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~ Associated Press INieurdbKdll
L Edited by Alan Phelps * Wsdnssday, August 26, 1992
Hurricane Andrew strikes Cajun coastline
NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Andrew
unleashed its ravaging fury on Louisiana Tues
day with 140 mph winds that raked the coast
line after residents boarded up and fled.
The storm, blamed for the deaths of at least
17 people in Florida and the Bahamas, was
estimated to have caused $15 billion to $20
billion in damages in south Florida. If those
preliminary figures hold up, it would be by far
the most expensive natural disaster ever in the
United Slates.
Andrew began lashing coastal parishes by
nightfall. At about 10 p.m., Bob Sheets, direc
tor of the National Hurricane Center, said the
doughnut-shaped wall of the storm around the
eye had struck the marshy coaslland, with 140
mph winds.
At least three tornadoes were reported in
LaPlacc, west of New Orleans, striking a sub
division and doctor’s office, authorities said.
The sheriff, operating without electricity, called
for ambulances and said there were “multiple
injuries,” but details weren’t immediately
available, stale police Capt. Ronnie Jones said.
Andrew began lashing oul at coastal par
ishes by nightfall. Hurricane-force winds over
74 mph prevented sheriffs deputies from re
sponding to rescue calls from a stranded 60
foot boat and stalled cars in Terrebonne Parish
south of New Orleans, even though the storm’s
eye was still about 40 miles offshore, civil
defense coordinator Morris Duplantis said.
“It’s beginning to look pretty bad,” he said.
Lockport, cast of Terrebonne Parish, lost
power at 7:15 p.m. amid reports of 100 mph
wind gusts.
“We’ve got trees in the road and power
outages all over the place. We’ve got 2,700
people in shelters and more oul looking for
shelters,” Lafourche Parish sheriffs Maj. Sonny
Hanson said.
A turn to the north late Tuesday meant New
Orleans could expect 100 mph winds and more
hurricane than previously forecast, according
to the National Hurricane Center.
“It’s going between the more populated
areas of Louisiana between Lake Charles and
Lafaycllc, putting the brunt of the storm into
New Orleans and Baton Rouge,” said hurri
cane specialist Martin Nelson.
After roaring across the Gulf of Mexico,
Andrew had been expected to move ashore
again sometime around midnight Tuesday, the
National Hurricane Center said. It was ex
pected to spare New Orleans its full fury, strik
ing farther west in the low-lying Cajun coun
try. . .
Buoys near the mouth of the Mississippi
River recorded hurricane-force winds as An
drew swirled toward land. Flooding was I cared
as forecasters said the storm could turn parallel
to the coast and slow, pummcling a wide swath
with heavy rain.
“People arc getting the idea this is serious
now,” said Steve Bierhorst, civil defense direc
tor for the town of Patterson, a coastal commu
nity under mandatory evacuation.
Debris swirled through Plaquemines Parish
in the afternoon and trees were damaged as the
storm cruised to the south, parish President
Luke Petrovich said.
“This is the closest threat we’ve had in the
last 22 years,” Petrovich said. “She’s as dan
gerous as when she hit Miami.”
Gov. Edwin Edwards declared a state of
emergency for all of Louisiana. More than 2
million people in Mississippi, Louisiana and
Texas were asked or told to leave their coastal
homes.
Traffic heading north from the Cajun
coaslland was bumper to bumper for as far as
the eye could sec on U.S. 90. Traffic was also
tied up on Interstate 49.
Sandbag walls were erected around the South
Central Bell telephone building in New Or
leans and French Quarter bars boarded up.
Floodgates were closed in the complicated sys
tem of levees that protect the city, and the
Orleans Levee District said it had run out of
sandbags for the public.
The hurricane warning was posted along
470 miles of coast from Pascagoula, Miss., to
near Galveston, Texas.
Clinton, Bush vie for vets
at Legionnaires’ meeting
CHICAGO — Bill Clinton
appealed to veterans Tuesday not
to oppose his presidential candi
dacy just because he avoided serv
ing in Vietnam. President Bush
pointedly reminded them that when
his lime came to serve in World
War II, “I was seared but I was
willing.”
The presidential rivals appeared
two hours apart before an Ameri
can Legion
convention,
first Bush ex
tolling his ex
perience as a
wartime fighter
pilot and com
mandcr-in
chicf, then Clinton trying to bury
the controversy over his Vietnam
era draft status.
i uu Know 1 never served in me
military; you know I opposed the
war in Vietnam,” the Arkansas
governor said. “Bui I want you lo
know this: I was never against the
heroic men who served in the war.”
“If you choose lo vole against
me because of what happened 23
years ago, that’s your right and I
respect that,” Clinton said. “But it
is my hope you will cast your vote
while looking toward the future
with hope rather than remaining
fixed lo the problems of the past.
“If I should lose this election on
the real issues, I shall be satisfied
that I tried my best and was fairly
judged,” Clinton said.
Bush defended himself against
accusations that he slopped the Gulf
War too soon rather than sending
troops into Baghdad to crush Sad
dam Hussein’s government.
“We arc not in the slaughter
business,” Bush said. “We were in
the business of stopping aggres
sion and I don’t like these histori
cal revisions. We did the right thing.”
Bush said his lop military advis
ers as well as Gen. Norman Sch
warzkopf on the scene, had told
him the battle had been won and it
was time to slop.
“Like everybody else, the econ
omy is the issue,” said Ohio dele
gate Gerard Enlingh. “Whether
Clinton served or not is not an
issue, although it is to some of
these people.”
Roger Munson of Ohio said,
“President Bush is a veteran and a
Legion member. Sure it matters.”
Clinton, saying he owed veter
ans “one final statement” on the
issue, told the group he got a draft
notice in 1969 and was told by his
draft board he could finish his school
year. He said he then joined an '
ROTC program to avoid the draft,
but soon reversed that decision and
submitted to the then-new draft
lottery, only to draw a high number
and never be called.
“I would have served and gone
to Vietnam if called,” he said.
“But I-have to tell you the truth: I
was relieved when I saw my num
ber was 311, not because 1 didn’t
want to serve my country but be
cause I believed so strongly that
our policy in V ictnam was wrong.”
Clinton promised to honor vet
erans “with deeds, not words.” He
pledged to protect and expand vet
erans’ health and other programs,
and open the Pentagon files on
Americans missing in action.
Clinton said Presidents Lincoln,
Wilson and Roosevelt had no mili
tary experience but sent American
troops into battle.
“I do not relish this prospect,
but neither do I shrink from it,”
Clinton said.
Bush also promised a full ac
counting of missing American serv
icemen.
The president promised to pro
tect health programs, and said the
new job-training proposal he un
veiled Monday would help outgo
ing servicemen and defense work
ers in transition.
‘‘I hope I have earned your trust,”
said Bush. “The bond we share
links us.”
Floridians assess damage
MIAMI — South Florida fought
off looting, disease and desperation
Tuesday in the wake of Hurricane
Andrew, and the storm's dazed survi
vors jammed roads and formed lines
in a scramble for necessities.
Labradors trained to sniff out bodies
joined the effort to measure the full
devastation left by the hurricane, which
may be the nation's costliest natural
disaster. One preliminary estimate pul
the toll at up to $20 billion.
“It’s pandemoniumsaid Thomas
Moore, an official at a shelter filled
with 70 ill, elderly nursing-home
evacuees in the hard-hit Richmond
Heights area, about 10 miles south of
central Miami. One evacuee died
earlier, and Moore said everything
from medicine to adult diapers was
needed.
Federal and state government re
lief efforts were joined by donations
from supermarkets and bottled-water
companies, kitchens set up by the
Salvation Army and Southern Bap
tists, and U.S. military field rations.
Andrew whirled across the Gulf of
Mexico toward coastal areas in Lou
isiana.
i iic mui 111 uii ivmnuuy nuuiy uam
aged an uncounted number of homes,
as well as an Air Force base, Miami’s
popular zoo, mobile home parks and
department stores.
At least 12 people died when
Andrew pounded Miami’s southern
suburbs and nearby farm communi
ties with winds that topped 160 mph.
The storm had left three confirmed
deaths in the Bahamas on Sunday.
"Some bodies are caught in the
wreckage and they have had to be left
for the time being,” said Jay Eakcr, a
Federal Emergency Management
Agency spokesman in Tallahassee.
Three Labrador retrievers trained
in body recovery for the Florida Game
and Freshwater Fish Commission were
sent to the wreckage of shopping
centers in Culler Ridge, a town on the
southern fringes of metropolitan Miami
where authorities suspected some
people were buried under debris.
Police, bolstered by 2,000 National
Guardsmen, promised a hard line
against looting as a 7 p.m.-lo-7 a.m.
countywidc curfew was extended
Tuesday night. Police made at least
Source: National Hurricane Center
35 arrests Monday.
“Wc will fill the jails up until
they’re running over,” said Detective
Donald Blocker of the Metro-Dade
police.
Gov. Lawton Chiles set up a com
mand post in a Miami Lakes hotel
running on its own generator and said
he would direct the government from
South Florida until the crisis is cased.
He visited more ravaged neighbor
hoods Tuesday, after touring Monday
with President Bush.
“These folks need to know we’re
going to try to help them," Chiles
said. “There’s some things I think we
can do to cut red tape.”
Disaster officials said 50,000 people
were homeless, with nearly 35,000
still in shelters.
AP
The Federal Emergency Manage
ment Agency set up a Miami office to
direct relief efforts and take applica
tions for assistance. Some 1,800 mobile
homes were being shipped for tempo
rary housing.
The Miami International Airport
remained closed for repairs, and
Tamiami Airport was also shut down.
CSX Transportation suspended freight
train operations south of Jacksonville
because of track damage.
Thousands of people rushed out
under sunny skies in search of food,
water and supplies to offset the lack
of power. Florida Power & Light Co.
officials said 2 million people re
mained without electricity early
Tuesday.
Hurricane Andrew’s Florida path
!
Link between smoking, cataracts found
CHICAGO—Smoking more than
a pack of cigarettes a day doubles the
likelihood a person will develop cata
racts, the clouding of the eye lenses
that afflicts 3 million Americans, two
news studies found.
The studies, involving almost
70,000 men and women, suggest about
20 percent of all cataract eases may
be attributed to smoking, said a re
searcher who found a link between
the eye disease and smoking in an
earlier study.
More research is needed to deter
mine precisely how smoking dam
ages the lens, Sheila West of the Dana
Center for Preventive Ophthalmol
ogy at Johns Hopkins Hospital said in
an editorial accompanying the stud
ies in Wednesday’s Journal of the
American Medical Association.
“For now, it appears that the litany
of ills associated with smoking is
growing, as we add to it cataracts, the
world’s leading cause of blindness,”
she wrote.
More than a million Americans
undergo cataract surgery each year at
a total cost of billions of dollars.
The latest studies involved 17,824
male U.S. physicians tracked from
1982 through 1987 and 50,828 fe
male U.S. nurses tracked from 1980
through 1988.
In the Physicians’ Health Study,
subjects who smoked 20 cigarettes or
more a day were 2.05 times more
likely to be diagnosed with a cataract
than subjects who had never smoked,
the researchers said.
Of the 17,824 men, 1,188 smoked
20 or more cigarettes daily, and 59
cataracts developed among them, a
rate of 2.5 cataracts per 100 eyes.
Among the 9,045 men who had never
smoked, 228 cataracts developed, a
rate of about 1.3 cataracts per 100
eyes.
Smokers of fewer than 20 ciga
rettes daily had no increased risk
compared with non-smokers, the re
searchers said.
NelSra&kan I
editor Chrlt Hoptenspargar
472-1766
Managing Editor Kris Karnopp
Assoc News Editor Adeana LaHIn
Assoc News Editor/ Wendy Navratll
Writing coach
Sports Editor JohnAdklsson
Arts a Entertain
ment Editor Shannon Uehllna
Diversions Editor Mark Baldridge l
Photo Chief William Lauer
Night News Editors Kathy Stelnauer
Mika lewla
Kim Spurlock
Kara Morrteon
Art Director Scott Maurer
General Manager Dan Shaft II
Production Manager Katherine Pollcky
Publications board
Chairman Tom Maaaey
4*47*1
’rotessional Adviser Don Walton
473-7301
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