Rush telling a different story about the lockdown. It was people NOT storm refugees trying to cash in and shake down the victims.
Maybe it was both (poor behavior on the part of people in line, AND non-evacuees trying to sneak in and shake down recipients -- or get a piece of the pie themselves).
In any case, the first FR thread on this topic got pulled for inappropriate posts, I'm told.
Hope some reporter at the Astrodome will have the courage to tell us the truth of what happened.
I don't know if McKinley had the full story, but she didn't say anything about non-evacuees trying to sneak in.
She said the Astrodome lockdown was because of "crowd control" problems -- that the crowd started amassing very early in the morning to wait for the debit cards, and that there weren't enough police, barriers etc. to keep them in control.
So according to McKinley, people were getting very angry at others cutting in line, etc. Also some were having asthma attacks.
She said that as of about 7am, more police moved in with metal barriers, and that the situation got better after that.