We however can put pressure on the media.
Walk West on I-10
Posted on 09/01/2005 5:57:30 PM PDT by Uncle Joe Cannon
New Orleans in Anarchy With Fights, Rapes
Friday September 2, 2005 12:46 AM
AP Photo MSDP112
By ALLEN G. BREED
Associated Press Writer
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday, as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out and storm survivors battled for seats on the buses that would carry them away from the chaos. The tired and hungry seethed, saying they had been forsaken. ``This is a desperate SOS,'' mayor Ray Nagin said.
``We are out here like pure animals,'' the Rev. Issac Clark said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where he and other evacuees had been waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead.
``I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here alive,'' said tourist Larry Mitzel of Saskatoon, Canada, who handed a reporter his business card in case he goes missing. ``I'm scared of riots. I'm scared of the locals. We might get caught in the crossfire.''
Four days after Hurricane Katrina roared in with a devastating blow that inflicted potentially thousands of deaths, the frustration, fear and anger mounted, despite the promise of 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop the looting, plans for a $10 billion recovery bill in Congress and a government relief effort President Bush called the biggest in U.S. history.
New Orleans' top emergency management official called that effort a ``national disgrace'' and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly lawless city.
About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at New Orleans convention center grew increasingly hostile after waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead. Police Chief Eddie Compass said he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly driven back by an angry mob.
``We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten,'' Compass said. ``Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon.''
A military helicopter tried to land at the convention center several times to drop off food and water. But the rushing crowd forced the choppers to back off. Troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10 feet off the ground and flew away.
In hopes of defusing the situation at the convention center, Mayor Ray Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they could find. But the bedlam made that difficult.
``This is a desperate SOS,'' Nagin said in a statement. ``Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses.''
At least seven bodies were scattered outside the convention center, a makeshift staging area for those rescued from rooftops, attics and highways. The sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement.
An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.
``I don't treat my dog like that,'' 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair.
``You can do everything for other countries, but you can't do nothing for your own people,'' he added. ``You can go overseas with the military, but you can't get them down here.''
The street outside the center, above the floodwaters, smelled of urine and feces, and was choked with dirty diapers, old bottles and garbage.
``They've been teasing us with buses for four days,'' Edwards said. ``They're telling us they're going to come get us one day, and then they don't show up.''
Every so often, an armored state police vehicle cruised in front of the convention center with four or five officers in riot gear with automatic weapons. But there was no sign of help from the National Guard.
At one point the crowd began to chant ``We want help! We want help!'' Later, a woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm, ``The Lord is my shepherd ...''
``We are out here like pure animals,'' the Issac Clark said.
``We've got people dying out here - two babies have died, a woman died, a man died,'' said Helen Cheek. ``We haven't had no food, we haven't had no water, we haven't had nothing. They just brought us here and dropped us.''
Tourist Debbie Durso of Washington, Mich., said she asked a police officer for assistance and his response was, ``'Go to hell - it's every man for himself.'''
``This is just insanity,'' she said. ``We have no food, no water ... all these trucks and buses go by and they do nothing but wave.''
At the hot and stinking Superdome, where 30,000 were being evacuated by bus to the Houston Astrodome, fistfights and fires erupted amid a seething sea of tense, suffering people who waited in a lines that stretched a half-mile to board yellow school buses.
After a traffic jam kept buses from arriving for nearly four hours, a near-riot broke out in the scramble to get on the buses that finally did show up, with a group of refugees breaking through a line of heavily armed National Guardsmen.
One military policeman was shot in the leg as he and a man scuffled for the MP's rifle, police Capt. Ernie Demmo said. The man was arrested.
Some of those among the mostly poor crowd had been in the dome for four days without air conditioning, working toilets or a place to bathe. An ambulance service airlifting the sick and injured out of the Superdome suspended flights as too dangerous after it was reported that a bullet was fired at a military helicopter.
``If they're just taking us anywhere, just anywhere, I say praise God,'' said refugee John Phillip. ``Nothing could be worse than what we've been through.''
By Thursday evening, 11 hours after the military began evacuating the Superdome, the arena held 10,000 more people than it did at dawn. National Guard Capt. John Pollard said evacuees from around the city poured into the Superdome and swelled the crowd to about 30,000 because they believed the arena was the best place to get a ride out of town.
As he watched a line snaking for blocks through ankle-deep waters, New Orleans' emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
``This is not a FEMA operation. I haven't seen a single FEMA guy,'' he said. He added: ``We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans.''
FEMA officials said some operations had to be suspended in areas where gunfire has broken out.
A day after Nagin took 1,500 police officers off search-and-rescue duty to try to restore order in the streets, there were continued reports of looting, shootings, gunfire and carjackings - and not all the crimes were driven by greed.
When some hospitals try to airlift patients, Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan said, ``there are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, `You better come get my family.'''
Outside a looted Rite-Aid drugstore, some people were anxious to show they needed what they were taking. A gray-haired man who would not give his name pulled up his T-shirt to show a surgery scar and explained that he needs pads for incontinence.
``I'm a Christian. I feel bad going in there,'' he said.
Earl Baker carried toothpaste, toothbrushes and deodorant. ``Look, I'm only getting necessities,'' he said. ``All of this is personal hygiene. I ain't getting nothing to get drunk or high with.''
While floodwaters in the city appeared to stabilize, efforts continued to plug three breaches that had opened up in the levee system that protects this below-sea-level city.
Helicopters dropped sandbags into the breach and pilings were being pounded into the mouth of the canal Thursday to close its connection to Lake Pontchartrain, state Transportation Secretary Johnny Bradberry said. He said contractors had completed building a rock road to let heavy equipment roll to the area by midnight.
The next step called for using about 250 concrete road barriers to seal the gap.
In Washington, the White House said Bush will tour the devastated Gulf Coast region on Friday and has asked his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and former President Clinton to lead a private fund-raising campaign for victims.
The president urged a crackdown on the lawlessness.
``I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this - whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud,'' Bush said. ``And I've made that clear to our attorney general. The citizens ought to be working together.''
Donald Dudley, a 55-year-old New Orleans seafood merchant, complained that when he and other hungry refugees broke into the kitchen of the convention center and tried to prepare food, the National Guard chased them away.
``They pulled guns and told us we had to leave that kitchen or they would blow our damn brains out,'' he said. ``We don't want their help. Give us some vehicles and we'll get ourselves out of here!''
----
And another thing, blaming the military is reprehensible. You should maybe take a vacation or something.
Sure thing Mz. Neurotic Spellchecker.
WHAT name calling?
I'm pointing out your behavior, and your excuse is to claim name calling?
And what personal attack?
Care to point them out and quote them?
And care to explain how such MIGHT give you an excuse for your behavior?
I suggest you stop, NOW.
It's not so much "dignity" as it is a sense of self-reliance. That's what's missing in this whole disaster. The "victims" from the outset assumed the "Nanny-state" would take care of them. Admittedly this hurricane was incredibly destructive, but it didn't come up suddenly. There was time to fill up a few gallons of water for each person in the family, stuff some food in a backpack, and a few essentials.
The one that really got me was the woman complaining about when the bus would show up to take them out. Heck, I'd have my kids by the hand and be hoofing it out of there. Persecuted Mormon pioneers walked to Utah, for cryin' out loud! Every boy scout learns how to make an improvised shelter. My sons learned how to make snow caves and slept out in sub-zero weather when we lived in Alaska.
People keep complaining about "lack of leadership." If disaster strikes, I'm not about to wait on the government to stick me in a "refugee camp" with a bunch of miscreant low-lifes. Every American ought to take a lesson and make some simple emergency preparations. God made us sovereign individuals; each of us is responsible to ensure our own safety and survival.
>Oh, these poor unfortunate people.
>I guess they weren't warned that a category 5 hurricane was >on it's way and that they should evacuate.
I am a newly converted Republican. I campaigned for Bush, and still think he is a great president, even if I am dissapointed in the seemingly lack of help, or delay of it to NOLA. I have heard for years about the callous, greedy, a-hole republicans and THOUGHT that that was a misconception. After a few days on this board, I am realizing that maybe that isn't such a wrong stereotype.
My father is in a nursing home, he can't drive. I am an only child and a single mother. If I were in the hospital or out of town, my father would be stranded where he is. But you would just make a snide, ugly remark about my father not evacuating, right?
I repeat. Most of the posters of this board is disgusting me these last few days regarding this disaster that is not getting better.
GWB is no Patton. GWB could not wipe the sweat off Patton's riding boots. Read about how Patton turned the whole Third Army around to fight the Battle of the Bulge in less than 72 hours!
We have tepid people running this show. GWB is a shadow of the man that jumped on the cars at ground zero with the bull horn.
No. They don't.
Did you choose your sign up date?
The day I registered.
Be sure and make a mental note of the political orientation of the uncivilized hoodlims of which you are afraid Mr. Mitzel.
Here's a hint: none of them voted for George Bush.
The streets are like canals but you never see anything like boats going in to recue people. I'm sure that they could get lots of flat bottom boats and rafts donated by LA locals. I suspect the number of volunteers ready to help is astronomical.
Any guess as to the race of the prey -- and of the predators? No chance of a "hate crime" there...
....sure, uh-huh... do you know anything about logistics.
why don't you try this..get a u-haul, fill it with water, MRE's,, generators, gasoline and oil to run them,and some firearms to protect yourself.
take a little drive down the highway that is FLOODED, I-10 is in pieces and then think about what you just asked.... who do you help..the first person you see or do you "hoard" the supplies till you get to NO.
Now how do you feed, water and get gas to come back and resupply...???? Multiply that by 1000 fold... guess what? This is something called "real life" not tv "reality" Survivor where you get voted off... but the real deal with the rule is the strongest survive, the man with the biggest gun willing to use it makes the rules and no "wish" we had a good ending before the commercial is going to happen.
Try and go to any organization you belong to and get things going .... NOW. I'd love to see you try to come up with even a basic plan on supply, logistics, and manpower needed for this.
Libs are a joke and stupid libs are malignant jokes.... if you're not a lib... then you're just .....'misinformed'.
>>>There is PLENTY of blame everywhere
There is plenty of blame, no doubt. But you can't blame people who live in a city that relies on mass transit and have no way out. What about the tourists that couldn't get a rental car? What about people like my father who are in nursing homes and their relatives couldn't get to them, or the nursing home/hospitals told them to wait it out? I am sickened at the people who blame the people left behind for this tragedy.
In the end lawsuits will trump the looters in the depravity to which humankind can descend. Collectivism is the evil face being shown here, the face of absolute dependency on the teat of the great welfare state. And that's the relatively innocent ones. Obviously, some of the looters stayed here to loot/rape/terrorize. I agree with whoever said don't think about spending a dime of my money rebuilding a city below sea-level in a hurricane-prone region.
Bite me.
We however can put pressure on the media.
Walk West on I-10
WoW. You really are stung, aren't you. Please remember that you first addressed me, ok?
So what's this REALLY about? You hate Bush and I defended him?
Tell me, what good does that do anyone right now? Plus, yes a lot of people are looting, but do we condem everyone for the actions of sum?
Many of these people don't even own a car, or porbably even a moped. That is why mostly poor people are the ones trapped. Its not an excuse, its the reality.
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