Posted on 09/04/2005 1:13:55 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Reports about firefighters being held hostage in St. Bernard Parish were just rumors, said Col. Henry Whitehorn of the Louisiana State Police. Fox News had reported that firefighters were trapped and being pinned down in the Bellsouth building across the street from the ExxonMobil refinery in Chalmette.
Whitehorn said he spoke with fire chief Thomas Stone of Chalmette, who said two firefighters were not being held hostage, but got sick and were airlifted out by helicopters. He said firefighters from Baton Rouge and Canada were on the scene with 57 Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's deputies, and no one plans to leave.
Whitehorn urged reporters to check their information with officials first. He said police investigate all calls, and communications are operational in southeast Louisiana
The officials' accounts of the deaths could not be independently confirmed, and journalists were not allowed to visit the nursing home or subdivision.
St. Bernard, a marshy area, appears to have been particularly hard-hit by Hurricane Katrina, but local officials said that scores of lives were lost because of the slow official response. They said they felt all but forsaken by the federal government.
"If anybody should have been prepared for this, it should have been the federal government," said Henry J. Rodriguez Jr., the president of the parish government.
The bulk of assistance has come from a hodgepodge of sources: neighboring parishes, state police, boat-owning volunteers and other officials.
Several residents who were still in the parish — or had just made it to the other side of the Mississippi River— described harrowing conditions.
Al Kuchler III, 51, of Chalmette, spent five nights on the second floor of a neighbor's house with 19 other people. He said the group tried to keep alive an elderly woman who was paralyzed with multiple sclerosis. They were almost successful. "Airboats came and rescued us, and by the time they took us to the levee, she died 15 minutes later," Kuchler said.
Mark Melancon, a firefighter who has been living with his colleagues in a BellSouth building, said they had begun shaving their heads at night — in an act of mourning and despair. "The number of bodies we're finding is unbelievable," he said.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3338871
As uncouth as they were, getting themselves cut off quickly, they apparently were -racial thing aside- correct about the suburbs.
I keep reading this and it's not reality !
I'm starting to think it's because the welfare state has replaced the city and state welfare state ?
,,, shaving their heads in that atmpsophere is unhealthy, germs could get in
It certainly has been a wake up call for people who think government is the end all and be all.
It's a good lesson.
Everyone needs to be more of this and more self sufficent.
________________________________________________________________
GULFPORT - Prepared family riding out aftereffects
Their stockpiled food and water are lasting, so far
By THOMAS KOROSEC copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
GULFPORT, MISS. - Nobody needs to worry about H.L. Doolittle for a while.
"There are some of us old boys on this coast that got prepared," said the 74-year-old auto-upholstery-shop owner. With his 27-year-old grandson, Jimmy, he was as ready as anyone in his modest income bracket to survive the wrath of Hurricane Katrina, which he and his family narrowly escaped. They took care in getting prepared for its aftermath of shortages and primitive conditions.
On Friday, Doolittle was on the porch of his one-story frame house, where he was checking the oil of his generator.
The four members of the family, which includes H.L.'s wife, Katie Ruth, and their daughter, Tammy, live just five blocks from the Gulf of Mexico and just one block from an area of total destruction.
They had four vehicles gassed up as the storm came in.
"It would have been impossible to evacuate out of town," said Jimmy Doolittle. "My grandparents both have health problems, and, financially, they had nowhere to go."
The plan was to hold out in the house and make a frantic dash to the safety of a nearby hospital if needed.
Massive pines split like matchsticks, and the storm surge rushed around the house. The family jumped into the one vehicle that wasn't blocked or crushed by trees and, propelled by a storm tail wind, sped across the railroad tracks to the hospital.
The winds had barely subsided when they returned to check on neighbors. An addition was flooded, but the main rooms were inches above the storm-surge line.
Since Monday, the family has been living on provisions they began storing up last year.
"We've kept on top of it," H.L. Doolittle said. "We knew with storm after storm coming in the Gulf that a bad one was coming. We just didn't know how bad."
His grandson said his family has provisions of hot meals for 15 days.
Their larder includes canned goods, franks and beans and Spam. They have water for bathing and flushing that was stored in a barrel, and they have 60 gallons of gasoline stashed around their property, 200 cans of protein drink in case food gets even more scarce and hunting rifles, shotguns and pistols.
The Doolittles have yet to become mouths for authorities to feed. But they can only hold out so long.
"Unless business comes back in six moths or a year and we're working, we'll have problems, too," he said.
thomas.korosec@croon.com
Doolittle did a lot
THAT'S what I'm talking about!
Self-reliance, at least in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, should be expected of everyone.
Damn the nanny-stater for breeding the independence ot of a large segment of the population.
Prepardness starts at home you idiot. As Parish President it is YOUR responsiblity to ensure that disaster plans for your constituents are in place and, if not, to either prepare such plans yourself or force the city to do so - maybe even by owrking together with the other parishes.
To carry that further, city governments are just as repsonsible for ensuring the same thing - By working with other cities and the state.
Finally, the States have the same responsibility and should work with other states to prpare for such things.
Federally, the government has "master plans", but these are large scale and are designed to ensure that the states themselves recieve the assistence they need to conduct disaster recovery operations.
It is the hight of idiocy to expect the federal government to have a plan in place to react to every possible emergency at a local level.
If you really want that Mr. Rodriguez, then may I suggest that your job, the job of the parish government, city government, state government etc... is unnecessary. We can expand federal authority (and the size of thre federal government) to extend to EVERYTHING. Somehow, I don't think that this would work very well...
Oh, and one last thought. One of the traits that truely defines a leader is that, when faced with a situation where "everything" has gone wrong - instead of wasting time and energy looking for someone to blame - he reacts to the "new" situation and gets the job done. The Blame Game is left to the children.
Wow CW, what a story of preparedness and survival.
I bet there will be a lot of such stories.
I believe Mormans keep a year's supply of rations in the event of bad times.
Bump!
lol, you sure about that? If a blade is scraping the skin clean, then it will probably be the cleanest partof of that person.
In the sandstorms of Iraq, the dirt would stick to any hair, and it was difficult to keep clean, but when I shaved, the dirt ame right off with the hair/whiskers.
They don't call me sfc chromey (chromedome) for nothing!
I am possitive if the Red Cross had had control of those buses, they would have charged for a ticket, like they charged for coffee at the cleanup of 9/11
There is no doubt that the storm showed no favorites and hit everyone a heavy blow but it does seem that the news had their favorite subjects to report about which in this case they were in the cities. It seems stories outside of NO and those people was of little interest and still are. In a situation like this the news getting to decide who lives are dies is scary.
So how do you face your neighbors... your constituents... your meal tickets... when you have been shown powerless at best, and culpable at worst? I guess you start pointing fingers and start reading from the MSM teleprompters. My guess is that it is gonna be tough living with yourself, Henry.
bookmark.
What the heck about the local government?!
Where the heck does the tax money you folks get go?!
Haley is coming up on FOX news right after this ad...(speaking of leadership)
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