BBC Rescues 5 Orphaned Children

A blazing display of how flawed the federal rescue effort is.


A week after the storm, a BBC news crew rescues 5 children stuck in a house with their dead mother.

We brought our own boat and headed into residential neighborhoods.

It is a grim journey, where bodies float uncollected in the water.

We were asked to go to a house where there were children without their mother.

We pull the boat to the door. Inside a daughter explains how her mother could not breathe.

One week after this storm, a news service based in London is having to rescue orphaned children in a US city. My god, how low has Bush taken us? One week, 7 days, over 150 hours, and there are still uncounted thousands needing help. But there is even more alarming information.

Sometimes more than 40 helicopters hover above the city still rescuing people.

They are highly visible but do not explain, for instance, why high wheeled vehicles have not been driven into these more accessible neighborhoods.

When the authorities do come to these streets, it is more often in pickup trucks with guns.

"There are a lot more cops and guns than doctors," Greg Henderson, a doctor, said.

"For a long time, I'm sorry to say that I was the only doctor down here in central New Orleans."

You do have to wonder where are the high water vehicles that the La. Guard is reported to have.

Another graphic display of the failure of out federal government rescuers.

A trio of Duke University sophomores say they drove to New Orleans late last week, posed as journalists to slip inside the hurricane-soaked city twice, and evacuated seven people who weren't receiving help from authorities.

The group, led by South Carolina native Sonny Byrd, say they also managed to drive all the way to the New Orleans Convention Center, where they encountered scenes early Saturday evening that they say were disgraceful.

"We found it absolutely incredible that the authorities had no way to get there for four or five days, that they didn't go in and help these people, and we made it in a two-wheel-drive Hyundai,"

Three young men, with a 2 wheel drive Hyundai appear able to do what the La. Guard was totally unable to do.