and land transportation (roads and bridges) completely disappeared in some places. There were no supplies of food and water for months, so most of the population had to be evacuated. Looting and sacking occurred everywhere, forcing the military to implement martial law for more than a year. Response The disaster was of such magnitude that the president of the Red Cross initially presumed more than 50,000 dead. The first priority was to evacuate survivors; more than 100,000 people were ultimately evacuated. After the disaster, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez advocated for other Venezuelans to open up their homes, and "adopt a family". The former First Lady of Venezuela arranged the temporary sheltering of children that were feared orphaned in La Casona, the Presidential residence in Caracas. Others offered help, including Major League Baseball shortstop Omar Vizquel, a native Venezuelan, who helped raise over $500,000 in relief funds. After the initial emergency response, focus shifted to analyzing the causes of the disaster, and working to create a sustainable infrastructure for dealing with future torrential rains. A disaster relief team from the United States headed up by New Mexico state Senator Joseph Carraro arrived with a medical team and supplies to assess the damage and help those who were displaced. Contact was made with Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico to determine any radioactive activity included in the debris field. Water purification and sleeping units were provided. The disaster clean-up soon became politicized. Chávez initially accepted assistance from anyone who offered, with the United States sending helicopters and dozens of soldiers that arrived two days after the disaster. When defense minister Raúl Salazar accepted the United States offer of further aid that included 450 Marines and naval engineers aboard the USS Tortuga, which was setting sail to Venezuela, Chávez told Salazar to decline the offer since "[i]t was a matter of sovereignty". Salazar became angry and assumed that Chávez's opinion was influenced by talks with Fidel Castro; though he complied with Chávez's order. Despite initial dispersals of emergency funds, receiving tens of millions of dollars from international organizations and the announcement of reconstruction plans, little came of the process and Chávez grew distracted with political squabbles, abandoning attention on the tragedy with recovery ultimately halting. Survivors eventually left their refugee areas and returned to their homes in an attempt to rebuild. By 2006, the state was back to its pre-disaster population level, and