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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This is out of The Night of The Living Dead.
If you cannot spell it, you most likely do not understand it. :-)
No, instead he will get reelected!
This morning they reported the the Astrodome is full and there are places in San Antonio and other locations that are being used. What do you mean nothing being done? It does seem painfully slow to those of us who are not there, not in charge, not making it happen but we don't really know all the logistics. I have not seen leadership from their gov., senator, mayor...it is like they are stuck in a mire and don't know what to say. The gov. said yesterday that the word riot is not one she would use but she didn't know what word would describe what is happening in NO. Well. Don't worry about descriptives and show some strength and decisiveness. This is not an easy situation and it does call for strength and guidance. It makes me really question what these "leaders" will do with all that money that will be directed toward the region. Just pray that relief groups bypass the beaurocracies and get it to those in need.
The water is contaminated with chemicals etc. that boiling doesn't touch. If they get some rain . . . .
Prepare to be flamed. You will be called a non reliant socialist girly man.
The government has no defense for the lack of aid and bodies on the scene. The lack of security can be laid at the mayor and governors feet, initially at least.
You know, these "leaders" like Sharpton and Jackson require too many creature comforts that are not available in NO right now and certainly a microphone and cameras. They remind me of the communist leaders who espoused equality for all,but for them, living with perks and comforts and privileges that the common man could never have. They are a little more equal than the masses.
No mercy. Shoot the predators dead like the demons they are.
This is just getting truly disturbing now. Murders, rapes, beatings, etc. What does raping someone have to do with survival?
Corner the thugs, remove the innocent, retreat the law abiding helpful LE and then napalm the city. In that order.
One thought I just had: This is a pedophiles dream come true. Steal a few kids and everyone just thinks they died in the storm. I have to go puke now.
I had to explain to a friend of mine who did the same thing my his neighbors in Morris Park hate him and why his house was destroyed and why he is left with a non-paying Sec tion 8 tenant who refuses to leave.
He is a typical greedy as hell wannabe real estate tycoon who quickly realized its not as easy as Carlton Sheets makes it seem.
Some Freepers are idiots in their dogmatic proclamations. Its like when some of them want to kill the lawyers. Oh that's right, until they get smashed by a drunk driver, get wrongfully accused of a crime, need to shelter millions of dollars from taxes, etc etc, but those things of course will not happen to them.
Its sometimes a bit comical.
"No, it's not. What you are seeing in New Orleans is compelling evidence of the fact that poverty is less of an economic condition than a disordered state of mind. Granted -- there are a lot of folks trapped down there in New Orleans who are too old or infirm to fend for themselves. What is most disturbing, however, is the large number of people who are reasonably young and healthy enough to contribute greatly to the relief effort but who completely lack any sense of survival skills, initiative, etc. They've been denuded of these things through their life-long existence in an urban, nanny-state environment where it never took much effort to survive.
Just go back and read through all of the breaking stories on this topic over the last couple of days. If I read one more quote from a 40-something year old man who is bitching and complaing that "they're not doing nothing for us" (without ever really having a clear grip on who "they" is), I think I'm going to vomit.'
Might be a good time to grab some trash bags and teach the young ones how to keep pick up after themselves also. Oh well . . .
Yes, but the National Guard is experienced and paid for delivering supplies in a war zone.
Unarmed? The troops on the ground right now are apparently unarmed. The NO police have been charged with guarding them but police are turning in their badges. That's a thread on FR.
Sandbar. What about the mayor, Governor and senator from LA and NO? It is their state and city they needed to take charge and lead the way but THEY are the ones that failed. Why are you blaming the feds (read Bush). Why didn't the Gov and Mayor evacuate the city? This isn't the first time NO had hurricane. The mayor and Gov should have this down by now, but it's Bushes fault. By the way why aren't we seeing these problems in Boloxi? I will tell you why -- Hailey Barbor.
crocadiles maybe? Wolves are smarter than to go to NO.
So you been to Detroit ehhh.
So have I, worked social services their for 5 years. There are real people in Detroit, then there are the others.
Public education at work?
I don't really care. I'll settle for leaders of any race, religion, or ethnic background who know that robbery and rape are wrong and will give the "shoot to kill" orders in order to protect innocent lives.
My point was that they have FED our black population so much vitemization rhetoric, kept them impoverished in their MINDS with low expectations, and zero accountability, and often placed a "the government owes me" feeling that we see the results.
NO MORAL CODE IS EVIDENT.
And because jesse jackson, the worlds best poverty pimp, is their VOICE, then it would be GREAT for him to be visible down there, megaphone intact, perhaps they would listen to their leader... a fellow black who has the power to be heard.
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