Desperate rescues in US after hurricane
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-08-30 16:05

U.S. Coast Guard helicopters plucked survivors from rooftops and firefighters went house-to-house in boats in desperate rescue operations in eastern New Orleans for hundreds of people trapped by floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina, AFP reported.

U.S. Coast Guard helicopters plucked survivors from rooftops and firefighters went house-to-house in boats in desperate rescue operations in eastern New Orleans for hundreds of people trapped by floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina. [AFP]

With water lapping as high as the eaves on some houses, rescue crews piled into any boat they could find with a working motor and searched for people trapped in wooden homes on New Orleans's east side.

US military and Coast Guard helicopters flew overhead carrying out rescue missions and assessing the damage from one of the most powerful storms to hit the United States in years.

Louisiana state Governor Kathleen Blanco told CNN television that hundreds of people had been plucked from floodwaters since the hurricane made landfall early Monday and hundreds more were awaiting rescue.

"We've pulled literally hundreds of people out of the waters," Blanco said some 12 hours after Hurricane Katrina slammed into this southern US city of 1.4 million people. "We believe there are hundreds more out there. And so tonight is critical."

In one rescue operation witnessed by AFP, firefighters spotted a man who had patched together a makeshift boat with wooden shipping pallets and was pushing himself toward an interstate freeway.

He was pulled into an aluminum flatbottom skiff in moments. The firefighters then steered their way to a ramshackle white house where they picked up a soaking wet elderly man in a green shirt by his shoulders.

The boat then moved on to the next home.

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