Posted on 09/07/2005 7:34:16 PM PDT by BykrBayb
Posted on Mon, Aug. 29, 2005
Shelter-seekers find long lines, noisy conditions in Superdome
BY DAVID OVALLE Knight Ridder Newspapers
NEW ORLEANS - (KRT) - As Hurricane Katrina pounded relentlessly on its roof, the tourists and the vagabonds, the poor and the frail dozed awkwardly - if at all - in Mardi Gras-colored chairs in the giant Louisiana Superdome.
When they got hungry, there was not the beer-and-hot dog fare served up at Saints football games. More than 10,000 refugees from Katrina dined on the same instant meals as U.S. soldiers in Iraq, fitting because it was soldiers who were watching over them now.
They begged for water and bemoaned the stinking humidity that made it feel like a tropical forest. They stood in long lines to use the bathrooms, and complained there weren't enough. They shuddered at the howling winds and prayed the storm would not tear off the roof, which was leaking like a sieve.
Local officials called the Superdome a refuge of last resort, and after spending a tough 24 hours in nasty discomfort, many of the people understood why.
"No sleep; too many children," said one of the shelter-seekers, M.D. Richman, 54.
"I felt pretty safe, but my daughter didn't," said Willanne Hughes, 44. "I told her to start praying."
Especially when the 100-mph winds banged away on the city's crown jewel. ``It shook - the dome shook!" Hughes said.
Local officials stressed ahead of time this visit to the Superdome was not going to be a pleasant experience. Refugees should not expect hot meals and even cots. And don't bring any pets.
Like the city itself, the dome has its color and charm, home to many a Super Bowl as well as the Saints - or the Aints, when they were losing left and right.
As Katrina bore down on New Orleans, anyone who couldn't get out of town or had no other place to go queued up for up to three hours to get in.
Mayor Ray Nagin urged shelter-goers not to bring alcohol or weapons, but officials still confiscated their fair share of guns and knives at the door.
Even as sheets of rain began pelting the city, the Superdome continued to receive refugees. Monique Garner and her three children were dropped off near the parking garage, but only after being saved by rescuers who picked them from flood waters off the upper level of their home.
"We thought the hurricane wasn't going to be for real," Garner said, " like all the other times," referring to the many near-misses the city has had in recent years.
At the entrance, Joe Barnes cursed the Louisiana National Guard members who were checking people in. He said they would not let him in because he brought Patches, his cat.
"She's only 7 months," Barnes said before walking off.
Inside, the new turf on the field - off-limits to the storm refugees - was in good shape for the upcoming start of the NFL season.
In the upper field-level seats, people settled in for a long night. MREs - meals ready to eat in Army lingo - littered the floor. On the menu: spaghetti with meat sauce or vegetable manicotti.
Ramona Delgado, 63, and Diana Chavez, 60, camped out in section 109, refused to eat.
"Looks like I'll be skinnier," Chavez joked.
She was sprawled out on a blanket above an oily aisle, surrounded by clothes and packages. Some people were drinking and some argued and fought, they said. Above the roar of the winds, they said little to each other.
"We couldn't talk with all the noise, and with the nerves?" Chavez said.
Nearby, Hughes and friend Kathryn Alvarez sat in the dark and talked about the man who had just fallen from the concourse about 50 feet to a bottom level.
Soldiers standing near a pool of blood said they didn't know how he fell, but the good news was that he was still alive.
They and their families did not sleep much during the night. The lights went out in the morning, the air thickened. When chunks of the dome came off, the soldiers moved them away from lower-level field seats.
"Some of those soldiers need to take training in interpersonal skills," Alvarez said. "People need to know how to handle - some of them were very nasty."
The stories and characters inside the dome ran the gamut.
There was the tourist family from Central California who got kicked out of their hotel and checked in the Superdome, hauling their luggage with them. And the 59-year-old New Orleans man whose disability check will not come for two weeks, said taking refuge in the dome was cheaper than fleeing by car.
Nicole Rios said she never watches television, but for some reason she felt compelled to tune in a few days ago. That was when she learned about Katrina and the Superdome shelter.
Not surprising, Rios works in New Orleans as a psychic.
---
© 2005, The Miami Herald.
Visit The Miami Herald Web edition on the World Wide Web at http://www.herald.com
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
I've asked around, and nobody else seems to remember any of this. But here's a story written on the 29th, claiming MREs "littered the floor" during the hurricane. Where did those MREs come from? And better yet, where did they go?
This same story is repeated at the following URLs...
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/12508463.htm,
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/nation/12508463.htm
Now tell me again that I just imagined it.
--------
Here's another article of interest from that day. Assistance continues to areas impacted by Hurricane Katrina.
-snip-
As of early August 29, approximately 52,000 people were in 240 shelters in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida and Texas, with the majority in the New Orleans Superdome. Strategic housing planning is underway to address expected continued sheltering and eventual housing needs.
In addition to holding regular briefings with emergency management officials in the affected states, FEMA reported the following activities, as of 10 a.m. today, as part of the ongoing federal response.
·FEMA's emergency teams and resources are being deployed and configured for coordinated response to Hurricane Katrina. This includes pre-staging critical commodities such as ice, water, meals, and tarps in various strategic locations to be made available to residents of affected areas.
·FEMA's Hurricane Liaison Team is onsite and working closely with the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Fla.
·FEMA's National Response Coordination Center and Regional Response Coordination Centers in Atlanta, Ga., and Denton, Texas, are operating around the clock, coordinating the prepositioning of assets and responding to state requests for assistance.
-snip-
Does anyone believe that FEMA supplied all of the shelters except the one they knew would house the most people?
Time's up. Let the chips fall where they may.
Doesn't meet the media template, though. I expect the same editors who ran this story are now running the 'left them to die' tack which is the accepted version of history, now.
I'm afraid the full truth of all these dimensions is going to take a long time to finally settle out.
Thanks for putting that together and posting it. I'm keeping a copy of it.
Yeah, these poor souls were stuck with MREs to eat, until the media decided to claim they didn't even have MREs. They've repeated the lie about "no food" so many times, even Freepers believe it now. Doesn't anyone else remember this?
I'm afraid that the more time that passes, the more people will forget the truth. How long did it take everyone to forget that the Superdome was supplied with MREs before the hurricane?
Good. And please post it whenever you see the lie about "no food" repeated.
FNC's Major Garrett: Red Cross Blocked by Order of the Louisiana State Government
I'm not sure. My brother just sent me 3 different articles. One blames the politicians. One blames global warming. And the other blames God and ourselves. Personally, I think it's Cindy Sheehan's fault.
I seem to remember them saying the night they were filing into the dome that there was no food. This seems to contradict that.
Yes, I remembered that, too. And another important point about the story - the National Guard was already there before the hurricane. When did they leave the Superdome (or did they?) and who ordered that? The same people who blocked the Red Cross volunteers headed to the dome with food and water?
/sarcasm
That's twice today I left off a sarcasm tag after what I consider to be obvious sarcasm. I hope I don't get slammed by anyone with a lecture on cause and effect.
I was beginning to feel like the main character in 1984 (what was his name?). I'm so happy to learn that I'm not the only one who remembers. Can anyone find a link to a source that verifies the National Guard delivered the MREs?
I don't know, but I wonder if it was also the same people who turned away the buses that arrived from other cities to evacuate people from the Superdome.
Yes, I believe it, because Governor Blanco decided that the Superdome wasn't a shelter, and didn't want ANY food and water supplied there because it would encourage people to stay and she wanted to convince them to leave.
She also refused access to the Red Cross. Nobody was allowed to bring food and water to the Superdome or the Convention Center, because the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security, and the Governor, decided it would be better to get people back out of there.
This was before the levy breaks were evident -- so it may be that without those breaks, this would have been a good plan, forcing people out of the dome and back to their homes or other shelters.
Once the city flooded things became much worse in the dome, and then there was a lot of rescue efforts and more people were brought to the dome and convention center -- but still nobody allowed food into the dome.
So far as I can tell, even when the federal government brought supplies into the dome, they were doing so without authorization from the state. But I'm not sure of that. I can't find any specific declaration that it was OK to bring food in.
And we have the FOX news report thursday night that the state guard was preventing traffic from coming over the bridge. Shep thought they were just keeping people in, but maybe they were also keeping supplies out.
Then where did the MREs come from? Did everybody bring their own? Somebody stocked the Superdome with MREs before the hurricane. IIRC, it was the National Guard.
Preventing supplies from getting to the Superdome was never a good plan. Nobody was allowed to leave the Superdome. Buses were sent from other cities to evacuate them, and they were turned back.
After reading about the couple who refused to eat because MREs weren't good enough, I think you may be right.
Supplies WERE delivered to the dome before the hurricane, because they knew people would be there before the hurricane. There was enough for a few days. Apparently, the plan was to get the people back out as soon as the storm was over, and the state didn't want the Red Cross or FEMA delivering more supplies because it would encourage people to come back to the city and move into the dome.
Of course after the canal wall collapsed that was a silly thought -- and denying access to food and water simply to convince people to leave is a risky proposition.
The mayor may not have had anything to do with this. We are seeing now that the governor is a control freak who doesn't know what to do but won't let anybody else take charge.
She denied the federal government takeover, and when the mayor tried to make a mandatory evacuation yesterday she overruled him. BUT, showing her lack of decisionmaking, she didn't say for certain she was stopping the evacuation, she said she wanted to collect more information first.
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