Groonk's Newsmine 2.0

The frightening estimate came as Army engineers struggled to plug New Orleans' breached levees with giant sandbags and concrete barriers, and authorities drew up plans to clear out the tens of thousands of people left in the Big Easy and practically abandon the flooded-out city. Many of the evacuees — including thousands now staying in the Superdome — will be moved to the Astrodome in Houston, 350 miles away.

There will be a "total evacuation of the city. We have to. The city will not be functional for two or three months," Nagin said. And he said people will not be allowed back into their homes for at least a month or two.

Nagin estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people remained in New Orleans, a city of nearly half a million. He said 14,000 to 15,000 a day could be evacuated.

The
Pentagon, meanwhile, began mounting one of the largest search-and-rescue operations in U.S. history, sending four Navy ships with drinking water and other emergency supplies, along with the hospital ship USNS Comfort, search helicopters and elite SEAL water-rescue teams.
American Red Cross workers from across the country converged on the devastated region in the agency's biggest-ever relief operation.

[...]

With the streets awash and looters brazenly cleaning out stores with law enforcement officers too busy to do anything about it, authorities planned to move at least 25,000 of New Orleans' storm refugees to the Astrodome in a vast, two-day caravan of some 475 buses.

Many of the city's refugees — 15,000 to 20,000 people — were in the Superdome, which had become hot and stuffy, with broken toilets and nowhere for anyone to bathe. "It can no longer operate as a shelter of last resort," the mayor said.