Posted on 09/02/2005 9:15:38 AM PDT by Jalapeno
The first busload of New Orleans refugees to reach the Reliant Astrodome overnight was a group of people who commandeered a school bus in the city ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and drove to Houston looking for shelter.
Jabbar Gibson, 20, said police in New Orleans told him and others to take the school bus and try to get out of the flooded city.
Gibson drove the bus from the flooded Crescent City, picking up stranded people, some of them infants, along the way. Some of those on board had been in the Superdome, among those who were supposed to be evacuated to Houston on more than 400 buses Wednesday and today. They couldn't wait.
The group of mostly teenagers and young adults pooled what little money they had to buy diapers for the babies and fuel for the bus.
After arriving at the Astrodome at about 10:30 p.m., however, they initially were refused entry by Reliant officials who said the aging landmark was reserved for the 23,000 people being evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.
"Now, we don't have nowhere to go," Gibson said. "We heard the Astrodome was open for people from New Orleans. We ain't ate right, we ain't slept right. They don't want to give us no help. They don't want to let us in."
Milling about the Reliant entrance, Sheila Nathan, 38, told her teary-eyed toddler that she was too tired to hold him.
"I'm trying to make it a fairy tale so they won't panic," said Nathan, who had four grandchildren in tow. "I have to be strong for them."
After about 20 minutes of confusion and consternation, Red Cross officials announced that the group of about 50 to 70 evacuees would be allowed into the Astrodome.
All were grateful to be out of the devastation and misery that had overtaken their hometown.
"I feel good to get out of New Orleans," said Demetrius Henderson, who got off the bus with his wife and three children. Many of those around him alternated between excited, cranky and nervous, clutching suitcases or plastic garbage bags of clothes.
They looked as bedraggled as their grueling ride would suggest: 13 hours on the commandeered bus driven by a 20-year-old man. Watching bodies float by as they tried to escape the drowning city. Picking up people along the way. Three stops for fuel. Chugging into Reliant Park, only to be told initially that they could not spend the night.
Every bit worth it.
"We took the bus and got out of the city. We were trying to get out of the city," James Hickerson said.
Several passengers on the bus said they took the matter into their own hands earlier Wednesday because they felt rescuers and New Orleans authorities were too slow in offering help.
"They are not worried about us," said Makivia Horton, 22, who is five months pregnant.
- I live on a few acres with a well - that's the water supply; it can't get interrupted by politicians or attacked by vandals.
- My house is on a septic system; there is no sewer line to fail.
- I have a 12Kw propane-fueled generator permanently connected to the household service with an automatic transfer switch. If power fails (it does once or twice a year for a few hours to a day or so, due to downed trees in storms), the generator is activated and power is back in less than 5 seconds, automatically. I don't have to be here to do anything. When power is restored, it switches back over and shuts down, also automatically. It runs the well, septic pumps, rainwater pumps and all essential circuits in the house to provide power, light, refrigeration and basic heating. Propane power means the fuel system is very clean; there is no "old fuel" problem, no varnishing in the carburetor and no need to haul tanks of diesel, kerosene or gasoline. It even automatically runs itself for a few minutes a month to circulate the oils and test the system.
- The propane fuel comes from an underground 1,000 gallon propane tank. Again, secure from vandalism; no above-ground lines and you can't tell where it is unless you know where to look.
- Wood and propane stoves provide alternative/supplemental heating sources; main heat is geothermal and very efficient.
- Rainwater/septic leaching goes back into the soil to eventually replenish the well; all roof gutters are tightlined to a drainfield that lies over the well - our average rainfall puts about 80,000 gallons of additional fresh water from the roof into the watershed every year according to my calcs.
If you live in a rural area, the well/septic/stoves are all part of the basic arrangement - the additional planning and expense were in the generator and control systems. I spent about $18,000 for all that during house construction, when it's much cheaper to do.
If you have questions, feel free to FReepmail me.
Ping.
Glad to meet someone else without an accent.
"There are situations when doing it your way and damn the consequences is the proper course of action."
I think standing up to your neck in water, busting through the roof of your home with whatever means you have, crawling out to the roof and waiting and praying for help to arrive, living as they have since rescued, watching people die around them, and feeling as if there is no hope in sight, qualifies.
Maybe the criminal looters commandeered the bus to make their get away.
Why weren't they used before the flood?
No - 18 + 18 = 36. If she was 18 when she had her first, and that child had one at 18, it is possible. My ex's oldest sister was a grandmother at 36.
Forgetting that for the moment, the article says that the police told him to take the bus. Where are you getting information that he took the bus without permission?
I'll bet a lot of those N.O. folks will be looking(and willing out of desparation) to take jobs that the Mexican illegals have been used to doing in Texas....you watch that will become a major flashpoint!
"... during an emergency we are well within our right to do whatever it takes to protect ourselves. Government workers are not required to help us during an emergency. We must be proactive in some cases. This was such a case."Reading the revelation of such a mind set here on Free Republic, is scary ..."
# 143 by exodus
Good post. My wife and I are going through our closet tonight, and taking stuff down to the Dome tomorrow.
Maybe the criminal looters commandeered the bus to make their get away.
Do you have a different source?
I will put her on the first bus to New Orleans.
On that note...
from a friend who was in new orleans:
I am alive, arguably tougher than any of you all...
I got out today, Sept. 1st, from the worst of all possible worlds. If any of you that don't know me personally saw the tattooed freak on CNN days ago, that was me.
Yes, I rode out the storm, that was the easy part. The hard part was living through the hell that New Orleans became after the fact. MAKE NO MISTAKE, WHAT THE NEWS IS TELLING YOU IS NOT EVEN CLOSE TO THE RAMPANT ANARCHY AND CHAOS THAT IS AND WAS NEW ORLEANS.
Some reasons why:
Roving packs of weapon weilding marauders killing and looting everything in sight.
No power, making the French Quarter wonderful for the first night, a TOTAL NIGHTMARE the next.
Destruction on a level only rivalled by Iraq, SERIOUSLY.
Corpses floating in most parts of the city.
The heat, good lord, the heat...
Police essentially forming gangs of their own, sleepless and out of control.
The military having turf wars in every parish, leaving yet more corpses and scaring the shit out of everyone.
Crazed militia-type behavior from people that you always knew were on the verge, turning them into assholes too ready to kill than help their fellow man.
The stench of organic rot and the imminent threat of diseases long thought extinct.
And many more things I can't bear to tell you all right now for fear of giving you all the cold sweats, I mean it.
Imagine "Apocalypse Now", mix in a generous portion of "28 Days Later", it doesn't even come close. This is something that you will never undestand unless you were there. I am in serious shock, yet somehow calm in the knowledge that I LIVED THROUGH IT.
Yeah, I didn't even know I was that crazy... But I'm not stupid, so I am in Lafayette for a couple of days in sanctuary, then possibly to Texass, who knows....
I kept a storm journal, the results of which will be posted as soon as I have enough p.c. time and the stomach to relive it that long.
Whatever you do, DO NOT GO THERE UNTIL IT IS UNIVERSALLY AGREED THAT IT IS SAFE.
Death rules that place and all that dared to stay any longer...
I am deeply and sincerely touched by the communication I have received as a result of my descent into madness, much love to you all...
_______________________________________________________
800 Sal-Army
Thanks
That ain't 'looting' that's 'commandeering.'
Looting is when you steal something you intend to keep for yourself. Somehow, I doubt this young man intended to keep this bus as his own after the emergency was over.
Amen!
And the people who had suffered through the same experience and then left standing on the curb as this guy slammed the door and fled with their bus- What are they, just a bunch of dumbasses for believing in and obeying the rules of a civilized society even under adverse circumstances and deserve whatever the frenzied thugs of society visit upon them.
If the Fire Marsha told them to they would. Obey the laws of the Land.
Usually, these things are handled by the mayor and governor - who have proven incapable.
This thing should have hit a ghost town.
I've lived through a couple of hurricanes. When the firetrucks came by with the loudspeakers saying to evacuate, well, we evacuated.
It amazes me how people twists these posts around and talk about bogus stuff. Free speech....
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