Huge Damage Bill From Hurricane

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30856, 15 September 1965, Page 17

Huge Damage Bill From Hurricane

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) NEW ORLEANS, September 13.

Divers prepared again today to search the Mississippi river in Baton Rouge for 600 tons of lethal chlorine.

The chlorine was the cargo of a barge which sank when hurricane Betsy hit Louisiana last Friday. The 160,000 residents of the city were urged to keep their radios on today in case a general evacuation order was issued because of the poison gas threat. A Navy destroyer sailed up the Mississippi river to take over command of search operations.

; The city’s Mayor, Mr W. W. ■Dumas, appealed for calm. I Two divers failed in their | first effort to reach the submerged object Navy ships using sonar devices located eight other unidentified objects on the river bottom by noon today and divers were going down to check these. Officials said the only danger would be if the half-inch-thick steel cylinders which contain the liquid chlorine were pierced. It could then , bubble out as a killer gas. Meanwhile, more than 8000 gas masks arrived in Baton I Rouge today and were stored , in an army barracks. Mr Dumas, who has asked for ' 100.000 masks, said they would not be handed out until needed. Meanwhile, in New Orleans armed troops are guarding the

coroner’s office to keep away anxious crowds seeking news of relatives still missing since Betsy struck Louisiana. Police reports of bodies already in the mortuary ranged as high as 400. The coroner, Dr. Nicholas Chetta, yesterday refused to give an estimate of the death toll as the situation was so confusing. Officials estimate that property damage in Louisiana. *

could reach 1000 million dol-| lars or more once all reports! were received. President Johnson, who I visited the storm area during ; the week-end. yesterday allo-; cated two million dollars in Federal funds to help repair the damage done to public buildings and roads. More will be sent later, the White House said. The agricultural secretary. Mr Orville Freeman, reported

•Ito the President that early J estimates indicated that more I than 50 per cent of the unhar- • i vested cotton and soya bean [crops in Louisiana were ■! destroyed. i The State’s sugar cane crop ■ was less seriously damaged : and some bent canes might straighten up before the hari vest. Damage caused to off-shore . oil derricks by Betsy ran into I millions of dollars.

Among the storm victims was a producing platform designed to withstand what is known as a 100-year-storm—-the kind so bad it comes only once in a century. The platform was installed only two weeks ago by Shell Oil Company, south of the mouth of the Mississippi river.

The installation buckled under Betsy’s 150-mile-an-bour thrust-