WASHINGTON -- With
some parts of the New Orleans downtown area now under as much as
eight feet of still-rising water -- and the overall situation
growing more desperate with each passing hour, New Orleans
officials were attempting to completely evacuate the thousands of
people still left in the city.
Federal Emergency
Management Agency quickly tapped Dallas-based Greyhound Lines to
assist in transporting those sheltered in the Louisiana Superdome hundreds of
miles to the Houston Astrodome, which has stood vacant since 1999,
as the water from Lake Pontchartrain continued to flood into the
city through at least two damaged levees.
Our people in
operations are working as hard as they possibly can to not only
help out in this situation but also to handle our operations in the
rest of the country, said a spokesperson for the bus
line.
As the evacuation
operation continued to unfold late Aug. 31, it was unclear how many
Greyhound buses had been diverted from other intercity routes to
assist in the evacuation.
Meanwhile, travel
associations were working to assess how many of their members were
impacted by Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged the Gulf
Coast.
The National Tour
Association reported that at least 72 of its 101 members located in
Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi were directly impacted by the
storm. Members included tour operators, destination marketing
organizations, hotels, restaurants and attractions.
Another organization,
the American Bus Association, estimated its number of impacted at
59, including the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino in Biloxi,
Mississippi, which suffered significant damage, along with several
other resorts in the area, a spokesperson said.
To contact
reporter Michael Milligan, send e-mail to [email protected].
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For more
details on this article, see "Situation bad and getting worse in New
Orleans."