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    Allen
     

    Katrina - the way it really was. READ THIS ONE

    This is written by an assistant professor at Sonoma State University.

    Subject: Firsthand report on New Orleans during the tough days

    Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2005 22:15:25 -0700

    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 forklift 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 newborn 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 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 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.

    Melinda J. Milligan, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor
    Department of Sociology, Sonoma State University
    (707) 664-2254
    Last edited by Allen; 09-12-2005 at 09:33 PM.
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