I volunteer at a shelter. A woman told me today that they had water and MRE's the entire time. She evacuated on Fri. night.
I volunteer at a shelter. A woman told me today that they had water and MRE's the entire time. She evacuated on Fri. night.
#####
A lot of blame for the news last week has to go to the on camera guys who hyped up the "no food and water" story. Really there were no hot meals and cold cokes. There was so much trash at the Superdome when the evac was complete that it was obvious something had been handed out.
Well, there's our answer. I saw the National Guard on-scene commander describing the situation on Sunday night, so I knew they'd had them at some point... appears they had them throughout. The Superdome "no food" phrase has become one of those articles of faith now, that is just assumed to be true even by a number of posters on this site. It's sort of like that "Bush said the threat was imminent" canard re: Iraq. It's been repeated so many times that it's now accepted as true even though it isn't.
Basically, I think there's considerable confusion between the Dome and the Convention Center. Food and water weren't available at the latter originally because it wasn't planned to be a shelter, and FEMA didn't find out people had gathered there until the media showed up and started showing people complaining. The media, in turn, made the mistake of assuming it was a designated shelter, then basing their stories on that.
There's a lot to be discovered when this is all over, and I suspect that much of the more hyperbolic media reporting will be thoroughly discredited. Not that they'll let any of their audience find out, of course.