The Steep and Thorny Way to Heaven
Christ. It keeps getting worse. If this account is reliable – it’s hair-raising.
Two paramedics, in New Orleans for a convention of emergency medical people, stuck in a hotel that ran out of food and water and on the fourth day, turned them out and locked the doors.
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.
Oh. Okay. So they along with a lot of other refugees from hotels decided to pitch a camp outside the police station. The police were not pleased, and told the campers to go to the bridge over the river, where there were buses lined up waiting to evacuate people. Hurrah – so off they went. They passed the convention center, where a lot of people asked where they were going, and, upon being told, joined the march to escape.
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.
Well now – that’s what I call rescue.
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…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.
Is this common knowledge? That the bridge was actually blocked? By law-enforcement people firing guns? Is it true? I know at one point on Friday the mayor wanted to get everyone at the convention center to walk out via that bridge – and that that wasn’t possible for everyone because it is two or three miles and there is a steep climb to get up to it, so older, sicker, weaker, and disabled people and the people who stayed with them wouldn’t be able to. But nothing was said about people with guns blocking the way! Christ almighty.
Things don’t get better, either.
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…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 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.
Then they have what Barbara Bush thinks must be such a thrill for all those ‘underprivileged’ people – they make it to paradisical Texas. Where ‘the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort continued.’ I can’t stand to quote any more of it, it’s too sickening.
You can’t help but feel that the stories are just going to get worse as people get out to tell them.
And this one is worse by orders of magnitude – because it’s not just disorganization, or inability to move around because of damaged roads and bridges, or bureaucracy and red tape – this is miserable bastards with guns not letting people get out. It’s staggering. I hope the major media look into it promptly, because I don’t even know if the report is reliable.
There’s a lot of commentary blaming the victims for their helplessness and stupidity (check out the comments sections of blogs like Harry’s Place). The disdain and callousness stridently rightwing freepers show towards the victims borders on racism, the way I have read it so far.
I hope eyewitness accounts like the one you linked to get out there into the public domain and help ordinary Americans realise just what their fellow citizens in New Orleans were really up against.
Disdain and callousness and sheer boneheaded stupidity. What were people supposed to do if they didn’t have cars??
Well, too many accounts told by non-resident types who have just gotten out of NO – foreign tourists for eg- sound too much alike! Officials on the ground appear to have not just fucked up but also been callous brutes.
However the EMS story does recount many acts of heroism amongst ordinary people. First time I have come across the word ‘sheroes’ though. Took me a while to get it!
ok ,they were feckless enough not to own cars, but why didn’t the lazy bastards just get off their fat asses and just walk? Eh?
Best of all: Why did they ever choose to live where they lived? C’mon, the city of NO was just a no-brainer, right?
“The disdain and callousness stridently rightwing freepers show towards the victims borders on racism.”
Borders on racism? Hell, these creeps have gone deep in country and taken up permanent residence there.
“Best of all: Why did they ever choose to live where they lived?”
Hell, Michael Chertoff, the head of DHS, said night before last that this whole mess would never have happened if they hadn’t built New Orleans where they did. I guess, strictly speaking, that’s true. So I suppose we should, all 280 million of us, crowd onto those few patches of land that are geologically stable, far from large bodies of water, and not in the path of hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, and other recurring meteorological phenomena. What does that leave us? Nevada and Arizona?
Besides which, as people keep pointing out, N.O. is where it is because it’s a port. We need a port at the mouth of the Mississippi. That port ships most of the grain the US produces, so it’s not something that can just be replaced as one might replace a torn shirt.
That’s not to say that it’s never appropriate to say ‘if you want to live in that spot you’ll have to pay for repairs yourself.’ Seattle has a lot of very vulnerable spots at the bottom or top of steep cliffs where rich people build waterside houses or clifftop houses, and then expect the city to compensate them when the houses fall into Puget Sound. And there are all those expensive houses on the Jersey shore, twenty feet from the beach. But that’s different.
“…as people keep pointing out, N.O. is where it is because it’s a port. We need a port at the mouth of the Mississippi. That port ships most of the grain the US produces, so it’s not something that can just be replaced as one might replace a torn shirt.”
Okay, but surely we can heed Chertoff’s sound advice and move almost everybody in America to some rocky outcropping in the middle of Nevada and just keep a port in N.O. for unloading all that grain, plus a freight train to transport it to the rest of us 280 million, who will be perched on that rocky outcropping. Just keep a few hundred expendable people (you know who) in a few of these port places so they can send us the stuff we need.
Or are actually suggesting that Chertoff is an ass?
Move to Nevada and dodge the bomb tests and their residue?
Not to mention that stuff they’re going to shove underneath Yucca Mountain.
No, I’m afraid it’s Oklahoma for the likes of us.
Ain’t that tornado country, though? Fuck it, I’m moving back to New Orleans.
A disgusting story, but fits my experience in small-scale disasters such as bushfires; basically you can sum it up as shit happens and people will get unhappy for good reason.
I note that the quotes selected missed the part where INDIVIDUAL texans were kind and generous; the official lack of caring and sharing attitudes is not universal.
Note the good parts; people got together and did good, which is heroism in each ordinary person. I really admire these people, and the official relief just messed it up – yet that would happen anyway.
“There’s a lot of commentary blaming the victims for their helplessness and stupidity (check out the comments sections of blogs like Harry’s Place). The disdain and callousness stridently rightwing freepers show towards the victims borders on racism, the way I have read it so far.”
My partner has the rather sweet idea that most of this is just cognitive dissonance, the haven’t yet come to terms with the monumental fuck-up by -their- government.
Karl “What does that leave us? Nevada and Arizona”
‘Arizona Bay’ – Bill Hicks predicted this one day will be a fantastic real estate opportunity right after California has sunk into the Pacific…
“‘Arizona Bay’ – Bill Hicks predicted this one day will be a fantastic real estate opportunity right after California has sunk into the Pacific…”
Yeah, but hasn’t Lex Luther already bought it all?
Ophelia – in answer to the question you raise, I recall that the reporter on the bridge in that Fox News report was explaining to Geraldo that the people in the Superdome couldn’t ‘just walk’ away because the bridge was blocked at the other end and anybody who tried to get across was being turned back.
The blockers were probably sensible enough to realise that it wasn’t a good idea to shoot guns at poor people until Fox News had moved on.
ChrisM – this is no time for levity.
basically you can sum it up as shit happens and people will get unhappy for good reason…the official relief just messed it up – yet that would happen anyway.
– ChrisPer
What does this even mean? That we should simply accept gross incompetence and official callousness and misconduct, that we shouldn’t even try to remedy the situation? Just shrug and think happy thoughts? What a bizarre suggestion.
Blame-game aside, does anyone think it is wise to have had (and now rebuild?) a city which is substantially below sea level? and sinking? New Orleans seems to me to be one of those geographic errors compounded by massive Federal subsidies through the Corps of Engineers over the past 70 years.
Problem: Do we encourage people to move back into New Orleans prior to flood-proofing it?
Yes, this is a trick question as by all accounts it will take a decade or so at least to rebuild the wetlands at the mouth of the Mississippi and/or to redesign/rebuild the levees. So what do we do in the meantime? Do we allow people to move back in and again be vulnerable to fatal floods?
Of course if you keep people from moving back in for years (or even months, I’d bet) you force people to put down roots in wherever they landed and so who are we rebuilding it for? Some real issues here.
I hope we can get over the blame-game ASAP (and I don’t mean by allowing incompetence and worse to go unnoticed/unpunished) so that we can think about what really should we do about New Orleans.
Thanks, Chris W – so part of that story has been reported, that’s interesting. I really wonder if more will get on the record.
David, no, I (for one) don’t think it’s wise to build a city below sea level. But there seems to be a real problem about the port! I have no idea what the solution is though. A much smaller, stronger, higher N.O., all on concrete pilings? (I’ve been meaning to get to City Comforts and see what your take is – will do that now.)
Ophelia, you make my point for me; local organization in Louisiana is worse than deplorable.
From the Gretna LA Home Page:
“The City of Gretna Police Department’s mission is to prevent crime and maintain order while affording dignity and respect to all individuals; to protect lives and property while safe guarding constitutional guarantees, committed to the delivery of police services in the most efficient, fairest, responsive and ethical manner possible to impartially enforce all laws and ordinances, while enhancing the quality of life for all citizens through….
Chief Arthur S. Lawson, Jr.”
The site lists 7 or 8 support links. Snap on EMS and you will get, “Page Not Found”, similarly with all other pages.
Louisiana in a nutshell, institutions that are window dressing, and material self-interest defended at the point of a gun.
Hurricane Georges in September 1998 raised all the same issues in New Orleans as Katrina, use of school buses to evacuate inner city people (they weren’t), the effectiveness of the Superdome as a shelter (disastrous), timely evacuation order (none given.)
Not all problems related to Katrina break easily into a left-right dichotomy. Some do, but not all. Insisting this disaster is a matter of “lack of leadership at the top” exclusively obscures gaping deficiencies at the bottom.
“Local organization in Louisiana is worse than deplorable.”
I don’t think anyone will deny that, except maybe the mayor’s office.
“Insisting this disaster is a matter of “lack of leadership at the top” exclusively obscures gaping deficiencies at the bottom.”
Who, aside from the local officials themselves, has been insisting that local officials don’t share responsibility? The relief effort was quite clearly a monumental fuck-up from top to bottom, from the White House, FEMA, and DHS down to the mayor and police department. Heads will roll, as well they should.
“I hope we can get over the blame-game ASAP (and I don’t mean by allowing incompetence and worse to go unnoticed/unpunished)….”
Yes, blame game seems to be the GOP’s newest catch-phrase, and I can certainly see why Bush, Cheney, Chertoff, and Brown are using it every five minutes. But it’s hard to see how we can “notice and punish the incompetence and worse” without assigning blame. Nor is it too early to start asking very tough questions and to be very skeptical about the official answers.
On the other ‘and: Let’s not bicker and argue about ‘oo killed ‘oo.
This story has turned up in some major and quasi-major media now – a column in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Guardian’s blog. Apparently the Gretna police chief has said quite frankly that yes, he did send cops to block the bridge.
And the doors of the Triangle Shirt Factory were bolted shut – so that the pesky workers couldn’t take toilet breaks. So it goes.
As you say, it just gets worse.
A side comment: I dislike the expression “blame game”. After something like this it is absolutely essential that who did what be establshed and responsibility/blame placed where it belongs. One of the lessons to be learned is that in a crisis people sholud behave in a humane fashion.
And that should get down to individuals and not fobbed off as a “system failure”.
A similar situation over here – the rail authorities were at fault for the Hatfield crash but, somehow, none of the managers were.
How can that possibly be the case? Either they were managing it, in which case they were incompetent, or they weren’t, in which case they were useless. Is it a side effect of the ‘victim culture’ where no individual is ever responsible for their actions?
‘Borders on racism? Hell, these creeps have gone deep in country and taken up permanent residence there.’
I didn’t feel the case was so clear- cut until today, when I had more time to read/watch/listen to some American media that I do not normally access.
Whoa, there are really ugly racist bastards out there!
You can start with Limbaugh wannabe Mark Williams – who called Kanye West a Klansman in blackface.
Limbaugh’s oh-so-funny take on Mayor Nagin’s name- Nayger- probably had the racist freepers chortling gleefully.
Sure, some will argue that these are the extremist shockjocks but they do have something very much in common with the more subtle freepers : a constant emphasis on the victims’ supposed stupidity and criminality. Sounds familiar?
How tragic for America that race provokes such visceral responses still.
“Limbaugh’s oh-so-funny take on Mayor Nagin’s name- Nayger”
Jeezis. That surprises even me.
Ok, it may have been an innocent trip of the tongue but I am done with giving rightwing assholes the benefit of doubt.
Like that ‘innocent’ trip of the tongue when whoever it was called Barney Frank ‘Barney Fag’. That’s odd, Barney Frank said, because no one has ever called my mother ‘Mrs Fag.’
I think the Triangle Fire comparisons are a little unfounded — a lot of people are claiming this as a blow against small government libertarianism, but there are a few problems with that:
First, most ACTUAL libertarians (as opposed to straw-man caricatures) will tell you that disaster preparation and relief are perfectly valid functions of government — they are both public goods in the basic sense of having low marginal costs to protect each additional person, and high exclusion costs (like the price of defending the whole country EXCEPT your house.) These are goods that individuals will not rationally choose to purchase (essentially assuming that someone else will pay for it if they don’t), but which are nevertheless demonstrably necessary for all — and so the government must force people to pay for them, through taxation. Libertarians are aware of the existence of such essential government functions, and consider them a necessary evil, to be minimized but not eliminated. So to say this is a blow against libertarianism fundamentally misunderstands the term.
Second, to consider this an indictment of small government, you have to believe that there’s ANY impetus to shrink government from our current administration. Where’s the proof? The ever-increasing non-defense discretionary spending? The new Medicare drug entitlement program? The ruinously expensive war in Iraq? This administration talks libertarian, but when the time comes to stand up for free markets, they would rather pander to their steel and lumber contributors with new protectionist tariffs. If this is small government, then the cause is already lost.
“This administration talks libertarian, but when the time comes to stand up for free markets, they would rather pander to their steel and lumber contributors with new protectionist tariffs. If this is small government, then the cause is already lost.”
Actually, what it is is cronyism. It’s the worst of both worlds: essential public services are gutted and fat juicy government contracts (paid for by your tax dollars) go to George & Dick’s buddies, who fuck up the works at ten times the usual cost.
Exactly. I mean, I sort of agree with you, Paul – I’m not a libertarian or a free-marketeer (in the sense of thinking the free market is the best solution to all problems), but I can see some virtues in both – but we don’t get those! We get ‘libertarianism until it produces results we don’t like at which point we revert to protecting and rewarding our pals’. Libertarianism as long as it’s Other People paying the price and cronyism the rest of the time.
Simon Schama’s piece in today’s Guardian is interesting. He predicts a (strong)backlash for the Republican government and sees the Katrina catastrophe as having the potential for positive and maybe, far-reaching, change in American government/society.
Cornel West’s theory about Black America being ripe for a groundbreaking change – he thinks such happens every 30-40 years- is also interesting but he doesn’t know where the leadership for such, on the scale of a MLK, will spring from. Schama’s note about Colin Powell’s sudden visibility is intriguing but I personally do not see that man having the inclination nor the guts for that task.
I would hope for Schama to be right but remain cynical. Katrina’s shock will wear off especially if the body count remains low.Like Dick Morris predicts, once the rehabilitation money starts flowing in, it will help to smooth over anger….