Was forgetting to use the hundreds of school buses to evacuate people Saturday and Sunday part of the disaster plan or did they just do that ad hoc?
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."
Well, ya know, Clinton would have been able to do it! /sarcasm
susie
Could you please be more vague?
You can't leave by I-10. It goes over the twin span, which is gone.
Yeah, a long, long time ago. I was just a little bitty thing, so I don't remember it much. I used to live in Lake Charles; I wonder if it flooded much there?
"What's being done to filter out the criminal elements before they ship them up here to Texas?"
I would not worry about that too much. Texas isn't New Orleans. I have lived in Texas 26 years. One thing that has taught me is that Texans are willing to give most anyone a chance -- and are probably tougher than any other folks in the nation when it comes to slapping down those that abuse the chance they are given. We will be really nice to the honest folk that came here needing help -- and really hard on the criminals that think generous equals soft.
That's it. I can't read anymore. I'm not sending a cent to New Orleans. I'll just send my check directly to Catholic Charities in Mississippi.
F&$ k Reuters, what a cheap shot to blame Bush.
I'm with you. People should not blame the President who is telling them before to evacuate the city before its too late.
I do think, no I KNOW there are grateful people who are thankful for everything that has been done for them in this disaster. It just seems that the media (including my once beloved Foxnews) have not had the inclination to show much of that. I am so cynical about ALL media now.
susie
Was forgetting to use the hundreds of school buses to evacuate people Saturday and Sunday part of the disaster plan or did they just do that ad hoc?
The average person can go about two weeks without food, and judging from some of the fat asses I saw on TV most of these people could go a month without starving.
I don't believe any of these people were starving after five days.
This pisses me off. They don't like Bush now, how about we wait as long as we did to go in as we did to go into IRaq. Why don't we wait another ten months or so, and pass a few UN resolutions before sending in aid. Ungrateful bastards.
It took just as long as it did during hurricane Agnes. People were on their roofs then, too. People didn't start looting or killing each other, either. They were as grateful as hell when the troops showed up. They said "Thank you", not "F you."
Those people were suppose to evacuate. They didn't. Now, people are trying to help them as much as they can. There is no magic wand.
You're totally ignoring the brave people who are down there in great numbers wallowing in the sewer water to save those who decided to stay with their "stuff." Give the good people helping down there a little credit for a change. They're human, too, and they're being hassled and shot at. They're doing the best they can.
There is a difference between being "abandoned" and being "stranded".
In respect to the Federal Government, these people are now stranded just like the crew of a sinking unsafe ship is stranded during their wait for the Coast Guard.
The Federal Government has only a few days warning to move thousands of men, heavy equipment and thousands of tons of supplies to any potential natural disaster point anywhere in the U.S. That is being done.......But such massive logistics effort takes time.
In respect to the City of New Orleans and its Mayor , these people were abandoned.
The Mayor of New Orleans has had years of warning to plan for this. The current nightmare scenario has been predicted for years if and when New Orleans, a city below sea level, was ever hit with a Category 5 hurricane:
Would New Orleans Really Flood in a Major Hurricane? How is that possible?
The Mayor of New Orleans is now whining about the inevitable time that the logistics of the massive relief effort is taking and complaining that the poor without automobiles were left to suffer.........Presumably by the Federal Government and therefore by Bush.
However, the Mayor has known for years that poor people without adequate transportation could not safely stay in New Orleans during a Category 5 hurricane and he did NOTHING to evacuate them.
With all that prior warning and with local resources at the scene and available, there was one task that was never done or even attempted by the Mayor ..........Namely, the complete evacuation of the city's poor population to areas on higher ground.
The Mayor is now playing the demagogue and angrilly saying that the people suffering are the poor blacks who did not have automobiles to evacuate. However, prior to the hurricane and with ample prior warning of the consequences of leaving people in the city, the Mayor had his buses all parked in orderly rows.
WHY DIDN'T YOU DEPLOY THE BUSES, MAYOR?... New Orleans Lost Opportunity
Not exactly demonstrating "starving Ethiopian" weight standards, are they?
Gladly. Everything I have learned about real life, I have learned from Free Republic. Be careful what you write. You words will come back to bite you in the butt. Repeatedly. And, never threaten anyone. Ever.
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It ruins the surprise.
"I'll just send my check directly to Catholic Charities in Mississippi."
That's exactly what I concluded I would do.
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