Posted on 09/04/2005 6:25:51 AM PDT by Archidamus
A SCOT who survived Hurricane Katrina yesterday told how her hotel was taken over by armed looters as New Orleans descended into chaos.
Trainee teacher Cherie Smith, 23, from Paisley, Renfrewshire, described how gun-wielding locals became increasingly desperate for food and water in the catastrophic aftermath of the hurricane.
Smith and her friends Dawn Plunkett and Natalie Train, both from Edinburgh, only escaped the chaos and devastation in the city after a treacherous 30-hour road journey through flooded and blocked roads.
The arts and drama graduate finally returned yesterday afternoon for a reunion with her parents Matt, 46, and Lesley, 43, at Glasgow Airport.
Only a week earlier she had arrived in New Orleans with her friends, unaware of the storm that was about to hit.
The three young women and another friend, Anwara Uddin, 27, from London, had just finished a 10-week stint working as care assistants for children at Camp America in New York. They were looking forward to a holiday in New Orleans' famous French quarter, and also excursions into the swamps.
But within a few hours of landing they learned that the powerful hurricane was on course for the city.
The group were forced to shelter at the Baronne Plaza hotel after trying to flee - only to find all planes and trains cancelled. All the hire cars in the city were already taken.
For nine hours last Sunday Smith - who should have been celebrating her birthday - sheltered in a windowless room in the hotel as Katrina passed through. In the following days the group began to fear for their lives as fights broke out between locals who had also taken shelter in the downtown hotel.
A Jewish missionary couple working there warned the tourists to be on their guard, as food, water, and even candles became valuable commodities in the shattered community.
As the temperature soared to above 40°C, Smith and her friends hid from gun-toting vigilantes on the hotel roof, surviving on meagre rations of stale sandwiches and cold pizza. Their only lifeline with the world was a radio. They tried to attract rescuers' attention with 'Help' signs fashioned from bedsheets, and by reflecting sunlight towards passing helicopters with a small mirror.
But as the situation became increasingly fraught within the hotel, the Jewish couple managed to drive the women out through the flooded roads in a small lorry, after organising the evacuation of the other 250 guests in boats they secured from the Superdome stadium, which was under siege.
Smith and her friends heard of the reports of the rapes at the stadium as they fled the city on Wednesday.
Smith said: "The Jewish couple warned us there were crazy people in the hotel. Some of them had guns. Others were openly taking and selling drugs.
"We felt uncomfortable staying in our room. We heard arguments and fights. People were looting everywhere.
"Before the hurricane hit we had helped the staff make up sandwiches, but there was only enough for one half piece for every person.
"The staff kept going to the Superdome but the National Guard said they couldn't help. I later heard about the rapes and was relieved we were not evacuated there.
"We felt very lost. We didn't know what was going on."
The group, and another couple from New York, were driven to Baton Rouge. Plunkett and Train left the party there to meet relatives and are still to return to Scotland.
Smith continued her journey in the lorry with the Jewish couple to Atlanta, after learning there were no flights available elsewhere, and was evacuated home with the help of Camp America.
mmmm...desperate for food or illegal drugs?
interesting that so little of this lawlessness went on during the great depression.
At first the article makes it seem 'locals' were wielding guns because they were desperate for food and water.
Then later, they were dealing drugs.
Also, how did they get boats at the Superdome? First I've heard of boats at the Superdome.
and the reporter makes no comment on this.
There's got to be a manual somewhere handed out to lib reporters with strict rules as to how to do this.
A drama graduate now if not before. :)
" the Jewish couple managed to drive the women out through the flooded roads in a small lorry, after organising the evacuation of the other 250 guests in boats they secured from the Superdome stadium..."
Who were these heros? Funny their name is not mentioned. God bless them.
"[I]nteresting that so little of this lawlessness went on during the great depression."
Partly due to higher personal morals, cultural values and institutional standards - also because the government responded appropriately to bad guys: http://texashideout.tripod.com/wpcolor.jpg
THESE DRAMA STORIES ARE ALL BEING STAGED IN A PLACE CALLED HOLLWOOD,CALIFORNIA. THE DIRECTOR IS DOING AN AMAZING JOB WOULDNT YOU SAY? THIS IS WHAT REALITY TV IS ALL ABOUT, DONT GET UPSET WITH THE SCOTT! SHE IS JUST TELLING A STORY FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT OF IT!
If these armed gangs spent as much effort in just getting the heck out of NO as they have terrorizing people and being violent, they would be in better conditions. This just ads more to my opinion that NO should be flattened and relocated.
Funny that strangers from out of town managed to get out of Dodge without depending on the government.
Funny indeed. Many lessons from this disaster, the most important being that God helps them that help themselves. Self preservation is MY responsibility and helping my neighbor who may be indisposed is MY responsibility.
This is the legacy of the Welfare state. It is death papered over with a monthly check and the selling of one's self into slavery...
"Funny that strangers from out of town managed to get out of Dodge without depending on the government."
They haven't had the government to take care of them.
If the looters and criminals had to work for a living you may see a change.
When you've got scum bags like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton feeding the frenzy and blaming everyone but the criminals for this disgusting behavior, no wonder there's chaos everywhere. Isn't it amazing that even in a life and death situation, people will sit there and wait for yet another handout. Some people are so entrenched in the "woe is me" "everybody's a racist" attitude, that human instinct doesn't even take over to save themselves.
See what happens when you give a bunch of gangster rapper idolizing thugs their big chance to live out their destructive fantasies and become the people that their music glorifies.
Turn off your caps lock.
Start making sense.
Ok..so she knew a storm was coming for a week, yet chose to stay. Also...Katrina hit on Monday, not Sunday.
read later
My exact sentiments as I read the article!
They weren't just from out of town, they were foreigners and women.
Able-bodied American males sat around in New Orleans, as if powerless, and these foreign women took charge of their own survival and got out.
The New Orleans situation is shameful. It's shameful people who could help each other GET OUT, AS THEY WERE ORDERED TO DO, did not!
The young foreign women who escaped New Orleans had not been raised in a culture of entitlement and welfare. They took charge of their own fate and acted.
There's something not right with this article.
ML/NJ
The mayor managed to get a number of tourist out, somehow.
Yet another testimony as to the absolute lack of real planning and preparedness of New Orleans and Louisiana government to handle a forseeable and expected crisis.
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