2005-09-06 20:01:05 (UTC)

how pathetic is our government?

I found this story in another diary I hope they dont mind I 
copied it to pass it on....





A Katrina Story

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 of 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 poured 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 been 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, 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 trick 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.