Your post is an example of why people come to sites like Free Republic to get the truth and continue to abandon lying, liberal toilet tissues like the NY Times in droves.
FRegards,
LH
Posted on 09/20/2008 7:24:33 PM PDT by reaganaut1
Hurricane Gustav gave the state of Louisiana a test for which it had three years to prepare. There were thousands of poor, sick, disabled and elderly people who could not get out on their own. They needed to be rescued with dispatch, and sheltered in safety and dignity.
One simple test. The state flunked.
Three years to the week after Hurricane Katrina’s landfall, Louisiana executed a fundamentally unfair evacuation plan and did it badly. It relied on dividing the population into separate streams: People with their own cars were directed to shelters run by parishes, churches and the Red Cross. People with medical problems not requiring hospitalization were taken to special shelters. Sex offenders had a shelter to themselves.
All those without a car or a ride were taken on state buses to four state-run warehouses. It was in these shelters, including two abandoned stores, a Wal-Mart and a Sam’s Club, that thousands of working-poor New Orleanians got a sickening reminder of Katrina.
Evacuees said they had had no idea where they were going; bus drivers would not tell them. When they arrived, there were not enough portable toilets, and no showers. For five days there was no way to bathe, except with bottled water in filthy outdoor toilets. Privacy in the vast open space — 1,000 people to a warehouse, shoulder-to-shoulder on cots — was nonexistent. The mood among evacuees was grim, surrounded as they were by police officers and the National Guard, with no visitors or reporters allowed.
“We didn’t want to evacuate into a prison,” Lethia Brooks told the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, an organization that accompanied the evacuees, inspected the shelters and collected hundreds of stories into a report sharply critical of the state’s response.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Temporary emergency shelter for large numbers of people is not going to be comfortable. If there were no police or National Guardsmen at the shelters and violence occurred, I am sure the Times would be wailing about that. The complaining people don't seem to have any gratitude for having been taken out of harm's way. I wonder how much they pay in taxes.
What do Lousiana Freepers think about the performance of the Jindal administration in dealing with hurricane Gustav?
The basic question is did they have 3 hots, a cot and dry socks? If they did then they are in fat city.
F**k the NYT. Sorry mods, but this is ridiculous. How did the state fail other than the NYT hoping that the Jindal administration killed 1000+?
All things are possible if you don't believe in anything.
It’s an opinion piece - you known what they say about opinions.
They are like a$$holes - everybody has one ... and generally they stink. Whoever wrote this piece of garbage - his is probably in the middle of his forehead.
Aside from abortion, gun control and treason I don’t guess there’s much the NYT can’t find fault with.
So, getting your life together - including purchasing a car - so you can escape with the normal folks is out of the question?
Sounds like the good, productive citizens win no matter what. The parasites will get their lives together or die in the next storm.
Bobby Jindal’s administration should move quickly on a better plan that does not expose the poor to differential, substandard treatment.
Guv'ment ain't Daddy. Grow up.
Aww geez, let’s make Jindal and FEMA keep 10 or 20 cruise ships on retainer so the lovely folk can trash those, then complain about the lousy room service.
Nope, she wanted a dignified suite at the Marriot along with a $2000 debit card.
Hahahhahahaha.
Your daily Pravda.
On the other side, and never published in any MSM is the letter from a VOLUNTEER nurse who worked three days in one of these shelters with no pay, 24 hr periods with no sleep, and no gratitude--not that she looked for gratitude, just for people willing to help her help them.
Just a few of her comments--parents forgot their children's insulin and breathing medication, but managed to remember their cell phones and cigarettes. While she took care of a sick child and cleaned up his vomit, the mother lay back on a cot and REFUSED to help, telling the RN that was her job. While they lounged and smoked, mothers expected the nurse to not only take temps. administer medication, even GET the meds they forgot to bring, and then clean up and change babies--they told her that was what she was there for.
Then they griped about EVERYTHING from meals, drinks, basically that it was not the Marriott and all for free, with room service.
Meanwhile, she was not seeing her little ones for three days, was eating and drinking what was provided in MRE's.
She came away with the attitude of what kind of monster have we created?
vaudine
The New York Times is irrelevant. I said it. It no longer is the paper of record. It’s a hack paper written for an extremist group and is no longer influential. Its sales suck and its equity is hitting the sh*tter. How fun it is to watch it thrash about though.
What part of ‘natural disaster’ does the New York Times not understand?
Apparently, no one working at the NYT has ever been in the Army.
The ignorant writers at the NYT must have confused an evacuation in the path of a hurricane with a cruise to Cancun.
No one drowned. Everyone was fed. Everyone will get to ride the free buses back to New Orleans and wait for the next hurricane.
No wonder people hate the NYT.
Was that a shot at Nawleans welfare class?
I refuse to click on the link & read the rest of this NYT article that is far from the truth I know about the evacuation center that was in our area. I have never seen a man work so hard to make things right for everyone during both hurricanes that wreaked havoc thru our state as did Gov. Jindal. He probably never slept for a week.
Horror stories did emerge from the evac center but it was of irresponsible, ungrateful, complaining, people who stole from local stores, ate at & left restaurants without paying & destroyed the shower facilities they were taken to. They seemed to be mad that they were put up in hotels. But they were all given money when they got on the busses along with MREs and water. The Picadilly Cafeteria provided food for them & cut choices at their regular location to do this.
The older evacuees were calm and kind & seemed grateful for the shelter, but the younger ones were very hard to deal with. Most of these came from the 9th ward of N.O. The mothers laid around absolutely unconcerned about their toddlers running amuck. If they were sick & throwing up, they didn’t care. They wouldn’t lift a finger to help them. Shelter volunteers spent a lot of time trying to find which mother these kids belonged to. This small town does not want to house these people again.
Bobby Jindal cannot help people who do not help themselves. He was magnificent during the storms & whatever can be done to improve the plan & response in the future, he will do it.
Unlike the editors of the NY Times who watch hurricanes from the Upper West Side (or East side, is it? I really don’t know and I guess it’s important), I’ve actually been through a hurricane. Maybe you have a few days warning. Sure, you know one is out there, but do you evacuate for every storm in the Gulf? Of course not.
The performance of the state of Louisiana was exemplary for Hurricane Gustav. Anyone who actually has been through one instead of eating cheese and and drinking a Riesling while watching it on the Weather Channel knows this.
And yes, I’m a reactionary right-wing conservative Republican who eats little kittens in his spare time.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Sorry about a typo. Was mad while typing. Meant to say evacuees seemed mad they “weren’t” put in hotels. It was, in fact, an old Walmart that was the shelter site.
Just a few of her comments--parents forgot their children's insulin and breathing medication, but managed to remember their cell phones and cigarettes. While she took care of a sick child and cleaned up his vomit, the mother lay back on a cot and REFUSED to help, telling the RN that was her job. While they lounged and smoked, mothers expected the nurse to not only take temps. administer medication, even GET the meds they forgot to bring, and then clean up and change babies--they told her that was what she was there for.
Then they griped about EVERYTHING from meals, drinks, basically that it was not the Marriott and all for free, with room service.
Meanwhile, she was not seeing her little ones for three days, was eating and drinking what was provided in MRE's.
She came away with the attitude of what kind of monster have we created?
vaudine
Wow!
Vaudine, do you have a link for this letter, by any chance? I would love to read it, and share it with others.
It looks like it’s just as you suspected. The NYT is biased against Republican office-holders. I bet there are more examples of this out there-—time to get busy and post them all.
“She came away with the attitude of what kind of monster have we created?”
I lived in New Orleans for many years. What you are describing is just the average New Orleanian of a certain persuasion. The attitudes described are typical. Why do you think New Orleans has always been referred to as a third-world city?
OK, I’m a Louisiana FReeper and I’ll answer you.
New Orleans gets all the publicity in an instance like this, but Gustav also headed northward and trashed the middle of the state as well. It took a two-day delayed reaction for tornado damage and flash floods to kick in with a vengeance after Gustav passed through places like Alexandria in Rapides Parish, where boats were used to evacuate suddenly flooded neighborhoods. Gustav has been described by residents of Alexandria as “Our Katrina.” However, Alexandria isn’t a glamorous magnet for the press, so the NY Times isn’t apparently not nearly as concerned with our perspective on the damage.
As a resident of Central Louisiana, I have been impacted just like the citizens of New Orleans, but no one was shoving a microphone in my face today as I spent the afternoon camped out at the FEMA office set up in a former department store in Marksville. I would have gladly granted a photo op while I was passing the time by simultaneously placing a telephone claim for Disaster Unemployment as instructed by the courteous FEMA caseworkers.
Is anyone going to hand me a generous FEMA debit card? Not likely. I’m already into the appeal process. FEMA automatically shot down my online application because I truthfully stated that I have a renters’ insurance policy. Almost needless to add, the insurance company advised me that my Gustav-related damages aren’t covered because of the deductible. As I incur expenses for the 70-mile round trips between my home and the FEMA office and the copying and faxing of the requested supporting documentation for my appeal, I keep wondering if I’m ever going to see a dime for my time and efforts spent chasing FEMA and the DUA.
If the NY Times would like to come down here for a reality check, I would gladly volunteer to be their tour guide.
As for the Jindal administration’s handling of Gustav, I only have one question. Jindal says he wants heads to roll at DSS for what happened at the shelters used for Gustav. What I really want to know is this: why does the same state agency which provides administrative services such as welfare, food stamps and child support also encompass more in-the-field type services as putting showers in hurricane shelters? Seems like there should be a much better division of responsibility on the organizational chart. If there is a division of the state government called the “Office of Emergency Preparedness” existing alongside the “Department of Social Services,” which one might you expect to respond in the case of providing refuge during an emergency?
Just this Louisiana FReeper’s $0.02...
Um....I'm pretty sure that the Times never stated or even implied that "the state" was at fault for Katrina. The standard Katrina narrative, as promulgated in the Times and in the rest of the MSM, is that the evil Bush administration was 100$ at fault for everything that happened during Katrina, including the storm itself. If all guilt from Katrina accrues to the federal government, then "the state" had nothing to atone for, or "learn from."
It's only logical, right, Times?
You know what, IMHO unless everyone was waited on like a 5 star resort you couldn’t make the NYT happy! Just be happy you are alive. BTW I’m sure that the other sites weren’t much better!
Hurricanes don't just appear on your doorstep suddenly overnight. I followed Gustav's progress as soon as the NOAA started tracking it. We live in a state of semi-readiness at all times and I made our final preparations a full week before landfall.
Even so, anyone who remains behind is going to experience some degree of discomfort in the aftermath of the storm. The problem is that too many people wait too long to decide what they're going to do and then find themselves with fewer, and often less desirable, options. They wind up either making inadequate preparations or being forced by their circumstances into whatever substandard arrangements are left available to them.
Anyone who lives in this part of the country needs to accept the fact that these storms are a fact of life for us and take the personal responsibility to deal with them when they come our way.
Just a few of her comments--parents forgot their children's insulin and breathing medication, but managed to remember their cell phones and cigarettes. While she took care of a sick child and cleaned up his vomit, the mother lay back on a cot and REFUSED to help, telling the RN that was her job. While they lounged and smoked, mothers expected the nurse to not only take temps. administer medication, even GET the meds they forgot to bring, and then clean up and change babies--they told her that was what she was there for.
My experience doing Habitat For Humanity-type work was quite similar. It was as if those of us who were performing free labor on their homes were some interesting new TV show.
I'll just bet that Lethia is a 'community organizer'.
L
Awww c’mon. that’s just the Nouveau New Orleanians. The ones that came to the city past in the past generation or two. Most of the old New Orleanians “ain’t dere no more.”
Now that Louisiana has a Republican governor, suddenly it’s the state’s failure when anything goes wrong.
"Roughing it" for a few days beats the heck out of living on your roof with only pocket lint to eat - or worse. What a bunch of whiners "take care of me!" - hey, what ever happened to self-reliance, being prepared, having a plan, even having a clue? Next time, let the useless whiners fend for themselves, we need to let mother nature thin that herd.
I wonder if the abandon Walmart store the used for housing the evacuees was the one looted and pillaged during Katrina by the same people? Of course all the widescreen TVs were long gone now.
We had a former Walmart building used as a shelter here in Pineville after Katrina.
Jesse Jackson brought a motorcade of buses full of Superdome evacuees into Alexandria and did a photo op in front of the abandoned England Air Force Base barracks demanding that his passengers be sheltered there. As documented in The Town Talk, Jackson had been advised well in advance that the Rapides Parish Coliseum was full and there were no other shelters in Alexandria.
The barracks had been abandoned for a long time and for good reason — no ventilation or plumbing and the presence of asbestos and toxic mold. (The Alexandria Housing Authority eventually had to re-open a similarly shut-down housing project to accommodate evacuees. Those who accepted shelter in these apartments had to sign waivers that they had been fully informed of the dangers of occupying them.)
Despite the warnings, Jackson went on grandstanding in front of the media anyway, and the buses were quietly diverted to the former Walmart in Pineville. Local locksmiths suddenly found business booming due to a sudden rash of break-ins in the neighborhood immediately behind the shelter. At the same time, the Chiefs of Police of Alexandria and Pineville went on TV vehemently denying there was a crime wave, even going so far as threatening to throw anyone who “spread rumors” in jail.
It wasn’t a fun time back then at all...
I was born in the city of New Orleans but now live in Destrehan, LA (by choice as I'll never live in Orleans Parish again even if I'm given a free home). We're about 20 miles west of the city and we evacuated like everyone else in this region and had to wait 4 days before I could come home and wait for my power to come back on. We were just as affected by Gustav but we'll NEVER get the press that the city of New Orleans/Orleans Parish gets from the national media.
We evacuated to Baton Rouge and there was no electricity there for three days but I have no complaints. Hurricanes are a way of life here and you deal with them. We live here by choice and I've never expected the government to provide 5 star accomodations for an evacuation. At least Nagin and his crew provided trains and buses this time and those who were given a way out should be grateful. Some were based on the local news reports but the biggest gripe I saw was the fact that FEMA was not handing out money like they did after Katrina.
I tired of having the Greater New Orleans Region identified by what comes out of one inept part of this area - the city of New Orleans. All of the other cities - Chalmette, Metairie, Kenner, Destrehan, Mandeville, Slidell, Covington, Harahan, River Ridge, Gretna, Marrero and Nine Mile Point among others, did not wait for handouts or government direction to get back to normal.
The City of New Orleans/Orleans Parish is a different story and has been long before Katrina or Gustav. What do you expect with three generations of Dem leadership?
“Evacuees said they had had no idea where they were going; bus drivers would not tell them. When they arrived, there were not enough portable toilets, and no showers. For five days there was no way to bathe, except with bottled water in filthy outdoor toilets.”
And if not evacuated, their circumstances would have been what????
It is always easy to Monday morning quarterback any massive evacuation and find things YOU would have done better. The difficult part is actually evacuating people, safely and in a timely manner. I suggest the NYSlimes offer any Louisiana citizen to let them provide the evacuation means, next time. How many Louisiana citizens will take that offer?
A Sear’s Craftsman 100-footer measuring tape.
Or immediately below his nose...
God bless this nurse. OTOH, something has to give here.
One thing we can do is shout down the stupid “analysis” in an article such as this one. No one in public should get away with declaring these views unanswered.
I wish very much that these scenes had been recorded on video. This needed to be published on YouTube.
I don't know why not. Most of them probably would have felt right at home in the familiar surroundings.
Your post is an example of why people come to sites like Free Republic to get the truth and continue to abandon lying, liberal toilet tissues like the NY Times in droves.
FRegards,
LH
New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice
The coalition created the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice in August 2006. The Workers’ Center still collaborates closely with the original members of the coalition, which include the Advancement Project, Common Ground, Gillis Long Poverty Law Center, Hope House, Latino Health Outreach Project, Louisiana Environmental Action Network, NILC, New Orleans Students United for Worker Justice, and Safe Streets / Strong Communities.
The Workers’ Center strives to organize workers across the color line to fight for a just reconstruction of New Orleans and surrounding areas; to advance racial justice; and to build a city that protects human, civil, and immigrant rights. The Workers’ Center is dedicated to: (1) organizing workers across race and industry; (2) advancing racial justice; (3) building grassroots worker leadership, power and participation; (4) forging powerful multiracial alliances; and (5) fighting for a just reconstruction.
NOWCRJ’s current projects include the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity, the Congress of Day Laborers, and the Homeless Organizing Project.
Saket Soni, director, New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice
Saket Soni of the Alliance of Guest Workers for Dignity
As if they bathed any more regular when they had showers.
It was handled exceptionally well. Where there were problems heads rolled. Those New Orleans natives caused problems that made quite a few southwest Louisiana residents refuse to evacuate again when Ike came. The local leaders here had to reassure the people here that they would send local law enforcement to provide additional security.
Personally, I can’t say here what should happen to the NOLA inner city trash the next time there has to be a mandatory evacuation for the entire coast. The rest of the state knows how to behave.
The area TV news did cover & interview people at these shelters. They were fair in their reporting - the good and the bad, evacuees and workers. But most of my knowledge comes from a friend of my son’s who was called to temporary law enforcement duty there. I’m not sure the trashed and “soiled” shower & bathroom facilities scenes would be good for YouTube. Too disgusting.
Very illuminating NYT stock chart. Thanks for posting.
Even our local paper & TV news did fair reporting on our local shelters & evacuees. Of course, I only read that local newspaper now online since I cancelled my subscription to it years ago over non-delivery of the Starr Report when I was upset about the leader of the “lying liberal” party, Bill Clinton.
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