Friday, September 02, 2005
BBC NEW REPORTS ON NOLA
According to the White House, about 90,000 sq miles (234,000 sq km) has been affected by the hurricane - an area roughly the size of the UK.
In New Orleans, people made homeless by the flooding have grown increasingly desperate, with outbreaks of shootings, carjackings and thefts.
Police chief Eddie Compass said there were reports of women being raped.
He told AP he sent 88 officers to quell the unrest at the convention centre but they were beaten back by an angry mob.
"An area roughly the size of the UK." That puts it into perspective.
Twenty-five thousand people at the convention center, twenty thousand at the Superdome. Forty-five thousand plus need to be evacuated immediately. A bus holds what? Eighty? Let's say one hundred. It will take 450 busses to move all of them, and those busses must travel 350 miles to the Astrodome and 350 miles back. The logistics are staggering. The Astrodome will not hold 45,000 refugees. Where else will they go?
