Posted on 09/05/2005 10:46:52 PM PDT by Lorianne
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WOMENSENEWS)--Overwhelmed by the utter challenge of quickly moving tens of thousands of hurricane survivors to safe ground, Louisiana and federal officials had no time to ensure the security of New Orleans' most vulnerable: children, women and the elderly.
Following unconfirmed reports that girls as young as 10 were raped inside the Louisiana Superdome and convention center, relief workers now say they've taken steps to ensure that large shelters such as the Houston Astrodome will provide a safe haven for refugees.
"We have been hearing about episodes of violence, including rape," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Reuters reported Thursday.
That is unacceptable to organizations such as Amnesty International, which monitors governments, shelters, prisons and refugee camps around the world for human rights violations. Relief groups have an obligation to make vulnerable populations a top priority when planning and operating shelters, said Sheila Dauer, director of women's human rights for Amnesty International USA, in an interview Friday night with Women's eNews.
"The authorities are responsible for making sure these vulnerable populations are protected," Dauer said. "With thousands of people thrown in there together, there are people extremely vulnerable to violence and abuse, the very young, the very old, women, children, and they have a human right to be protected."
Law Enforcement Was Lacking A key ingredient of this new protection is a very visible presence of law enforcement officers in the Astrodome, something that was lacking in the Louisiana shelters during the early stages of the disaster, said Margaret Pepe, client services administrator for the American Red Cross.
"In the shelters that are being established for evacuees, we are very well aware of the vulnerability of this population," Pepe said. "By a very large visible presence of law enforcement keeping a much higher profile, we hope to avoid some of the problems these supershelters pose."
Until the end of the week, the few police monitoring the Superdome, for example, primarily guarded the perimeter and didn't mingle with the evacuees inside. Police at the Astrodome will be inside, talking with people and watching for telltale signs of abuse or potential abuse such as antisocial behavior and grownups who spend too much time following, hanging around or playing with children who are not their own.
Crisis counselors and psychologists will also be a big part of the mix in the new shelters being opened to take in evacuees, Pepe said.
"We are very vigilant," she said. "We are very protective of our shelterees."
The sheer size of the shelters and their many hiding places, coupled with a lack of lighting due to power outages, makes them less than ideal for emergency housing, said Pepe. She hopes the advance planning that went into making the Astrodome available will help alleviate some of those problems.
Establishing order and preventing crime should be the first priority of emergency management officials, and shelters should have stockpiles of food and medical supplies before they are brought into operation, say Florida emergency coordinators. Florida, which has had so many hurricanes in the past two years that coordinators perform their duties almost by rote, is lending its expertise, millions of dollars in aid and hundreds of personnel to its neighbors to the west.
Florida Prefers Small Shelter System In the fallout following five major hurricanes in the past 12 months, Florida has moved toward using smaller community shelters holding several hundred people mixed with law enforcement, counselors and aid workers when possible, said Luci Hadi, who is a key coordinator of emergency response for the Florida Department of Children and Families.
Advance preparation is crucial, Hadi said Friday.
"The difficulty that you have with these huge shelters is that they were never, never designed for this kind of work. There's no infrastructure provided, there's no stockpiling of food and water, there's no infrastructure of crisis counselors like we have here ready to go in," Hadi said. "They are essentially a big group of people unrelated to each other who have been crammed together now for days without adequate support and infrastructure. We unfortunately have enough experience in Florida that we plan far ahead."
The Red Cross is doing all it can, said Pepe. In addition to the licensed mental health professionals that are part of the Red Cross network, the aid organization is also recruiting counselors from airlines and other businesses who have large numbers of crisis counselors on staff or as consultants.
In the meantime, Red Cross staff and volunteers are trying to stress their safety rules to those seeking shelter. No firearms, alcohol or drugs are allowed in shelters, children must be with their parents at all times, cots should be arranged so that family units are as close together as possible, and women and children should always shower and use toilet facilities as family groups.
1. A huge shelter like the Superdome is unmanagable on any level as a shelter, simply due to the numbers involved. It's simply not sustainable.
2. A system of smaller shelters would give redundancy to the system, so that if one shelter goes down or is disabled there are others in the area. Plus fewer people would mean less vulnerability to crime.
Another idea is for shelters to segregate single adult or young adult males (without families) away from the families and children.
I heard on Tony Snow tonight that of the 95 (small) shelters available in NOLA, only 9 were used.
Yes they were avoidable. There were THOUSANDS of able bodied men in that dome that could have protected the women and the weak. They could have BUT they were too busy shopping downtown of tearing the seats out.
As this was happening, FR moderators were pulling all threads that discussed the issue.
Relief organizations are CHARITIES, and as such, have NO obligations whatsoever.
Goddamned communists in AI.
The 2004 Hurricane Pam Exercise identified 784 shelters outside of the New Orleans area and called for finding more up to 1,000.
"The interagency shelter group identified the need for about 1,000 shelters for a catastrophic disaster. The shelter team identified 784 shelters and has developed plans for locating the remaining shelters............State resources are adequate to operate shelters for the first 3-5 days. The group planned how federal and other resources will replenish supplies at shelters. "
The plan, however, envisioned the complete evacuation of New Orleans as the New Orleans flood bowl had the potential of catastrophic failure of the levy system leading to the destruction of 500,000-600,000 buildings.
The bottom line is that planning never envisioned leaving 200,000 people stranded inside the New Orleans flood bowl.
If the levies had failed catastrophically, we could have had a human death toll of Hiroshima proportions.
The governor and mayor together were 100% responsible for security at the Superdome. The Feds plays no part.
The mayor commands the local police force and the governor commands the national guard.
Common decency and civility is an obligation. And it includes to make sure women are not raped. Sorry you think that is communism.
Why not use schools as shelters?
"No firearms, alcohol or drugs are allowed in shelters, children must be with their parents at all times"
Ummm... After second thought, I think I will moderate myself and pull my comment :-)
You may not be old enough to remember but in the 1940's there were plenty 'rumors' of what was happening to the Jews in Germany and Poland. FDR turned a blind eye for a long time.
Hopefully FR is not going down the 'blind eye path'.
Rapes are always avoidable. All you need to avoid them is a society that instills respect for other people and a sense of personal responsibility and basic human decency in its young people. We used to have have one of those before the advent of the mass media and the welfare state. Once again, thanks, liberals!
NO, it is NOT. Common decency and civility is what is expected from civilized people; the problem is that very few of the Superdome and Convention Center folks were civilized. What happened to the thousands of people that stood around and watched while the rapes were committed? Don't they have an obligation to help the victims?
The communists of AI assume that the relief organizations are REQUIRED to "police" their clients. Sorry, that is what the police are for. The aid groups have enough on their plate providing food, clothing, and shelter.
Sorry, but if "common decency and civility" were really an obligation, millions of US citizens would be in jail for that violation alone.
Sheila Dauer: Master of the Obvious.
What does she/it propose doing about it, now that the dome has been evacuated?
Agreed!
It is an obligation of civilized society, not a legal imposition. Many people, in stories I have read, displayed those traits at the Superdome and protected many women and children. Unfortunately, not enough did so.
Tonight on the San Antonio news they had a Texas nurse who was stuck in the River something Mall in NO.
She and seventy five other people banded together, and went up to the food court. They organized a bathroom area with plastic buckets, an area for the ill where she helped as the medical person. They prepared food to eat. I was impressed by her story.
She said there was looting, and sexual assaults going on in the lower level. They could hear the women screaming. It was quite horrific. But the seventy five people who had banded together were safe until their rescue after five days.
I am past the point of caring what happens to New Orleans.
Look at Liberia to see how far some "American" peoples have evolved socially and culturally, and New Orleans. Water World's socialist Democrat Plantation had a riot among the sheeple. Who could have imagined?
Today I caught myself thinking it would be great if another Cat 5 would hit it right now that it is empty of people who could be hurt.
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