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!''
----
Larry asked him about the disorder and he said it was OVERBLOWN by the MSM
lol...why are some surprised
(Hmmmm, didn't I hear that from some guy with a long face???)
How about the Do Long bridge scene in 'Apolcalypse Now'?
This states the true nature of things more than a thousand articles.
The citizens of NOLA need to take their government and that of their state to task for not having ANY kind of contingency plans in place. After Camille, what? 30 years ago, there was a DAMNED good chance that this would happen but their govt's chose to close their eyes to it.
When this is all over, I want NOLA BILLED for all of this cleanup costs. Screw em. They caused it, they can pay to clean it up. I don't want my tax dollars spent to support barbaric savages!
This city needs to be CRUSHED and started all over again.
IOW, the tourist women are being gang raped and the men beaten or killed. They both get to leave a tip ...
The NG should go in with fixed bayonets.
There are no leaders in New Orleans, only predators and prey.
It's BOOOOSH and the JOOOOOSss fault!
I'm sorry, but I thought after 9/11 we were going to fix the problem, and create an office of Homeland security to come in in case of a WMD attack on a major US city. Well, look at New Orleans and Mississippi, that's pretty much what would happen. And.....we've worked 4 years for this?
You'll have to excuse me, we knew since Friday that it was a Cat 5 storm, even if there are less National Guard troops, you can pull them from other states if needed.
The ball has been dropped, and needs to be picked up again.
I'm sorry, and I am NOT a liberal, but I am HUGELY DISSAPOINTED in the federal government, FEMA and the La/NO government in this situation. We can topple a government in a matter of days, but we can't get people out of a freaking city??? I keep seeing and reading people saying, "We are coming, it takes time", blah blah blah. Days are going by and only a HANDFUL of buses are taking these people out of here for God's sake.
These conditions are horrible. People are dying waiting for help. BABIES ARE STARVING FOR GOD'S SAKE. This just pisses me off and it pisses me off how the people on this board want to say crap like "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder". What a thoughtful post. Blaming liberalism is as assinine as blaming Bush for Global Warming.
Disgusted with this forum the last few days.
I agree. Never rebuild this place.
LOL Well I can have it. They have already declared Marshall Law so it would be legal. These scum have forced what emergency personnel is available to pull of of search and rescue to attempt to provide security in what amounts to a swamp with buildings in it. Next the Nat. Guard will be pulled off of search and rescue and the levee repair missions to deal with it. There's no place to detain the goblins, not enough LEOs to chase them down and catch them if they did and darned scarce resources like boats, choppers etc. to chase them with. They have created anarchy they should pay the consesquences. I have no tears for them.
Could be time to declare NO an independent country with Jesse as Mystic Knight of the Sea for Life.
And Jesse Jackson says its being blown out of proportion...you have to understand these people haven't had any food or water, he says.
Which government did we topple in a "matter of days?"
Of course there are 365 days in a year ...
I'm disappointed that leaders have not publicly ordered "shoot to kill." I want to see the bodies of these animals in the streets of NO.
I'm sick of these "animal" references.
Do these people not have any dignity?
People go through fires, tragedies all the time and survive...are these people any different?
What am I not understanding here?
Also, do they not realize how to maintain order? Get that mayor into the "zone" and have him lead his people out. Someone needs to show a spine from within that victim camp and snap these people back to reality.
Maybe I've finally snapped?
QUESTION: Does anyone know if there's a reason that they haven'y sent in helicopters to the Superdome, if nothing else, just to drop food? I'm not understanding why they aren't sending stuff in. The tsunami victims were helped, so what's going on?
Its from London.
It still just breaks my heart. I've cried more in the last 24 hours (since my electricity came back) than since my mother died last year. I don't have any sympathy for the thugs, but there are so many helpless people there, too, and they are nothing but prey. I wish I could drive down there and help them get out.
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