Bastrop Daily Enterprise: News Index

Bastrop Daily Enterprise: News Index:

"About a dozen people who headed down the street to look for food and water were turned back by a soldier who pulled a gun.

'We had to get something to eat. What are they doing pulling a gun?' said Richard Johnson, 28.

The soldiers' arrival-in-force came amid angry complaints from local officials that the federal government had bungled the relief effort and let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine as the city was overtaken by looting, rape and arson.

'The people of our city are holding on by a thread,' Mayor Ray Nagin warned in a statement to CNN. 'Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows.'"