Unbelievable.
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They're going fast!
Posted on 09/09/2005 11:06:37 AM PDT by hipaatwo
Think local officials are less to blame for deaths in New Orleans than federal officials? In the most jaw-dropping story of the week, UPI has the police chief of Gretna, Louisiana, admitting that he closed off one of the major arteries out of New Orleans on Monday, before the storm hit:
"We shut down the bridge," Arthur Lawson, chief of the City of Gretna Police Department, confirmed to United Press International, adding that his jurisdiction had been "a closed and secure location" since before the storm hit.
"All our people had evacuated and we locked the city down," he said. The bridge in question -- the Crescent City Connection -- is the major artery heading west out of New Orleans across the Mississippi River.
He added that the small town, which he called "a bedroom community" for the city of New Orleans, would have been overwhelmed by the influx. "There was no food, water or shelter" in Gretna City, Lawson said. "We did not have the wherewithal to deal with these people. If we had opened the bridge, our city would have looked like New Orleans does now: looted, burned and pillaged."
Unbelievable.
If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
They're going fast!
My views need no adjusting, thank you.
My point is simply that people have taken responsibility for themselves for millions of years. It's one of the reasons why the species has prospered; those that do not take responsibility become extinct. Why do the circumstances under which a person is expected to follow this basic survival rule change anything?
It's in your interest to not stick your tongue into a wall socket, and so you don't. It's in your interest to get yourself a job to provide yourself with the necessities of life, so you do. The same with a Cat-4 or 5 hurricane: it's in your interets to be prepared to evacuate, and if the means are not available, then improvise.
You make it seem as if the people who got caught in the city or who left it too late were people incapable of rational thought in the days prior to, and the day of, the storm's arrival. That kind of thinking, by the way, borders on insanity. When we absolve people of their responsibilities, and remove or deaden their natural instincts, then we no longer have people: we have masses of undirected skin walking around that simply look like us.
I'm not saying that what that sherrif was right or that there could have been a different/better response from local authorities, all I'm pointing out is that ultimately people make choices, good and bad, and that they must live with the consequences.
In the meantime, we should offer a helping hand in anyway possible, but we should never forget that most of this suffereing was infinitely avoidable if only people were encouraged to think and act for themselves, as individuals and collectively. It's obvious that private citizens in NO did more to save their neighbors and organize rescue efforts than the police or state did. That same initiative and enlightened self-interest and self-sacrifice could just as easily have been put to use prior to the storm as it was in it's aftermath.
The fact that it wasn't is a sad commentary on human beings.
If Lawson is white, his actions will be construed as racist, not just stupid.
Admit it, you're just making this stuff up as you go along. The Crescent City Connection Bridge is 1576 feet long.
It is indefensible to deny people an exit from danger...period!
I just had Harball on while I was switching channels. Andrea Mitchell said that the Mayor of NO who is of color did not help his people and maybe it's criminal negligance but if not it's at least malfeasance (sp). I almost fell out of my chair. Then Matthews chimes in and says look at 400 busses under water that could have gotten the people out before the storm hit. I think hell has just frozen over.
Some people need to be tried and executed over this entire ordeal. My anger over Nagin, Blanco, this and other counts of looting, raping and killing are just about all I can take. Some folks simply have to pay for what they've done... Not later, not on judgement day, NOW.
Leftist crap.
The bridges that lead to the west bank are not far at all from the convention center. There is not just one "bedroom community" accross the bridges but many parishes and lots of communities. They can also be accessed by ferries. I do not know where the ferries were. Also remember, these are not bridges over the pontchatrain. These are bridges over the Mississippi River and barring being hit with barges, ect, should have been in fine shape. I understand about closing them for wind. This was different. I spent those few days screaming at the tv set about why they did not let those people over the bridge where there was no flooding and little damage and where were the ferries that could have held several thousand people.
Leftist crap.
Huh?
I saw the head officer for sex crimes last night on TV. He was at the dome. He said while things were not good, there were only 2 ATTEMPTED rapes and those were taken care of. By the way, he lived on the West Bank, had some power, was running the precinct from his house and was feeding and housing many officers.
Thanks for some on-the-ground knowledge. Some folks are acting like there was nothing on the other side but miles of swamp.
Yes.
"We commandeered public transit buses and we took them to higher and safer ground" at the junction of Interstate-10 and Causeway Boulevard where "there was food and shelter," he (Lawson) said.
I'm at my wit's end.
I don't know whether this is a racial case or not; I'm not going to go there.
However, this IS a case of a small town police turning people trying to evacuate away.
As far as I'm concerned, he is as culpable as the mayor and governor in the deaths of people in New Orleans.
It would have been an easy matter to permit buses to drive through the city on US 90 -- which is a limited access highway -- through Gretna (which ain't that big, mind you) on to the west.
US 90 (Westbank Expy & Airline Hwy) were not underwater; they could have been used by rescue vehicles which could/should have been dispatched once the mayor and governor knew the pumps would fail.
After all, Nagin had time to tell the networks that the city would flood to at least 12 feet deep; why didn't they have enough time to get people out of the Superdome and Convention Center?
And then to see people here defending this action -- after all, 'there was just the "dregs of society" left in New Orleans, best to let them stay there'...to die.
I'm disgusted, I'm amazed, I'm angry. I truly wonder what kind of people would allow other human beings to die like that.
And there are going to be some people here who will throw bricks at this statement and accuse me of being a closet liberal for saying these things...makes me wonder who the fanatics truly are, y'know'what I mean?
We need you guys here to bring your own perspective to this forum. If you leave, you let the pinheads win.
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