[amc] FW: [ssf] FW: [spiritof1848] Eyewitness report - the truth from the other side
- From: Steve Friesen <Friesen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Austin Mennonite Church <amc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2005 10:56:36 -0500
I know there are lots of articles floating around about the hurricane and I
don¹t usually send them on to lists. But I think this one communicates a
lot that we don¹t hear about the extra indignities suffered by the victims
of Katrina.
Steve
> FWD:
>
> -----
>
> Subject: FW: [spiritof1848] Eyewitness report - the truth from the other side
> Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2005 10:31:40 -0400
> Message-ID: <1C91B5FF3787F14A907F9C7E7ACA2911037EB0B9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> From: "Mitchell, Faith" <FMitchell@xxxxxxx>
> To: "Ruben Rumbaut" <rrumbaut@xxxxxxx>
>
> Rubén, please let others in your network know more about New Orleans
> atrocities related to race and class that the media didn't cover.
>
> Faith
>
>
> Two friends of mine--paramedics attending a conference--were trapped in
> New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. This is their eyewitness report. --PG
>
>
> Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences
>
> 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 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.
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
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