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Trapped in an Arena of Suffering
LA Times ^ | 9/1/05 | Scott Gold

Posted on 09/01/2005 6:56:22 AM PDT by Brian Mosely

NEW ORLEANS — A 2-year-old girl slept in a pool of urine. Crack vials littered a restroom. Blood stained the walls next to vending machines smashed by teenagers.

The Louisiana Superdome, once a mighty testament to architecture and ingenuity, became the biggest storm shelter in New Orleans the day before Katrina's arrival Monday. About 16,000 people eventually settled in.

By Wednesday, it had degenerated into horror. A few hundred people were evacuated from the arena Wednesday, and buses will take away the vast majority of refugees today.

"We pee on the floor. We are like animals," said Taffany Smith, 25, as she cradled her 3-week-old son, Terry. In her right hand she carried a half-full bottle of formula provided by rescuers. Baby supplies are running low; one mother said she was given two diapers and told to scrape them off when they got dirty and use them again.

At least two people, including a child, have been raped. At least three people have died, including one man who jumped 50 feet to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Louisiana
KEYWORDS: katrina; superdome
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To: Brian Mosely
An alarm had been going off for more than 24 hours and no one knew how to turn it off.

That alone would drive me nuts.

That happened to us when a store alarm near our bedroom window went off, and rang all night long. The police could do nothing, and the store owner refused to come out to turn it off before the morning. We finally went outside with a brick to break it. :-0 We were not successful.

There are criminals in N.O. who probably did stay behind to take advantage of the catastrophe. But, there are innocent people there, too. Why they stayed, I don't know. I believe it was a "cry wolf" situation; not even the mayor or the governor took the warnings seriously this time.

141 posted on 09/01/2005 8:31:25 AM PDT by Tired of Taxes
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To: Modernman

Tell it to the little girl who was raped in the Superdome last night.


142 posted on 09/01/2005 8:31:41 AM PDT by Jack Black
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To: Pondman88
I think that the "refugees" are (for the most part) WIC, AFDC, etc, dependent persons who now get to rely upon more gubmint handouts...

Believe whatever makes you feel better. Many or most people in there do not fit that description, and none of them deserve to be going through this. There was NO public transportation to get people out, no buses, no guarantee of shelter. People without cars or without money or relatives for shelter couldn't get out. Sick people couldn't travel. To outrun the storm, you had to leave early, and many people thought they'd be safer riding it out in their homes then walking anywhere and getting nowhere.

The rush to blame these people, who are suffering beyond most people's capacity to understand, is revolting. Sometimes bad things happen to people who don't deserve it.
143 posted on 09/01/2005 8:32:27 AM PDT by HostileTerritory
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To: carton253

We're all smarter, the next day.


144 posted on 09/01/2005 8:32:38 AM PDT by stuartcr (Everything happens as God wants it to.....otherwise, things would be different.)
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To: Modernman

Karma


145 posted on 09/01/2005 8:32:44 AM PDT by wallcrawlr (http://www.bionicear.com)
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To: RushCrush

If you're in college and living on barely anything, you still have family out there who can help you out and give you shelter.


146 posted on 09/01/2005 8:33:52 AM PDT by HostileTerritory
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To: libstripper
It especially doesn't compute for people who have available transportation, as most of those people probably did. Just look at the pictures of all of the submerged cars. None of those cars should have been there. Their owners and the owners' family members should have been in them heading north along with the tens of thousands of other people who heeded the warnings.

Many families have two or more cars. It does not follow that every car equates to a family or individual that did not heed the warnings to leave.

Knowing that traffic would be a nightmare already, do you really advocate that all 2 car families take both cars when they flee?

SD

147 posted on 09/01/2005 8:34:06 AM PDT by SoothingDave
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To: flashbunny

I thank my lucky stars I was born and raised a, root wild hog or die country boy. As Hank Williams JR. sang, "A Country Boy Can Survive." Why, because true rednecks know how to do it.


148 posted on 09/01/2005 8:34:07 AM PDT by Ursus arctos horribilis ("It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!" Emiliano Zapata 1879-1919)
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To: najida

I understand completey. I've spent most of my life in FL, you just don't take off at each hurricane that comes around.


149 posted on 09/01/2005 8:35:14 AM PDT by stuartcr (Everything happens as God wants it to.....otherwise, things would be different.)
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To: HostileTerritory

It's a bad situation, that's for sure.


150 posted on 09/01/2005 8:36:01 AM PDT by Pondman88
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To: Hildy

I don't think you and your situational ethics will ever be taken seriously as a true conservative voice.


151 posted on 09/01/2005 8:37:30 AM PDT by flashbunny (Defending the free market on FREE republic is like having to defend the flag at a VFW convention.)
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To: Ursus arctos horribilis

Are you expecting interviews and pictures of floating corpses? Who else is there to talk with or about, than the ones that are there? The media isn't going to go looking through all the motels in a 200 mile radius, to ask people if they are glad they evacuated.


152 posted on 09/01/2005 8:38:48 AM PDT by stuartcr (Everything happens as God wants it to.....otherwise, things would be different.)
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To: Hildy

The people here rejoicing in the conditions at the Superdome are like the looters--a few bad apples who make the rest of us look bad by association. The same way that the young families and elderly people at the Superdome are being told they deserved it for staying behind to loot, we're going to hear about how heartless and sick we are because we laughed at their situation.


153 posted on 09/01/2005 8:39:10 AM PDT by HostileTerritory
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To: libstripper

You actually believe this? YOu atually thisnk that a panned view of a neighborhood with submerged cars is indicitive of people that had means to leave? I will not dispute that many stayed to loot the city but I will not equate it to submerged cars. I guarantee you that if you go through any ghetto that is probably what you will see the most of "cars" non-working cars, cars that have been parked because they need repairs, tags, insurance, or they do not have gas to put in them. Take a trip
And yes, I agree, anyone that can afford crack should afford a car and gas but, then their addiction keeps them from doing what is right and moral and maybe those are the people that wanted to loot. The police have the right to do whatever is necessary to them in the name of restoring order, but that is not everyone in NO that is stranded. And my sympathy goes out to those that could not get out for legitmate reasons and lost family members.


154 posted on 09/01/2005 8:40:29 AM PDT by rave123
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To: Jack Black; Modernman
Tell it to the little girl who was raped in the Superdome last night.

So, your contribution to the argument is that the mayor of New Orleans sent people to the Superdome because he wanted young children to be raped.

Look, there's plenty of incompetence here, and the failure to start the 72-hour evacuation in time is criminal. But Modernman is right on this point.
155 posted on 09/01/2005 8:41:04 AM PDT by HostileTerritory
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To: flashbunny

If what I've been reading here is your definition of Conservativism, I'll be proud not to be part of it.


156 posted on 09/01/2005 8:41:18 AM PDT by Hildy (a fact to a liberal is like Kryptonite to Superman.)
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To: HostileTerritory

You're right.


157 posted on 09/01/2005 8:42:03 AM PDT by Hildy (a fact to a liberal is like Kryptonite to Superman.)
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To: stuartcr

One of the issues we dealt with (working in a nursing home) was that if you took off at every hurricane threat, you would being killin' several residents each time.

So we really, I mean, REALLY had to believe it was a justified move. The only time the town evac'd, every nursing home lost 1 per 50, on average.


158 posted on 09/01/2005 8:42:18 AM PDT by najida (I run with scissors and I don't play well with others.)
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To: Hildy

If you truly believe your claim that 'most people here don't know what they'd really do in this situation', then you're probably on the wrong bulletin board.

Your lax position on looting has now reaped what it has sowed. The looters are emoldened and have turned into armed, roving mobs.

But like most liberals, you probably don't believe in consequences, do you?


159 posted on 09/01/2005 8:43:04 AM PDT by flashbunny (Defending the free market on FREE republic is like having to defend the flag at a VFW convention.)
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To: Jack Black
Tell it to the little girl who was raped in the Superdome last night.

You think the Mayor wanted this to happen? The governor? Of course not.

Did they handle this disaster poorly? Certainly. But that is light years away from sending people to death camps.

You really should be ashamed of yourself for even making such an analogy

160 posted on 09/01/2005 8:44:34 AM PDT by Modernman ("A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy." -Disraeli)
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