Posted on 09/05/2005 2:32:49 AM PDT by guitarnick40
BATON ROUGE, La. — In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard, this group of refugees stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road, holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around as if he were their leader.
They were holding hands. Three of the children were about 2 years old, and one was wearing only diapers. A 3-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love.
Thousands of human stories have flown past relief workers in the last week, but few have touched them as much as the seven children who were found wandering together Thursday at an evacuation point in downtown New Orleans. In the Baton Rouge headquarters of the rescue operation, paramedics tried to coax their names out of them; nurses who examined them stayed up that night, brooding.
Transporting the children alone was "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, knowing that their parents are either dead" or that they had been abandoned, said Pat Coveney, a Houston emergency medical technician who put them into the back of his ambulance and drove them out of New Orleans.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
**The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love.**
God bless these little ones.
You sure you were there? Nagin/Blanco called for the evac Sunday... after they were called by Bush.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-18/1125239940201382.xml&storylist=louisiana
So what did they do other than facilitate the evacuation of folks that had vehicles?
Thank God for Dwight D. Eisenhower and the US Interstate systems.
Saturday, the President also issued a statement that an emergency existed for the State of Louisiana.
It's like the local officials couldn't do anything without being prodded first by Washington.
You had a car and got out and are safe. You are safe and I am thankful for that even though I don't even know you. However, those who COULD NOT, particularly the elderly and infirm, were LEFT unassisted by your seemingly beloved Nagin.
WHY wasn't the plan, already in place mind you, to use the busses implemented by the mayor of NO? If an 18 yo man can take it upon himself to commandeer a bus, fill it with infants and elderly people, pool resources to provide gasoline, diapers and formula, why couldn't the mayor have PREVENTED needless deaths of those he KNEW were vulnerable?
I was looking at this thread when my 7 year old daughter said, "I saw that picture in the newspaper." "In the newspaper?" I asked her. "Yes. I saw it on the front page."
The water wasn't going down and they had been living without light, food or air conditioning for four days. The baby needed milk and the milk was gone. So she decided they would evacuate by helicopter. When a helicopter arrived to pick them up, they were told to send the children first and that the helicopter would be back in 25 minutes. She and her neighbors had to make a quick decision. It was a wrenching moment. Williams' father, Adrian Love, told her to send the children ahead
Apparently, things didn't go as planned and they were evacuated to a different areas. The kids were later flown to join their parents.
Good story.
I'm guessing that the average 6-year old dog is smarter than the NO mayor.
I love that story too.
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