US environmental experts warned on Wednesday night that the putrid flood waters swamping New Orleans are 10 times more toxic than safety levels, posing a serious danger not just to die-hard residents refusing to leave, but to rescuers as well.
The disclosure from the first tests conducted by the US government into conditions in New Orleans added a growing urgency to an order for thousands of inhabitants remaining in the wretched city to leave or face forced evacuation.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it detected concentrated levels of bacteria in samples from the submerged city, as well as traces of lead. The mayor, Ray Nagin, added that natural-gas leaks have been reported across the city, and beseeched about 10 000 still holding out to leave.
”Everybody needs to leave except for crazy people like the press, the military and the city [employees],” he said on Wednesday. ”This is not a safe environment. It’s OK to leave for a little while. Let us get this city cleaned up.”
At least three deaths from bacterial infections have been reported from the carnage wrought by Hurricane Katrina. The EPA warned that there is a risk not just from drinking water but from skin contact as well.
”Human contact with the flood water should be avoided as much as possible,” said Stephen Johnson, an EPA administrator.
The authorities want to carry out the evacuation peacefully by promising proper treatment in evacuation centres and a swift return as soon as the electricity is restored and running water can be provided.
A further incentive came on Wednesday when the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) said it will issue debit cards worth $2 000 to every displaced adult.
But the controversy surrounding the agency and its dilatory response to the crisis escalated after documents surfaced showing that its director, Michael Brown, had hesitated for five hours after the storm hit before acting.
He then sent off a memo to his boss, Michael Chertoff, the head of the Homeland Security Department, suggesting that 1 000 Fema workers should be sent in after another 48-hour wait, apparently for training purposes.
One of their tasks, Brown wrote, would be to ”convey a positive image” about the government’s response to the disaster.
On Wednesday night in New Orleans, national guardsmen were warning those who were still hanging out in the French Quarter that the mayor had told them that they would get no help if they decided to stay.
Members of the public are very thin on the ground in what looks like a sacked city taken over by an occupying army. Now that 20 000 armed national guardsmen are encamped throughout the city, the looters have been contained and the few remaining citizens will be under increasing pressure to go.
The stand-off is set to intensify at the weekend when the forced evacuations are due to start.
The smell in the streets is highly unpleasant and many troops are wearing bandannas round their faces as flies fester and birds pick at the rubbish.
Bigger risk
However, reports Marc Lavine, a medical expert said on Wednesday that the greatest health risk in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is a possible outbreak of gastro-intestinal disease in refugee shelters, not the ”toxic gumbo” of New Orleans.
Dr Raoult Ratard, Louisiana chief epidemiologist, downplayed reports that epidemics of cholera, typhoid, malaria and yellow fever are lurking in the putrid flood waters covering the city and said the threat is more mundane.
”People have been talking about malaria, yellow fever and about dengue,” he told reporters in Baton Rouge, the Louisiana state capital. ”We are not concerned about that.
”The only source of these diseases is infected people. These people were not here. If you don’t have a bunch of people out there being bitten by mosquitoes, and it takes more than one person, you don’t have the disease.”
The water-borne bacteria that killed five survivors of the New Orleans floods, Vibrio vulnificus, only targets the elderly and sick and is very unlikely to spread, Ratard said.
”I am not surprised that some people have been exposed to it and that it turned into blood poisoning. But a lot of people have been exposed to sea water, where this bacteria lives, and will not get sick.
”This is not transmitted person to person and it’s not going to spread,” he said, adding, however, that nursing homes and hospice patients are vulnerable.
Even West Nile virus, a mosquito-related fever, is not a big risk because the storm probably killed mosquito larvae and mosquitoes and chased away the birds.
Ratard said the biggest danger is the virulent gastro-intestinal sickness Noro virus, which is born in human waste. He said it is liable to break out in shelters, where many of the one million people displaced by the storm and flooding are housed.
”The main concern is that you have a shelter with 6 000 people who are going to go there, then you will have someone who has diarrhoea. The fear is that it could spread,” he said.
About 14 ”clusters” of people, groups of five to 15, have already come down with diarrhoea in shelters.
But even common gastric ailments are not spreading fast yet, he said.
”Right now, we don’t have large outbreaks of people that have been out of New Orleans for more than 72 hours,” Ratard said.
While the medical official warned survivors and rescuers to avoid drinking or wading in the fetid swamp of New Orleans, he added that simply coming into contact with it will not necessarily result in infection.
”The water is not safe to drink, it’s not a good idea to go and wade in the water,” he said. ”It’s also not a toxic gumbo that going to kill people. We don’t want them to be scared for no reason.”
If rescuers or survivors come into contact with the rank water, the treatment is simple.
”The best contamination is a shower with soap and water,” Ratard said. — Guardian Unlimited Â