I'd bet most of those are diesels and would still run if tried.
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 has nothing to do with this. I'm tired of people saying Bush needs to do more when he can't. It's exhaustion from trying to present facts to those who don't want to hear them.
The very simple point is that someone, whoever it is that has the authority, (doesn't someone?) needs to give a 'shoot to kill' order.
Neither the mayor nor the govenor has had any sense or cahones up to this point. What I'd LIKE is to send a silent, elite squad in there to hunt the streets and clean it up.
I'd bet most of those are diesels and would still run if tried.
dang....you're right.. I didn't even think of that!!!!
I mean all the supplies coming down in crates between buildings in flooded streets should be easy enough to "get".
Now you've got 10,000-30,000 people and how much water is that.. how many MRE's, and your magical aircraft... how many transport, helicopter and hell I guess you'll use gliders and blimps.. do "we" have. So now you've got to get those planes localized in a coordinated effort, find all the supplies (how many again?), arrange for ground drops locations and times, oh yeah.... get all the supplies.. you remember those... and get them to the place the planes fly out of.. or I guess you'd just pull up to the Wal-Mart or Sams Club.. then just "fly to New Orleans" look for the big scraped up dome shaped building with all the little moving dots on the roads and canal/streets/high buildings and drop 1000 to 5000 pound crates with drag chutes on top of them.
gee you are smart. Lets fax this plan to the White House... no better yet, fax it to the mayor or governor of Louisiana... that should really help.......
FYI, air drops look cool, because you see the end of them with these nice pretty parachute thingys floating down and grateful soldiers looking up and thanking the lord and airlift.. you have no clue about the planning and sheer discipline that a coordinated resupply and airdrop takes...
By the way, do you have any other great suggestions... like maybe a 'transporter'... or maybe .... forget it .. it's just Bush's fault, I KNOW IT!!!.... and Haliburtons.
Most of us don't have contempt for cops and firemen and realize that for all their faults, they are often trying to help and usually just like the rest of us.
Additionally, what good is it hounding a cop or acting beligerent to a cop? I am no candy A#$% and can probably physically kick the crap out of 75-90% of cops in unarmed combat, but that does not mean I will disrespect their position and authority when not putting my life at risk or something like that.
With what's going on there, NO needs trained men with guns, not Moms in cars. No one is forgetting those people. I don't think you grasp what the roads are like. I saw a map on one of these threads today that was stunning. Water everywhere.
Don't tell me *I* should be ashamed. Who are you to say that?
Looters and those who defend them should be ashamed.
I will say it again: anyone who was responsible for a baby or a child who refused to evacuate should be held criminally responsible.
You are a good freeper, but I would suggest that if you are disgusted with this forum that you stay away fror a few days. People have varying points of view about this unprecedented situation and will continue to sort them out and express them freely here. Regards, LH
It's a tight fit downtown surrounded by tall building and by the river.
It would be better to try and supply them along I-10 since interstates are supposed to double as runways in emergencys.
We are getting no specific information from the persons responsible. The governor has told us nothing, and FEMA has been a disappointment, to say the least. No explanations for the delay in getting people out. Are bridges down so that boats cannot ascend/descend the river? Why the slowness is getting buses into the city? The only good thing that comes out of this is that we are getting a full dress rehersal of a major terroist attack on a major city.
I wish someone would try. There was a spat last night, reported on a thread about the Natl' Guard trying to take a bus being used by police/troopers. The Natl" Guard wanted it to evacuate people. The police were using it to transport their own.
Just like any other third world country.
The Police are Sending Out an SOS...
How is this different than before Katrina? It's not like New Orleans had a low crime rate; 24 rapes per 100,000 people and 29 murders per 100,000 people annually. It's in the top 20 or so worst US cities.
>>>The military has let NO down. IMO. Period.
These are your words, correct?>>>
I'm sorry, I didn't think I needed to clarify. But since you are into picking a fight...
I would not march into a grocery store and get upset with them for dishonest advertising or what have you. I would go to the management. So let me clarify for those who are too sensitive to not understand what I meant. I am upset at the LEADERSHIP of the military in general, not the soldiers who are limited to what their LEADERS tell them to do. Or not do in this case.
WOW!!! That pictures says alot doesn't it? Just damn.
>>>I am surprised you see no connection between liberal policies and the mayhem occuring. >>>
Oh I absolutely see the connection in what the situation is. I see the liberal policies affecting the whole nation, gas included. But what I also see are elderly and children who are suffering and you can't sit back while people are dying and give a big "I told you so". You get them to safety and then do that. ;o)
All those busses......and how many might be dead? Thousands? There needs to be action against the mayor and govenor.
>>>And how many scenes have you seen where someone has built a debris fire and boiled a big pot of water so that they -- and those around them -- could have a sterilized drink?>>>
You can't boil some things out of water. YOU go ahead and drink that water that has industrial waste in it. I'll pass.
Here is where the media should be pointing out such things. The water isn't over the tops of the hoods on these buses, there is a good chance they will still work, if not your basic "duece and a quarter" or "six by" has a tow rig as part of it's basic equipement and could tow them to an area where they could be restarted or repaired.
No One is trying this.
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