Posted on 09/02/2005 9:44:01 AM PDT by NYer
HOUSTON (Reuters) - They lived in or near New Orleans, the city famed for jazz, Mardi Gras and letting "the good times roll." Now having escaped the hell their home became after Hurricane Katrina, they never want to go back.
Survivors evacuated from New Orleans' Superdome in a huge convoy of buses arrived at Houston's Astrodome grateful for their lives but bitter about their ordeal during the storm and what they described as local officials' indifference to their fate.
"Call it biblical. Call it apocalyptic. Whatever you want to call it, take your pick," said Robert Lewis, who became marooned by floodwaters in his downtown New Orleans home where he and others had sought to ride out Hurricane Katrina.
"There were bodies floating past my door," he told reporters on Thursday night, describing how he and other men at his home put children on their shoulders and walked 2 miles
through flooded streets before being rescued by a helicopter.
"We were like on an island. We did the best we could. We were just like zombies walking around at night."
Then came the Superdome, the covered New Orleans football stadium used to shelter some 23,000 people from Katrina before authorities ordered them evacuated as living conditions deteriorated amid fading lights, no water and overflowing toilets. About 4,000 had arrived in Houston by Thursday night.
The Superdome situation, said Lewis, was "extremely chaotic and disorganized. It was a total breakdown.
"Basically there was nothing. They had to get people out."
Keith Brooks left the Superdome two days after he arrived.
"It wasn't fit for a dog in there," he said.
The food was "slop." Officials threw bottles of water for people to catch, he said. He recalled sick, elderly people being ignored and said he saw a 14-year-old girl being raped.
The 40-year-old trash collector said he planned to seek work in Houston and was never going back to New Orleans where he had spent his entire life.
"They didn't treat me right in there. They didn't treat nobody right," he said."
Lenwyn Hollins waited out the storm with his wife and three children in their public housing project because going to the Superdome was "like an insult to us."
"I've lost all trust in New Orleans," he said.
ONE WHO LOOTED
Henry Mackels from Chalmette, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans, stayed with his wife and son and several hundred others at the local high school as Katrina blasted the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday with 140-mph (225-kph) winds and a 30-foot (9-meter) storm surge that may have killed thousands.
Officials at the shelter "totally let us down," he told reporters at the Astrodome.
The floors were covered in dog and cat waste and there was nothing to eat or drink, he said, adding, "We were left to starve."
Mackels said he and other men had to find boats on dry ground and loot grocery and convenience stores to get food and drink to the hundreds in the high school.
"There were people passing out left and right. We had to (loot). I had no choice," he said.
His wife, Veronica, added that guards at the shelter "sat there and waited for us to die."
Mackels said they were eventually put on a bus without knowing where they were going and "none of our family actually knows we're OK.
"Right now, where we live at (in Chalmette) is totally devastated. There's no going back."
That "slop" would be army MRE's - I guess what is good enough for soldiers ain't good enough for a starving refugee who didn't heed the warnings to get out...
Right, like your mansion in downtown NO was. You will get more in free handouts now than you have ever had in your life. Loser.
wow. that pic says a lot.
Do you have the link to a story about it?
That's got to be one hell of a hangover.
Good. Then we don't need to rebuild it.
No story I know of per se. I'm sure there is one, but I just copied the image. The picture is really damning.
Those busses are only to be used on election day in New Orleans to bus the people to the polls to vote for democrats and not for a category 4/5 hurricane barrelling their way, by an unwritten edict in New Orleans.
Does Mr. Hollins now realize that the government should not be in the taking-care-of-people business?
2 excellent Christian relief organizations:
Southern Baptist's NAMB: http://www.namb.net/
Samaritan's Purse: http://www.samaritanspurse.org/
People really need to stop depending on the government and learn to take care of themselves.
And what stopped him from coming to the girl's rescue?
Mayor of NO should be watching his back, same with the GOVERNOR of LA... their actions and lack there of, directly contributed to the death and suffering of thousands.
IMCOMPETENCE is the only word I can come up for these two... and even that seems somehow far far too tame for what they are.
Or attending to the elderly he mentioned...
I will compare it to a snake bite, one doesn't wait for a "health care provider" to come to one's assistance when a possible lifesaving situation depends on minutes not hours or days.
Life can be Hell in emergency situations like these but we must learn to be resourceful. It has seemed as though a number of the people had sat around waiting for "someone" to come and help them when they had a duty to help themselves instead of now blaming everyone (especially "big daddy" government) for not helping the.
I seriously doubt, sadly, that it was a solo rape... combined with the fact he's trying to protect his own wife and kids... I'm not about to pass judgement on this man in that situation.
I knew alot of these people wouldn't go back, this is going to change the political balance everywhere in the south, unless the blame for this falls where it belongs (on the democrats) with litterally millions of democrats flooding the rest of the country the voting patterns will be changed for decades.
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