In New Orleans, desperation blights stranded poor

NEW ORLEANS - Friday night in New Orleans was never like this.

Known for its raucous Mardi Gras festival, distinctive jazz, Francophile culture and unique architecture, New Orleans is still in crisis from floods that devastated the city following hurricane Katrina, leaving thousands homeless and desperate to leave.

And on some less glamorous streets, the stench of death permeates everything.

As dusk fell on Friday evening, a woman's bloated and brutally distorted figure lay prostrate on the corner of Jackson Avenue and Magazine Street in a poor neighbourhood.

The black woman lay, arms flaccid, feet splayed, one shoe gone, her face distended from swelling and her chest swollen as gas filled her decaying corpse.

Someone had covered her body in a plaid blanket in an anonymous gift offering some dignity.

A woman across the street shouted at photographers taking pictures of her, "She's been there for five days, since Monday." Then she approached to beg for bottled water, or anything at all that might help.

A convoy of five sport utility vehicles passed by, each packed with police training rifles with laser sights on the scant few residents out walking. They sped past the corpse without taking any notice.

Such bodies still litter New Orleans and they stand as a testament to the depth of the disaster here.

After all, The Big Easy is renowned for celebratory funerals with marching jazz bands and quirky cheer - a death here is supposed to be both happy and sad at once.

At the nearby Superdome, where thousands who had lost everything in the floods camped out this week awaiting evacuation, another black woman's bloated body lay in full view face down in shallow floodwaters even as hundreds of National Guard troops were stationed there to keep the site secure.

While water has receded from some parts of the city, even those districts now free from deluge are strewn with debris.

In the Garden District where multimillion-dollar Greek Revival mansions still stand, the deserted streets are littered with downed trees, destroyed cars and garbage. Nearby boutiques are boarded up, with "Looters Will Be Shot" painted on their facades.

In the downtown business district, US Marshals guard a nondescript building, setting up their headquarters and base of operations at the almost 20-story-high BellSouth building.

One federal agent who asked not to be named said the building is the hub for all long-distance telephone communications for the Southeastern United States.

Without the technology housed in that one structure, he said, there would be no long-distance calls in the region -- something that would blight commerce even further and a dynamic making the bland concrete edifice "a vital national security interest."

On the corner where that building stands, a frantic woman approached a federal officer and pleaded to be allowed past, saying, "I heard there were evacuation buses at the Superdome."

In her arms was a 5-year-old child, his naked, black back scarred and pitted with welts and burn marks, his arms wrapped tightly around her neck.

She was let through and joined scattered groups of families trudging with their few remaining possessions toward the stadium.

As the evening light grew dimmer they desperately walked on in search of an elusive seat out of town, just like tens of thousands still stuck in the city.

- REUTERS