>To the UTC Community:


Some may be interested in the following  firsthand and word-of-mouth
accounts from News Orleans and the Astrodome in Houston.   My sister is a
doctor who works for the city of New Orleans.  Every time there's a chance
that a hurricane will strike the city, her job is to go to the Superdome to
take care of the needy.  Over the years she has gone many times to the
Superdome but returned home without trouble because the hurricanes went
somewhere else.  Not this time.  We had heard nothing from my sister
through yesterday.  We then heard on the news that the authorities were
bussing occupants of the Superdome to Houston.  So my niece, who lives in
Baton Rouge, drove to Houston to look for her mother.  Following are my
niece's emails.




Monday-Tuesday:

No word.



>Wednesday (from my niece who went to Houston looking for her mother):
>
>Spent about three hours waving at buses from the curb outside the
>Astrodome as they whizzed past, and networking with other families in the
>same predicament.  We weren't allowed inside the Astrodome.  There was a
>CNN reporter who was giving us updates, but even he didn't know more than
>that they had broken off loading more buses from the Superdome.  There is
>also a rumour that some of the buses are going to Arkansas instead of
>Texas.  The Red Cross says that they haven't got a list yet, and are
>saying it will be 24 hours.  I don't think they have any idea how long it
>will take, and that it could be either longer or shorter before we hear if
>she [mother] is here.
>
>Lots of distressing stories from the other families.  There's a woman here
>from St. Bernard Parish who says that her husband, along with the entire
>St. Bernard Parish government and three thousand others are stranded on
>the courthouse roof with no water, food or gas, and that there are three
>wildlife & fisheries boats that shoot at them if they try to swim to enter
>Orleans parish.  She knows this because somebody there called her from a
>satellite phone on Tuesday.  I'm afraid to say that I believe her.  She is
>here to try to get someone with a helicopter to drop some ice on the
>courthouse roof.
>


Thursday morning:

>Good news!  My cell phone just rang, and it was Mom.  She is still in New
>Orleans, but she is fine, laughing things off.  The moved her and the
>other medical personnel to the Hyatt hotel when "security started breaking
>down".  She says she thinks she may be able to take a bus to Baton Rouge,
>so I think I will head back in the next few minutes.
>