[altroots] Re: The story of 2 Tourists Paramedics trapped in New Orleans last wee k/On the Ground in New Orleans

Amigos, below is the account of two paramedic who were stranded tourists and 
had been involved in the Hotel Monteleone hiring of a fleet of private buses to 
get them out of New Orleans last week. I wrote about these buses that never 
came because they were confiscated by local authorities acting on "martial 
law." I managed to board a pirated stolen school bus that Wednesday night last 
week, but here is their account of how they faced abandonment in the chaos of 
New Orleans---where all civil order broke down and even authorities were not to 
be trusted. PLEASE CIRCULATE.
As such, I do not trust the authority of FEMA and the plans they have for our 
city. I want to return to rebuild. PLEASE help us demand that for the thousands 
of New Orleanians in exile who want to engage in re-building our beloved city. 
?Jose Torres Tama (poetafuego@xxxxxxxx)
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Rodger French here. Two paramedics attending a conference were trapped in New 
Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. This is their eyewitness report. Please pass it 
on.

Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences by Larry Bradshaw & Lorrie Beth Slonsky

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 at 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 encoun
 ters 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 crowd 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. Th
 e 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 past 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, heartfelt 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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