NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Thousands of people flocked to the New Orleans airport Friday for medical care or transportation out of the hurricane-ravaged area.
CNN reported an emergency field hospital was treating 800 patients an hour, many of them critically ill. Officials expected an airlift of patients from hospitals and nursing homes in the city to last at least through Sunday and possibly longer.
In the hospitals, the scene was grim. At Charity Hospital, staff have been working without electricity or running water for days. CNN said helicopters resumed evacuating patients Friday but staff and pilots watched anxiously, fearful of the sniper fire that disrupted the airlift Thursday afternoon.
"I walk through the halls with doctors and they just literally grab at my shirt and say, 'Tell them to send help. We need boats. We need amphibious vehicles,'" CNN reporter Dr. Sanjay Gupta said.
Thousands of people remained camped out on Interstate 10, which runs along the south side of Lake Pontchartrain and loops into the city. Authorities moved in portable toilets for people sitting on the side of the highway in the hot sun.
