Here's the wonderfully "dry" and "elevated" Interstate Highways into and out of New Orleans.
Posted on 09/16/2005 5:20:30 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
Little over a week after this mostly white suburb became a symbol of callousness for using armed officers to seal one of the last escape routes from New Orleans — trapping thousands of mostly black evacuees in the flooded city — the Gretna City Council passed a resolution supporting the police chief's move.
"This wasn't just one man's decision," Mayor Ronnie C. Harris said Thursday. "The whole community backs it."
Three days after Hurricane Katrina hit, Gretna officers blocked the Mississippi River bridge that connects their city to New Orleans, exacerbating the sometimes troubled relationship with their neighbor. The blockade remained in place into the Labor Day weekend.
Gretna (pop. 17,500) is a feisty blue-collar city, two-thirds white, that prides itself on how quickly its police respond to 911 calls; it warily eyes its neighbor, a two-thirds black city (pop. about 500,000) that is also a perennial contender for the murder capital of the U.S.
Itself deprived of power, water and food for days after Katrina struck Aug. 29, Gretna suddenly became the destination for thousands of people fleeing New Orleans. The smaller town bused more than 5,000 of the newcomers to an impromptu food distribution center miles away. As New Orleans residents continued to spill into Gretna, tensions rose.
After someone set the local mall on fire Aug. 31, Gretna Police Chief Arthur S. Lawson Jr. proposed the blockade.
"I realized we couldn't continue, manpower-wise, fuel-wise," Lawson said Thursday. Armed Gretna police, helped by local sheriff's deputies and bridge police, turned hundreds of men, women and children back to New Orleans.
Gretna is not the only community that views New Orleans with distrust. Authorities in St. Bernard Parish, to the east, stacked cars to seal roads from the Crescent City.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
So those people were forced to walk back down the bridge and into the raging floodwaters to die? That's inhuman!
Glad to see that we are in agreement.
Buses, where did Gretna get buses and NO couldn't?.... Communications will prove to be one thing that caused much of the problem during this event.
Gretna chief: Racism played no part in bridge blockadeThe latest shot at Gretna came from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who said on Thursday that he had no regrets about allowing residents who were trying to flee flooding and gun violence to walk up onto an elevated highway and over the Mississippi River bridge, known as the Crescent City Connection.
"Katrina created an environment where we were fighting for our lives to save people and every decision we made was based upon trying to move people to safety," Nagin said. "When we allowed people to cross the Crescent City Connection because people were dying in the convention center, that was a decision based upon people. Now, if they made a decision based upon assets, to protect assets over people, and to have attack dogs and armed people with machine guns, then they're going to have to live with that."
[Now from the Gretna Police Chief ...]
"We all of a sudden were receiving hundreds of people who were being told, 'If you cross over the bridge there was food, shelter, water and buses,' which we had none of," Chief Arthur Lawson Jr. said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. "Basically, we had people thrust at our doorstep and we were unprepared. If the city of New Orleans was unprepared, how can we, in a city of 3.5 square miles, be prepared?"
"It was a situation that was hostile and volatile, because people in New Orleans were given misinformation and when they got there, after being in the water and walking all the way from across the river and found out they were lied to, they weren't happy," Lawson said. "Our community has been painted unfairly."
Lawson said that as the crowd near Gretna grew into the thousands, his officers commandeered three buses and made numerous trips, carrying about 6,000 people to a designated evacuation point where Interstate 10 crosses under Causeway Boulevard until they ran out of gas.
Why didn't Mayor Nagin have the people walk west to Causeway Blvd instead of across the river into Gretna only to be hauled back as long as the fuel lasted..... Hopefully some day this entire story will be told in total so that all the finger pointing can be done with all the facts which don't exist yet.
Since I-10, I-12, the Causeway, and the Airline Highway were under water, just how *would* you get out?
_______________________
Since I-12 is NORTH of the Lake it is NOT germane to this discussion. 1-10 WESTBOUND did survive it is how all the press made it in. It is a raise highway. BTW, Airline Highway also survived but Jefferson Parish was not letting people in on its streets too.
If I did not evacuate when the manditory evacuation order came through, I would have realized I better be prepared to hunker down for a while. That is what happens when you do not obey a manditory evacuation order. [BTW, I did not evacuate for this storm and knew that was a risk I was taking.]
"I know people who got out of New Orleans over these bridges, but they're white."
They didn't get out of N.O. via this bridge on foot, which these people were. The people in this story were on high and dry ground, there was no reason for them to be allowed to cross the bridge
Reason #1 - it's a state bridge, connected to a state highway.
Reason #2 - New Orleans had no power, no water, and was inundated by floodwaters.
Reason #3 - No businesses were open, not grocery stores, not hospitals, not hotels, not gas stations, not restauraunts, nothing.
Reason #4 - it was hot, and there were mosquitoes.
Reason #5 - they were trying to get out of there, to someplace better.
Get it?
I am looking right at a photo of New Orleans/Jefferson Parish border taken from a helicopter. The interstates were all covered with water. The overpasses are above water, but that's all.
Anyway, how would you get from downtown New Orleans to Jefferson Parish? If you didn't have a boat, I mean?
Walk west on *what*? These people aren't Jesus, so they sure can't walk on water.
Here's the wonderfully "dry" and "elevated" Interstate Highways into and out of New Orleans.
Walk west on *what*? These people aren't Jesus, so they sure can't walk on water.
Reason #2 - New Orleans had no power, no water, and was inundated by floodwaters.
Reason #3 - No businesses were open, not grocery stores, not hospitals, not hotels, not gas stations, not restauraunts, nothing.
Reason #4 - it was hot, and there were mosquitoes.
Reason #5 - they were trying to get out of there, to someplace better.
Get it?
How - honestly now - how would you have walked from the CBD to Causeway Blvd.?
I don't think anybody could have predicted that Gretna would shut down the bridge and keep these people from leaving.
At any rate, thanks for opening my eyes. Every time I think my opinion of human nature couldn't get lower, someone comes along and shows me that it's possible to be even worse than I thought.
Madam you or I know all the facts of this event as yet. When they become available at some point it maybe worth discussion with you. But as a lawyer that you claim to be then I'd think total facts would be of interest to you, but then maybe not. I know I'd look for someone else to represent me if this is your mode of operation.
Now you have a nice and blessed day.
Uh oh, bookmarking ...
You are your own first line of self defense, that's why the federal judges asked for and got exemptions from all gun control laws. Calling 911 for protection means your giving up and want the cops to come and I.D. your body.
Oh , I got got it a long time ago.
Reason#1 It's not taking you to anything you don't already have (high ground)
Reason#2 See reason #1
Reason #3 Self explanatory, no looters allowed in
Reason #4 Gretna doesn't have mosquitos? They did last time I was there
Reason #5 They should have done that before Jefferson Parish closed down
You can race bait and class bait all you want. This was a case of officials doing what was right for the people who elected them.
Get it?
" Here's the wonderfully "dry" and "elevated" Interstate Highways into and out of New Orleans"
Two days after the storm and nowhere near the bridge you are talking about.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.