Mysteries, Chemtrails, Aerosols :: Mysterious NZ New Zealand based Discussion Forums The strange & mysterious, archaeological anomalies, modern oddities... Current affairs, health & medical issues, Aerosol Spraying in NZ... ...and general interest: ARCHIVES
Joined: 05 Nov 2003
Posts: 387
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 10:04 am Post Subject: New Orleans Disaster - A Must Read
Hi all,
We’ve just been forwarded this very moving first hand experience of the horrors faced by some Katrina survivors. It’s not the sort of stuff we’ll get to read in the mainstream media – or in any George Bush fronted inquiry into the Louisiana disaster. A must read, it has the ring of truth about it…
Quote:
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 windows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yoghurt, 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 floodwaters. 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 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 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. 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 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 @$#&!!* 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.
Joel Stillerman, PhD
Assistant Professor Dept. of Sociology
Grand Valley State University
2166 AuSable Hall
Allendale, MI 49401
Because of the wildly erratic world weather patterns, together with the predicted changes to the New Zealand climate, weather pundits such as Dr Jim Salinger of NIWA are warning that we should prepare for more severe storms. Storms of a magnitude that we've never experienced before in this country are going to happen - it's not a matter of if, rather of when.
Low-lying coastal cities are particularly vulnerable. So, while the New Orleans disaster was exacerbated by much of the city being below water level, and we don't have that particular situation anywhere here, a similar devastation could, and probably will occur. Remember Cyclone Tracey that devastated Darwin in 1974? They'd never had such a storm before and thus buildings had been constructed based on what they knew. Just like here. The leaky buildings saga is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to flimsy construction standards in this country. And as for disaster preparedness, forget it. You'll be basically on your own, just like Joel Stillerman...
Quote:
Vital Statistics of Cyclone Tracy
Size
Gales extended to about 40 km from centre
Diameter of eye
About 12 km at Darwin
Maximum Wind Gust
217 km/h before anemometer ceased functioning
Central Pressure
950 hectopascals
Storm Surge
1.6 metres measured in harbour, 4 metres estimated at Casuarina Beach
Rainfall
255 mm in 12 hours overnight
Death Toll
65 people
Injuries
145 serious injuries, over 500 with minor injuries
Number of Houses Destroyed
About 70% of houses with serious structural failure
Total Damage Bill
Up to $800 million (1974 Aust$s)
Joined: 22 Feb 2004
Posts: 140
Location: Auckland, NZ
Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2005 1:00 pm Post Subject:
Hi John,
I've just read the account you posted by Dr. Joel Stillerman. Although horrifying, it does as you point out have the ring of truth about it.
Wary of possible misinformation, I visited the website of Grand Valley State University and was able to verify that Dr Joel Stillerman in indeed a member of faculty at the Department of Sociology there.
I am left incredulous at the callousness of the police and sheriff's. Particularly in preventing people from evacuating the city when the populous had in fact been ordered to do just that.
I suggest that after reading the Joel Stillerman piece, visitors to this forum should read Melody's posting from Scoop by Anton Hughs (New Zealand looking to join the ranks of the World Police State).
Reading the link you just posted John it certainly sounds like history repeating itself. I wasn't aware that the National Guard was also around at that time.
Reading something else recently of a survivor from Hurricane Andrew in Florida1992, there was similar horrendous story about the official response from a FEMA convoy. No doubt there we many more that were never reported.
Quote:
About three days after the hurricane had devastated the region, she said that a long line of police cars, about 12 to 15, arrived in her area. Each car was driven by a man dressed in a dark police uniform and they had three other plain clothes men riding as passengers, she said. K.T. had a broken jaw, eight teeth knocked out and huge pieces of glass embedded in her body that only a scalpel could remove. She begged this FEMA convoy for help and this was the exchange that followed, as described by K.T. in Where Heavens Meet.
“Please Sir, I need medical help,” I begged, barely able to speak. The officer sitting behind the wheel sighed heavily. He turned his head away from me and gazed out his windshield. The other three men in the car quietly looked at me. “Please Sir, I need to get to a hospital,” I begged franticly. The officer took his time about reaching over and switching off the engine. With another sigh, he slowly opened the door and climbed out. He then proceeded to close the door and stood there with his legs astride.
“Lady, do me a favour,” he answered. “Find yourself a piece of paper and a pencil. Write down your name and social security number next to the phone number of your nearest living relative. Tuck the piece of paper in your pocket so tomorrow, when I find your body, I’ll know who to contact.”
“No! No!” I cried out. “You don’t understand. I need to get to a hospital. I’ve been badly injured.”
“No! You’re the one that doesn’t understand,” he hissed back.
“With that, he reached over to his holster and took out his gun. He grabbed me, forcing me up against the side of the car, and proceeded to put the barrel of the gun against my temple. I heard the hammer cock. From the position he had pushed me into, I could see directly into the car. The man sitting in the front passenger seat looked away from me immediately, glancing down to the floor. The two passengers in the back turned their heads quickly, staring out the window on the other side of the car. My son and the other survivor watched as the officer had pulled back the hammer on his gun. So shocked out of their minds by what they were witnessing, neither one could move!
“You don’t belong here!” the officer growled, pressing the barrel into the side of my head. “Now you get the hell outta here before I blow away your ass!”
“He shoved my face into the car window and then released me. Someone grabbed me from behind and whirled me around so fast I didn’t have time to think! Before I knew it, I was being thrown over a shoulder. My rescuer took off running as fast as he could! I caught a brief glimpse of my son running next to me. With one gigantic leap, he and the survivor who carried me down behind a pile of debris. All three of us crashed on top of each other in one tangled up heap.
“I’ll shoot your damn asses!” the officer’s voice rang out.”
Makes you wonder what these officials have done to become as cold and heartless as this :!: Or is it just an attitude and culture that has become exacerbated through the years...
You can actually download the book that this exerpt was taken from free as a PDF here:
I too was trying to figure out why the people were treated so harshly. I came across a couple of articles about the main University being destroyed. Apparently they had a LEVEL 3 bio containment laboratory there which contained some particularly nasty virus samples for research. If there is a possibilty of those samples having entered the environment you would want to seal it all down. That doesnt explain why a helicpoter couldnt drop some food and water to the people. I have also come across several articles about the levee being blown on purpose and about the army dive teams who are repairing the levee finding blackened rocks beneath the breach. Dont you love the internet :D
An absolutely shocking account in your post above.
Here is another shocker from a Doctor who was ordered by a FEMA Official to stop treating victims because he did not have the appropriate FEMA credentials. As a result one victim subsequently died.
To my mind this is tantamount to manslaughter.
Quote:
'I could have saved her life but was denied permission'
By Toby Harnden in New Orlean
(Filed: 18/09/2005)
Refugees from New Orleans died after private doctors were ordered to stop giving treatment because they were not covered by United States government medical liability insurance, according to two American surgeons.
Mark N Perlmutter, an orthapædic surgeon from Pennsylvania, was told by a senior US Coast Guard officer representing the embattled Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) that he must leave the overstretched disaster relief hospital at New Orleans airport.
He had applied a chest compression after a female patient died and was turning to another critically ill woman at the triage reception area on the airport tarmac when he was summoned to see Capt Art French, the doctor in charge of the hospital.
"The other lady was in equally bad shape and I was not able to work on her. When I went back afterward to get my supplies they were taking her body to a store where the deceased were being placed.
"It's absolutely possible I would have saved her life but I was denied permission to try." An estimated 20 to 30 patients died at the temporary hospital that day.
Dr Perlmutter arrived with Clark Gerhart, a surgeon colleague, and Alison Torrens, from Co Antrim, a medical student at Aberdeen University. All three had volunteered their services free of charge.
It was five days after Hurricane Katrina had struck but all three were struck by the sense of chaos. "It was like something out of a film," said Miss Torrens. "I couldn't believe I was in the middle of America. There were people lying on the luggage racks. Every single patient was in a pool of urine or had soiled themselves."
The surgeons said that the medical staff there had welcomed their arrival and needed trained doctors.
"They were just swamped," said Dr Gerhart. The surgeons, however, were told they could not work there without Fema credentials, which could not be issued even though they had their medical licences with them.
"[Capt French's] words were, 'We don't have any way to do credentialing and no way to ensure tort liability coverage'. How any one could utter those words in the middle of a catastrophe I do not know."
Dr Perlmutter said that he begged to be allowed to work until he could be relieved by a Fema doctor but was told that this was not possible.
Kim Pease, a Fema spokesman, said: "The volunteer doctor [Dr Perlmutter] was not a credentialed Fema physician and, thus, was subject to law enforcement rules in a disaster area."
The three were flown back to Baton Rouge in another Black Hawk and were then swiftly given credentials by the Louisiana state authorities. They spent four days treating hundreds of patients.
The surgeons, who worked at 9/11, were left with a sense of frustration that they had been blocked by what seemed to be petty bureaucracy.
"Could we have saved any of those lives?" asked Dr Gerhart. "We'd certainly like to have tried."
