 1,323 people in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama and Georgia...
House passes Gulf tax breaks (12/08/05)
WASHINGTON -- The House approved a multibillion-dollar package of tax breaks on Wednesday that are intended to revive Gulf Coast businesses destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. But the tax relief excludes the casinos and country clubs that underpin the area's leisure economy...
FEMA admitted broken Katrina response, feared Mississippi riots, documents show (12/07/05)
WASHINGTON -- Facing a growing body count and shortages of food, water and ice, federal emergency officials braced for riots in Mississippi in the days following Hurricane Katrina, new documents reveal. Federal Emergency Management Agency officials knew their response system had been shattered by the Aug. 29 storm and were unable to provide fast help -- even when the needs were obvious...
Hurricane victims to get mortgage relief (12/05/05)
WASHINGTON -- The Federal Housing Administration is launching a program to pay the mortgages of up to 20,000 victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma for as much as a year. The unprecedented mortgage relief will be offered to people who own homes with FHA-insured mortgages in designated hurricane-ravaged parts of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas...
Some New Orleans college students relocated by Hurricane Katrina don't want to return (11/28/05)
Stephanie Swisher is settling in nicely as a freshman at the University of Virginia, enjoying classes, Naval ROTC, club volleyball and football Saturdays. Things are going so well, in fact, that she would rather not return to Tulane University in New Orleans -- the school she had expected to attend until Hurricane Katrina struck...
Woman left in makeshift grave on N.O. sidewalk laid to rest (11/28/05)
SANTA ROSA, Texas -- Nearly three months after her makeshift grave on a New Orleans sidewalk became a symbol of the death and destruction of Hurricane Katrina, Vera Smith's cremated remains were laid to rest Saturday in the family plot in South Texas...
Other regions face dilemma over Hurricane Katrina relief spending (11/27/05)
WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers from states untouched by Hurricane Katrina face a conundrum -- showing compassion toward the devastated Gulf Coast without breaking the bank and, at the same time, balancing disaster-relief needs in their own regions. Congress has already approved two emergency budget packages totaling $62 billion for reconstruction and relief in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. ...
Month after pledge, FEMA has yet to reopen no-bid Katrina contracts (11/12/05)
WASHINGTON -- Despite a month-old pledge, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has yet to reopen four of its biggest no-bid contracts for Hurricane Katrina work and won't do so until the contracts are virtually complete. A promise to hire more minority-owned firms also is largely unfulfilled...
Gulf Coast housing inspectors try to help restore neighborhoods (11/06/05)
BILOXI, Miss. -- Deep in the muck and mold that was Greg Herman's home, a volunteer church crew works to clear his property in preparation for rebuilding. Closer to downtown, Peggy Gibson's small home stands ready for contractors, if she can find the money...
Hurricane Katrina-hit U.S. Navy battalion helps quake victims in Pakistan (11/02/05)
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan -- U.S. Navy equipment operator Craig Ries steered his 15-ton truck through this earthquake-ravaged city and recalled the destruction of a disaster thousands of miles away -- Hurricane Katrina. The storm swept away the two-story apartment complex in Mississippi where he lived in with his wife and two children...
New Orleans resident makes most out of stay (10/31/05)
New Orleans author and jazz musician Tom Piazza is still in exile in Southeast Missouri, just as he has been since Hurricane Katrina struck. The situation presented the perfect opportunity for Southeast Missouri State University's English Department. The department is constantly seeking real-life authors to give perspective to its students, especially if they're winners of the James Michener Award for Fiction like Piazza...
Halloween gives New Orleans a chance to reclaim its mojo (10/31/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- The margarita Diane Spieler sips during her nocturnal masquerade on Bourbon Street matches the green of her face, airbrushed in dreadful detail with reptilian scales and skeletal hollows. Is she a radioactive ghoul? An alien sea serpent?...
Barge traffic slowly gets back to normal (10/31/05)
Area grain elevator operators and dealers say there is no longer a shortage of barges, but ports along in the Gulf Coast still aren't back to full working capacity. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita disrupted the barge transportation system, and area grain elevators and dealers were forced to store corn on the ground because there was nowhere else to put it. Barges were going down the Mississippi River, but weren't able to travel up fast enough to meet a heavy demand for transportation...
Insurance companies, La. investigators look into fires at flood (10/30/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Some of the New Orleans homes saturated by the flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina have been damaged by a second calamity -- fire. Both Louisiana investigators and insurance companies are starting to look into the blazes amid reports that some may have been set by desperate people who had no flood insurance but want to collect on their policies...
Grant to aid center's efforts to counsel evacuees (10/24/05)
Cape Girardeau therapists are reaching out to Hurricane Katrina evacuees as part of a grant received from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Community Counseling Center in Cape Girardeau received a phase-one grant of $34,000 that provides initial-response aid for up to two months after the hurricane. They were notified of the approval two weeks ago and funding will continue until Nov. 6...
More hospital, nursing home arrests expected for roles in Katrina (10/22/05)
BATON ROUGE, La. -- More arrests are likely as authorities investigate at least 140 patient deaths at nursing homes and hospitals during and after Hurricane Katrina, including allegations that some patients may have been euthanized, the Louisiana attorney general's office said Friday...
FEMA hampered with internal chaos as Hurricane Katrina hit, memos show (10/18/05)
WASHINGTON -- FEMA struggled to locate food, ice, water and even body bags in the days following Hurricane Katrina, a frantic effort punctuated by bureaucratic chaos, infighting and concerns about media coverage, according to memos obtained Monday by The Associated Press...
FEMA still spending on contracts awarded with limited competition (10/15/05)
WASHINGTON -- The government is spending $347 million on Hurricane Katrina-related contracts that were awarded with little or no competition, despite a public pledge by FEMA's chief to reopen no-bid agreements. In its most recent weekly spending report to Congress, the Homeland Security Department detailed 73 contracts awarded on a basis of "other than full and open competition." Most of the contracts on the Oct. ...
Two Scott City counselors aid Miss. school (10/13/05)
On Tuesday, Pass Christian School District in Pass Christian, Miss., had its first day of school since Hurricane Katrina devastated the region. Pass Christian, a city of about 7,500, is across from the St. Louis Bay on the Gulf Coast. The district is continually re-enrolling students because all of the files for all 2,000 of their students were lost during the hurricane...
Some fear Katrina will be used as urban renewal (10/13/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Clarence Rodriguez has ripped up the water-buckled floor tiles and is hard at work scraping mold off the walls of his home in the mostly black and impoverished Ninth Ward. But as for his neighbors, many have gathered up their belongings and left, with no intention of returning...
Jackson claims barge caused levee breach (10/13/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson charged Wednesday that there is ample evidence that a runaway barge punched a hole in a barrier that led to the flooding of poor black neighborhoods in the eastern section of the city. Jackson's claims contradict what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has said about what most likely caused the breach on the Industrial Canal...
Southeast Missouri hurricane shelters close (10/13/05)
Though two hurricane shelters in Southeast Missouri are officially closed, relief efforts continue in Southeast Missouri. "It was the largest relief effort that we ever dealt with in Southeast Missouri in terms of sheltering this many people for this long and assisting almost 1,000 people," said American Red Cross director Mary Burton...
Most of Katrina pets adopted (10/12/05)
Penny, a 2-year-old terrier mix, spent 30 days in a concrete and steel kennel before she was sent to the Humane Society of Southeast Missouri. She had been through a lot. Penny's owner had died at her home in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, and Penny was left abandoned...
Corps finishes pumping out New Orleans floodwaters (10/12/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Tuesday that it has finished pumping out the New Orleans metropolitan area, which was flooded by Hurricane Katrina six weeks ago and then swamped again by Hurricane Rita. The initial flooding during Katrina was caused by water surging over some levees and breaking through others. At one point, 80 percent of New Orleans was under water...
Man beaten by New Orleans police says he was not drunk (10/11/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- A retired elementary teacher who was repeatedly punched in the head by police in an incident caught on videotape said Monday he was not drunk, put up no resistance and was baffled by what happened. Robert Davis said he had returned to New Orleans to check on property his family owns in the storm-ravaged city, and was out looking to buy cigarettes when he was beaten and arrested Saturday night in the French Quarter...
New Orleans police officers taped while hitting 64-year-old man, APTN producer (10/10/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Two New Orleans police officers repeatedly punched a 64-year-old man accused of public intoxication, and another city officer assaulted an Associated Press Television News producer as a cameraman taped the confrontations. After being questioned, the three patrolmen were arrested late Sunday and charged with battery. They were released and ordered to appear in court at a later date, Capt. Marlon Defillo said. The officers also were suspended without pay, he added...
Immigrants doing much of cleanup in New Orleans (10/08/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- They clear rotten seafood from stinking restaurant freezers, wash excrement from the floors of the Superdome, rip out wads of soaked insulation. The work is hot, nasty and critical to the recovery of New Orleans. And yet, many of the workers are not actually from New Orleans...
Expected surge in Katrina-related bankruptcies may come too late for some people (10/06/05)
BILOXI, Miss. -- First came out-of-pocket medical expenses, the bills piling up faster than Jerry Gollott and his wife could pay them. Then, sidelined by heart and back ailments, the retired police officer fell behind on his $1,370 monthly mortgage payment...
Mentally disabled hurricane victims find a refuge in East Texas (10/06/05)
PALESTINE, Texas -- Down a winding lane from their dorms to the cafeteria, they hobble along, clutching their caregivers' steady hands or walking just within arm's reach. "It's lunchtime! It's lunchtime!" exclaims one man, grinning and clapping. One woman pauses to look up at the canopy of trees above her. "We're in Texas. We're at camp," she says...
1140th returns home from Louisiana (10/05/05)
Little Bryant couldn't stop kissing his daddy, and big brother Gavin wouldn't let go of his camouflaged pant leg. It was a scene that would soften even the hardest soldier's heart. Spc. Jason Jokerst didn't speak for several minutes Tuesday afternoon as he embraced his boys...
Survey: Katrina expected to result in $34.4 billion in property claims (10/05/05)
NEW YORK -- Hurricane Katrina is likely to result in at least $34.4 billion in personal and commercial property loss claims, according to the first publicly released survey of the nation's insurers. ISO's Property Claim Services Unit said Tuesday that the preliminary estimate of damages to homes and businesses in six states would make Katrina the most costly U.S. natural disaster ever, surpassing the inflation-adjusted $20.8 billion in losses from Hurricane Andrew in 1992...
Search for bodies ends; students return to Catholic school (10/04/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- The search for Hurricane Katrina victims has ended in Louisiana with a death toll at 964, but more searches will be conducted only if someone reports seeing a body, a state official said Monday. State and federal agencies have finished their sweeps through the city, but Kenyon International Emergency Services, the private company hired by the state to remove the bodies, is on call if any other body is found, said Bob Johannessen, a spokesman with the state Department of Health and Hospitals.. ...
Families may reconsider insurance for flooding (10/03/05)
The average premium is about $438 a year, and the cost in low-risk areas is $250 to $300 a year. Among the lessons to be learned from Hurricane Katrina is that more Americans need to consider buying flood insurance. The storm, which struck Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, caused billions of dollars in damage to houses, not only along the Gulf Coast but also miles inland. Then Hurricane Rita hit Texas and Louisiana, causing further destruction...
Louisiana plan would shift power to state in rebuilding (10/03/05)
The state's legislators hope hurricane damage will force Washington to take a serious look at the proposal. WASHINGTON -- A $40 billion plan to hurricane-proof the Louisiana coast has ignited a battle over how best to prevent a repeat of this year's double flooding of New Orleans...
50 evacuees expected at Red Cross camp (10/01/05)
BENTON, Mo. -- An evacuee with a positive attitude is someone who outruns a killer storm for 600 miles and comes to rest on the New Madrid fault. On Friday, Geraldine Brown defined herself as having that positive attitude, while staying at the hurricane camp in Benton, Mo...
Penny proves popular at Humane Society shelter (09/30/05)
After being featured in the Southeast Missourian Thursday, Penny, a terrier mix left homeless by Hurricane Katrina, has received several adoption inquiries. Six of the 24 dogs brought from the hurricane-damaged area were officially adopted from the Humane Society of Southeast Missouri on Thursday. Several adoptions will be finalized today...
Displaced students try to adjust to new schools, home (09/30/05)
Some students and their families are returning to the Gulf Coast; others will likely stay the rest of the school year. Some students who came to Southeast Missouri after Hurricane Katrina uprooted them have begun returning home to familiar-but-damaged neighborhoods on the Gulf Coast. Now children made refugees by Hurricane Rita are showing up in the region...
Rebuilding: Lots of ideas, little direction (09/30/05)
A month after Hurricane Katrina roared in, political leaders are taking their first steps toward rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region, but they are heading off in different -- and possibly conflicting -- directions. The mayor of New Orleans is creating one commission to oversee the task. ...
Every 'Penny' counts (09/29/05)
Alone and scared, Penny slept curled up on the hard, cold floor. Yips and howls echoed against the walls, but not the familiar human voice that lovingly called her name. Penny's owner had died in her home in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. With unshakable loyalty, the 2-year-old terrier mix lay by the body's side for hours, maybe days. Animal rescuers had to coax Penny to leave...
Mayor says major areas opening up to residents (09/29/05)
BATON ROUGE, La. -- More areas of New Orleans that escaped flooding from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita will be formally reopened starting today, Mayor Ray Nagin said. The areas include the French Quarter, the Central Business district, and Uptown with its historic Garden District. Business owners will be allowed in today, and residents on Friday...
Some progress along coast; much more left to do (09/29/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Ladling out bowls of red beans and rice for passers-by in the French Quarter, bar owner Finis Shelnutt buoyantly proclaims over blaring jazz music, "People will come back." "Oh yeah, we're going to have a helluva time," he says, and plenty of other business owners and residents agree with him...
Red Cross criticized despite huge relief effort (09/29/05)
NEW YORK -- As its hurricane relief donations near the $1 billion mark, more than double all other charities combined, the American Red Cross is encountering sharp criticism of its efforts and mounting pressure to share funds with smaller groups. The complaints -- that Red Cross operations were chaotic in some places, inequitable in others -- have stung deeply within an organization that is proud of its overall response to Hurricane Katrina, by far the most devastating natural disaster it has confronted on U.S. ...
Audit reveals FEMA's Brown was warned about supply problems before Katrina hit (09/29/05)
WASHINGTON -- Former FEMA director Michael Brown was warned weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit that his agency's backlogged computer systems could delay supplies and put personnel at risk during an emergency, according to an audit released Wednesday...
Nixon: Gas prices were 'questionable' at area pumps (09/29/05)
An extensive review of gasoline pricing over the days following Hurricane Katrina revealed 10 retailers with questionable practices, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon said Wednesday. Nine of those retailers paid a modest penalty and signed assurances of voluntary compliance to avoid lawsuits, Nixon said in a news conference at his Cape Girardeau regional office. The 10th, a Springfield retailer, is being sued, Nixon said...
St. Vincent de Paul helps students on Gulf Coast (09/28/05)
A Catholic education association hopes to raise a dollar from each of the students in its member schools. Six-year-old Krista Martin said it was easy to keep her dollar in her fist while waiting patiently to drop it in the donation basket. Giving her dollar was her favorite part of the special service, she said...
Officials cast doubt on rape, murder reports (09/28/05)
National Guard leader says reports of violence were overblown. NEW ORLEANS -- On Sept. 1, with desperate Hurricane Katrina evacuees crammed into the convention center, police superintendent Eddie Compass reported: "We have individuals who are getting raped; we have individuals who are getting beaten."...
Police chief resigns after four turbulent weeks (09/28/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Police superintendent Eddie Compass resigned Tuesday after four turbulent weeks in which the police force was wracked by desertions and disorganization in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. As the city slipped into anarchy during the first few days after Katrina, the 1,700-member police department itself suffered a crisis. Many officers deserted their posts, and some were accused of joining in the looting that broke out. Two officers committed suicide...
Former FEMA director blames others for hurricane failures (09/28/05)
WASHINGTON -- Former FEMA director Michael Brown blamed others for most government failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday, especially Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. He aggressively defended his own role...
Area Baptist camps still ready, waiting to help hurricane victims (09/25/05)
Four Southeast Missouri camps affiliated with the Missouri Baptist Convention were prepared to receive evacuees from hurricane-devastated New Orleans. Supplies were donated and preparations were made to house the victims at these camps. But only two of the four prepared Baptist camps were needed...
Expanded training seen as partial solution to flawed disaster relief (09/25/05)
WARRENSBURG, Mo. -- He helped set up an airport shelter after Sept. 11 and coordinated response to a crippling ice storm. He's been a volunteer firefighter and worked as an EMT. And Brad Hubbard has academic credentials, too, about to complete a four-year program in crisis and disaster management...
Corps of Engineers tries to stop flooding of New Orleans (09/25/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Rita poured more water into New Orleans for a second day Saturday and inundated fishing villages along Louisiana's coast, where hundreds of people were rescued from homes swamped by up to 6 feet of water. "We need help now," said Sherry Adam of Lafitte, about 20 miles south of New Orleans...
Katrina victims attend job fair (09/22/05)
Teresha Weinkein tried to put herself in the shoes of the thousands of workers who were rudely kicked out of their homes by Hurricane Katrina and scattered across the country. They still have bills to pay. They still have to come up with money for food, rent for their new dwellings and other necessities. And they're probably tired of sitting around waiting for a welcome home...
Engineers in New Orleans race gainst Rita to patch weak levees (09/21/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- The Army Corps of Engineers raced to patch New Orleans' fractured levee system Tuesday and residents were forced to decide yet again whether to stay or go as a new, rapidly strengthening hurricane threatened to flood the city anew. "First it was come back, then it was go," said Karen Torre, who returned to her home Tuesday to clear debris before leaving again. "We're just trying to do what they tell us and get a few things done in between."...
Cape orthodontist returns from forensic duties (09/21/05)
Dr. Shannon Kirchhoff said he'll probably have to return to New Orleans in the next few weeks. Cape Girardeau orthodontist Dr. Shannon Kirchhoff returned home last week after spending 14 days in New Orleans doing a grim job: Performing forensic dentistry on victims of Hurricane Katrina...
Giving help + comfort: Volunteers are put to work on all types of jobs (09/20/05)
When Hurricane Katrina's aftermath affected Southeast Missouri, the local office of the American Red Cross was glad to have the services of Deborah McBride. In early September, 175 people from New Orleans arrived in Kennett, Mo., on three buses, ready to set up temporary homes at a camp there...
Fearful of Rita, mayor suspends reopening New Orleans (09/20/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Under pressure from President Bush and other top federal officials, the mayor suspended the reopening of large portions of the city Monday and instead ordered nearly everyone out because of the risk of a new round of flooding from a tropical storm on the way...
Search for hurricane victims turns up looters' caches (09/20/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- It was like a modern-day treasure map -- a computerized diagram of neighborhoods with codes marking the addresses where National Guard soldiers came upon caches of goods taken by looters in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. "There's probably still loot out there" hidden in various homes, Capt. Gregg McGowan said from his Oklahoma National Guard unit's makeshift headquarters...
New mothers finding hope in Baton Rouge (09/20/05)
BATON ROUGE, La. -- First came the rising floodwaters, and the pregnant woman started praying. Please, she said to herself, please don't let me give birth to my twins in this hot, dark attic surrounded by water. Finally, using a crowbar and hammer, friends pried open the roof and she made her way out by a leaky boat...
Enough lessons from Katrina to fill a how-not-to textbook (09/19/05)
WASHINGTON -- Katrina is what classrooms call a teachable moment. Everyone is picking through the mistakes from all levels of government for lessons that will spare more lives and property in the next disaster. The needs in a nutshell: more, faster and, of course, better...
Katrina sends group on 500-mile odyssey (09/19/05)
HOUSTON -- They're out there. The shooters, the choppers, the looters, the lines, the foul water and the bodies. Especially the bodies. "But we're in here," says Victor Fruge. Others -- hundreds of thousands of them -- had also escaped from New Orleans. But few could match the extraordinary, even miraculous odyssey of Fruge and his comrades -- 16 mentally ill men and recovering addicts, cast out of their group home, Abstract House, by the storm...
Fellowship of music brings New Orleans man to Commerce (09/19/05)
Saxophonist kept his beloved instrument with him when his family fled the hurricane. After the city of New Orleans was left flooded by Hurricane Katrina, the soulful sound of jazz music was washed out of town. Many musicians lost the instruments that provided the theme song for their beloved city...
Bush: U.S. will pay to rebuild Big Easy (09/16/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- President Bush promised Thursday night the government will pay most of the costs of rebuilding the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast in one of the largest reconstruction projects the world has ever seen. "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again," the president said...
French Quarter will reopen soon, mayor says (09/16/05)
Across five states, the death toll from Katrina stands at 710. NEW ORLEANS -- In a big step toward restoring the pulse and soul of New Orleans, the mayor announced plans Thursday to reopen over the next week and a half some of the Big Easy's most vibrant neighborhoods, including the once-rollicking French Quarter...
Farmers fear Katrina will keep their goods from market (09/15/05)
COLUMBIA, Ill. -- His face smudged with dark grit, Glen Mueller stepped down from a combine this week and stared out across a corn crop jeopardized by quandaries far larger than the machinery towering over him. He and other farmers are facing a double whammy as the harvest begins. ...
Senate passes $3.5 billion plan for victims (09/15/05)
Families would get vouchers averaging $600 a month for up to six months. WASHINGTON -- More than 350,000 families made homeless by Hurricane Katrina would get emergency housing vouchers averaging $600 a month for up to six months under a measure approved Wednesday by the Senate...
After Katrina, 'a glut of lawsuits' expected to be filed (09/15/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- The arrest of two nursing-home owners in the deaths of 34 elderly patients in Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters could be just the beginning of an effort by prosecutors and plaintiffs' attorneys to assign blame and hold those responsible for the New Orleans catastrophe accountable...
EPA: New Orleans air putrid but not overly polluted (09/15/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- The putrid air rising from New Orleans' slowly receding floodwaters was found Wednesday not to be overly polluted, encouraging news for a mayor weighing the reopening of the French Quarter and other dry parts of the city. Mayor Ray Nagin had said a clean bill of health for the air would allow the tourist-friendly French Quarter and central business district to reopen as early as Monday. ...
Displaced family may decide to stay in Mo. (09/14/05)
The decision depends on whether Darwin Chatman can get a commercial driver's license. Members of the Chatman family are torn between surviving in a hurricane-ravaged town or re-establishing themselves in Southeast Missouri. Darwin and Belinda Chatman fled Luling, La., with their three children the day before Hurricane Katrina struck. Belinda's parents, James and Ruth Estay of Destrehan, La., followed in a second car...
Katrina Notebook (09/14/05)
Eagle Ridge Christian School Plans to help: Raised $4,103.87 for donation to the American Red Cross for local Katrina victims. The school administrator challenged the students and faculty to collect the most money in three class divisions. The students also participated in a canned food drive ...
Death toll in La. climbs past 400 (09/14/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Katrina's death toll in Louisiana jumped by more than half Tuesday to 423 as recovery workers turned more of their attention to gathering up and counting the corpses in a city all but emptied out of the living. As of Monday at least 236 people were reported dead elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, most of them in Mississippi...
President: 'Katrina exposed serious problems' in all levels of government (09/14/05)
He scheduled a speech to the nation from Louisiana for Thursday evening. WASHINGTON -- President Bush for the first time took responsibility Tuesday for federal government mistakes in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and suggested the calamity raised broader questions about the government's ability to handle both natural disasters and terror attacks...
Day 6: Clearing a road to recovery (09/14/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- The 1140th Engineer Battalion began its mission in earnest Tuesday, removing debris from residential roads so their paths will be clear when weary New Orleans residents decide to come home. With floodwater slowly subsiding around them, the guardsmen began work at about 7 a.m...
Bush calls for day of prayer (09/14/05)
Never underestimate the power of prayer. In times of tragedy, it can keep people calm and also inspire them to take action, said the Rev. Scott Moon, pastor at Grace United Methodist Church in Cape Girardeau. That's one reason Moon and pastors from other local churches have decided to participate in a national day of prayer for Hurricane Katrina survivors Friday...
Bush denies racial component to Katrina response after touring New Orleans (09/13/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- President Bush rode in an open truck Monday for his first close-up look at New Orleans' ravaged, trash-strewn, flooded neighborhoods. He denied that poor, black victims of Hurricane Katrina were ignored because of their race. After a federal response criticized as slow and inadequate, Michael Brown, the embattled director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, announced his resignation in Washington...
FEMA will not airlift evacuees to Missouri (09/13/05)
FEMA will not airlift evacuees to Missouri Eds: LEADS throughout to ADD detail, additional comment. No pickup cwbtcwfon ST. LOUIS (AP) -- A mini-city set up in an airplane hangar here was prepared to take 2,000 displaced Gulf Coast residents, and offer them everything from medical care and clothes to recreation and Internet access. But now, it will get none...
Day 5: Guardsmen offer food and water to stragglers while scouting neighborhood (09/13/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- With a breathy series of whistles, Staff Sgt. David McClure was almost pleading: "Come here, boy, come on." The exposed ribs on a gaunt black dog told a sad story. Flies buzzed around his quizzical face as the canine considered the camouflaged men from the 1140th Engineer Battalion. Friend or foe? The dog -- apparently abandoned in the rush to escape Hurricane Katrina -- seemed unsure...
'Ragin' Cajun' general becomes icon leading military's Katrina response (09/12/05)
According to family lore, Lt. Gen. Russel Honore was born during a hurricane. NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana -- To troops, he's the "Ragin' Cajun" an affable but demanding general barking orders to resuscitate a drowning city. To his country, he's an icon of leadership in a land hungry for a leader after a hurricane exposed the nation's vulnerability to disasters...
Colleges try to track blue-chip prep talent dispersed by Katrina (09/12/05)
JACKSON, Miss. -- High school football star J.C. Brignone lost nearly everything when Hurricane Katrina tore through coastal Bay St. Louis, from his home to his senior season at St. Stanislaus High. Brignone's family fled 400 miles to join relatives in the suburban Atlanta town of Lilburn, where Georgia powerhouse Parkview High received him with open arms...
New Orleans shows 'signs of progress' (09/12/05)
With floodwaters receding, residents gather for church services. NEW ORLEANS -- Workers here were picking up trash Sunday, a small miracle under the circumstances. The airport opened to cargo traffic. A bullhorn-wielding volunteer led relief workers in a chorus of "Amazing Grace."...
Muslim groups help hurricane victims (09/12/05)
HOUSTON -- About 2,000 Muslim volunteers helped victims of Hurricane Katrina at the city's downtown convention center Sunday, the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Muslim leaders from around the country who were in Houston for the volunteer effort said the anniversary was coincidental. But they welcomed the opportunity to highlight their faith's true meaning...
Day four: Guard settles in; prepares for missions (09/12/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- The soldiers of the 1140th Engineer Battalion entered New Orleans for the first time Sunday, setting up camp in a former party town that now is occupied by corpses floating in flooded streets, a million displaced refugees and mounds of trash and debris...
Cleanup work intensifies in battered New Orleans (09/11/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Cadaver dogs and boatloads of forensic workers fanned out Saturday across New Orleans to collect the corpses left behind by Hurricane Katrina. Cleanup crews towed away abandoned cars and even began readying a hotel for reopening. Despite missing 300 officers from his 1,750-strong force, police chief Eddie Compass was upbeat as he reported that 200 arrests had been made since the hurricane...
About 60 percent of Gulf of Mexico's production still blocked (09/11/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Over 120 Gulf of Mexico oil and gas platforms were still shut down Saturday and nearly 60 percent of the gulf's normal daily oil production remained blocked from the market because of evacuations due to Hurricane Katrina, a federal agency said...
Tsunami aid operation in focus after sluggish response to Katrina (09/11/05)
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- The minister who led Indonesia's aid effort in the aftermath of the tsunami has a message to those who say the Bush administration was too slow to respond to Hurricane Katrina -- it's not as easy as it looks. "Any country in the first two weeks, they are always criticized," said Alwi Shihab, who took charge of the aid operation three days after the waves hit Aceh province on Dec. 26, killing a staggering 130,000 people and leaving 500,000 more homeless in Indonesia...
Katrina's costs are of a kind seen in wartime (09/11/05)
WASHINGTON -- One storm could end up costing almost as much as two wars. Although estimates of Hurricane Katrina's staggering toll on the treasury are highly imprecise, costs are certain to climb to $200 billion in the coming weeks. The final accounting could approach the more than $300 billion spent in four years to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq...
Guardsmen anxious to get into Big Easy (09/11/05)
BELLE CHASSE NAVAL AIR STATION, La. -- As their commanding officers go about the important business of planning, the enlisted men of the 1140th Engineer Battalion are anxious to get to work after two days of driving and a third day of briefings, equipment preparation and vehicle maintenance...
Day three: A lesson on deadly force (09/11/05)
BELLE CHASSE NAVAL AIR STATION, La. -- For the 12 months that Sgt. 1st Class Randy Seabaugh was in the heated Iraqi war zone, he was never forced to fire a single shot at another human being. He certainly doesn't want to start now. Because he's in hurricane-battered Louisiana. Because it would be a shot at a fellow American and not at an Iraqi enemy...
Man questions whether his mother is alive (09/10/05)
A young girl who should have been enjoying the school year as a third-grader but instead was seeking shelter with her family at the New Orleans Convention Center, was raped and murdered by a group of men -- her body carelessly tossed into a freezer...
Sin City provides reprieve for rescuers (09/10/05)
LAS VEGAS -- Leaving hell behind in Louisiana, New Orleans paramedic Keeley Williams has five days to lose herself in the whir of this city's slot machines. Williams, who lost everything to Hurricane Katrina, is one of 44 first responders granted a reprieve here this week, all expenses paid by local businesses and the Red Cross. ...
Surviving on faith (09/10/05)
KENNETT, Mo -- Cleveland Sawyer holds the shiny brown acoustic guitar loosely between his hands but clings to it tightly in his heart. The devotion is not about the instrument. It doesn't belong to him. It's what comes from the guitar -- the chords, plucked nonchalantly. And the smooth blues voice that echoes around the crowded room. That's pretty much all he has left for now. The music, at least, is still his...
Two Cape men helping Katrina refugees in Houston (09/10/05)
HOUSTON -- Matt Anders couldn't just sit and watch the tragedy in New Orleans unfold on the television news. The 33-year-old Cape Girardeau respiratory therapist volunteered to help the thousands of refugees who were bused to emergency shelters in Houston. A friend, Dustin Michaels of Cape Girardeau, also volunteered...
FEMA director Michael Brown relieved of duty in New Orleans (09/10/05)
WASHINGTON -- Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown, the principal target of harsh criticism of the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, was relieved of his onsite command Friday. He will be replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, who was overseeing New Orleans relief, recovery and rescue efforts, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced...
Convicted doctor seeks to trade jail for hurricane relief work (09/10/05)
LEBANON, Mo. -- The attorney for a physician jailed for resisting arrest after a traffic stop is trying to get her an early release so she can help with Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Dr. Ramona Miller of Versailles, Mo., began serving her six-month sentence Aug. ...
Simulation predicted more than 60,000 deaths (09/10/05)
WASHINGTON -- As Katrina roared into the Gulf of Mexico, emergency planners pored over maps and charts of a hurricane simulation that projected 61,290 dead and 384,257 injured or sick in a catastrophic flood that would leave swaths of southeast Louisiana uninhabitable for more than a year...
Day two: 1140th gets first views of destruction (09/10/05)
BELLE CHASE NAVAL AIR STATION, La. -- Louisiana introduced the tragedy slowly to its new visitors Friday, preparing them for Hurricane Katrina's inevitable worst...
Hurricane families find luxury at hotel (09/10/05)
Thirteen people arrived in the early Friday morning to cool, clean pillows awaiting them at the Drury Inn and Suites in Cape Girardeau. For the first time in more than two weeks these hurricane-ravaged families slept in a bed. "It felt so good to take a hot shower in a tub," Eric Craft said of his first hot shower at the hotel...
Fewer bodies found than predicted (09/10/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Authorities said Friday that their first systematic sweep of the city found far fewer bodies than expected, suggesting that Hurricane Katrina's death toll may not be the catastrophic 10,000 feared. "I think there's some encouragement in what we've found in the initial sweeps that some of the catastrophic deaths that some people predicted may not have occurred," said Terry Ebbert, New Orleans homeland security chief...
Katrina, fuel prices bump up cost of shipping on Mississippi (09/10/05)
The Port of New Orleans president has set a goal for the port to resume loading and unloading ships by Wednesday. Sunken barges at New Orleans and high fuel costs have doubled the cost of moving freight on the Mississippi River over the past two weeks...
Family members weather Katrina in Cape Girardeau (09/09/05)
For one week, 19 family members displaced by Hurricane Katrina lived under one roof. The already close-knit family grew closer as they rallied to meet needs. Over the years, each time a hurricane threatened metro New Orleans towns, Dr. Mark and Barbara Kinder invited family to stay in their five-bedroom, four-bathroom Cape Girardeau home. This year, the hurricane drove in more than they bargained for...
Hurricane relief donations notebook (09/09/05)
n Gov. Matt Blunt is encouraging displaced Americans who may come to Missouri to register with the Federal Emergency Management Agency by calling (800) 621-FEMA. Persons interested in volunteering in the affected Gulf Coast states can call Missouri's State Emergency Management Association at (888) 526-6664...
Officers plead with residents to evacuate New Orleans (09/09/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Like the other holdouts in a city nearly emptied by Hurricane Katrina, Chan Chun Nin, 75, had no running water. He had no electricity. And the medicine supply for his 70-year-old wife was dwindling. Still, he would not move. Do me a favor, said a state trooper: "Write your address and your name down on a piece of paper and put it in your pocket. Because when you die, we're going to need to know who we're picking up."...
Two Cape firefighters to aid relief efforts (09/09/05)
Two Cape firefighters to aid relief efforts Two Cape Girardeau firefighters, Harry Schumer and Brad Martin, left to aid in Hurricane Katrina disaster relief Thursday morning. "All we know is that we're flying into Atlanta," said Schumer, master firefighter and emergency medical technician. "They're giving us a day of instruction and then I don't know where we are going."...
New Orleans seeks to collect its dead (09/09/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- With the waters receding, New Orleans faces a ghastly task of epic dimensions not seen by an American city in perhaps a century: collecting, identifying and then burying potentially thousands of corpses, many of them bloated, decayed or no doubt mangled beyond recognition...
Donations approach $200,000 (09/08/05)
Cape Girardeau's Katrina relief contributions continue to mount. The American Red Cross and the Salvation Army have been flooded with cash, volunteers and community drives. Schools have stepped up, and professionals and businesses are sending help...
FEMA chief bears the brunt of anger over federal response to hurricane (09/08/05)
WASHINGTON -- He's been called an idiot, an incompetent and worse. The vilification of federal disaster chief Michael Brown, emerging as chief scapegoat for whatever went wrong in the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, has ratcheted into the stratosphere. Democratic members of Congress are taking numbers to call for his head...
Post office trying to get mail to victims (09/08/05)
WASHINGTON -- The post office has delivered some 15,000 Social Security checks at collection points in the area affected by Hurricane Katrina, officials said Wednesday. But the agency is still trying to locate 2,000 of its workers. In the affected region, 188 post offices have returned to full service, 189 are providing limited service and 120 are still closed...
Holdouts test military's power of persuasion (09/08/05)
With promises of pet shelters and health warnings residents urged to leave New Orleans. WASHINGTON -- Deep in St. Bernard Parish, just south of New Orleans, a man stubbornly refused to leave his home, insisting he must stay with the only things he had left in the world -- his two bulldogs and eight young puppies. And three friends wouldn't go anywhere without him...
Inching out of the nightmare (09/07/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Progress was measured in inches Tuesday, in the slow dropping of water levels outside New Orleans' buildings, as engineers struggled to drain this saucer of a city in a Herculean task that could take weeks -- if they are lucky. The Army Corps of Engineers said the timetable ranges from three weeks to nearly three months, depending on a string of variables, including rainfall, the still-unknown condition of the pumps abandoned to Hurricane Katrina, and whether the system can withstand the flotsam of broken buildings, trees, trash and corpses.. ...
New group says families displaced here need help (09/07/05)
A new local Katrina relief committee requests that the community consider making donations to local displaced families instead of shipping them to the Gulf Coast. As scores of evacuees plant themselves, at least temporarily, in Cape Girardeau and the surrounding area, emergency response and civic officials are being overwhelmed with information and requests...
Agencies try to reunite pets, owners separated by Katrina (09/07/05)
Hurricane Katrina flooded homes and separated families, not just human family members from each other, but from furry family members as well. The Humane Society of Southeast Missouri is asking for cash donations to help pay for vaccinations and deworming of any animals that come through its shelter, director Sue Sample said...
Ala. publisher urges donations at football games across nation (09/07/05)
Ben Shurett, the publisher of Alabama's Fort Payne Times-Journal, is asking every person who attends local high school and college football games to contribute one dollar to hurricane victims...
President preparing request for more hurricane money (09/07/05)
Republicans and Democrats alike heaped criticism on the Federal Emergency Management Agency. WASHINGTON -- President Bush intends to seek as much as $40 billion to cover the next phase of relief and recovery from Hurricane Katrina, congressional officials said Tuesday as leading lawmakers and the White House pledged to investigate an initial federal response widely condemned as woefully inadequate...
1140th ordered to assist New Orleans cleanup (09/07/05)
The National Guard armory on Independence Street, normally a quiet place on a weekday, filled Tuesday with soldiers preparing to move out. The 1140th Engineer Battalion leaves for Louisiana Thursday. The soldiers from Cape Girardeau and the surrounding region will spend 14 to 30 days helping clear debris left by Hurricane Katrina...
Congress calls for investigations of price gouging (09/07/05)
WASHINGTON -- In a sign of growing political anxiety over high gasoline prices, members of Congress on Tuesday issued a bipartisan call for authorities to investigate more aggressively whether there has been price gouging. Returning from their summer recess, lawmakers held the first of what is expected to be a spate of hearings on record-high gas prices and introduced a raft of legislation...
Camps help victims who own only what they carry in bags (09/06/05)
Go home. Try to fit your most valuable possessions in a trash bag and leave everything else behind for good. That's what David Hitt suggested when asked about his experience helping unload hurricane victims Sunday night in Kennett, Mo. "That's all they had, just whatever they could lug in a trash bag and some didn't even have that," said Hitt, Cape Girardeau County emergency management coordinator. "I've seen a lot in life, was in Vietnam. But I've never seen anything like that."...
Bush, Clinton announce relief fund, visit Katrina's victims (09/06/05)
The two ex-presidents raised $11 million for victims of last year's Asian tsunami. HOUSTON -- Former Presidents Bush and Clinton visited hundreds of hurricane victims in Houston's Astrodome and a nearby center Monday, sharing hugs, signing Bibles and listening to stories about the homes and lives that have been devastated...
At home in the dome: Retired stadium offers scattered traces of normalcy (09/06/05)
HOUSTON -- Some lessons learned by the new inhabitants of the Astrodome: * It is pointless to wait for the stark stadium lights to go out at lights out. (Or, for that matter, to expect one's neighbors to cease sobbing, giggling, gabbing or wailing during the wee hours.)...
Communication woes hinder relief efforts by U.S. soldiers (09/06/05)
GULFPORT, Miss. -- For some soldiers back from Iraq and now helping the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort, serving in the Middle East doesn't seem so bad after all. "We had it made in Iraq, absolutely had it made," said Col. Brad MacNealy of the Mississippi National Guard, who spent a year commanding the 185th Aviation Brigade's 134 helicopters there...
States struggle to process hundreds of thousands of Katrina's refugees (09/06/05)
HOUSTON -- With a shattered New Orleans all but emptied out, an unprecedented refugee crisis unfolded across the country this weekend, as governors and emergency officials rushed to feed, clothe and shelter more than a half-million people dispossessed by Hurricane Katrina...
New Orleans water recedes; death estimate rises to 10,000 (09/06/05)
Residents in some communities allowed to return home to salvage what's left. NEW ORLEANS -- A week after Hurricane Katrina, engineers plugged the levee break that swamped much of the city and floodwaters began to recede, but along with the good news came the mayor's direst prediction yet: As many as 10,000 dead...
A full house (09/04/05)
In the last four days Nettla Gordilla has experienced the tragedy of loss, the joy of giving birth, separation and now hope. She fled her home in New Orleans to Jackson, Miss., to escape Hurricane Katrina. She gave birth to twins, Justin and Jesus, Tuesday by emergency Caesarean section in Jackson as Hurricane Katrina hit the area. The hospital ran for two days on a generator because the area was without power...
A sequel to Katrina is still possible (09/04/05)
Katrina may seem like the last word in hurricanes, but there is a very real possibility that another major hurricane may hit New Orleans or some other portion of the 200-mile coastline devastated by Katrina in the weeks to come. "We're not out of the woods yet," said Susan Cutter, director of the University of South Carolina Hazards Research Laboratory. "We're not even in the height of hurricane season."...
Iconic locations in New Orleans damaged by Katrina (09/04/05)
In New Orleans, winding streets where revelers meandered are now flooded with murky water. Some businesses and landmarks are submerged or damaged; others escaped the water but were ravaged by looters. Rescue workers are combing the waters in search of survivors, but a different kind of reckoning is also becoming clear. New Orleans is one of the most iconic cities in America, and some of the places and pieces that make it unique could be lost or looted...
Three Carnival cruise ships will house 7,000 hurricane victims (09/04/05)
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Three Carnival Cruise Lines ships have been pressed into service by the government to provide shelter for as many as 7,000 hurricane victims. The Ecstasy, the Sensation and the Holiday will be pulled from regular use starting Monday at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The cost of the charters was not disclosed...
Survivors seek missing amid chaos (09/04/05)
OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. -- The only word 1-year-old Leah knew was "Da-da." She lay in a stranger's arms as her mother, Christi Scott, floated away in a hot tub. "I thought, there's no way I'm going to find her," said Scott, who drifted in her makeshift lifeboat atop Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters for 20 minutes before reaching land. "She doesn't know her name. She can't say my name."...
Last refugees leave Superdome by bus (09/04/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- The last bedraggled refugees were rescued from the Superdome on Saturday and the convention center was all but cleared, leaving the heart of New Orleans to the dead and dying, the elderly and frail stranded too many days without food, water or medical care...
Some jeer; some nearly faint with joy (09/03/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- The cavalry finally arrived. With a cigar-chomping general in front, a camouflaged-green convoy of at least three-dozen troop vehicles and supply trucks rolled through floodwaters Friday into a desperate city where some storm survivors had died waiting for food, water and medicine...
Guard, Red Cross send more people to help (09/03/05)
This weekend, area residents in the American Red Cross, the National Guard and the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team will reach their final destinations in Alabama and Louisiana to continue relief efforts. Dr. Shannon T. Kirchhoff, an orthodontist in Cape Girardeau, was called Wednesday and deployed Thursday to Baton Rouge, La., with DMORT, which is under the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA...
SEMO enrolling displaced students (09/03/05)
Southeast Missouri State University has begun enrolling college students who were displaced from their schools due to the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina. The action comes at the request of the board of regents after regent Al Spradling III made the recommendation at a meeting Thursday...
Katrina donations top $200 million (09/03/05)
Americans are responding to Hurricane Katrina with a massive outpouring of giving, at times overwhelming call centers and computer servers set up by charities to field donations. Total donations passed the $200 million mark by Friday, four days after the storm slammed into the Gulf Coast. The bulk of those funds were collected by the American Red Cross, which said it has raised $196.9 million from individuals and corporations...
Domeless Saints (09/03/05)
New Orleans almost certainly will not play at home this year OAKLAND, Calif. -- The New Orleans Saints accept the fact they're in for a season unlike any other, one that will test their emotions, patience and resolve daily. They realize they could be leading a vagabond existence all year, going from one hotel room to the next. But they're not about to start feeling sorry for themselves now considering the death and devastation thousands of their neighbors have faced this week...
Saints to play home opener on road (09/03/05)
NEW YORK -- The New Orleans Saints, driven from the Superdome by Hurricane Katrina, will play their home opener against the New York Giants at Giants Stadium. NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said Friday the game, scheduled for Sept. 18, is being moved to the Giants' home in East Rutherford, N.J...
Katrina affects Jackson opener (09/02/05)
The Indians will christen their season on Saturday against Mississippi's Hillcrest Christian. Jackson's reputation as a football town is well deserved judging from the usually packed stadium for the Indians' home games. Apparently that reputation has spread well beyond the area, as Jackson will play host to Hillcrest Christian on Saturday. Hillcrest hails from Jackson, Miss., located 385 miles to the south...
Crews begin picking up the dead (09/02/05)
Autopsies being performed in parking lots as official death toll rises to 126 in Mississippi. PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- Crews are driving around coastal Mississippi, picking up bodies left on sidewalks like garbage and depositing them in refrigerated mobile morgues. Coroners are conducting autopsies in parking lots because the only available light is from the sun...
Katrina could reach deep into economy (09/02/05)
From gas stations to grocery stores, farms to factories, the force of Hurricane Katrina is rippling through the economy, confronting consumers and businesses with higher prices and logistical dilemmas, even thousands of miles from the Gulf Coast. Unlike most natural disasters, Katrina is that rare economic event -- sweeping and devastating enough to damage commerce well beyond its region, affecting the price, supply and markets for goods critical to business and counted on in daily life...
Governor declares war on looters (09/02/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out, cops turned in their badges and the governor declared war on looters who have made the city a menacing landscape of disorder and fear...
Miss. family reunited at relative's Cape home (09/02/05)
Retired meteorologist Mike Pind finds comfort with family. A blast of air-conditioning and the taste of his aunt Aileen's barbecue and strawberry cobbler meant the worst was over for Mike Pind and his family. Pind, a retired Navy meteorologist living in Picayune, Miss., endured Hurricane Katrina on Monday with his daughter and son-in-law, Page and Marcos Quinto, and their three children...
Adopting, cooking, dressing down for victims (09/02/05)
Local high schools are organizing efforts to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Students at Notre Dame Regional High School in Cape Girardeau approached Brother David Migliorino about contributing to the hurricane relief effort. The student council and the entire school have adopted Redeemer Seton High School in New Orleans as well as the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Two years ago Notre Dame students went on a mission trip to help paint and clean the Redeemer Seton High School...
Gas prices in area jump to records (09/02/05)
As area gas prices jumped Thursday afternoon to all-time highs, one station ran out of regular and super unleaded fuel thanks to the climbing cost of crude oil and the production disruption caused by Hurricane Katrina. The highest price in the region Thursday may have been at Express Fuel in Benton, Mo., where gas was selling for $3.12 per gallon if paid for with a credit or debit card or $3.09 per gallon for a cash transaction. ...
Looting plunges city into deeper chaos (09/02/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Managers at the Covenant Home nursing center were prepared to cope with power outages and supply shortages following Hurricane Katrina. They weren't ready for looters. The nursing home lost its bus after the driver surrendered it to carjackers. Groups of people then drove by the center, shouting to residents, "Get out!"...
Red Cross opens shelter for victims (09/02/05)
To escape Hurricane Katrina, Darwin and Belinda Chatman and their family drove north from Luling, La., Sunday evening in two cars -- the Chatmans, their three children and Belinda's parents. They checked into the Victorian Inn in Cape Girardeau, hoping to return home soon. That won't happen...
How can we help? (09/02/05)
Whenever natural disasters of catastrophic proportions occur around the world, the United States has always been a leader in providing aid. Now the catastrophe is here where Hurricane Katrina lashed out with unprecedented fury. Some officials estimate the death toll could climb well into the hundreds, if not thousands. Because of the devastation, food, water, medical care and fuel are scarce...
Faulk's mind on troubled hometown (09/02/05)
ST. LOUIS -- If Marshall Faulk blows an assignment in tonight's preseason game, there's a good reason. The St. Louis Rams' running back grew up in New Orleans, and believes several of his relatives may be marooned there by Hurricane Katrina. "I find myself going between the game plan and what's going on down in New Orleans while sitting in meetings," Faulk said Wednesday. "I'll see what kind of challenge it's going to be. I've never had a distraction like that."...
Katrina hits close to home for Willoughby (09/01/05)
The Southeast basketball player's immediate family left Biloxi, Miss., for Tallahassee, Fla., before the storm. Terrick Willoughby could only watch in horror the televised news reports that revealed the death and destruction in Biloxi, Miss., courtesy of Hurricane Katrina...
Mayor fears thousands may be dead as New Orleans surrenders streets (09/01/05)
NEW ORLEANS -- Authorities all but surrendered the streets of New Orleans to floodwaters, looting and other lawlessness Wednesday as the mayor called for a total evacuation and warned the death toll from Hurricane Katrina could reach into the thousands...
Mississippi father finally reaches his Cape daughter (09/01/05)
Since the start of Hurricane Katrina, Cape Girardeau resident Chris Pendor has waited for news of her uncle, grandmother and father in both Mississippi and Louisiana. By Wednesday afternoon, all were accounted for except for her father. At about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, her fears were relieved when her father called from Slaughter, Miss., about 30 minutes from Baton Rouge, La. Power had finally been restored, although her father was surrounded by a 500-foot wide pile of debris...
Gasoline being rationed to retailers (09/01/05)
Gasoline prices leaped nationwide Wednesday as key refineries and pipelines remained crippled by Hurricane Katrina, crimping supplies and leading to caps on the amount of fuel delivered to retailers. The Bush administration agreed to release oil from emergency stockpiles to help Gulf Coast refiners hobbled by a loss of shipments due to Katrina. ...
World responds with compassion and shock at the damage (09/01/05)
VIENNA, Austria -- From papal prayers to telegrams from China, the world reacted with an outpouring of compassion Wednesday for the victims of Hurricane Katrina in messages tinged by shock that a disaster of this scale could occur in the United States...
Katrina expected to slow down steady economic expansion (09/01/05)
WASHINGTON -- Surging energy prices and b