Posted on 09/01/2005 5:57:30 PM PDT by Uncle Joe Cannon
New Orleans in Anarchy With Fights, Rapes
Friday September 2, 2005 12:46 AM
AP Photo MSDP112
By ALLEN G. BREED
Associated Press Writer
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday, as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out and storm survivors battled for seats on the buses that would carry them away from the chaos. The tired and hungry seethed, saying they had been forsaken. ``This is a desperate SOS,'' mayor Ray Nagin said.
``We are out here like pure animals,'' the Rev. Issac Clark said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where he and other evacuees had been waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead.
``I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here alive,'' said tourist Larry Mitzel of Saskatoon, Canada, who handed a reporter his business card in case he goes missing. ``I'm scared of riots. I'm scared of the locals. We might get caught in the crossfire.''
Four days after Hurricane Katrina roared in with a devastating blow that inflicted potentially thousands of deaths, the frustration, fear and anger mounted, despite the promise of 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop the looting, plans for a $10 billion recovery bill in Congress and a government relief effort President Bush called the biggest in U.S. history.
New Orleans' top emergency management official called that effort a ``national disgrace'' and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly lawless city.
About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at New Orleans convention center grew increasingly hostile after waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead. Police Chief Eddie Compass said he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly driven back by an angry mob.
``We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten,'' Compass said. ``Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon.''
A military helicopter tried to land at the convention center several times to drop off food and water. But the rushing crowd forced the choppers to back off. Troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10 feet off the ground and flew away.
In hopes of defusing the situation at the convention center, Mayor Ray Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they could find. But the bedlam made that difficult.
``This is a desperate SOS,'' Nagin said in a statement. ``Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses.''
At least seven bodies were scattered outside the convention center, a makeshift staging area for those rescued from rooftops, attics and highways. The sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement.
An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.
``I don't treat my dog like that,'' 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair.
``You can do everything for other countries, but you can't do nothing for your own people,'' he added. ``You can go overseas with the military, but you can't get them down here.''
The street outside the center, above the floodwaters, smelled of urine and feces, and was choked with dirty diapers, old bottles and garbage.
``They've been teasing us with buses for four days,'' Edwards said. ``They're telling us they're going to come get us one day, and then they don't show up.''
Every so often, an armored state police vehicle cruised in front of the convention center with four or five officers in riot gear with automatic weapons. But there was no sign of help from the National Guard.
At one point the crowd began to chant ``We want help! We want help!'' Later, a woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm, ``The Lord is my shepherd ...''
``We are out here like pure animals,'' the Issac Clark said.
``We've got people dying out here - two babies have died, a woman died, a man died,'' said Helen Cheek. ``We haven't had no food, we haven't had no water, we haven't had nothing. They just brought us here and dropped us.''
Tourist Debbie Durso of Washington, Mich., said she asked a police officer for assistance and his response was, ``'Go to hell - it's every man for himself.'''
``This is just insanity,'' she said. ``We have no food, no water ... all these trucks and buses go by and they do nothing but wave.''
At the hot and stinking Superdome, where 30,000 were being evacuated by bus to the Houston Astrodome, fistfights and fires erupted amid a seething sea of tense, suffering people who waited in a lines that stretched a half-mile to board yellow school buses.
After a traffic jam kept buses from arriving for nearly four hours, a near-riot broke out in the scramble to get on the buses that finally did show up, with a group of refugees breaking through a line of heavily armed National Guardsmen.
One military policeman was shot in the leg as he and a man scuffled for the MP's rifle, police Capt. Ernie Demmo said. The man was arrested.
Some of those among the mostly poor crowd had been in the dome for four days without air conditioning, working toilets or a place to bathe. An ambulance service airlifting the sick and injured out of the Superdome suspended flights as too dangerous after it was reported that a bullet was fired at a military helicopter.
``If they're just taking us anywhere, just anywhere, I say praise God,'' said refugee John Phillip. ``Nothing could be worse than what we've been through.''
By Thursday evening, 11 hours after the military began evacuating the Superdome, the arena held 10,000 more people than it did at dawn. National Guard Capt. John Pollard said evacuees from around the city poured into the Superdome and swelled the crowd to about 30,000 because they believed the arena was the best place to get a ride out of town.
As he watched a line snaking for blocks through ankle-deep waters, New Orleans' emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
``This is not a FEMA operation. I haven't seen a single FEMA guy,'' he said. He added: ``We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans.''
FEMA officials said some operations had to be suspended in areas where gunfire has broken out.
A day after Nagin took 1,500 police officers off search-and-rescue duty to try to restore order in the streets, there were continued reports of looting, shootings, gunfire and carjackings - and not all the crimes were driven by greed.
When some hospitals try to airlift patients, Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan said, ``there are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, `You better come get my family.'''
Outside a looted Rite-Aid drugstore, some people were anxious to show they needed what they were taking. A gray-haired man who would not give his name pulled up his T-shirt to show a surgery scar and explained that he needs pads for incontinence.
``I'm a Christian. I feel bad going in there,'' he said.
Earl Baker carried toothpaste, toothbrushes and deodorant. ``Look, I'm only getting necessities,'' he said. ``All of this is personal hygiene. I ain't getting nothing to get drunk or high with.''
While floodwaters in the city appeared to stabilize, efforts continued to plug three breaches that had opened up in the levee system that protects this below-sea-level city.
Helicopters dropped sandbags into the breach and pilings were being pounded into the mouth of the canal Thursday to close its connection to Lake Pontchartrain, state Transportation Secretary Johnny Bradberry said. He said contractors had completed building a rock road to let heavy equipment roll to the area by midnight.
The next step called for using about 250 concrete road barriers to seal the gap.
In Washington, the White House said Bush will tour the devastated Gulf Coast region on Friday and has asked his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and former President Clinton to lead a private fund-raising campaign for victims.
The president urged a crackdown on the lawlessness.
``I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this - whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud,'' Bush said. ``And I've made that clear to our attorney general. The citizens ought to be working together.''
Donald Dudley, a 55-year-old New Orleans seafood merchant, complained that when he and other hungry refugees broke into the kitchen of the convention center and tried to prepare food, the National Guard chased them away.
``They pulled guns and told us we had to leave that kitchen or they would blow our damn brains out,'' he said. ``We don't want their help. Give us some vehicles and we'll get ourselves out of here!''
----
No, it's not. What you are seeing in New Orleans is compelling evidence of the fact that poverty is less of an economic condition than a disordered state of mind. Granted -- there are a lot of folks trapped down there in New Orleans who are too old or infirm to fend for themselves. What is most disturbing, however, is the large number of people who are reasonably young and healthy enough to contribute greatly to the relief effort but who completely lack any sense of survival skills, initiative, etc. They've been denuded of these things through their life-long existence in an urban, nanny-state environment where it never took much effort to survive.
Just go back and read through all of the breaking stories on this topic over the last couple of days. If I read one more quote from a 40-something year old man who is bitching and complaing that "they're not doing nothing for us" (without ever really having a clear grip on who "they" is), I think I'm going to vomit.
Maybe I shouldn't be so harsh. It seems to me that the most able-bodied young males down there are firing guns at the helicopters and boats that are supposed to be rescuing these people.
>>>You must see the federal govt. as some kind of Superman. Which, to me, explains your objection to "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder".>>>
First of all, I don't object to the phrase itself. I object to the phrase in this thread.
Second of all, I don't see the government as Superman, but I do know that I have been reassured for FOUR YEARS with our Homeland Security that they could handle an EMERGENCY CRISIS. I am seeing that they in fact, cannot.
"Bite me." -Tigerseye
With pleasure.
Considering your combative and insulting behavior in this thread, you deserve to be paved live.
The Detroit riots happened in the summer of '67, MLK was murdered a year later.
>It is incredible isn't it how inept our government is????
It's actually quite frightening. Al-Quada is seeing how horrible we would be if they did decide to attack and as I see it, right now are more than vulnerable.
Yes, and I did so respectfully and you responded by questioning my ability to understand the Constitution. You took this the direction you wanted to take it. Now you're whining about it.
That would be fine had there been no warning of this. However, there should at least be some sort of planning for events like this, especially since 9/11. Although its all 20/20, it seems to me that there is no coordinated effort in this evacuation.
What Govt have we toppled in a matter of days with NO planning?
And did you SEE this city? And the surrounding region?
They can barely get into these places and even when they can there is no power, no water, no sanitation, no food, no resources to even support the people they send, much less the thousands they are expected to help.
The scope of this disaster is enormous and WAS not predicted EVEN the day AFTER the hurricane hit.
I am really tired of all the people sitting back in the comfort of their homes criticizing those who are trying to help in this desperate and difficult situation, in some cases even being shot at.
Considering that I didn't start it you are full of it. Who are you to tell me I can't defend myself?
But you did.
And since when is being combative and insulting 'defending' ones self, especially when you are wrong?
No. I didn't.
This one man's conscience is easily resolved with a practical solution. He is to remain in faith with God, understand the situation is for him to handle through faith, and all sin has already been paid for. One solution is for him to recompense the legitimate owner of the materials he is taking. He might also find opportunity to use the same resources to witness to others in other innovative fashions without leaving any fellowship with God. The accusation og looting will always be used against the conscientious, while those actually guilty and unbelieving have no conscience. The trick is to fish and remain faith to God through Christ and let Him handle the complexities through faith -resting in Him.
I hate to sound crass, but leadership is for a freakin' war zone. Let's be brutally honest here -- a "lack of leadership" would never be an issue if this situation had occurred in a place where where quasi-humanoid mutants and incurable poverty cases make up less than 50% of the population.
This disaster is an eye-opener, folks. Not because of the "lack of leadership," but because most of us had no idea how few of our fellow citizens have even a rudimentary grasp of some very basic life skills.
TigersEye,
you are in the wrong, in terms of the President's authority.
you are also in the wrong, for getting personal and antagonistic with those who have attempted to correct your error.
desisting would be wise.
You are about a waste of flesh... You have been nothing but hostile... perhaps you need to seek some professional psychological help to deal with that.
Everybody has stress in their life. It doesn't give you the right to be hostile to others who are engaged in civil conversation.
Respond to my with your childish tirades like I know you will. It is on further proof of you inmaturity and arrogance.
Really?
When asked if you understood states rights, you went off.
Wolves? Nah, just gators, snakes and maybe a bull shark or two.
That's cute.
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