Looting, Snipers Mar New Orleans Evacuation

By John Burnett,

Robert Siegel

Published September 1, 2005 at 12:00 AM EDT

The situation in New Orleans continues to deteriorate, with widespread flooding and looting. The evacuation of thousands of people from the Superdome in the city was halted early Thursday when shots were fired at military helicopters. There are reports of armed carjackings.

At the city's Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, blocks away from the Superdome, some 2,000 people who had taken shelter from floodwaters are in desperate need of food, fresh water and security.

John Burnett

As NPR's Southwest correspondent based in Austin, Texas, John Burnett covers immigration, border affairs, Texas news and other national assignments. In 2018, 2019 and again in 2020, he won national Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio-Television News Directors Association for continuing coverage of the immigration beat. In 2020, Burnett along with other NPR journalists, were finalists for a duPont-Columbia Award for their coverage of the Trump Administration's Remain in Mexico program. In December 2018, Burnett was invited to participate in a workshop on Refugees, Immigration and Border Security in Western Europe, sponsored by the RIAS Berlin Commission.

See stories by John Burnett

Robert Siegel

Prior to his retirement, Robert Siegel was the senior host of NPR's award-winning evening newsmagazine All Things Considered. With 40 years of experience working in radio news, Siegel hosted the country's most-listened-to, afternoon-drive-time news radio program and reported on stories and happenings all over the globe, and reported from a variety of locations across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. He signed off in his final broadcast of All Things Considered on January 5, 2018.