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New Orleans floods intensify overnight

NEW ORLEANS — Charlotte Goodwin fell asleep Monday night pleased and content, the waters from Hurricane Katrina only lapping onto the second step of her porch.

"Then, when I woke up (Tuesday) morning, it was in my house," she said.

DAVID J. PHILLIP/AP Photo (enlarge photo) Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina cover a portion of New Orleans, La., Tuesday.

Within hours, the water had crept so high that the 63-year-old was calling to neighbors, asking if anyone had a boat.

Goodwin, like the rest of New Orleans, awoke Tuesday to find that a full day after Katrina roared through, the storm's waters continued to rise and spread to parts of the city that had gone to bed dry the night before.

Rescue crews continued fishing people out of their attics and off their roofs and attics — more than 1,000 of them — with even New Orleans SWAT team members laying down their rifles and bullet-proof vests to hop onto boats.

And for many, their only island of safety was the highway-turned-shelter of Interstate 10.

While the highway was flooded east and west of downtown, its elevated portions remained dry throughout the heart of the city.

"There's going to be whole families living along this highway before long," said Brett Oncale, a New Orleans man watching the flood Canal Street from the I-10 overpass.

Over every hump and around every turn, different groups of evacuees popped up.

Hundreds carried their belongings in the wrong direction toward the Crescent City Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River toward the West Bank. Some sat under overpasses, trying to catch some shade from the scorching sun and overwhelming humidity that rose from the deep waters below.

Some, however, were saved by rescue crews or neighbors with boats only to be stranded on the searing pavement.

Goodwin is 62 and suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and lupus, ailments that left her with a large bag full of medications. But, they also left her unable to walk long distances and stranded without any water to take those medications.

"I'm wondering if I'm going to make it," she said.

Around another bend, 63-year-old Aleck Scallan sat in his wheelchair.

A group of police officers on a boat rescued him from his home, which quickly flooded Tuesday morning, and dropped him off on the interstate on-ramp.

Then, they left. Scallan was left with a frail, elderly companion on a stretch of highway that fell below two giant humps, leaving them in the valley of the concrete slopes.

"Where am I going to go?" he said. "They were supposed to pick us up and take us to the dome."

Even those who got close to the Louisiana Superdome, a shelter to 10,000 people during the storm and capable of holding thousands more, found themselves stranded.

Jose Edgardo-Guifarro's apartment also flooded on Tuesday, forcing him onto his sofa and cabinets for hours. Eventually, the water got so high that he was forced to flee, swimming 200 yards before reaching an area where he could walk neck-deep.

Finally, after a morning of swimming and wading for several miles, Edgardo-Guifarro came within 100 yards of the Superdome on a stretch of Interstate 10, only to find the last stretch impassible from the floods.

Edgardo-Guifarro sat on a railing, watching National Guard and Red Cross helicopters flying in sandbag after sandbag to keep the rising waters from entering the colossal structure.

"Aren't the waters supposed to start going down after the storm passes," he said. "What's going on?"

The worsening floods even took emergency management people by surprise.

Just a week ago, Louisiana emergency management officials from around the state gathered in a city just north of New Orleans to plan a response for a catastrophic hurricane. They called it Hurricane Pam.

"Our plans changed yesterday about 10 times," said Gary Peters, regional director for the Louisiana Bureau of EMS, as he corralled a group of ambulances on an interstate on-ramp.

A few miles down the highway from Peters, 14-year-old Travis Goodwin sat with his grandmother and watched the rising tide.

The young, thirsty teen spoke little, but encapsulated the thought that was overwhelming people across the city, but that many were beginning to realize was impossible.

"I want to go home."

Alan Gomez writes for the Palm Beach Post. E-mail: agomez@pbpost.com