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."
I know. Thats how I feel. Its so sad that the weakest had to die and basically pay for the sins of the thugs and such. I wanted to offer to take in some people. We have a 3 bedroom 2 bath house with just me and my husband rattling around here and had plenty of room plus we have a big camper sitting in the yard but the Red Cross and our governer advised against people offering their homes without these people being checked out by the authorities first. Its sad but I think this is some kind of phenomon that has never happened before. And I truly believe it is the fact that NO has been run exclusively by liberals for like the last 80 years. That should be a wake up call to America just how dangerous liberal policies are when left unchecked.
Yes, it surely did. It showed what a failure liberal polocies are but its not going to do a bit of good with the president rolling over and the media covering for the libs who created this mess.
That is an excellent analysis. Great rant, by the way.
Good point but I think it was a little bit of both. Maybe if they had better law enforcment and politicians in NO the people wouldn't have been so bad.
That is my experience from handing out welfare checks for a bit- Welfare is the demise of the inner city and the black family unit. But I have resigned myself to understanding that some people want to keep it that way so they always have someone to look down their nose at.
Do you also know that 75% of the NO population was black? Wouldn't that stand to reason, then? I saw lots of white people left behind, too. This race baiting is getting old. And how are you going to get a large group of people to walk out of lockstep. Do people even know what lockstep is? Who was in charge to give them those orders. These people were panicking. They just wanted out of NO. Of course they would get across that bridge as fast as they could. Stampeding was probably a bad choice of words. My humble apologies if I offended anyone. Man I've got to stay off these Katrina threads
Lockstep is what a large crowd of people do NOT do. Lockstep requires military precision. Bedraggled evacuees are not going to march "left-right-left." That's preposterous.
Just walk away. This thread is getting ridiculous and just serving to divide even more. I'm sure the liberals are eating this all up right now. Good night.
You know, for some reason I always thought that you were Asian?
What kind of demonic ghouls from the Dawn of The Dead would do this? Answer: DemonRATS.
Who exactly do you mean by "people?" You mean some people. (An insignificant fraction, I might add). Big deal. There are bound to to be nutty people that feel uncomfortable around others not exactly like them in every crowd.
Free Republic was supposed to be a sancturary for me; a place where I could come and converse intelligently with like-minded people.
You should know by now that Freepers' viewpoints are extraordinarily varied. Any place where Bushbots converse with Bush-bashers and liberartians converse with social conservatives and small-gov't types converse with "compassionate conservative" types and neocons converse with paleocons - and that just scratches the surface - one is bound to run into some problems. And yeah, there's also bound to be a few racists, anti-Semites, anti-Christians, etc.
If you want a "sanctuary of like-minded people" a forum with over a quarter million members isn't the place to be. You gotta be prepared to do battle.
Tired? Take a rest. ....and hope to see you back soon.
----Nor should they have been expected to. I guess its easy to judge the sherriff of this town when a person doesn't have to deal with it themselves.----
What really amazes me is, after the ensuing anarchy and terror that showed the rest of America what we already knew about the real New Orleans, people can still so easily and glibly condemn this police chief for making a tough call.
-Dan
You're right. I wish FR wasn't so darn addicting. Good night.
Oh it is friend. Isn't it terrible! LOL
"You thought?"
That's a first.
Do you think someone is deliberately trying to get the folks at FR to fight? If so it was really a dirty trick. It hurt mhking and he doesn't deserve this. He is a really good person.
Good morning. I'm late to this thread and am playing catch up. My apologies.
I respect and admire the two of you, for your experience and voices of reason. I have learned a great deal and I wish to express my gratitude.
I am hoping you will not leave FR. But, I will understand if you do. Should you decide to remain I hope you and your supporters, like-minded individuals, and staunch conservatives can dig through the surface of hate and ignorance. Your voices are strong enough to rise above the mess that is occuring now.
God bless you both.
PYW
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