[Mb-civic] Looting, Fires And a Second Evacuation - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Looting, Fires And a Second Evacuation

By Peter Whoriskey and Sam Coates
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 31, 2005; Page A01

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 30 -- This exodus was even more desperate than the first.

As murky water surged around their homes from levee breaks undetected in 
the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, families that had hunkered 
down for Monday's storm were forced Tuesday to climb first to their 
attics and then to their roofs in the hope of rescue by boat or helicopter.

In the streets, cars filled with fleeing residents -- pet cages and 
luggage in tow -- stalled in chest-deep water. Scores of people could be 
seen trudging west on foot along deserted Interstate 10, lugging small 
packages of belongings, headed for refuge from the water that now covers 
80 percent of this city.

"I have nothing but me, the children and what we have on our backs," 
said Molly Moses, a mother of five who was rescued from the roof of her 
two-story house four miles from the center of New Orleans. About 
daybreak, as the waters reached the attic, her fiance punched a hole in 
the roof, where she was found about 10 a.m. Tuesday clutching her 
9-month-old daughter.

"We were just too busy trying to save our lives."

Rising floodwaters led to a second mass evacuation Tuesday from this 
low-lying metropolis of terrified residents who had avoided the storm's 
most direct destruction when it veered slightly to the east.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083000689.html?referrer=email
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