Does anyone but me wonder why Shep and the cameraman can't tell those people which way to go, maybe even lead them there?
But, from the coverage I am seeing, there isn't any place to go that will have food and water for them. The convention center seems to have dying dehydrated people.
Where is the mayor? Where is the Governor?
Earlier in one of Shep's reports he was asking a policeman where they could send the people who were arriving on their own, and found no help at all. Shep didn't know and the officer didn't know where to send them either. It was very tragic. Complete anarchy.
I read a report earlier that some NOPD are leaving with their families.
I think you nailed it. They can't get to the Superdome (apparently) and nobody seems to be distributing anything to them. Surely somebody at a FEMA or National Guard command post somewhere has a TV on to see those folks?
Also sounds to me like they've gotten caught short on assets that can move through flooded streets, if there are such things--very high-clearance vehicles, boats, airboats, whatever. Somebody a while back mentioned LCACs (Landing Craft Air Cushion, hovercraft used by the Marines as landing vehicles) but those things are way, way too big to navigate a city.
They can't just throw supplies in the back of a truck and go blasting off to the convention center, what happens if the water's too deep along the way and the truck floods out? Now you've got some Guardsmen or FEMA folks or NOPD or whatever stuck out there too, probably with looters and other various ghouls closing in.
And as for whoever said FReepers were happy to see looters shot...no. But I, for one, am a damnsight unhappier at thousands of people being denied rescue because the bastards HAVEN'T been shot. At this point, I don't give a flying fish if President Bush has to order the 101st down from Fort Campbell and have them rappel in there from a fleet of Blackhawks to clean house. A coherent and proper rescue and evacuation of New Orleans is not going to occur until somebody gets a handle on the security situation down there, and if that requires shoot-to-kill orders on anyone so much as looking cross-eyed at a National Guardsman, so be it.
}:-)4