Thursday, September 1, 2005; Posted: 2:24 p.m. EDT (18:24 GMT)
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Thousands of people forced from their homes by Hurricane Katrina have crammed into the New Orleans convention center, where they've had no food, no water and no word on when help would come.
And people are dying.
CNN's Chris Lawrence described "many, many" bodies, inside and outside the facility on New Orleans' Riverwalk. (Watch report on the desperate conditions at the convention center -- 4:36 )
"There are multiple people dying at the convention center," he said. "There was an old woman, dead in a wheelchair with a blanket draped over her, pushed up against a wall. Horrible, horrible conditions.
"We saw a man who went into a seizure, literally dying right in front of us."
People were "being forced to live like animals," Lawrence said, surrounded by piles of trash and feces.
He said thousands of people were just laying in the ground outside the building -- many old, or sick, or caring for infants and small children.
Video from the scene showed a group chanting 'we want help, we want help,' as mothers tried to console their tired and hungry children.
He said while he has seen police SWAT teams drive by in armored vehicles, no one has stopped to talk with the refugees.
"People are asking, 'Where are the buses? Where is the plan? Where is the help?" he said.
"Are they going to leave us here to die?" others asked.
More people were arriving at the center, walking south along Canal Street. The route north to the Superdome is blocked by chest-deep water.
The convention center was used as a secondary shelter when the Louisiana Superdome was overwhelmed.
As reports indicated a mounting death toll in New Orleans, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu said that "we understand there are thousands of dead people" in Louisiana, according to media reports.
Evacuation points swamped with people
A Louisiana National Guard official told CNN Thursday morning that between 50,000 and 60,000 people had converged at evacuation points near the Superdome hoping to get on one of the buses out of town.
"It's no longer just evacuees from the Superdome, as citizens who were holed up in high-rise office buildings and hotels saw buses moving into the dome, they realized this is an evacuation point," Lt. Col. Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard said.
Desperation was evident as the buses rolled out. State Sen. Robert Marionneaux recounted a story about a woman near the Superdome who handed her 2-month-old baby to someone who had managed to get on a bus to Houston, begging her to take care of the baby. CNN could not independently verify his account.
Schneider said there were reports that several small trash fires were burning around the building and firefighters were having a hard time reaching the area. (Watch report on violence delaying evacuation -- 1:51)
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff denied reports that rescue efforts in New Orleans had been halted for security reasons Thursday, saying those operations "are continuing in full force."
"We are going to continue to increase the tempo of that program until we've cleared people out of the Superdome and we've cleared people out of New Orleans," he said.
Chertoff said that the Coast Guard has rescued about 3,000 people from flooded areas in New Orleans and the surrounding parishes.
Houston has offered to house about 25,000 people in the Astrodome. San Antonio, Texas, has agreed to take another 25,000 people, officials said Thursday. Schneider said that officials were looking for additional locations.
Widespread looting and random gunfire have been reported across New Orleans. Police told CNN that groups of armed men roamed the streets overnight.
Officers told CNN they lacked manpower and steady communications to properly do their jobs -- and that they needed help to prevent the widespread looting and violence now prevalent in the city.
A police officer working in downtown New Orleans said police were siphoning gas from abandoned vehicles in an effort to keep their squad cars running, CNN's Chris Lawrence reported.
The officer said police are "on their own" for food and water, scrounging up what they can from anybody who is generous enough to give them some -- and that they have no communication whatsoever. Police also told CNN they were removing ammunition from looted gunshops in an effort to get it off the streets.
The Pentagon said that by next week 24,000 troops would be on the ground to assist in recovery efforts, including 8,600 National Guard members by Friday who could be put to work in law enforcement. (See video on Pentagon response -- 2:14)
President Bush, in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," said that their should be "zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this."
He promised a rapid federal response to the disaster.
Mississippi death toll rising
The breadth of the brutality of Hurricane Katrina became clearer as more death toll figures began to filter in from Mississippi's coastal region.
Authorities said at least 185 people died in Monday's Category 4 storm.
In Hancock County alone, Sheriff Eddie Jennings put the death toll at 85, with 60 people dead in Pearlington, 22 in Waveland, two in Bay St. Louis and one body that had washed up on the beach.
In neighboring Harrison County, which is home to Gulfport and Biloxi, authorities reported 100 bodies had been found, an emergency official in the state capital, Jackson, told CNN.
Power out; gas prices rising
Electricity was out for more than 2.3 million people in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida.
Meanwhile, Katrina's effect on oil supplies and gas prices spread nationwide, prompting the White House to tap the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
News of disruptions in the gas supply sparked runs on stations and a sharp spike in prices, with some drivers in Atlanta, Georgia, facing prices above $5 a gallon. (Economic impact)
The operators of two key pipelines that carry fuel out of the region announced Thursday that they were resuming limited operations.
In New Orleans, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was using helicopters to drop 15,000-pound sandbags into breaches in the city's levee system -- the first step in trying to control the flooding that submerged most of the city. (See video on levee repairs -- 3:53)
The flow of water into New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain finally abated, Corps officials said. But engineers won't begin trying to pump out the water until the breaches are plugged. (Recovery efforts)