xabre said:

I think he might have been referring to those that fill up large storage tanks of the stuff, there was a picture of one such person somewhere earlier in the thread.

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Phoenix said:

That's why they are called volunteers! Accept them, use them.

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'It just seems like black people are marked'
Scenes from the flooded Deep South recall the desperation of a bygone era

By Wil Haygood
The Washington Post
Updated: 7:57 a.m. ET Sept. 2, 2005

BATON ROUGE, La., - It seemed a desperate echo of a bygone era, a mass of desperate-looking black folk on the run in the Deep South. Some without shoes.

It was high noon Thursday at a rest stop on the edge of Baton Rouge when several buses pulled in, fresh from the calamity of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Hundreds piled out, dragging themselves as if floating through some kind of thick liquid. They were exhausted, some crying.

"It was like going to hell and back," said Bernadette Washington, 38, a black homemaker from Orleans Parish who had slept under a bridge the night before with her five children and her husband. She sighed the familiar refrain, stinging as an old-time blues note: "All I have is the clothes on my back. And I been sleeping in them for three days."

While hundreds of thousands of people have been dislocated by Hurricane Katrina, the images that have filled the television screens have been mainly of black Americans -- grieving, suffering, in some cases looting and desperately trying to leave New Orleans. Along with the intimate tales of family drama and survival being played out Thursday, there was no escaping that race had become a subtext to the unfolding drama of the hurricane's aftermath.

"To me," said Bernadette Washington, "it just seems like black people are marked. We have so many troubles and problems."

"After this," her husband, Brian Thomas, said, "I want to move my family to California."

He was holding his 2-year-old, Qadriyyah, in his left arm. On Thomas's right hand was a crude bandage. He had pushed the hand through a bedroom window on the night of the hurricane to get to one of his children.

"He had meat hanging off his hand," his wife said. They live -- lived -- on Bunker Hill Road in Orleans Parish, a mostly black section of New Orleans.

Time was running out
When the hurricane hit, Thomas, a truck driver, said he came home from work, looked at every one of the people he loves, and stood in the middle of the living room. Thinking. He's the Socrates in the family -- but time was running out.

"I only got a five-passenger car," he said.

"Chevy Cavalier," said his wife.

"And," Thomas continued, "I stood there, thinking. I said, 'Okay, it's 50-50 if the water will get through.' "

Within hours the water rose, and it kept rising.

"But then I said, 'If we do take the car, some of us would be sitting on one another's laps.' And the state troopers were talking about making arrests."

Instead, he pushed the kids out a window. They scooted to the roof, some pulling themselves up with an extension cord.

"The rain was pouring down so hard," Washington said. "And we had a 3-month-old and a 2-year-old."

The 3-month-old, Nadirah, was sleeping in her mother's arms. "All I had was water to give her," said Washington, her voice breaking, her other children sitting on the concrete putting talcum power inside their soaked sneakers. "She's premature," she went on, about the 3-month-old. "She came May 22. Was supposed to be here July 11. I had her early because I have high blood pressure. Had to have her by C-section."

Bernadette Washington was suddenly worried about her blood pressure medicine. She reached inside her purse. "Look," she said. "All the pills are stuck together."

Both parents had been thinking about the hurricane, the aftermath, the looting, the politicians who might come to Louisiana and who might not. And their own holding-on lives, now jangly like bedsprings suddenly snapped.

"It says there'll come a time you can't hide. I'm talking about people. From each other," Bernadette Washington said.

Thomas, the philosopher, waved his bandaged hand. He had a theory: "God's angry with New Orleans. It's an evil city. The worst school system anywhere. Rampant crime. Corrupt politicians. Here, baby, have a potato chip for daddy."

The 2-year-old, Qadriyyah, took a chip from her daddy and gobbled it up. Her face was covered with mosquito bites. But she smiled just to be in daddy's arms.

Thomas continued: "A predominantly black city -- and they're killing each other. God had to get their attention with a calamity. New Orleans ain't seen an earthquake yet. You can get away from a hurricane but not an earthquake. Next time, nobody may get out."

A little hero
In the middle of the storm, little Ernest Washington, 9, had grown into a hero.

Washington and Thomas consider Ernest, Bernadette's nephew, their own now. They adopted him after his mother, Donna Marie Washington, died not long ago of AIDS.

"She was a runaway," said Washington, able to sound sorrowful for the child even in her current straits. "She had run away when she was 14. We don't know how she got the AIDS."

While Thomas was figuring his family's fate that first night, little Ernest bolted to the rooftop.

He had fashioned a white flag on a piece of stick, and began waving. "That is one courageous boy," Thomas said.

A helicopter passed them by. A National Guard unit passed them by.

"Black National Guard unit, too," piped in Warren Carter, Washington's brother-in-law.

In the South, the issue of race -- black, white -- always seems as ready to come rolling off the tongue as a summer whistle. A black Guard unit, passing them by. Something Carter won't soon forget.

Before long the whole family, watching the water rise, made it to the roof. Three men in a boat -- "two black guys and an Arab," Washington said -- rode by and left some food on the roof of a van parked nearby. Ernest went and retrieved the food.

"A little hustler he is," Thomas said.

"Child [is] something else," Washington said.

'Racism ain't everywhere'
It took two days for a helicopter to fetch them. They were delivered not to some kind of shelter, but to a patch of land beneath a freeway.

"I thought we were going to die out there," Bernadette Washington said. "We had to sleep on the ground. Use the bathroom in front of each other. Laying on that ground, I just couldn't take it. I felt like Job."

Then, somehow, a bus, and then Baton Rouge. At that moment, a lady -- white -- came by the rest stop and handed her some baby items.

"Bless you," Washington said.

That exchange forced something from Warren Carter: "White man came up to me little while ago and offered me some money. I said thank you, but no thanks. I got money to hold us over. But it does go to show you that racism ain't everywhere."

Under the hot sun, Brian Thomas was staring into an expanse of open air. They expected another relative to arrive soon and assist them in continuing their exodus.

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DarienA said:

I don't know how much more breaking my heart can do over these continue stories that come in...

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AB 101 said:

Wonderful.

Football over humanitarian aid.

Not real proud right now.

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ToxicAdam said:

Football games generate millions of dollars to the local economy. It's not just about football really .. people's livelihood's depend on those games.

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Hyoushi said:

Video of some cops looting in Walmart

"I'm looking for looters!"

:lol :lol :lol :lol

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ToxicAdam said:

Football games generate millions of dollars to the local economy. It's not just about football really .. people's livelihood's depend on those games.

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Ferrio said:

"Looking foward to my trip down there" -- Bush

....why would any sane person word it that way.

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wobedraggled said:

FUCK THE MONEY!

HUMAN LIFE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>$$$

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ToxicAdam said:

It is true .. but there are other solutions besides using Reliant stadium. So, why disrupt a local economy, if you don't have to?

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It is reported that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive. Four days after the storm, thousands of blacks in New Orleans are dying like dogs. No-one has come to help them.

I am a sixty-four year old African-American.

New Orleans marks the end of the America I strove for.

I am hopeless. I am sad. I am angry against my country for doing nothing when it mattered.

This is what we have come to. This defining watershed moment in America’s racial history. For all the world to witness. For those who’ve been caused to listen for a lifetime to America’s ceaseless hollow bleats about democracy. For Christians, Jews and Muslims at home and abroad. For rich and poor. For African-American soldiers fighting in Iraq. For African-Americans inside the halls of officialdom and out.

My hand shakes with anger as I write. I, the formerly un-jaundiced human rights advocate, have finally come to see my country for what it really is. A monstrous fraud.
But what can I do but write about how I feel. How millions, black like me, must feel at this, the lowest moment in my country’s story.

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Three days ago, police and national guard troops told citizens to head toward the Crescent City Connection Bridge to await transportation out of the area. The citizens trekked over to the Convention Center and waited for the buses which they were told would take them to Houston or Alabama or somewhere else, out of this area.

It's been 3 days, and the buses have yet to appear.

Although obviously he has no exact count, he estimates more than 10,000 people are packed into and around and outside the convention center still waiting for the buses. They had no food, no water, and no medicine for the last three days, until today, when the National Guard drove over the bridge above them, and tossed out supplies over the side crashing down to the ground below. Much of the supplies were destroyed from the drop. Many people tried to catch the supplies to protect them before they hit the ground. Some offered to walk all the way around up the bridge and bring the supplies down, but any attempt to approach the police or national guard resulted in weapons being aimed at them.

There are many infants and elderly people among them, as well as many people who were injured jumping out of windows to escape flood water and the like -- all of them in dire straights.

Any attempt to flag down police results in being told to get away at gunpoint. Hour after hour they watch buses pass by filled with people from other areas. Tensions are very high, and there has been at least one murder and several fights. 8 or 9 dead people have been stored in a freezer in the area, and 2 of these dead people are kids.

The people are so desperate that they're doing anything they can think of to impress the authorities enough to bring some buses. These things include standing in single file lines with the eldery in front, women and children next; sweeping up the area and cleaning the windows and anything else that would show the people are not barbarians.

The buses never stop.

Before the supplies were pitched off the bridge today, people had to break into buildings in the area to try to find food and water for their families. There was not enough. This spurred many families to break into cars to try to escape the city. There was no police response to the auto thefts until the mob reached the rich area -- Saulet Condos -- once they tried to get cars from there... well then the whole swat teams began showing up with rifles pointed. Snipers got on the roof and told people to get back.

He reports that the conditions are horrendous. Heat, mosquitoes and utter misery. The smell, he says, is "horrific."

He says it's the slowest mandatory evacuation ever, and he wants to know why they were told to go to the Convention Center area in the first place; furthermore, he reports that many of them with cell phones have contacts willing to come rescue them, but people are not being allowed through to pick them up.

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AB 101 said:

Wonderful.

Football over humanitarian aid.

Not real proud right now.

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ToxicAdam said:

It's not just about football really .. people's livelihood's depend on those games.

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DarienA said:

I finally watched the video of the man describing to the reporter how he couldn't hold on to his wife.. "She told me, 'You can't hold me, ... take care of the kids and the grandkids," he said, sobbing."

That shit brought tears to my eyes... fuck it I'm not ashamed to admit that... that shit brought tears to my eyes.

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DarienA said:

I finally watched the video of the man describing to the reporter how he couldn't hold on to his wife.. "She told me, 'You can't hold me, ... take care of the kids and the grandkids," he said, sobbing."

That shit brought tears to my eyes... fuck it I'm not ashamed to admit that... that shit brought tears to my eyes.

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ConfusingJazz said:

They did a follow up on him that was on cnn, i didn't catch all of it, but he still hasn't found his wife.

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OmniGamer said:

They said they found her body, and they(CNN) offered to drive him to where the body was, but they were stopped...the guy said something about only people from Biloxi are allowed to enter Biloxi, or something...don't quote me on that part, but bottom line is he wasn't able to go identify the body as of yet.

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pulsemyne said:

As a brit I can only say this is terrable stuff and it just shows that America needs to wake up to the fact that this is a disaster of its own making. The current administration had the time and opertunity to repair and strengthen the defences around NO but instead pissed its money up the wall on a pointless war and on pointless military projects. Hell this is a country that spends more on a sports star than on its defences to protect thousands of lives. There is something wrong on a fundimental level with a country that does that (I included my own country in this judegment but at least we are at the mercy of mother nature to the degree that america is). Prehaps this will lead to a revaluation of priorities within american society and societies the world over. Lets hope so for all our sakes.

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pulsemyne said:

The current administration had the time and opertunity to repair and strengthen the defences around NO but instead pissed its money up the wall on a pointless war and on pointless military projects.

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Hell this is a country that spends more on a sports star than on its defences to protect thousands of lives.

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SteveMeister said:

This post is an example of how someone from outside the United States can't really comprehend how things are here.

The United States is an immense country. It is divided into states, each of which has its own level of self-government, and indeed the form of each state government varies. The Federal government has responsibilities regarding the national economy, interpreting and upholding the Constitution, and national defense, but the state and local governments are the ones who decide what projects are required and to what level.

It was the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans' respective government officials' collective responsibility to make sure the levees were what they needed to be, not the federal governments.

The federal government can help to fund these efforts, but it's up to localities to make sure the projects get done.

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pulsemyne said:

I simply do not understand why the american public isn't demand for resignations of the the president and his disaster relief agency staff.

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pulsemyne said:

Oh come on they cut the budget for the defence system

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ToxicAdam said:

What?



Hunh?

Maybe you would be better informed if you were making comments about your own country. (But I doubt it)

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pulsemyne said:

As a brit I can only say this is terrable stuff and it just shows that America needs to wake up to the fact that this is a disaster of its own making. The current administration had the time and opertunity to repair and strengthen the defences around NO but instead pissed its money up the wall on a pointless war and on pointless military projects. Hell this is a country that spends more on a sports star than on its defences to protect thousands of lives. There is something wrong on a fundimental level with a country that does that (I included my own country in this judegment but at least we are at the mercy of mother nature to the degree that america is). Prehaps this will lead to a revaluation of priorities within american society and societies the world over. Lets hope so for all our sakes.

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pulsemyne said:

Oh come on they cut the budget for the defence system and took troops away for NO and sent them to iraq. This disaster has been predicted for a VERY LONG TIME and the system put in place by the local government and the main government has been utter torn to shreds. As was said above, if heaven forbid there was to be another major attack then based on the planning shown in this disaster there will be a major loss of life becuase the whole disaster responce system is poorly equiped to cope with such a disaster. I simply do not understand why the american public isn't demand for resignations of the the president and his disaster relief agency staff.

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DarienA said:

For myself I'll say that I don't think that would be a good idea right NOW because that would accomplish nothing except putting another stutter in the sputtering relief as it is.... I damn sure hope that later in the coming days and weeks that people do start making strong demands of our gov't for an explanation.

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Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

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pulsemyne said:

So because I'm not from american I can't comment on what a mess this whole situation is? I happen to know what I'm talking about when it comes to the matter of storms and hurricanes and just how powerful they can be and this WAS PREDICTED years in advance, this storm was well tracked and very well predicted for at least 3 days in advance. The defences were not ready for a strong storm and they should have been ready!. 3 FUCKING DAYS in advance !. The army should have been mobilised and ready to go. In cuba, when there is a major hurricane on the way, the army goes house to house and places the people on trucks and gets them to safety.

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DarienA said:

For myself I'll say that I don't think that would be a good idea right NOW because that would accomplish nothing except putting another stutter in the sputtering relief as it is.... I damn sure hope that later in the coming days and weeks that people do start making strong demands of our gov't for an explanation.

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pulsemyne said:

So because I'm not from american I can't comment on what a mess this whole situation is? I happen to know what I'm talking about when it comes to the matter of storms and hurricanes and just how powerful they can be and this WAS PREDICTED years in advance, this storm was well tracked and very well predicted for at least 3 days in advance. The defences were not ready for a strong storm and they should have been ready!. 3 FUCKING DAYS in advance !. The army should have been mobilised and ready to go. In cuba, when there is a major hurricane on the way, the army goes house to house and places the people on trucks and gets them to safety.

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SteveMeister said:

I'm not disagreeing with all of what you're saying -- but New Orleans' problems and vulnerabilities long predate the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. The slow response to aid IS directly attributable to Bush's destruction of FEMA (sucking it into the Homeland Security Administration and shifting its focus to preventing terrorist attacks.)

That the flooding happened had nothing to do with the Bush administration. The horrifyingly slow response to it did.

And while I'd love to see Bush resign or Congress move to impeach him, I don't see either happening. The Bush administration will never admit it was wrong about ANYTHING, it'll just shift the blame to others.

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LONDON (Reuters) - The world has watched amazed as the planet's only superpower struggles with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with some saying the chaos has exposed flaws and deep divisions in American society.

World leaders and ordinary citizens have expressed sympathy with the people of the southern United States whose lives were devastated by the hurricane and the flooding that followed.

[...]

The pictures of the catastrophe -- which has killed hundreds and possibly thousands -- have evoked memories of crises in the world's poorest nations such as last year's tsunami in Asia, which left more than 230,000 people dead or missing.

But some view the response to those disasters more favorably than the lawless aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"I am absolutely disgusted. After the tsunami our people, even the ones who lost everything, wanted to help the others who were suffering," said Sajeewa Chinthaka, 36, as he watched a cricket match in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

"Not a single tourist caught in the tsunami was mugged. Now with all this happening in the U.S. we can easily see where the civilized part of the world's population is."

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ToxicAdam said:

1) FEMA and the Army do not "prepare" for disasters. They have guidelines in place to react when disasters occur when called upon. Its up to the states to make sure thier National Guard is prepared to answer.

2) if you knew so much about hurricanes .. you would realize that you can not "prepare" for them in the same way you do a winter storm. You get the fuck out of town .. then come back and try to clean up the mess. So, even in your fairy tale scenerio .. what was the "army" supposed to do? Bury themselves in the ground then spring forward once the hurricane passed?

.

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