4A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
FRIDAY. SEPTEMBER 2. 2005
HURRICANE KATRINA
Norman Ng/The Associated Press
Medical personnel comfort a child who was airlifted from New Orleans to the downtown airport Wednesday, in Kansas City, Mo. The evacuation was being conducted by the 139th Airlift Wing based out of St. Joseph, Mo., in conjunction with Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo.
Child patients moved
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Twenty-four young patients from a hospital in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans have been brought to Kansas City. They were flown in Wednesday night on two Missouri Air National Guard transport planes.
Children's Mercy Hospital of Kansas City agreed to take the patients, sending a team to New Orleans earlier Wednesday to start arranging the transfer from that city's Children's Hospital. The two hospitals are not affiliated, but Randall O'Donnell, chief executive officer of the Kansas City facility, is a longtime friend of his New Orleans counterpart and offered to do whatever was needed to help.
Tom McCormally, a spokesman for the Kansas City hospital, said the New Orleans hospital called Wednesday asking for accommodations as quickly as possible for patients and their families.
"They said not tomorrow, it needs to be today," Mcmally
said. "They were really anxious to get the children out of there to someplace safe and dry, away from the chaos."
Kansas City hospital takes youths
McCormally said the hospital contacted the office of Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., which helped arrange for the National Guard transport on two C-130 planes from the 139th Airlift Wing, based in St. Joseph. The planes were already in the Gulf area, having flown guardmen from Colorado to Gulfport, Miss., to help in the hurricane relief efforts.
The two C-130s arrived at Kansas City's downtown airport about 11 p.m., with a convoy of ambulances waiting to transport the patients. Some were taken to the main Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, others to Children's Mercy South in suburban Overland Park, Kan.
"Just to get to help the children really felt good," said Maj. Ron Douglas of the Air Guard unit. "We were willing to work longer if
we had to."
McCormally said the patients range in age from a few months to 20 years. He said they were hospitalized for everything from asthma to leukemia to kidney dialysis, with conditions ranging from fair to critical.
"Now that I'm here, I'm not afraid anymore," said Arnita Lister of Shreveport, La., who arrived with her 3-year-old son, to whom she donated a kidney in February.
McCormally said the New Orleans hospital sent about 40 children to a hospital in Houston, with Kansas City getting the next largest number and others going to locations that included Birmingham, Ala., Little Rock, Ark., and Memphis, Tenn.
McCormally said about 30 parents and siblings who accompanied the patients to Kansas City stayed overnight at the hospital and hospital social workers were helping arrange for longer-term accommodations.
▼ HURRICANE KATRINA
Superdome refugees evacuate to Houston
BY MARY FOSTER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW ORLEANS — At the front of the line, the weary refugees waded through ankle-deep water, grabbed a bottle of water from state troopers and happily hopped on buses that would deliver them from the horrendous conditions of the Superdome.
At the back end of the line, people jammed against police barricades in the rain. Refugees passed out and had to be lifted hand-over headover to medics. Pets were not allowed on the bus, and when a police officer confiscated a little boy's dog, the child cried until he vomited. "Snowball, Snowball," he cried.
The scene played out yesterday as the plodding procession out of
the Superdome entered its second day—an evacuation that became more complicated as thousands more storm victims showed up at the arena.
Capt. John Pollard of the Texas Air Force National Guard said 20,000 people were in the dome when the evacuation efforts began. By yesterday afternoon, the number had swelled to about 30,000. Pollard said people poured into the Superdome because they believe it's the best place to get a ride out of town.
The refugees began arriving yesterday at the Astrodome in Houston, where they got a shower, a hot meal and a cool place to sleep.
"I would rather have been in jail," Janice Jones said in obvious relief at being out of the dome. "I've been in there seven days and
I haven't had a bath. They treated us like animals. Everybody is scared."
Miranda Jones, her daughter, was standing next to her, carrying her father's ashes — the only thing they were able to save from her house before Hurricane Katrina blasted New Orleans.
An angry Terry Ebbert, head of New Orleans' emergency operations, watched the slow exodus from the Superdome and said the Federal Emergency Management Agency response was inadequate.
The chaos at the nearby New Orleans Convention Center was considerably more hostile than the Superdome, with few options for refugees to leave the scene.
"This is a national disgrace. FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control." Ebbert said.
After a day in line in the heat without water or food, dozens of people fell out. Medics poured water on them, fanned them, and tried to cool them down.
One woman, lying on a canvas cot, was in convulsions. Medics doused her with water and slapped her, trying to bring her around.
Meanwhile the crowd kept growing as stranded people heard about the buses and headed to the dome.
By early afternoon, a line of people a half-mile long snaked from the Superdome through the nearby Hyatt Regency Hotel, then to where buses waited.
State troopers, making every effort to be cheerful, handed out bottles of water and tried to keep families and groups together.
Gates
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
The Oread is a historic area and the kind of features that make an area distinctive are important," Carol von Tersch, Oread resident. said.
"People that live in the neighborhood don't want to see those characteristics lost."
While von Tersch does not necessarily welcome the distinctive style created by the newly remodeled houses, the houses are now restored and up-to-date.
She said renovating the houses was better than the alternative of simply demolishing them, though.
"I'm pleased to see the owners and investors are really investing to fix the houses up. I think that's a very positive thing," she said.
— Edited by Patrick Ross
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