Newswire

More Criminal Charges Coming

More Criminal Charges Coming
La. Drawing Up Charges for Flood Deaths
NEW ORLEANS -- The arrest of two nursing-home owners in the deaths of 34 people marked the beginning of what prosecutors said Wednesday is a large-scale investigation into whether New Orleans-area hospitals and other institutions neglected their patients during Hurricane Katrina's onslaught. The Louisiana attorney general's office said all of its investigators have been pulled from other tasks to work on the Medicaid Fraud Unit, the team whose work led to homicide charges Tuesday against the husband-and-wife owners of the flooded-out St. Rita's nursing home in Chalmette.

Feds to reimburse Texas for Katrina-related Medicaid costs
AUSTIN, Texas -- The federal government will pay the full cost of Medicaid coverage for Hurricane Katrina victims in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's office announced Wednesday. The federal government usually pays for 60 percent of the coverage with the state paying the rest. But the extraordinary circumstances of the hurricane prompted authorities to grant Texas a five-month waiver for services provided to evacuees only, officials said.

Katrina Death Toll Nears 800
The number of deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina rose to 792 Thursday, after Louisiana announced 558 deaths in the state alone. The death toll also included 218 deaths in Mississippi, two in Alabama and 14 in Florida. The death toll in Louisiana saw a rise of 84 over the number announced on Wednesday.

Rescuers Awed By Ruin Revealed As Water Recedes
NEW ORLEANS -- The putrid smell of toxic, mud-caked debris baking in the humid Southern heat wafted almost 200 feet above the ground. Trees that were once green and lush are now brown and in pieces, many bending to the awesome power of a Category 4 hurricane that pounced on this city and its surrounding parishes more than two weeks ago. Murky water as black as tar in some places and dull green in others still covered parts of the city. After hundreds of search-and-rescue missions on a UH1H or "Huey" air ambulance helicopter, Capt. Timothy Eaton of the Wisconsin National Guard 832nd Medical Company still can't get over the scope of Katrina's reach. "It's biblical," he said. "The devastation is so incredible. No one agency could guess what was needed. There are just no words to describe the damage."

Relief workers report grim conditions near New Orleans
Two Kalispell men helping with tree and debris removal near New Orleans say national news reports don't adequately describe the conditions there. The two men camped with evacuees along the way and heard harrowing stories from survivors. A couple of teenage brothers didn't know what had happened to their parents. They told the Longs about the days they spent at the New Orleans Convention Center, where they saw a woman get raped and a man get his throat slit in the chaos that followed the hurricane.

Hurricane survivor found after 16 days, but toll mounts
NEW ORLEANS -- A rescue team on Wednesday saved a man from his flood-stricken New Orleans home 16 days after Hurricane Katrina, officials said, but the death toll from the disaster kept mounting. A rescue team found 74-year-old Edgar Hollingsworth, unconscious and emaciated in his locked and darkened home on Tuesday. Doctors were amazed that he had survived so long.

Over 50 Katrina evacuees have died in Texas
HOUSTON -- At least 53 Hurricane Katrina evacuees from the New Orleans area have died since coming to Texas, medical examiners said Wednesday. In Harris County, which includes Houston, most of the 35 deaths were from natural causes, including several heart attacks and complications from cancer. Two refugees killed themselves since an estimated 240,000 Gulf Coast residents fled to Texas because of the Aug. 29 storm. There was one dead fetus, and ages of the adult dead ranged from 20 to 104. Many were elderly living in hospitals, hospice centers and nursing homes.

Why New Orleans? A Meditation on the Hurricane
Some of my fellow commentators have stepped into hot water by saying that God smote New Orleans with the hurricane to punish the city for its wickedness. As Exhibit A, they offer “Southern Decadence,” a mass homosexual street party (complete with activities that human beings shouldn’t do on the street) that had the enthusiastic approval of Mayor Nagin and other city authorities. After the hurricane, some made a halfhearted effort to hold the orgy anyhow. But for practical purposes, Katrina canceled the event. New Orleans is not the only city that encourages mass sodomy. Philadelphia, Boston, and San Francisco spring immediately to mind, and there are others. If God were to smite every American city where vice is openly practiced, there would be very few left standing.

Posted by Editor at September 16, 2005 04:54 AM