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buggeryI was planning a post -- several, actually, at least one round-up of news relating to Katrina too important for anyone to miss, and at least one round-up of links to things people can do to help no matter how limited they think their ability to help might be -- but I just saw a link ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lcsbanana posted that needs its own post, no waiting.
It's a first-hand account of what evacuating from New Orleans was really like, from someone who lived through it -- from the rising water to the arrival of National Guard units under FEMA orders to what happens to evacuees after their evacuation.
Highlights -- though somehow that seems the wrong word:
The heroic work of those unsung in the media because they were too busy helping where they were needed to stop for photo ops, "the working class of New Orleans"... The maintenance workers who used a forklift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, 'stealing' boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hotwire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the city. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens, improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.
Day by day progress -- from frying pan into fire into flood into famine... By Day Four, our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously bad. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their doors, telling us that “officials” had told us to report to the convention center to wait for more buses.
Evacuees turned back at New Orleans border, as reported by FOXNews's Shepard Smith... All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away--some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the city on foot.
The part of that story which didn't make the news... From a woman with a battery-powered radio, we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the city. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway. The officials responded that they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. 'Taking care of us' had an ominous tone to it. Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking city) was accurate. Just as dusk set in, a sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces and screamed, 'Get off the fucking freeway.' A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.
The direct effect of George W.'s grandstanding... W[e arrived] at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The airport had become another Superdome. We eight were caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op.
Conditions after being evacuated to Texas... Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been confiscated at the airport--because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet no food had been provided to the men, women, children, elderly and disabled, as we sat for hours waiting to be 'medically screened' to make sure we weren’t carrying any communicable diseases.
(yes, all those links go to the same article. Really, I can't repeat the link enough.)
In addition to all this, the account answers, perhaps, the question of where FEMA's National Guard *got* those buses they used to evacuate the Convention Center and the Superdome -- we already knew that the troops themselves arrived in military vehicles, not the buses which were infamously used to take 'clean' and 'dry' Hyatt hotel guests out of New Orleans ahead of the families (many including children and elderly or disabled members) who had been waiting for days *without* food or water at the Superdome.
It wasn't entirely clear who the "police commander" referred to was, but given the tone (and content) of most other reports coming from people on the ground, it's entirely possible that he himself had been lied to. I have to believe that *some* of the people in authority (to whatever degree and of whatever sort) in the areas devastated by Katrina are and have been good people doing the best they could in an impossible situation. I have to, to keep my sanity. And there have been other examples of simple miscommunication in the chaos of Katrina's aftermath, such as when it was postulated that a busload of evacuees were turned away from Baton Rouge due to fears that evacuees would begin committing crimes there, but it turned out that the bus was sent further on simply because all available shelters in Baton Rouge were already full at the time.
(Some might question the validity of this report, based on the slant of the site where it appears -- yes, it's the newspaper of the International Socialist Party. The gaping hole in such an argument, however, is that we already know what kinds of things have been going on from reports in the mainstream media; there's no need to make up a story that's 'merely' just as bad as substantiated facts, if the aim is to make the peoplecoordinating utterly failing to coordinate relief efforts look bad.)
(Further note: Thanks totzikeh for the icon, which she encourages all to take and spread widely across LJ-land.)
lcsbanana posted that needs its own post, no waiting.It's a first-hand account of what evacuating from New Orleans was really like, from someone who lived through it -- from the rising water to the arrival of National Guard units under FEMA orders to what happens to evacuees after their evacuation.
Highlights -- though somehow that seems the wrong word:
The heroic work of those unsung in the media because they were too busy helping where they were needed to stop for photo ops, "the working class of New Orleans"... The maintenance workers who used a forklift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, 'stealing' boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hotwire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the city. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens, improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.
Day by day progress -- from frying pan into fire into flood into famine... By Day Four, our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously bad. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their doors, telling us that “officials” had told us to report to the convention center to wait for more buses.
Evacuees turned back at New Orleans border, as reported by FOXNews's Shepard Smith... All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away--some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the city on foot.
The part of that story which didn't make the news... From a woman with a battery-powered radio, we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the city. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway. The officials responded that they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. 'Taking care of us' had an ominous tone to it. Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking city) was accurate. Just as dusk set in, a sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces and screamed, 'Get off the fucking freeway.' A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.
The direct effect of George W.'s grandstanding... W[e arrived] at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The airport had become another Superdome. We eight were caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op.
Conditions after being evacuated to Texas... Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been confiscated at the airport--because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet no food had been provided to the men, women, children, elderly and disabled, as we sat for hours waiting to be 'medically screened' to make sure we weren’t carrying any communicable diseases.
(yes, all those links go to the same article. Really, I can't repeat the link enough.)
In addition to all this, the account answers, perhaps, the question of where FEMA's National Guard *got* those buses they used to evacuate the Convention Center and the Superdome -- we already knew that the troops themselves arrived in military vehicles, not the buses which were infamously used to take 'clean' and 'dry' Hyatt hotel guests out of New Orleans ahead of the families (many including children and elderly or disabled members) who had been waiting for days *without* food or water at the Superdome.
It wasn't entirely clear who the "police commander" referred to was, but given the tone (and content) of most other reports coming from people on the ground, it's entirely possible that he himself had been lied to. I have to believe that *some* of the people in authority (to whatever degree and of whatever sort) in the areas devastated by Katrina are and have been good people doing the best they could in an impossible situation. I have to, to keep my sanity. And there have been other examples of simple miscommunication in the chaos of Katrina's aftermath, such as when it was postulated that a busload of evacuees were turned away from Baton Rouge due to fears that evacuees would begin committing crimes there, but it turned out that the bus was sent further on simply because all available shelters in Baton Rouge were already full at the time.
(Some might question the validity of this report, based on the slant of the site where it appears -- yes, it's the newspaper of the International Socialist Party. The gaping hole in such an argument, however, is that we already know what kinds of things have been going on from reports in the mainstream media; there's no need to make up a story that's 'merely' just as bad as substantiated facts, if the aim is to make the people
(Further note: Thanks to
tzikeh for the icon, which she encourages all to take and spread widely across LJ-land.)
