Cops trapped survivors in New Orleans

The Washington Times ^ | September 9, 2005 | Shaun Waterman

[NavySEAL F-16]

Police from surrounding jurisdictions shut down several access points to one of the only ways out of New Orleans last week, effectively trapping victims of Hurricane Katrina in the flooded and devastated city.

[Roux]

I do know that the Iberia Parish Sheriff tried to set up his mobile command center near the bridge in Gretna. When people started coming over the bridge they had to leave. They were simply out-manned. Without communications there was no way to coordinate the rescue or tell the good guys from the bad. Those inside the city were cut off from the rest of the world.

The chaos in N.O. was started by criminal gangs who stayed behind to loot. When the levee's broke all hell broke loose with it. I've heard some bad stories and I'll find out more when I talk to a friend who went in during the first few days. I'd hate to say anything until I know for sure.

My grandparents had a home on Coliseum St. two blocks from St. Charles Avenue. The last time we spent Mardi Gras there, 5 years ago, NINE people were mugged on their way to the parades in that two block area. N.O. hasn't been a safe place for the last 30 years. I can't imagine what it was like with no police protection.

[TaxRelief]

Those two paramedics from CA are shop stewards for their local unions. Worker party types should always be taken with a grain of salt...

[rit]

Is this the same bridge that the Red Cross was prevented from crossing to bring supplies into NOL?

[WRhodesTider]

I'm somewhat familiar with New Orleans and I've been wondering about this since last week. The sad thing about it is that even if the bridge was open, how many people would've taken the initiative to walk across instead of waiting for a ride across?

[antiRepublicrat]

Got a guy right here.... antiRepublicrat .....that believes it!

Nope, no room for criticism of the few areas where Bush is failing with the loyalists around. What's good for Bush is good for the country! He can do no wrong, even when what he does helps drive this country into the ground.

In the context of this discussion, you will notice that I don't believe Brown screwed up badly. Sure, FEMA didn't operate perfectly -- it's a government agency, so how can it? Brown did a pretty good job considering what he had, and the idiot state and local officials he had to work with. It's just too bad he's not very good at live interviews, letting the lib press have a field day with him.

So if he screwed up, it was minor. But minor screw-ups don't get you a medal or promotion in the Bush administration. You might actually be fired.

[TaxRelief]

1) The witnesses are shop stewards, ie Union reps. I never trust Pal Solidarity types.

2) They have been blogging (planting) their story on multiple sites all over the internet.

I'm suspicious.

[Mo1]

Do you consider this a reputable story?

From a socialist party website???

No

[deport]

Worker party types should always be taken with a grain of salt...

---

Ok... we take their words with a grain of salt.....

What about the following words? Are they to be taken with a grain of salt also?

• "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.

• "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."

• "Evidently, someone on the ground (in New Orleans) was telling people there was transport here, or food or shelter," said Lawson. "There wasn't."

• "We were not contacted by anyone" about the instructions being given to survivors to use the bridge to get out of town, he said.

• "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 said.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

It's just too bad he's not very good at live interviews, letting the lib press have a field day with him.

OK, I have not actually seen him on TV.

I like what you say here,....but I think you are very wrong in many ways on President Bush! But the mayor and Governor were HUGE screwups and the MSM is looking for scapegoats and giving them a pass....anything to attack Bush and his administration!

[TheMole]

Excellent catch on that socialist emblem. Yes, this is the story according to International A.N.S.W.E.R.

The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned. We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op.

As they say down south, I was born at night, but not last night.

[Mo1]

I'm suspicious

So am I

I have read portions of those stories in that post .. but it sounds like other portions are stretching of what happened

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Unholy Alliance : Radical Islam and the American Left

And a very good review:

*********************************

Vastly Illuminating, September 25, 2004

Reviewer:

Kat Bakhu (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews

I had long wondered why people on the Left had the propensity to speak more positively about people who would slit their throats than they do about their own country, which affords them more freedom and opportunity than anywhere else. David Horowitz has answered that question thoroughly and convincingly in his Unholy Alliance. Where I felt bewildered and confused, I now feel crystal clear. Unholy Alliance is such a great book.

It begins with the leftist movements at the beginning of the 20th Century, and works its way up to the present day, exploring the anti-American attitude of these movements in detail. Horowitz shows that the enemies of the US back then are largely the same group today, operating under the same misperceptions, making the same mistakes, and pursuing the same impossible utopia.

Individual chapters are included on the Patriot Act (I was persuaded that it is a GOOD thing); the democratic flip-flop on Iraq once G.W. Bush implemented what they agreed with Clinton needed to be done; the driving components of the current anti-war movement; as well as chapters on individual personalities who are major spokespeople of the Left. Horowitz covers a lot of ground, and he covers it concisely and clearly. Unholy Alliance is richly informative without ever being boring or plodding.

This book is so illuminating that I simply cannot do justice to it here. I love people who reason so clearly that they help me get my own reasoning clear. Horowitz is just that type of person! In the terrain of mindless clichés (no-blood-for-oil, etc.), he is a breath of real fresh air.

[TaxRelief]

The bridge was closed; That's clear.

Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

I just don't buy the 'stealing our food, using a helicopter to destroy our shelter stuff.'

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The Far Left continues to work against our Government which is currently headed by President Bush!

The attacks on the administration , Mr. Brown in particular, are simply a continuation of their usual attacks!

[HKMk23]

So many allegations, so little willingness to get to the bottom of all of it. I really doubt we'll EVER sort out the facts from the fiction in Katrina's aftermath, but I DO know this for certain: I have less than zero desire to go to, through, or near Louisiana, in general, and New Orleans, in particular.

I really hope that those LA residents who are in the "hardworking, law-abiding" category can get a handle on things and regain control of their State. Being in California, I know what it's like to live under political siege, so I empathize. All the same, there are 49 other states ahead of LA on my list of places to go to spend my vacation money.

[antiRepublicrat]

The attacks on the administration , Mr. Brown in particular, are simply a continuation of their usual attacks!

Of course. We know they're attacking the Republican administration because the local and state Democrats FUBARed everything.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[NavySEAL F-16]

I heard it. The MSM is minimizing the abject lack of any values in the city they call GREAT.

I have no words to express. I am speechless in the face of the barbaric behavior. These people are animals in the worst sense of the word.

I can only imagine the stories we will never hear.

[antiRepublicrat]

..but I think you are very wrong in many ways on President Bush!

My beefs with Bush have nothing to do with the Katrina aftermath. They're in different areas.

But Bush should really be coached better for his interviews, because even if he's blameless he's giving them things to bash him on. For example, him stating that nobody knew something like this would happen. BS! The local paper did a series on it, and a local university did simulations (that FEMA participated in) that predicted this destruction. I'm sure FEMA had so much stuff prepositioned partially because of those simulations.

[colorado tanker]

This was so much more of a Charlie Foxtrot than we originally knew. I thought it was a nutty idea, but maybe President Bush should have invoked the Insurrection Act and seized control of the local government. Unbelievable incompetence in the state and local authorities and what little work was being done was at cross purposes.