Posted on 09/05/2005 8:24:15 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - When night falls, Charlie Hackett climbs the steps to his boarded-up window, takes down the plywood, grabs his 12-gauge shotgun and waits.
He is waiting for looters and troublemakers, for anyone thinking his neighbourhood has been abandoned like so many others across the city. Two doors down, John Carolan is doing the same on his screened-in porch, pistol by his side.
They are not about to give up their homes to the lawlessness that has engulfed New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina.
"We kind of together decided we would defend what we have here and we would stay up and defend the neighbourhood," says Hackett, a U.S. Army veteran with a snow-white beard and a business installing custom kitchens.
"I don't want to kill anybody," he says, "but I'd sure like to scare 'em."
With generators giving them power, food to last for weeks and several guns each for protection, the men are two of a scattered community holed up across the residential streets of the city's Garden District, a lush neighbourhood with many antebellum mansions.
The streets, where towering live oaks once offered cool shade, are now often impassable because of huge fallen branches and downed power lines. Lovely porches framed in wrought iron lay smashed. Many of the homes appear only slightly damaged, or even untouched.
But the neighbourhoods are stunningly empty, and so quiet that they sound like a forest.
It is a short drive but a world away from the city's downtown, where tens of thousands of hungry, thirsty and increasingly angry people waited in misery at the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center before evacuations finally began.
Here, Carolan starts his nightly watch by lighting a big fire in his barbecue pit. Hackett turns his lights on and jams a 4.5-metre wooden brace against the front door so no one can break through.
The night is "black, black, black," Hackett says. "It reminds me of when I was in Vietnam, it reminds me of Dac To."
They have not had a problem staying awake. Each night there are gunshots in the distance, sometimes people walking through, an occasional car driving by.
"Last night I had to draw down on some people," Carolan says. A car with what sounded like a crowd of drunken, partying kids came through and stopped.
"I had to come out with a flashlight in one hand, pistol in the other," he says, crossing his arms like an X. "I said: 'Who are you? Do you live here? What are you doing here?' They said, 'We're leaving."'
Hackett, who in his 50s, lives alone, with his two cats and a bunch of neighbour's pets that he is caring for. Carolan, 46, is keeping watch with his brother, wife, son, and three-year-old granddaughter.
In the first few days, they were especially fearful. Looters smashed windows and ransacked a discount store and a drugstore a few streets over. Three men came to Carolan's house asking about his generator and brandished a machete. He showed them his gun and they left.
"It was pandemonium for a couple of nights. We just felt that when they got done with the stores, they'd come to the homes," Hackett says. "When it's not easy pickings, they'll go somewhere else."
Things have gotten quieter, the men say, but not quiet.
"What do you say, I'm a survivor," John Carolan says with a laugh, thinking of the reality TV show. "Hey, give me the million bucks now."
How long can Carolan and the others hold out?
Hackett has enough gas and food for a month. Carolan says they have weeks' worth of food and bug repellent, and he will siphon gas from left-behind cars to keep his electricity going.
"Everything we have is in our homes. With the lawlessness in this town, are you going to walk away from everything you built?" Carolan says. "A lot of people think we're stupid. They say, 'Why did you stay?' I say, 'Why didn't you stay?"'
"I had to come out with a flashlight in one hand, pistol in the other," he says, crossing his arms like an X. "I said: 'Who are you? Do you live here? What are you doing here?' They said, 'We're leaving."
"...Bailed outside and pointed my weapon,
"Just as I thought, the fools kept steppin'..."
Thanks for the info. I was not aware of that. It's not like I've had any need to shoot this stuff up. If I need more, I'll know where to get it. Of course, if I need more, I will need it badly.
gives them the fear factor (I thought it was loaded officer)
Just trying to voice my frustration at the situation. I support the the judgment and actions of the guy who's protecting himself & his property, but it's just so unsatisfying that the looters are just going to move on to the next guy, and maybe not be quite as polite.
Me too, most likely.
It's just frustrating that he couldn't do more than just send them on to the next guy. Like maybe disarm them at least. But like I say, I don't want to be a Monday morning quarterback. He acted as he saw fit at the time and hopefully I'll never be in that situation.
The thing that distresses me most about the looting, besides the fact that they're kicking people when they're down, is that they've met with so little resistance.
And perhaps "the next guy" won't be so tolerant ;o)
I'm not saying should or shouldn't. He was in the situation, not me, so I can't judge. I certainly think he would have been justified in doing so, although I'm not sure what I would have done in that situation myself.
I'm saying it's frustrating that in protecting his own life and property, all he's doing to the looters is slowing them down a bit.
"I have heard that it is a very corrupt and wicked place."
You heard correctly. I am lucky to be alive having once lived in New Orleans and growing up in South Louisiana. Of course, when I was old enough to own a gun, I always packed when going to the city.
My pre-Katrina saying goes...
"Show me someone who wants to visit New Orleans, and I will show you someone who has never been there"
Wow - that says it all!!!
Maybe that should be the banner over the NO Chamber of Commerce...
No, that should have been the warning from the US State Department, about one of our own cities.
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