Sends Technicians, Equipment To NOL

Officials at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, working with the Red Cross, said Friday they were sending an emergency assistance team to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport to help rebuild after the Crescent City was pounded by Hurricane Katrina earlier this week.

"Our plan is to send the first team out immediately," Sky Harbor Assistant Aviation Director told the Phoenix Business Journal.

Eight Sky Harbor technicians with airport repair equipment were dispatched Friday in teams of two. Final details hadn't yet been worked out, but the teams were to begin leaving immediately.

Meanwhile, At NOL...

NOL, meantime, remained closed to commercial traffic. Instead, the airport has become a center for relief activity. Some 800 people were being treated at a field hospital set up to triage and treat the ill and injured. CNN's Ed Lavandera reported seeing several body bags at the airport and reported some patients were being "black-tagged" -- deemed too badly injured or too ill to treat.

Helicopters are flying in and out of the airport, ferrying evacuees from all over the stricken city. So far, Lavandera reported, the airport had processed more than 40,000 people ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. At one point, Lavandera said, he counted 75 helicopters flying over New Orleans, as rescue efforts became more desperate four days after Katrina plowed through. Much of the city remained flooded on Friday, as violence and looting continued.

FMI: www.fema.gov