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!''
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Apples and oranges.
Most comprehensive and IMO correct post on this thread.
At this point all that's needed is money. Wait. I take that back. They've been asking for volunteers. The number was 1-800-SAL-ARMY. But they don't want people coming down there on their own. There's no food and nowhere to sleep.
I would drive down and pick up someone needing a ride. As as a Oklahoman used to tornadoes, not there to view destruction. There to help a neighbor. Don't know if you ever heard, but had a bombing in OK back in the '90's. People, wonderful people helped out there. Don't remember minding the help.
Well thats good, I'm sure the President would love to hear your opinion.
I'm sure he would. Just what they need is more useless mouths in the way.
People helping is always needed.
Now that nothing is needed, why do the news keep reporting that help is needed?
You said nothing about help. You wanted individuals to just drive down there, THAT won't help.
And you you know that, how?
Nice
how the hell did we win a war if we can't handle someone shooting at us???????
They CAN'T shoot back. The Dem weenies in control haven't authorised it. AND there are too many non-combatants in the way to take the chance. Firing from a chopper isn't exactly precise.
Oh yeah, how? Do you really things would be all that different down there? We pay billions and billions in taxes for planning for a nuke or WMD, do you think the response would be at all different?
You're out of control and if you haven't been banned or suspended yet, I suggest that you give yourself a timeout before you are.
Nice hot cocoa and cinnamon toast might be in order. I'm saying this as a well-wisher.
Why are the authorities and MSM pumping sunshine up our asses regarding the death toll. 100 here, 118 there. There will be 50,000 when the final tally is made.
Taxes are what we owe the governemnt for what we ask it to do.
They did plan, they failed to adapt their plans when things changed.
An old axiom in the military is that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
Clearly the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisana never learn that axiom.
Actually that is not true. The private ambulance services have been going into the city from day one until they said screw it. The buses are driving into the city from the west and back out to Houston. The State and local government BLEW IT AND PEOPLE ARE PAYING WITH THEIR LIVES. Take a city, remove a large part of the law abiding citizens, cut off electricity, water, sewage, effective law enforcement, communications, lighting and let it go for 4 days and this is what you get.
They should have had water, the hospitals secured on day two. As far as the f'ing superdome goes they had to know what would happen if they kept those people there. They locked them in without enough people to control them and people are being raped and killed and starved. It is unforgivable.
Call the number and see what they say.
And you you know that, how?
It's been on the news. Even in a news conference, the Prez stated that all that they needed right now was funds. Not wanting people to drive down there has been clearly stated.
I say 15K dead.
They look like complete fools.
They said on Fox that they won't let you in. Only AUTHORISED vehicles are allowed anywhere near NO.
In the last year or two I have read more than one or two articles on FR - in depth articles, about the exact scenario that has now happened. Not the mayhem created by subhuman scum, but the water damage, and everything that that entails. In detail.
Those who could have done something did indeed know exactly what would happen, and they did not plan properly. To put it very mildly.
Degeneracy is a lifestyle choice made easier when food, housing and medical care are provided at other people's expense. The vile behavior is a "saw the chance and took it" thing; they're not "deparaved on acounta they're deprived."
Well I've been watching the MSM news. Saw an interview of someone on a rooftop desparate. They wanted to know where the caravans of buses of help were? Not my idea! Theirs! But I'm safe here in my home with air conditioning and food and drinks. They probably don't know what is best for them! Stupid me!
If they won't let anyone in, how the heck are these people going to get out? I've seen many elderly that can't wheel themselves down the highway or be self reliant as some would suggest.
Go ahead. Keep telling fellow freepers how ashamed you are of them. Tell them they are heartless they are and how their words will haunt them. Just be sure to go to church Sunday.
Rudy could have stepped up to the plate.
No Government diaster plan survives contact with a catogory 4+ hurricane.
There I made a new axiom. The real question is what to do next.
I say march the people out of New Orleans that want to be saved, the thugs won't leave their ill gotten gains and any of the marchers that have looted items will quickly tire of carrying them.
In the end we can save more by getting these people out of there then by leaving them to sit and wait.
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