WPCNR MR. & MRS. & MS. AMERICA VOICE. September 25, 2005: Now, just so we do not forget what happened three weeks ago and what our governments did, WPCNR has received an e-mail from a lawyer associate from two paramedics who were on the interstate highway leading out of New Orleans and part of the group that were shown on television repeatedly begging to be rescued. This letter was originally published in The Socialist Worker website, and is not copyrighted. The story blew the lid off the way things really were. Here it is:
Two paramedics attending a conference were trapped in New Orleans
by Hurricane Katrina. This is their eyewitness report. [I don't know them
personally-- this was forwarded by a friend. It certainly has the ring
of truth but I don't personally know it to be true.]
Marilyn
Hurricane Katrina--Our Experiences
by 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.
(more)
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. 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 saw 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
$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 is 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
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 other 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 are 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 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 cleanup 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 were talking about us. Up in full view on
the freeway, every relief and news organization 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 was correct. Just as dusk
set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol
vehicle, and 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
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 unnecessary suffering. Lives were lost that did not
need to be lost.
[All this in the richest, most powerful
country in the world!]
