Elsewhere, Frans Coppers, 52, who has his own business investigating cargo damage claims for the shipping industry, fled his Garden District home Wednesday after two nights of scaring off thieves with a borrowed handgun.
"I had to leave," he said Thursday. "The last two or three days, the things I've seen, it's absolutely terrifying that people can do the things they're doing. People are stealing things that are absolutely useless to their survival. I could never have imagined the absolute disregard for life or property that's going on."
The day after the hurricane, Coppers said, he drove to check on a friend's house and saw people driving through the streets with pickups full of appliances and electronic equipment. He spent the night on the balcony of his second-floor condominium with the handgun and shouted away thieves trying to break into a restaurant next door.
Coppers said he had no problem getting out of the city.
"There were some groups of people staring at me, but I just held the gun up, and they didn't bother me," he said.
"Can you imagine? I never thought I would have been able to kill someone. It's hard to even say it. But if you're to the point where you have to protect everything you have, your life, I don't know, I might have been able to shoot."
Absolutely riveting.
I wonder when we'll start hearing the stories from THOSE people on national TV.
In case that gets lost in the thread...
I am personally embarrassed by all of this.
This crap we tell about how "great" the American people are has totally been shown to be a lie. True, it's not a lie everywhere, but it is certainly a lie in Louisiana.
In Mississippi there was a story about a man, standing in front of his totally wiped out house. He'd come there from Vietnam. He said "I came here thirty years ago with nothing, and now I have nothing again. But I will rebuild it."
But in New Orleans, we see masses of able-bodied people sitting around waiting to be spoon-fed.
A whole city full of able-bodied people, and yet precious little activity with participation in their own survival.
A city full of people that might have helped to pass supplies to those that need them. A whole city full of people that might have worked together to fill sandbags, or help the infirm, or get the children out.
But no... what we have is a city full of people that are fully unable to think, or act. What we have is a place where medical units cannot go in without military escort.
We should'nt HAVE TO "secure" the ground in order to provide help. But we do. In New Orleans.
Maybe we should just back off from support. Drop leaflets with a phone number on them, saying... "Look... call us when you want some help. But until then... have a nice day."