Posted on 09/02/2005 6:20:49 PM PDT by HAL9000
NEW ORLEANS, Sept 2 (Reuters) - With the rotors of President George W. Bush's helicopter sounding overhead, New Orleans' poor and downtrodden recounted tales of murder, rape, death threats and near starvation since Hurricane Katrina wrecked this city.Ending days of abandonment since the hurricane struck on Monday, the U.S. National Guard handed out military rations and a bottle of water to thousands of evacuees -- the first proper meal most had eaten in days.
But as the masses lined up outside, herded by Army troops toting machine guns, inside the convention center where these people slept since Monday was the stench of death and decay.
Leroy Fouchea, 42, waited in the sweltering heat for an hour to get his ration -- his first proper food since Monday -- and immediately handed it over to a sickly friend.
He then offered to show reporters the dead bodies of a man in a wheelchair, a young man who he said he dragged inside just hours earlier, and the limp forms of two infants, one just four months old, the other six months old.
"They died right here, in America, waiting for food," Fouchea said as he walked toward Hall D, where the bodies were put to get them out of the searing heat.
He said people were let die and left without food simply because they were poor and that the evacuation effort earlier concentrated on the French Quarter of the city. "Because that's where the money is," he spat. A National Guardsman refused entry.
"It doesn't need to be seen, it's a make-shift morgue in there," he told a Reuters photographer. "We're not letting anyone in there anymore. If you want to take pictures of dead bodies, go to Iraq."
As rations were finally doled out here on the day President Bush visited the devastated city, an elderly white woman and her husband collapsed from the heat.
"I had to walk two blocks to get here and I have arthritis and three ruptured discs in my back," said Selma Valenti, 80, as her husband lay beside her, being revived by a policeman in riot gear. The two had eaten nothing since Wednesday.
Valenti and her husband, two of very few white people in the almost exclusively black refugee camp, said she and other whites were threatened with murder on Thursday.
"They hated us. Four young black men told us the buses were going to come last night and pick up the elderly so they were going to kill us," she said, sobbing. "They were plotting to murder us and then they sent the buses away because we would all be killed if the buses came -- that's what the people in charge told us this morning."
Other survivors recounted horrific cases of sexual assault and murder. Sitting with her daughter and other relatives, Trolkyn Joseph, 37, said men had wandered the cavernous convention center in recent nights raping and murdering children.
She said she found a dead 14-year old girl at 5 a.m. on Friday morning, four hours after the young girl went missing from her parents inside the convention center.
"She was raped for four hours until she was dead," Joseph said through tears. "Another child, a seven-year old boy was found raped and murdered in the kitchen freezer last night."
Several others interviewed by Reuters told similar stories of the abuse and murder of children, but they could not be independently verified. Many complained bitterly about why they received so little for so many days, and they had harsh words for Bush.
"I really don't know what to say about President Bush," said Richard Dunbar, 60, a Vietnam veteran. "He showed no lack of haste when he wanted to go to Iraq, but for his own people right here in Louisiana, we get only lip service."
One young man said he was not looking forward to another night in the convention center and wondered when conditions would improve. "It's been like a jail in there," he said. "We've got murderers, rapists, killers, thieves. We've got it all."
No, but I suspect the Feds will take the authority to order evacuations out of the hands of local politicians as well as the authority to call in the guard. The state and local resonse was so inept here I can't see how it will turn out any other way.
The law already allows it in case of terror attacks, but not natural disasters. What governor would have so little pride in his or her state that they would give up control? In Pennsylvania, the Governor successfully sued the federal government to prove he had control over the national guard of his state.
Meanwhile, in New Orleans, the local government told people to go to the convention center, and then locked them in and forgot to tell FEMA they were in there until wednesday or thursday. According to Geraldo they won't let them out of the room.
I'm still trying to figure out how people who haven't eaten or drank in 4 days would have the strength to speak so loudly their complaints about how they were being treated.
Or how they could refrain from beating up Geraldo in the hopes to find some candy bars.
Why are all the news networks down there with power interviewing people that are "starving to death", but they didn't bring any food with them? If they can get their camera crews there, why can't they get food and water?
I think they have had food and water,just not as much as they would like. Probably severely rationed.
And I still don't get how the local government told people where to go, told them they would be taken in buses, and then failed to get the buses or tell anybody else the plan.
I saw the mayor this afternoon, he looked like he had been eating quite well, and he was in front of trucks of supplies -- Why didn't he just direct the trucks over to where he had told people to wait for food?
I'm sorry. I don't see how the President of the United States is supposed to be ordering buses around. Or how he is supposed to know what the new orleans mayor is telling people to do.
Or how the federal government is expected to take over a state without the state making a request.
Perhaps because they had no idea of how to go about it?
Geraldo was exhorting everyone in the convention center to just walk down I-10 -- and the other Fox guy didn't know why they couldn't other than the blockade.
People, not even babies, starve to death in a few days. I wonder how many of these stories are true.
Anyway, as for the whites being victims of racism, that's preposterous. Everyone knows that blacks threatening whites is just an expression of frustration from 400 years of slavery. The white Brits threatened in other reports were due to the long history of colonial mischief in Africa.
Come on FReepers, please read your memos before claiming there's such a thing as black racism!
Your points are all well taken but I'm speculating that the political fallout will change the relationship between the states and the Federal govt re: disaster response.
What are you talking about?
It was just reported that some of the Superdome crowd is now at the Dallas Convention Center---and guns were confiscated. I passed the Convention Center and Reunion Arena on the way home and both are literally surrounded by police vehicles. At least Dallas cops won't wait to shoot if they need to.
You know, it's people who stand on a street corner and yell "Lord, Lord" that gives Christians a bad name. Yes, you'll receive your reward in full from men, but shouldn't you be taking it home and speaking to God in private (rather than attempting to preach on this thread) where the Lord in heaven will be sure to hear you?
Have you considered taking your concerns to the Religion section? This section is for News/Activism.
I am suggesting that your name makes us think of someone really admirable. You might want to change your name...because, compared to the person you remind us of, you have a less than admirable appearance.
You notice how all the problems seem to be stopping now that he's on the scene? It's as if no public official in La. knows how to buy a clue.
You are destroying perfectly good rumors with facts.
All the staties and lokies had to do was keep a lid on things until the cavalry came. That's all they had to do. Nagin was shameless again today, talking like he was barking orders at the president and governor. He needs to keep his squeaky little trap closed -- especially after the revelations about him choppering his family out and pulling strings to get his friends out the superdome.
Greta had an interesting interview with Rick Perry. She asked him why Texas was so ready to go, he said well, we've had a lot of disasters. We practice, and we heeded the lessons of 9-11. It's not magic, it's called having the grownups in charge.
I would not want you to admire me. Take your homo urges elsewhere.
If you were a man of God, you could have spoken to me in His language. But you didn't. You continued to insult.
Does Jesus give Christianity a bad name...He stood on a street corner and in a pasture and on a hill.
Why not reach out to me in a friendly way?
Is it me you dislike...or is it Jesus?
What are we supposed to do? We can give money, but we have to count on others to do the work. We can't all hop on planes and fly down there and bring people food.
Tonight they were reporting that they weren't letting people into the next town "where they had electricity". They acted like that was horrible.
Well first of all, if the people could walk to the next town, they must be getting some food and water. Second, if you let 10,000 people run into the next town you would simply have a disaster there as they pillaged looking for food and water.
The mayor at one point had actually told his people to run over the bridge and try to find food and water elsewhere.
Why wouldn't a city like New Orleans have a supply depot above sea level with enough food and water for the city for a few days?
You know there were enough grocery stores in the city to feed the city for a week. They must have all either been flooded, or looted. Canned goods, canned soda, bottled water, juice, even milk would have been good for a day or two, and unaffected by the floods. This isn't Somalia.
You watch pictures, and you see people DRIVING AROUND IN THE CITY. I know its a small part, but the entire place isn't a war zone. They show people with cartloads of food and bottled water, I assume taking the food somewhere but maybe not over to the bridge where people need the food.
I simply have a hard time believing the superdome didn't have enough bottled water and soda for 20,000 people for a couple of days. Certainly they were stocked for concessions for a 72,000 person football game?
So the problem is that the entire thing is unbelievable. We sit here in Virginia, and elsewhere, and can't believe that while the old and infirmed are on that bridge, all the able-bodied men of the city are elsewhere. We know that in our town we would be there bringing food and supplies. We have done so in the past. Our neighborhood checked up on each other after the hurricane two years ago.
We simply don't understand how a major city like New Orleans could be so unprepared.
on 9/11, the NY emergency preparedness center was in the trade center complex. Obviously they were going to have problems. But Rudy set up an entire new center a few blocks away, and had control of the situation.
I don't see that from the officials in New Orleans (who probably all evacuated long before the storm).
Instead, I see people incredulous at normal, predictable events "Oh no, windows got blown out! What, there is rain and flooding? Why did so many people stay? I can't believe there is rioting and looting. We can't run the pumps because the flood water has flooded them. Oh, the brand-new canal wall has collapsed -- Who could have imagined THIS FLOODING???? What, the people in the convention center want food and water? "
We don't understand that while some people are being rescued from their roofs, others are shooting at helicopters, or threatening to kill old white people to make room on the bus. Or why Geraldo holds a pretty healthy-looking baby in his arms but can't give anybody a candy bar. Where is Geraldo getting his dinners?
We can't understand why the local police are allowed to keep people trapped in the convention center. We can't understand why they don't take supplies to the bridge.
I don't think people here are insensitive to the death and injury, we are simply trapped like deer in the headlights, unable to figure out why something like this could be happening when we are sure it would be different where we live. Even if we are wrong.
The final scenes are playing out now; predictable, classless, and obnoxious as ever. C-Span had the NAACP leaders on. Arms folded, angry faces abound, heads tilted back, with the leader attempting to read from a script, featuring four misprounced and made up words per sentence. (to be sure he has an extensive criminal record and the obligatory 4 children with 4 different women). The theme of course is screaming 'bout white racism toward our peeples". I would have used a split screen showing the siege of predatory black thieves, murderers and rapists on the other side. The last phase to come in this cycle will be the 2008 election battlecry, "New Orlins, nevva fahget."
At least they are fair and balanced - that's all we can ask.
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