New Orleans
I have a fied named Rachel, whos dad is a firefighter, and got this email from some of the guys in New Orleans. Just thought I would put it up so that if anyone wanted to read what the rescue people thought they could.
posted by 8-bird at Friday, October 07, 2005
2 Comments:
Hurricane Katrina - Our Experiences
By Parmedics Larry Bradsahw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky
EMSNetwork News
Tuesday 06 September 2005
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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics from California that were
attending the EMS conference in New Orleans. Larry Bradshaw is the chief
shop steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790; and Lorrie Beth Slonsky is
steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790
I would imagine they are telling the truth becuause Rachel and her father know them. I have known them all my life, while the c-rations thing to any one not knowing the people might make red flags I would say they probably were at all those locations.
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