Thousands of refugees evacuated

NEW ORLEANS — Thousands of refugees were bused and airlifted to safety yesterday , leaving New Orleans to the dead and dying, and the elderly and frail stranded days without food, water or medical care.

No one knows how many were killed by Hurricane Katrina’s floods and how many more succumbed waiting to be rescued. But the bodies are everywhere: hidden in attics, floating within the ruined city, crumpled on wheelchairs, abandoned on highways.

And the dying continues — at the New Orleans convention center and at a triage center set up at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, where bodies were kept in a refrigerated truck.

Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said yesterday that she expected the death toll to reach the thousands. And Craig Vanderwagen, rear admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service, said one morgue alone, at a St. Gabriel prison, expected 1,000 to 2,000 bodies.

Touring the airport triage center, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican and a physician, said, “A lot more than eight to 10 people are dying a day.”

Most were those too sick or weak to survive. But not all.

Charles Womack, 30, a roofer, said he saw one man beaten to death and another commit suicide at the Superdome. Mr. Womack said he was receiving care at the airport triage center because he was beaten with a pipe at the Superdome.

“One guy jumped off a balcony. I saw him do it. He was talking to a lady about it. He said it reminded him of the war, and he couldn’t leave,” he said.

Three babies died at the convention center from heat exhaustion, said Mark Kyle, a medical-relief provider.

About 20,000 people had been waiting for rescue for nearly a week at the Superdome, with as many as 25,000 more at the convention center.

The last 300 refugees at the Superdome climbed aboard buses yesterday, eliciting cheers from members of the Texas National Guard who had been posted at the facility.

At the convention center, thousands of refugees dragged their meager belongings to buses, the mood more numb than jubilant. Yolando Sanders, who had been stuck at the convention center for five days, was among those who filed past corpses to reach the buses.

“Anyplace is better than here,” she said. “People are dying over there.”

Nearby, a woman lay dead in a wheelchair on the front steps. A man was covered in a black drape with a dry line of blood running to the gutter. Another had lain on a chaise lounge for four days, his stocking feet peeking out from under a quilt.

By midafternoon, only pockets of stragglers remained in the streets around the convention center, and New Orleans paramedics began carting away the dead.

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