Robinsons
2005-09-09 10:22:36 UTC
...on the $45 buses.
The reality was much worse. (see article)
My unstated supposition about Gretna and why they didn't
evacuate anyone over the bridge (I've never been there,
so I wasn't about to make suppositions) confirmed. And
my stated supposition about pedestrians on the bridge.
Caveat: this is a partisan website, but the info is too
detailed to discount on that basis, I think.
No word on the identity of the Air Force Reserve pilot/
whistleblower. I must say her info, forwarding addresses
were fairly detailed. Anyone interested in going to media
could probably call her ex-CO and verify her identity.
I would not be surprised if my hometown mailing list has
yet to hear about the bystanders killed in the "shoot to
kill" update posted by Reuters this weekend.
Kind words about ordinary Texans.
Be sure and read the whole thing.
Oh yeah, and : "sheroes" - new word
------------- Original Article --------------
http://www.bushsamerica.com/index.php/2005/09/08/a_story_from_the_inside_new_orleans
Note: Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics from California that were
attending the EMS conference in New Orleans. Larry Bradshaw is the
chief shop steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790; and Lorrie
Beth Slonsky is steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790.
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, or 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 forklift 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 floodwaters. 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 newborn 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 of us were forced to hare 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.
The reality was much worse. (see article)
My unstated supposition about Gretna and why they didn't
evacuate anyone over the bridge (I've never been there,
so I wasn't about to make suppositions) confirmed. And
my stated supposition about pedestrians on the bridge.
Caveat: this is a partisan website, but the info is too
detailed to discount on that basis, I think.
No word on the identity of the Air Force Reserve pilot/
whistleblower. I must say her info, forwarding addresses
were fairly detailed. Anyone interested in going to media
could probably call her ex-CO and verify her identity.
I would not be surprised if my hometown mailing list has
yet to hear about the bystanders killed in the "shoot to
kill" update posted by Reuters this weekend.
Kind words about ordinary Texans.
Be sure and read the whole thing.
Oh yeah, and : "sheroes" - new word
------------- Original Article --------------
http://www.bushsamerica.com/index.php/2005/09/08/a_story_from_the_inside_new_orleans
Note: Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics from California that were
attending the EMS conference in New Orleans. Larry Bradshaw is the
chief shop steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790; and Lorrie
Beth Slonsky is steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790.
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, or 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 forklift 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 floodwaters. 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 newborn 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 of us were forced to hare 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.