Cached version of news article 9/4/05 source: Sunday Times - Ireland
Tourists tell of their terror in the rubble
by Gareth Walsh and Dipesh Gadher
ONE Irishman is feared dead and more than 10 Irish and British tourists people are unaccounted for in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
The man, in his twenties, was travelling in Biloxi, one of the areas worst affected by the disaster. Officials at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublinb, who are trying to locate him, say severe communication problems are hampering their efforts.
“It is not a stable situation. The numbers of missing people are fluctuating and we have been inundated with calls,” a department official said.
The family of a British hurricane victim told last night how she and her boyfriend were in fear of their lives as they scavenged for food while the authorities operated a shoot-to-kill policy against looters.
Tourists were forced to rummage among the rubble for food while dodging gangs and law enforcement sharpshooters. At the same time the American authorities were said to have blocked consular officials from entering New Orleans three times.
The ordeal continued for tourists evacuated from New Orleans, who were initially told by British Foreign Office officials who arranged emergency hotel accommodation that they would have to foot their bills.
Peter McGowan, whose sister Teresa Cherrie is trapped in the devastated area with her boyfriend John Drysdale, said: “They are having to scavenge for food and Teresa is terrified.
“At first it was the gangs they feared, but now it could be trigger-happy cops. I do not think the police would help, even if they were to approach them. Now the military are involved it is martial law.”
The family told how Cherrie, 42, and Drysdale, 41, both from Renfrew, near Glasgow, had searched for food outside a supermarket after shelves were stripped by gangs. The couple have been awaiting rescue on the roof of an apartment block after their hotel was wrecked.
One New Orleans blogger in the city wrote yesterday: “Bunch of stressed out, trigger-happy police and military types driving by suspicious as all hell. It’s not safe standing out on the street.”
Last week thousands of troops poured into the area with orders to fire on looters.
Louisiana state officials last Friday again blocked requests to allow foreign consular staff into the city amid increasingly desperate attempts to evacuate up to 100 Britons from the area, including up to 30 trapped in appalling conditions in the city’s Superdome stadium.
The Britons, many of them on a gap year, were herded into the stadium along with about 25,000 other people unable to flee the city. The building was later declared unsafe, but evacuation halted after rescue workers came under sniper fire.
The girlfriend of one Briton was threatened with rape, and another said people trapped inside were becoming so desperate that one leapt to her death.
Will Nelson, 21, of Epsom, Surrey, sent an e-mail to his family last Friday pleading for help. “Please can you try and contact the embassy, tell them that we really need their help with getting out of here — it’s turning into a war zone,” he wrote.
Yesterday he said troops in the Superdome had told Britons to use sharp objects such as scissors or tweezers to protect themselves from gangs. “At one point we had to carry a US national guard on a stretcher after he had been shot by looters outside,” he said.
Nelson was among about 40 foreigners escorted from the dome by the army for their safety, amid baying New Orleans residents furious at being left behind. His father, Keith Nelson, said: “I am seriously unimpressed with the American authorities, but not terribly impressed with the help, support and information we have been getting from the British authorities either.”
Last Friday, 26 Britons from the Superdome finally left New Orleans with a police escort, in a convoy of five coaches carrying 103 tourists.
Una Ni Dhubhghaill, the Irish vice-consul general in Chicago, has travelled to Dallas to assist Irish citizens caught up in the disaster. In Houston, Texas, the Irish Society is asking volunteers to walk the streets with Irish tricolours in order to attract evacuees from the republic who may be stranded in “the mass of humanity” of refugees filing into the city.
Forty-five families contacted the department of foreuign affairs following the hurricane, but most Irish nationals now have been located and tourists trapped in the region will be flown home within days.
