yup. 2-Shop says where it wants to go, but the 4-Shop tells them How and When they'll get there...
Posted on 09/02/2005 8:07:42 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
NEW ORLEANS - Four days after Hurricane Katrina struck, the National Guard arrived in force Friday with food, water and weapons, churning through the floodwaters in a vast truck convoy with orders to retake the streets and bring relief to the suffering.
"The cavalry is and will continue to arrive," said one general.
The trucks began arriving at the New Orleans Convention Center, where 15,000 to 20,000 hungry and desperate refugees had taken shelter - many of them seething with anger so intense that the place appeared ready to erupt in violence at any moment. For a day or more, corpses lay abandoned outside the building, and many storm refugees complained bitterly that they had been forsaken by the government.
The open-topped trucks carried huge boxes of relief supplies. Soldiers sat in the backs of some of the trucks, their rifles pointing skyward.
The soldiers' arrival-in-force came amid blistering criticism from the mayor and others who said the federal government had bungled the relief effort and let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine.
"The people of our city are holding on by a thread," Mayor Ray Nagin warned in a statement to CNN. "Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows."
In Washington, President Bush admitted "the results are not acceptable" and pledged to bolster the relief efforts. He visited the stricken Gulf Coast, and pledged in Mobile, Ala.: "What is not working right, we're going to make it right."
Earlier Friday, a chemical explosion at a warehouse rocked a wide area of New Orleans before daybreak and jolted residents awake, lighting up the sky and sending a pillar of acrid gray smoke over a ruined city awash in perhaps thousands of corpses, under siege from looters, and seething with anger and resentment.
A second large fire erupted downtown in an old retail building in a dry section of Canal Street.
There were no immediate reports of injuries. But the fires deepened the sense of total collapse in the city since Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore Monday morning.
The explosion took place along the Mississippi River about 15 blocks from the French Quarter. It was about two miles from both the Louisiana Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center, the two spots where tens of thousands of hungry, desperate and hostile refugees awaited buses to deliver them from their misery. The cause of the blast was under investigation.
Lt. Gen. Steven Blum of the National Guard said 7,000 National Guardsmen arriving in Louisiana on Friday would be dedicated to restoring order in New Orleans. He said half of them had just returned from assignments overseas and are "highly proficient in the use of lethal force." He pledged to "put down" the violence "in a quick and efficient manner."
"But they are coming here to save Louisiana citizens. The only thing we are attacking is the effects of this hurricane," he said. Blum said that a huge airlift of supplies was landing Friday and that it signaled "the cavalry is and will continue to arrive."
As he left the White House for his visit to the devastated area, Bush said 600 newly arrived military police officers would be sent to the convention center to secure the site so that food and medicine could get there.
City officials have accused the government - namely the Federal Emergency Management Agency - of responding sluggishly.
"Get off your asses and let's do something," the mayor told WWL-AM Thursday night in a rambling interview in which he cursed, yelled and ultimately burst into tears. At one point he said: "Excuse my French - everybody in America - but I am pissed."
The National Guard arrived in force after law and order all but broke down.
Over the past few days, police officers turned in their badges. Rescuers, law officers and medical-evacuation helicopters were shot at by storm victims. Fistfights and fires broke out at the hot and stinking Superdome as thousands of people waited in misery to board buses for the Houston Astrodome. Corpses lay out in the open in wheelchairs and in bedsheets. The looting continued.
At the Superdome, group of refugees broke through a line of heavily armed National Guardsmen in a scramble to get on to the buses. And about 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at the convention center grew ever more hostile after waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead, including at least seven bodies scattered outside the building.
Police Chief Eddie Compass said there was such a crush around a squad of 88 officers that they retreated when they went in to check out reports of assaults.
"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 Thursday 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.
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," 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."
Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said FEMA just learned about the situation at the convention center Thursday and quickly scrambled to provide food, water and medical care and remove the corpses.
While floodwaters in New Orleans appeared to stabilize, efforts continued to plug three breaches in the levees that protect this bowl-shaped, below-sea-level city, which is wedged between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.
Helicopters dropped sandbags into the breach and pilings were being pounded into the mouth of the canal Thursday to close its connection to the lake.
Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, said engineers are developing a plan to create new breaches in the levees so that a combination of pumping and the effects of gravity will drain the water out of the city. Removing the floodwaters will take weeks, he said.
Learn more about serving in the Army National Guard.
What about Canada's quick reaction team did it ever get alberta to file to sri lanka?
In this day of round-the-clock TV coverage and instant reporting -- people expect EVERYTHING to be instanteous.
These poor refugees are living down to the expectations of the Mayor, Governor, Geraldo and that jerk Shep from Fox. No wonder they loot and rape, it's what their leaders expect.
1. Convention Center refugees being ignored until late today.
2. Hospital staff under seige from armed looters at at least two hospitals
3. The I-10 overpass refugees are still there, with little or no support
4. Firefighters in a Bell South bldg. under seige from armed looters
5. Jail releasees mixed in with general population at Superdone; now presumably in Houston.
6. No way to remove the water yet.
7. Officers leaving their duty for security concerns.
8. Hostage situation at a local jail.
9. Still a few thousand milling about outside Superdome -- convey of buses has ceased?
Anyone have any updates on these situations??
I can't believe President Bush invaded New Orleans. What a war monger. Friday Sarcasm for the sober deficient people.
I continue to be amazed at the scope of the devestation. Of course, the major media only focus on what is NOT being done, not the good things that have already been accomplished. People in this country have become so reliant on the nanny state, that if THEIR immediate needs are not being met, well, then, George Bush is to blame.
This may sound crass, but "Get a life, people! Learn to take care of YOURSELF and your family. It is YOUR responsibility!" I believe we have almost come to the Roman Empire's equivalent of "bread and circuses" where the populace became so dependent on the government that the people could no longer think or fend for themselves and the civilization came to ruin.
The federal response is as pathetic and as incompetent as one could possibly imagine. 4 days! 1400 troops per day? How about 10 times that! If the air force field 3 miles away from the city was open, why the mayor asks, wasn't water being flown in on transport planes and helicoptered into the city? Why indeed. The federal and state handling of this was a national disgrace of the first order.
yup. 2-Shop says where it wants to go, but the 4-Shop tells them How and When they'll get there...
I heard that no one told FEMA for at least one day, maybe two, that there were any refugees at the Convention Center. Is that true?
Right now we have volunteers waiting on evacuated refugees hand and foot. How long do you think this generosity will continue, if the demogogues keep calling them all racists?
Those aren't federal troops - they're National Guard under the (supposed) control of the Governor.
Seems to me that city just might be worth saving, get the live ones one bury the rest move the city, much as they have done all along the Mississippi.
Shep is redeeming himself, and Geraldo is beside himself. No bothering to be eloquent. Hopefully both will be effective. This is unconsionable that groups this large are going withi nothing.
Shep is also accusing the Mayor of NO directly of providing a bunch of people - maybe tourists - with preferential treatment in getting out of the city.
When Guard personnel report to base or some other control point, how long does it take to secure and mobilize equipment, supplies and plans?
Who is in charge of the National Guard, and why?
If you don't know the answers, perhaps you should investigate and then reconsider your post.
I'll also opine a little further: on Monday morning, people starting reporting an unbelieveable statement over and over again: "New Orleans has dodged a bullet." That when the storm was still raging in the area! My belief is that these reports allowed the authorities to rock back on their heels and breathe a sigh of relief -- which lasted another 1-2 days before the magnitude of the disaster fully hit them.
I agree completely. Hard to tell how much impact a bumbling governor had on the slowness of the overall relief effort.
To quote a former client, "That is not a trivial task". But, it should have been on the list of possibilities that the Guard would be prepared for. Even with a plan and repeated training, the variables would have to complicate the actual response.
As a casual observer, I think these folks did an admirable job in responding. We should all be grateful and appreciative for their efforts.
Think they might have trained for this as part of a homeland security effort? Should have.
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