Katrina Disaster

Lost in Louisiana

"If you want peace, work for justice."

Time is NOW to do something

Please, please join me in this letter writing campaign.  They ARE paying attention right now and they know their jobs are on the line!  If you are on AOL, you can go to  keyword 'government' and write all your reps at one time.  If not, you can go to www.senate.gov to access their webform and www.house.gov to access your rep's webform. Please feel free to borrow from my letter(s) anytime.    

I've just sent the following to House Democrats thru www.housedemocrats.gov. I wanted to find a way to thank Nancy Pelosi for her leadership and her comments yesterday - and to express outrage at what is beginning to be a police state in New Orleans.  

For distribution to House Dems and Nancy Pelosi:

We are unfortunately represented by a Bush flunky, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.  There is no getting through to this selfish, self-centered woman who is controlled by the old Batista Dollars in Miami....we ended up with her through gerrymandering and she does NOT represent the views of us in the Florida Keys.  

However, we wanted to personally thank Nancy Pelosi for the forceful manner in handling the Bush issue in relation to the disaster in New Orleans.  

Bush appointed Brown.  Brown should be fired.  Chertoff shouldn't be there.  None of the Bush appointees are qualified, but then, neither is he.  I believe the man suffers from severe mental illness and he's putting this country in grave danger....yet no one in his party is willing to admit it and...they cover it up!!!  (His Supreme Court Nominee is frightening too).

I'm also very disturbed by Tom Delay's comments yesterday that these types of problems with FEMA don't happen in Red states.  Hastert's comments about rebuilding New Orleans were cruel and symbolic of what these people seem to stand for.

I hope you will all join Ms. Pelosi and continue the fight and please know we're behind you.  I'd like to see FEMA restored to it's FORMER state, where it acted as a relief / disaster agency, NOT a police agency.  We have just now seen on Fox News (No...we dont normally turn it on - it happened to be on a TV where we were) where a doctor in New Orleans who had been operating in the dark, with few supplies, in a building with a flooded, snake-infested first floor reported that the supplies and fuel for the generator that the parent company of the hospital sent to them never arrived because FEMA confiscated it!!!!

This is becoming a police state and it's alarming.  I am also alarmed that we accept assistance from Mexico but not from Cuba, with some of the finest doctors in the world.  Bush's politics continue to make a farce of this entire heartbreaking disaster.

Please continue the attack and let's get something done here - something that will stop Americans from feeling so helpless and ashamed of our country and our government.

video of one woman's story

http://www.wafb.com/Global/SearchResults.asp?qu=ch armaine+neville&x=13&y=

ENOUGH HYPOCRACY FROM BUSHIT & REGIME!!

Is FEMA paralyzed?

Defense budget and Katrina

Just a thought.  Someone oughta start getting pissed (besides me, that is).

No one was in charge.

By Paramedics Larry Bradsahw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky

Note: Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics from California that were attending the EMS conference in New Orleans. Larry Bradsahw is the chief shop steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790; and Lorrie Beth Slonsky is steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790. [California]

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, or 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 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 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 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 of 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.

Sep 6, 2005, 11:59
By Paramedics Larry Bradsahw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky

true tale....

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 sortsof 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 shouldwalk 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 NewOrleans 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 thefucking 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.

From ground zero

Alan Posner <alan@aposner.net> wrote:
From: "Alan Posner" <alan@aposner.net>
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2005 12:57:49 -0400

Email from my brother in Baton Rogue:

-----Original Message-----

Subject: RE:stuff

I see first hand how abysmal the response is...including the medical response. This is exactly what I predicted with the takeover of our medical program by Homeland Security. The fucking Bush political appointees are directing our response, not our medical folks. This is the most poorly managed medical response I've seen in my entire career. We don't have the assets we need (they were taken away from us by FEMA who felt the need for power and must control OUR resources). We had an incident where one of our
medical teams was being shot at. It was a terrifying time...took us a long nervous time to finally get some security to them to allow us to extract them. After we got them out, that asshole Mike Brown, Bush's head of FEMA went on a tirade and ordered our team to go back in! (to the combat zone).
Our team rightly mutinied and refused to go back (these are civilian
volunteers). The fact that Brown would be so stupid as to deliberately put them in harms way made evreyone lose confidence in FEMA's leadership. You have to know that Mike Brown's total
experience and training for his job was running the Arabian Horseman's Association...oh yeah, and being a friend of Bush. Zero emergency management experience. Just a Bush croney.

The response is totally incompetent. Your right about the news reporters able to operate in the disaster area. If you can believe it, its now 6 days into it and I still cannot talk to our teams doing patient evacuation at the New Orleans airport. There are no communications. FEMA still hasn't got emergency communications in place. None of the responders can talk to their
field elements. This is the most amateur, mismanaged, incompetent disaster response imaginable. Mike Brown should be fired immediately. George Bush should be fired immediately.

Holding Power Accountable

Protecting the US from terrorist attacks

How DARE they try to blame state and local agencies?!?!?!?

TERRORISTS ATTACK CIVILIANS! THE LEVEES WERE VULNERABLE! The DEPT of HOMELAND SECURITY should have LONG AGO made those levees secure!

HOW MANY OTHER WELL-KNOWN VULNERABILITIES ARE BEING IGNORED BECAUSE BUSH AND HIS CRONIES CONSIDER THE PEOPLE THREATENED TO BE WORTHLESS????

Katrina's Causes

We can be sure that Katrina is only a harbinger of things to come unless the United States, the world's worst polluter, takes immediate and effective measures to reduce polluting emissions in this country.

Notes from New Orleans

> Notes From Inside New Orleans  by Jordan Flaherty  Friday, September 2, 2005
>
> I just left New Orleans a couple hours ago.  I traveled from the apartment I was staying in by boat to a helicopter to a refugee camp.  If anyone wants to examine the attitude of federal and state officials towards the victims of hurricane Katrina, I advise you to visit one of the refugee camps.  In the refugee camp I just left, on the I-10 freeway near Causeway, thousands of people (at least 90% black and poor) stood and squatted in mud and trash behind metal barricades, under an unforgiving sun, with heavily armed soldiers standing guard over them.  When a bus would come through, it would stop at a random spot, state police would open a gap in one of the barricades, and people would rush for the bus, with no information given about where the bus was going. Once inside (we were told) evacuees would be told where the bus was taking them - Baton Rouge, Houston, Arkansas, Dallas, or other locations.  I was told that if you boarded a bus bound for Arkansas (for example), even people with family and a place to stay in Baton Rouge would not be allowed to get out of the bus as it passed through Baton Rouge.  You had no choice but to go to the shelter in Arkansas.  If you had people willing to come to New Orleans to pick you up, they could not come within 17 miles of the camp.  I traveled throughout the camp and spoke to Red Cross  workers, Salvation Army workers, National Guard, and state police, and although they were friendly, no one could give me any details on when buses would arrive, how many, where they would go to, or any other information.  I spoke to the several teams of journalists nearby, and asked if any of them had been able to get any information from any federal or state officials on any of these questions, and all of them, from Australian tv to local Fox affiliates complained of an unorganized, non-communicative, mess.  One cameraman told me "as someone who's been here in this camp for two days, the only information I can give you is this: get out by nightfall.  You don't want to be here at night."  There was also no visible attempt by any of those running the camp to set up any sort of transparent and consistent system, for instance a line to get on buses, a way to register contact information or find family members, special needs services for children and infirm, phone services, treatment for possible disease exposure, nor even a single trash can. ...
> While the rich escaped New Orleans, those with nowhere to go and no way to get there were left behind.  Adding salt to the wound, the local and  national media have spent the last week demonizing those left behind.  As someone that loves New Orleans and the people in it, this is the part of this tragedy that hurts me the most, and it hurts me deeply.  No sane person should classify someone who takes food from indefinitely closed stores in a desperate, starving city as a "looter," but that's just what the media did over and over again.  Sheriffs and politicians talked of having troops protect stores instead of perform rescue operations.  Images of New Orleans' hurricane-ravaged population were transformed into black, out-of-control,   criminals.  As if taking a stereo from a store that will clearly be insured against loss is a greater crime than the governmental neglect and incompetence that did billions of dollars of damage and destroyed a city.  The hyper-exploited people of New Orleans are being used as a scapegoat to cover up much larger crimes. ...
Now that the money is flowing in, and the world's eyes are focused on Katrina, its vital that   progressive-minded people take this opportunity to fight for a rebuilding with justice.  New Orleans is a special place, and we need to fight for its rebirth.
>
> Jordan Flaherty is a union organizer and an editor of Left Turn Magazine(www.leftturn.org)-He is not planning on moving out of New Orleans.

Katrina

Here's her note:

* We have had a battery operated TV so we've been getting local channels focusing on the situation there and here. I'm just getting the "national perspective" and its *(&&(ing me off!

First, this is not a racial thing. I'm sorry if all the reporters are seeing are black faces but if they would
take their cameras to places like Slidell, Mandeville, Metairie and CHALMETTE! they would see a several thousand white faces being affected by this. Most of the tip of the boot that is Louisiana south and east of Baton Rouge is under water. Those people are stuck too waiting for help, dying, but all the news people can focus on is the Superdome.

Another misconception. The violence going on there is not the reaction of desperate people. Its typical New Orleans on any given Tuesday!!! Its a dangerous, dirty, drug infested place where the city police and city government is corrupt and useless. Volunteers are getting shot at and their cars vandalized. Helicopters are being shot at. Just another day in the city.

Another misconception. These poor people couldn't get out because they don't have cars. If the cameras show the city once the waters recede, you'll notice all the flooded out cars littering the streets. They couldn't all have been broken down before the storm hit . Yes, there are always people who do not have transportation. Part of making the call for a MANDATORY evacuation is that the city has to provide for transportation and/or shelter in the city. People stayed for the same reasons they always stay. They think the storm will turn and go in another direction. They think they can "ride it out." Or, they're just too (&( lazy to pack up and leave.

Another misconception. The federal government was slow to respond. The president issued a state of emergency BEFORE the storm ever hit, unprecedented. This means that the full access of the federal government, be it military or civil, were at our governor's disposal. The levee broke early Monday afternoon. She did not call evacuation until Tuesday morning. You cannot call up National Guard units in 20 minutes. It takes time. The
governor and mayor are in high CIA mode at the moment.

The situation is bad here. Crime is becoming a problem in Gonzales and Baton Rouge where the evacuees are being housed. We live between the two cities and there is pistol on my desk shelf as I type (yes, I know how to
use it). Helicopters flying overhead all day, gas is running out, stores shelves becoming empty. Its like a war zone. Our kids are both here and are staying here until the crime situation gets in control and I fear it
will get worse before it gets better. Pray for us. **

SO, that's all I'm asking.  SEND this to your friends and right now say a prayer for the people going through this whole catastrophe.  Thanks.
 

Katrina

Katrina 2005

Sweet Louisiana, once rich with natures foul, so blessed with diversity, cuisine, and promise.

Sweet Louisiana, sludge less now you stand, no wetlands, no protection, no plan.

Sweet Louisiana, your peoples worth diminished, impoverished by politics and privilege.

Sweet Louisiana, your government failed, scars the hand of humanity, its leader, George W., THE MAN.  

Sweet Louisiana, perished elders in a home, left bare and naked, abandoned by their own.

Sweet Louisiana, no rescue, no food, no drink, a future so bleak.  

Sweet Louisiana, its hope you keep?  

                                                                Jennie
                                                                9/8/2005

Katrins and The Feystone Kops

In preparations, we ALWAYS considered those who could not evacuate. We knew where the nursing homes and hospitals were located. We knew, from the locals, where the handicapped, and others who would have problems evacuating, lived. The consideration then was public health and safety. The difference to my mind, now, is that FEMA has been demoted in position (part of Homeland Security rather than an autonomous agency), authority, and funding. Since this administration has decided that tax cuts for the rich and an immoral war are more important than the Amewrican people, we can expect nothing more than the debacle seen with Hurricane Kathrina.

More ongoing problems with Bush's credibiloity

What was missing is the immediate support of the president when it really mattered.
It was also missing when he vetoed the appropriations bill that would have upgraded the levee system for NOLA. The value of the upgrade is obvious. He had other priorities such as created wars based on false premises and giving huge tax breaks to the very rich and manipulative oil companies whom he sees as this support base. He may also have an important priority of escaping important memos and other job duties by escaping to his ranch to run a chain saw and inviting the media to film him trying to be macho.

If the appropriate foresight was employed and the actions taken at the appropriate time then the problems could have been much less.

Today's news states that Bush wants to head the investigation into the poor response time. This is an obvious attempt to have a continued CYA policy in place to protect his "legacy". The problem is that his disastrous administration has numerous policy failures that were directed associated with the incompetence within the oval office. I am sure he wants a "hands off the chief" Teflon coverage but that is not going to happen. A separate congressional investigation will occur. If it fair then Bush Jr. fails again.

Now we are stuck with him, high gas prices, loss of property, embarrassing national despair and the tremendous loss of lives that have yet to be counted.

FAILURE OF COMMON SENSE at the very top is obvious to almost everyone. It might be even obvious to that idiot who refuses to take responsibility for all his many major oval office mistakes. It has been a terrible disastrous administration that will go into the history books as one of the world's worst. Dufus Bush has ZERO credibility. The responsibility and the buck passing should stop at his desk. He is too spineless to bare the weight.

I have personally met the fool when he was stationed at Ellington Air Base. Then he was  an often absent member of the National Guard troop stationed there. He was often drunk and disorderly. His lack of intelligence, abundance of privilege and extreme arrogance was his main character attributes. He hasn't improved much since then. He is still stupid, arrogant with a sense of privilege. I considered him a goof ball rich kid who was tring to avoid the draft and combat then. He isn't much better now.

He would NOT be elected to any office if it wasn't for his father's many political and business connections to deep pockets and contracts for government work and pork barrel favoritism. His father's real history can be tracked in the book "Immaculate Deception".

I have yet to see Dufus admit to any of his horrid errors in judgment. He is however quick to create spin at photo ops to try and take credit where he did not earn it.  I don't see how anyone with the ability to think for themselves can defend his overwhelming incompetence. He, like Nixon, is incapable of admitting his own involvement in the many dirty tricks that he has underlings like Karl Rove implement. Dick Chaney and his no bid greedy Halliburton Oil Services Company is no better than Bush, Nixon, or Enron's Ken Lay.

Ultimately it does no good to blame others. Taking responsibility for ones own actions should prevail. That should include the people who make the mistake of voting for Dufus Bush in any election.

Cleaning Toxic Water out of New Orleans

Remember 2000?

Now you can see what "good" he was talking about. Bloated bodies being eaten by rats in the polluted waters of New Orleans where at least 10,000 may be dead.

One survivor said that the Army Corps of Engineers had deliberately bombed the 17th Street levee, sacrificing the North Ward in order to protect business properties in the French Quarter. That's what government of, by, and for corporate interests with no regard for ordinary people does: it sacrifices human lives in order to protect business properties.

When John Kerry in 2004 conceded early and broke his promise to ensure that all votes were counted, he did it in a spirit of bipartisanship and collegiality. Well, he might call it bipartisanship and collegiality, I call it appeasement and collusion.

It is understandable that people who suddenly started dying in aircraft "accidents" (Paul Wellstone and others), or were the object of anthrax attacks (the FBI has not yet located the terrorist, who used a U.S. government military strain of anthrax) would lose their nerve.

Only the Congressional Black Caucus has posed any resistance to this fascist (corporatist) regime--because they've known all along what we could expect and that while they could be assassinated for their opposition, it was their moral obligation to attempt to prevent thousands, and possibly millions more deaths.

Perhaps we will all be destroyed. But if we survive, history tells us that survivors of fascism are even less forgiving of those who collaborate with fascism, than of the fascists themselves.

The millionaires and billionaires in the Senate will never represent the people and will always represent corporate interests. While corpses rot in Louisiana, they nibble their caviar, sip their champagne, and blame the victims. They put their arms around the shoulders of their fascist colleagues and chuckle heartily at some shared joke--perhaps the increased profits they are making from their stock portfolios as this tragedy continues.

The government takes our tax money and uses it to line their pockets and that of their cronies while slashing social programs and infrastructure. What we have here, my friends, is taxation without representation.

What we have is a government that is not accountable to the people.

What we have is bodies piled high and a media forbidden to photograph them.

What we have here bears no resemblance whatsoever to democracy--it is barefaced fascism, including the racism, the torture, the detention camps, and the deaths. What happened in New Orleans will happen everywhere else unless it is stopped.

If there is a way to stop it, I, like many people in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, would consider the sacrifice of my life as collateral damage, not to have been in vain.

Hurrican Katrina

In the future do you plan to look at the process of rebuilding the voter database in the devastated areas?  I'm worrying that the storm could be used for the purpose of disenfranchisement of voters.  

Also, Keith Olbermann reports on the worry of many of the homeowners and renters that if they leave, what they have will be lost.  Will you be following the process of rebuilding the property ownership database?  Also, with the tragedy and lack of adequate response in the minds of our citizens, it seems a good time for the Federal Government to be asked to provide money specifically for rebuilding the rental low-cost housing that existed before the hurricane.  Could the existence of this housing be documented?  Could environmentally safe light industry etc be funded and built to create jobs? Could an independent commission be created to oversee this work of creating the database, receiving government funds and actual spending of the funds?  If members of the community could be involved in this process and allowed to communicate with the public without being attacked by some in the news media, it would help.

I appreciate your past help on many many issues. I just listened to very biased coverage on NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on John Roberts.  Of course the NewsHour favors John Roberts, and gave the pro-Roberts visitor more airtime and respect.  However, Pamela Karlin was at her well-informed best and was also able to ask if John Roberts has the wisdom to be on the Supreme Court.  Why does no one talk about his inexperience?   Could someone quote Bernard Schwartz?

Katarina Story

 ----------
This is an article written by friends of mine, paramedics, who were in New Orleans
for a conference. - martha

 Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences

 Larry Bradshaw
 Lorrie Beth Slonsky

 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 been 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.

Report from the ground in New Orleans

Two friends of mine-paramedics attending a conference-were trapped in New
Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. This is their eyewitness report.  --PG

Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences

Larry Bradshaw, Lorrie Beth Slonsky

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