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!''
----
Self reliance is fine, but then remind me why we must be forced to spend literally hundreds of billions ot the govt to keep us safe. Is is not sort of a contract whereby we send them a lot of our cash and they at least have some contingency planning for situations like this?
>>>Can't somebody get a chopper with pallets of food in there?
Not according to most of the Freepers on this thread. Either they don't deserve it because they were unable to get out of the city, or they are too busy making excuses for the government.
I believe a huge mobilization lasting 6+months preceeded the toppling in a few days...
>>>You mean you would have the ability to create water to counteract the 90 degree heat and walking in the sun!?!
It's called sweat.>>>
You're joking, right?
The locals pols haven't done anything except let things descend into chaos.
But you gave me an idea. Is there a way to send those pics to Brit Hume? He has a personal addy and I know someone sent him pics of Sheehan.He used them on the air. Nuts. I'll never find that addy again.
Al $ has lost alot of weight. I'm not sure if he is on a diet or just nervous.
Let's face it....the THUGS we have seen are black. And probably, there are some white scum there too...drug addicts, stinking thugs who hung around to have the chance to GET AT THE HOMES and BUSINESSES as people evacuated as soon as they could after the storm subsided...
WHERE ARE THE SELF PROCLAIMED black leaders in America...where ARE THEY? Where is JESSE JACKSON and AL SHARPTON....WHERE IS THE HEAD OF THE NAACP???WHY ARE THEY NOT THERE, WITH MEGAHORNS...CRUISING THROUGH THE NEIGHBORHOODS...CALMING THE VERY PEOPLE THEY MAKE $$$$$$ SAYING THEY SPEAK FOR... ( Oh I know they were called back to DC today...but WHERE WERE THEY YESTERDAY AND THE DAY BEFORE?)
WHY AREN'T THEY CALMING THEIR 'PEOPLE'.
They are the ARCHITECTS of this WEB OF ANARCY....of DEPENDENCE and LOW EXPECTATIONS....THEY NEED TO VISIT THEIR INFRASTRUCTURE!!!
IF THE PRESS CAN GET THERE..........SO CAN THEY! REAL LEADERS LEAD.
>>>Leaders need to give those orders.
I apologize for not clarifying that, I did not mean the soldiers were to blame.
Again, no leadership, no coordination, no initiative, just chaos and chicken without a head like behavior.
"Is is not sort of a contract whereby we send them a lot of our cash and they at least have some contingency planning for situations like this?"
No it is not a contract, we pay and we hope.
Usually the planning works, sometimes it doesn't, like now.
We need to adapt our plans to meet the situation, because the situation has changed.
I guess they felt they had to get that obligatory dig in...
Not according to most of the Freepers on this thread. Either they don't deserve it because they were unable to get out of the city, or they are too busy making excuses for the government.
Didn't you read the thread about the looters firing on the choppers?
>>>I will say it again: anyone who was responsible for a baby or a child who refused to evacuate should be held criminally responsible.>>>
And I say you are a heartless person and I hope your words never haunt you. I do believe they will, things tend to work that way.
I do not defend looters. Why don't you educate yourself about the situation and see that cars may be able to move around locally, they major highways from some areas of the city are under water or completely broken. I still say shame on you.
Totally agree with you..Uncl Al is probably sitting on his fat ass at a fancy NY eatery trying to figure out how he exploit this situation for hard $$$$..Jackson is human garbage .I had the please of refusing to shake his hand at one time in NYC. Man was he pissed.
This is not really the truth.
Truth is, people in hurricane country are dying 'cuz they never made past arrangments to evacuate when hurricanes threatened. Truth is, people in hurricane country are dying because they took no steps to prepare for the inevitable cat 4/5 that would eventually hit. They didn't stock food or water or meds or TP or anything. They just thought somebody else would come and cover for their irresponsibility. They live behind dikes, below sea level, next to the sea, next to a large lake and next to a river yet apparently few took steps to be prepared for a flood. Damn idiots.
They had time to leave and they didn't. They had many warnings about being prepared for such an event and didn't prepare. They are dying because they choose to be irresponsible. They played the odds, they lost. You think I got a bill now? No! Not me.
We are at war and the central government still advises all citizens to be prepared for several weeks without city/social/government services. Are you preparing? I see I probably don't have enough ammo saved up.
I wonder if he is familiar with posse comitatus...
Hillary want hearings on gas prices...
With what's going on there, NO needs trained men with guns, not Moms in cars.
So compassion is not needed or communities that will help? Well thats good, I'm sure the President would love to hear your opinion. Now that nothing is needed, why do the news keep reporting that help is needed? Damn liars!
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.
>>>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.>>>
I may have to do that. Or I will lose respect for 90% of the people here. If I haven't already.
Hillary wants hearings on gas prices...
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