NEW ORLEANS – In the lower 9th Ward, a man’s bloated body lay face down in tar-black floodwaters on Friday. He was wedged against a chain-link fence on Reynes Street outside a low-slung bungalow with pink shutters.
In an upper-story bedroom window, the glass had been broken out and curtains fluttered in the dark air, suggesting someone had escaped in a hurry. There was no way to know how the man died, but his corpse remained where it was, gently slapping against the fence in the swirling floodwaters.
As U.S. Marines moved through neighborhoods still 8 feet deep in water, where no other rescue crews had been able to reach, they swept past the dead man and focused on the living. But all they found in a long day of searching was five corpses, including the one on Reynes Street.
Over the past four days, the number of people rescued by the Marines searching along New Orleans’ eastern flank has dwindled. The number of bodies has risen each day. That math suggests rescue efforts are coming to a close and the day that New Orleans begins to focus solely on collecting its dead is drawing near.
“It’s brutal in there,” Marine Lt. Col. Kent Ralston said after his crews, in assault amphibian vehicles known as amtracs, had plowed through floodwaters up to the rooftops. “I’m afraid they’re going to find bodies in some of those homes.”
The poor neighborhoods of the lower 9th Ward, comprised mostly of brittle frame houses and one-story bungalows, were crushed when a levee collapsed along the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal in the middle of the night one day after Hurricane Katrina struck. Areas along the canal north of N. Claiborne Avenue, directly east of the breach, were flattened.
“Those poor people never had a chance,” said Sgt. Dale Gooden, 30, staring at entire blocks of obliterated homes, their frames and roof beams splintered into rubble. “It must have been terrifying trying to get out of there in the dark.”
The Marines had not known what to expect when they began surging through the polluted waters in the ward, and through several streets in the adjacent Arabi neighborhood, across the city line in St. Bernard Township. Because of high waters and debris in the narrow streets, few had been searched by previous rescue teams.
The amtracs were able to crunch over submerged cars and float up to house rooftops, their crews peering in upper-story windows for signs of life. There were no people, only dogs trapped on porches or on upended trees, dozens of them in the 1 1/2-mile by 1 1/2-mile territory covered Friday.
On some blocks, the floodwaters had preserved a moment in time, the period when the ruptured levee sent a surge of water slamming into homes. Hundreds of cars remained parked in their driveways, their roofs poking through the water. Front doors were locked and windows closed, as if everyone who had not evacuated for the hurricane had gone to bed for the night.
“The violence of the water rushing in there must have been tremendous,” Ralston said. “There’s mud on the rooftops.”
A team of four amtracs sent by Ralston to search areas of St. Bernards Parish about three miles away found neither survivors nor corpses. The flood damage was not as extensive as in the lower 9th Ward, Ralston said. “I hope that means everybody got out OK.”
On some blocks, the Marine vehicles had to halt suddenly when they encountered houses that had been torn from their foundations and had floated into the middle of the street. On many streets, mountains of crushed homes blocked the way and it was impossible to tell where one home ended and the next one began.
Some Marines were shocked by the extent of the devastation. A few said they could not believe they were in the United States.
“Man, this is worse than Iraq,” said Cpl. Michael Brown, who was wounded in Iraq and broke his right little finger Friday while trying to pry loose an electric wire that had snagged on his amtrac. “The only good thing is, we get to help our fellow Americans.”
The amtracs slowed to toss biscuits or wafers from packets of ready-to-eat meals to the stranded dogs. The animals were weak from hunger and dehydration, their coats tight against their ribs, matted with grime.
If seeing the stranded dogs was painful for the Marines, the sight of the corpses was unbearable. The crews smelled them before they saw them, and fell silent when the remains came into view on the water’s oily surface.
“Oh, man, oh, man,” one Marine said softly.
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