[Rhodes22-list] First hand account of what happened in New Orleans

[Wally Buck]

Saroj,

The world and this country are not perfect. Prejudice and ignorance abound. 
I wonder about any bias the authors of this post (see link below) may have.

http://www.socialistworker.org/index.shtml

Don't get me wrong, I think there is plenty of blame to go around. I am of 
the opinion the hurricane would have been handled the same way regardless of 
party in power. Ignorance crosses party lines. Cronism is not just a 
Republican thing. The local leaders especially in NO really dropped the 
ball.

A voluntary order for evacuation  on Saturday and a mandatory order on 
Sunday were way too late. The writing was on the wall and the local leaders 
should have been thinking ahead. They did not even follow their own disaster 
plans!

Pretty local forecast but it doesn't look like we will have much wind .

Wally





>From: "Saroj Gilbert" <saroj at pathfind.net>
>Reply-To: The Rhodes 22 mail list <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
>To: "The Rhodes 22 mail list" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
>Subject: [Rhodes22-list] First hand account of what happened in New Orleans
>Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 09:26:44 -0400
>
>Here ya go folks... you want to know what happened... without being tainted 
>by the "anti-government, liberal, commie" (to reference implications by the 
>"believers" that we live in a great, fair, free, unprejudiced country), 
>press?
>
>Read this.
>
>Unbelievable in America!
>
>Saroj
>
>==================================
>
>HURRICANE KATRINA - OUR EXPERIENCES
>By Parmedics Larry Bradsahw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky
>emsnetwork.org
>September 6, 2005
>
>http://www.emsnetwork.org/artman/publish/article_18337.shtml
>
>Note: Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics frorm California that were
>attending the EMS conference in New Orleans. Larry Bradsahw is the chief
>shop steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790; and Lorrie Beth Slonsky is
>steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790.[California]
>
>...........
>
>Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's store 
>at
>the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy 
>display
>case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without
>electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were
>beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and managers had 
>locked
>up the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside
>Walgreen's windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and
>hungry.
>
>The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the
>windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. 
>The
>cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit
>juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they 
>did
>not. Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing
>away the looters.
>
>We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived home
>yesterday (Saturday). We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look at 
>a
>newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or
>front-page pictures of European or affluent white tourists looting the
>Walgreen's in the French Quarter.
>
>We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of 
>the
>National Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the "victims"
>of the Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed, were the
>real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class 
>of
>New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick
>and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators
>running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching
>over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars
>stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical
>ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs
>of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck
>in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats
>to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. 
>Mechanics
>who helped hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the
>City. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens
>improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.
>
>Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from members
>of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for
>the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water.
>
>On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the
>French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees 
>like
>ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter
>from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends
>outside of New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources
>including the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the
>City. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible because
>none of us had seen them.
>
>We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up 
>with
>$25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did
>not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did
>have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 
>12
>hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we 
>had.
>We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born
>babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the
>buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the 
>arrived
>to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.
>
>By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was
>dangerously abysmal. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime
>as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked
>their doors, telling us that the "officials" told us to report to the
>convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the
>City, we finally encountered the National Guard. The Guards told us we 
>would
>not be allowed into the Superdome as the City's primary shelter had
>descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole. The guards further told
>us that the City's only other shelter, the Convention Center, was also
>descending into chaos and squalor and that the police were not allowing
>anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only 2
>shelters in the City, what was our alternative?" The guards told us that
>that was our problem, and no they did not have extra water to give to us.
>This would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile
>"law enforcement".
>
>We walked to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and were
>told the same thing, that we were on our own, and no they did not have 
>water
>to give us. We now numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to
>decide a course of action. We agreed to camp outside the police command
>post. We would be plainly visible to the media and would constitute a 
>highly
>visible embarrassment to the City officials. The police told us that we
>could not stay. Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short
>order, the police commander came across the street to address our group. He
>told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway
>and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined 
>up
>to take us out of the City. The crowed cheered and began to move. We called
>everyone back and explained to the commander that there had been lots of
>misinformation and wrong information and was he sure that there were buses
>waiting for us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically,
>"I swear to you that the buses are there."
>
>We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great
>excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the convention center, many 
>locals
>saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We
>told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few
>belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies 
>in
>strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers 
>and
>others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and 
>up
>the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did
>not dampen our enthusiasm.
>
>As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the
>foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing
>their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various
>directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched
>forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told
>them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's
>assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The
>commander had lied to us to get us to move.
>
>We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there
>was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank
>was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in
>their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are 
>not
>crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.
>
>Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the 
>rain
>under an overpass. We debated our options and in the end decided to build 
>an
>encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center
>divide, between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would 
>be
>visible to everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated
>freeway and we could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen
>buses.
>
>All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same
>trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned
>away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be
>verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented
>and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot. Meanwhile, the only
>two City shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair. The only way
>across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses,
>moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hotwired. All were 
>packed
>with people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had become.
>
>Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery 
>truck
>and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! A mile or so down the
>freeway, an army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight
>turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts. Now secure
>with the two necessities, food and water; cooperation, community, and
>creativity flowered. We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the
>rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a
>storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for
>privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even
>organized a food recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of
>C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!).
>
>This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When
>individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for
>yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids 
>or
>food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to 
>look
>out for each other, working together and constructing a community.
>
>If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water in
>the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness
>would not have set in.
>
>Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families
>and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 
>80
>or 90 people.
>
>>From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was
>talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news
>organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked
>what they were going to do about all those families living up on the
>freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us. Some 
>of
>us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.
>
>Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was
>correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his
>patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking
>freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow
>away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his 
>truck
>with our food and water.
>
>Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law
>enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed
>into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw 
>"mob"
>or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was
>impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.
>
>In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered
>once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought
>refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We 
>were
>hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were
>hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and
>shoot-to-kill policies.
>
>The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with New
>Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban 
>search
>and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch 
>a
>ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the
>limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large
>section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and
>were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.
>
>We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The
>airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of
>humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed
>briefly at the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a coast
>guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.
>
>There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort
>continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we 
>were
>forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses did not have
>air-conditioners. In the dark, hundreds if us were forced to share two
>filthy overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with any
>possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) we were
>subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches.
>
>Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been confiscated
>at the airport because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet, no 
>food
>had been provided to the men, women, children, elderly, disabled as they 
>sat
>for hours waiting to be "medically screened" to make sure we were not
>carrying any communicable diseases.
>
>This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt
>reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker 
>give
>her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us
>money and toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official relief
>effort was callous, inept, and racist.
>
>There was more suffering than need be.
>
>Lives were lost that did not need to be lost.
>
>
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