Grand Theft Auto - NOLA!!!
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!''
----
It's called sweat.
The military should follow orders, all things being equal. Those orders should be "shoot to kill" the insurgents and terrorists to restore order, both in NO and in Iraq. Leaders need to give those orders.
>`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.''
Typical Timid Canadian Wimp. He's the type that won't survive.
It took more than three days to plan and implement.
"Isn't that in reality a response to a threat not a response to how I was being treated?"
NO.
"A threat you have no ability to carry out to boot."
I pointed out your behavior, you whined and got combative.
You decided to continue on with it even after being warned.
Your behavior is wrong, and out of line.
It doesn't matter whether or not I have any authority to do anything to you.
What matters is whether or not you modify your behavior.
If you choose to continue being combative and insulting, that is your choice.
But be warned that there are consquences for your choice.
Get in your cars and drive in to bring someone out!
Are you trying to get people killed or arrested?!
No, wait outside the boundry's and let the Nat'l Guardy send people to you
Please don't urge others to do illegal and dangerous things. If it was just a matter of hopping in a vehicle, don't you think the Red Cross and Salvation Army would be in there? They CAN'T get in. It's flooded. The roads are barricaded by Natl' Guard.
I challenge you to demand your government shut down the schools and send in their buses to bring the victims into your communities.
They HAD buses. They could have gotten their own people out. They chose to tempt fate.
So forget them? Nope not me! Sorry Oklahoman here! We work hard and we defy the odds. Gonna be here for you when you need me. That's just us!
This is what tolerance of evil gets you.
Diversity is our strength ...
Take it easy. These roving gangs here on FR can get a 'Noob' like you zapped so don't let them lead you too far out on a limb. I gotta go pop in a video for my mom. She's electronics challenged.
>>>Anybody who was responsible for a baby or a child who did not evacuate should be held criminally responsible.>>>
How haughty of you!! God help you that you are never in a situation that you have no vehicle because you rely on mass transit and there are no rental vehicles. God help you if you fly into a city that has hotel/restaurants in walking distance so you don't bother renting a vehicle and you cannot obtain a rental car in time and you are stuck there with your baby. I hope your words don't ever bite you in the butt. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
They could walk acorss the bridge to Gretna as well but It would be best just to leave.
If the healthy walk out trhat would mean the sick and old could be transported and the criminals and looters would be the only ones left behind.
Once the line gets laid out then it will be easy to follow and supply with water from military water buffulos.
Also, another Freeper (a New Yorker, of course!) pointed out here earlier today that most New Yorkers are really "candy @sses" when faced with a strong law enforcement presence. LOL.
A huge number of MREs and pallets of water and possibly juice drinks were brought in BEFORE the hurricane. Stuff has been dropped since. But now that the scum are taking shots at rescuers and those trying to make drops, it is very difficult to get help in.
These subhuman scum need to be taken out.
The fact that the city and state governments are totally corrupt, venal, and obviously without a clue between them is disgusting. All kinds of fedgov help was headed to NOLA before the hurricane even hit. How can the fedgov help with the local government in complete, total disarray and chaos? For God's sake, they didn't have (and may still not have) a communications system that worked. Why the hell did the local gov't not think of that beforehand?
Oh man.... Gee, I wonder what all the fighting is about?
>>>LOL! BILLIONS of years, my friend, not millions. ROTFLMAO! That time thing is kinda difficult for you, isn't it?>>>
You're an ass aren't you?
I don't need a half-assed FReeper like you to give me advice.
Grand Theft Auto - NOLA!!!
>>>Airdrops work best if you aren't dropping them into water, or on to the tops of houses.>>>
I'm talking about the convention center, but yes, they can manage to air tight the boxes. We can walk on the moon, we can obtain some waterproof boxes, eh?
WTF?
Can't somebody get a chopper with pallets of food in there?
"I don't need a half-assed FReeper like you to give me advice."
Judging from your response here, yes you do.
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