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My Wife Hates CIV
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Michigan
Jan 1970
time: 05:33
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'But im sure there are areas within walking distance of YOUR home, MWHC, where YOU could pick up some litter, and make a real difference'
and there are plenty of stores i could bust into and steal... lets see - all the things i need to survive... TV's, guns, booze, radios, video games... a good number of young able bodied people didnt have a problem causing issues (even with all that water)... and all the rest had plenty of energy to complain when the camera was in front of them.
I'm not saving the people down there don't need help - but hey, help yourself at least a little before you start complaining to the world that no one else is helping.
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lightblue
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L'Boro, UK
Oct 2001
time: 05:33
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Was reading in the paper today that the total cost of Hurricane Katrina to the US economy will be between $180-200bn, which is nigh on 10 times the cost of 9/11 ($20bn) and going on 8 times Andrew ($25bn). Serious money.
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Jon Miller
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interestingly
he said a prison rioted...
but that it made sense, since the first floor was left to (And did) drown...
JM
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Ninot
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Centre Bell
Nov 2001
time: 00:33
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edit: nevermind, i figured it out what the Fyrom flag is.
Happy Independance Day
Last edited by Ninot on 09-09-2005 at 21:13
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The Mad Monk
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of Ice Cream
Mar 2000
time: 23:33
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From No Longer Trippin', on Counterglow:
quote:
As I'm typing this a certian NATIONAL news channel that I'm able to catch is going on about people saving animals from the waters. What the ****? **** them for their cowardice and incompetence in reporting - this is just the last ****ing straw for me with them. They now hold NO ****ing credibility in my eyes. None. Neither does the government.
**** the government. I've said it many times, but never before I have I meant it with such conviction and belief to back it up. I don't think I've ever had so many ups and downs in my life as over the past week. Getting people food and water or ferrying them elsewhere is nice, but then seeing the corpses floating in the water or stuck to a tree or whatnot isn't. Animals have gotten to the dead in many areas - dogs and cats in the city and after seeing quite a few highly bloated gators that didn't even budge when we came within feet of them, I'm sure they did as well. It is just sickening. This is what my alledged government thinks we deserve. **** them.
I made it into Chalmette and it has about a 2-3 inch thick oil sludge over the entire place - plus water too high to stand in at some spots. New Orleans, parts of Jefferson, and Chalmette are going to need Superfund site type cleanups. No doubt in my mind. I really don't want to talk about what I've seen graphically or done other than what I've briefly mentioned - I did some good, so did others - sadly my government wasn't one of them. But it wasn't enough and the government made sure it's help never made it anywhere needed. This just feels wrong. These are or were people and they've been treated worse than ****ing animals by the government. Why? Really, why?
As for being below sea level, yes - but for years and years we've been saying the levees won't hold a cat 3 - let alone something like Katrina. The corps said a different story. The government has failed probably around a quarter million people who didn't get out because of funds or stupidity. Now they are saying that they knew a cat 3 moving slowly would top it easily - before they said it'd be improbable but could happen under very specific conditions - they were wrong and they knew it.
Those who were saved were saved by neighbors, volunteers and donations from across the states (thank you, really thank you) and if they survived for 4 or 5 days, the federal government to some extent. Albeit slow as it possibly could ****ing do it. Knock down a Red Cross feeding camp (for thousands) to deliver them coffee creamer (not shitting you) is damned ridiculous. Oh, we didn't know a CHINOOK helicopter would pick up a dozen or so tents and send them and the poles they are attached to flying around just waiting to impale somebody. That was a site I was in disbelief about, especially when they could have landed a hundred yards away instead of less than TWENTY! What the **** do we need creamer for when we have no food or water? How about stopping the only ice/water delivery into the eastern parishes since the storm hit because FEMA wanted the trucks (all two of them from what RC reps relayed to me). Let's let the entire first floor of OPP's prisoners drown because we left them there then wonder why the upper floors rioted and took control of the prison. Yes, all together the local and state has done a good job (minus a fwe glaring ****ups) given the fact that FEMA took ALL there working communications away for themselves, that made each parish a fiefdom protecting itself from New Orleans per se in some ways for quite a while until communications could get up and running and then did ****ing nothing with it from what I've gathered until only recently. State and federal officials are sparring over control of everything, and I hope the state gets it - while as ****ed up as this state is - it didn't try to cull the poor like stray dogs.
The situation is so dire here that the usual 6 hour RC training session is cut into 30 minutes and they just basically tell you what pages to read for what. I talked to one from New York running a shelter and he's never heard of it being cut shorter than 3 hours. The government does not care about us - if you want to do anything to help and you live in the states, write your representatives, get your friends to and have them do the same - but pressure on your reps. Seriously. Only a voice from places that the government cares about will they listen to - and that's a big maybe. Donating would help as well - the Red Cross is overwhelmed as I've illustrated but they've been the most competent relief organization that is down here that I can stand behind. I maybe got 8 to 10 hours sleep the past several days (in 15-30 minute periods usually) and I'm still wired but exhausted. I don't know what else to say or what to say other than **** the government and **** all those who think of us as rodents and Katrina an effective exterminator.
Please help us. What you are seeing on TV isn't what is really happening - it is far worse, far far worse (at least from what I've heard from friends outside the region watching tv and even the regional coverage). Thanks for your prayers/wishes, etc. They are appreciated.
I don't know what else to say, ****, after all this, I don't even know how to feel.
Again, thank you for your wishes and such. They are needed for more than me quite easily at this time, but thank you. |
http://www.counterglow.com/forum/sh...62&pagenumber=2
(yes, it's the same link Jon posted, but I think this bears pasting)
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Chemical Ollie
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Bored of this board
Jan 2002
time: 06:33
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The Gulfsail blogger has "borrowed" a canoe and visited his sister's house in the flooded areas. A moving eyewitness report:
http://gulfsails.blogspot.com/
quote:
This was the most surreal experience of my life. The neighborhood that I've lived in for fifteen years is under water. A lot of water.
My father and I took a ride out to the Lakefront today, I had been yesterday and he had to see the neighborhood that he grew up in first hand. He needed to see it for himself.
We made the circuitous journey through marinas and condos until we reached the intersection of West End and Robert E. Lee. There were two soldiers from Massachusetts (Thanks Massachusetts) and a search and rescue guy from Oakland, CA (Thanks Oakland). The guy from Oakland had been in the city since the first Tuesday after the storm. He told us that they were still even now picking up survivors from the Lakefront -- but that phase was winding down. Today alone they had pulled out six bodies... from Lakeview.
As we walked around, we discovered a canoe. So we went canoeing. Our house is down on Catina near Harrison, about 10 or so blocks. We started out paddling through the Robert's (pronounced Roe-bears) Grocery parking lot, passing between around seven or eight cars left in the lot. The water was up to the windows and they were parked on the raised divisions between the rows. One car had the license plate DGOOZER.
The water is disgusting. It stinks. It's soupy. Their are different colors in it. The freakiest was the areas where it was clay grey on top, but when the paddle would disturb it, a black plume of nastiness would fight its way to the top only to be forced back under by the grey. Other parts were more typical of Lake water, but it was all foul.
Remember that our family has four generations in Lakeview - we love that neighborhood and acted in NO way disrespectfully - As we paddled down our street, the truly bizarre nature of this new world was hitting us in the face.
Oddly enough, in many ways, it was kind of beautiful. We were paddling through the canopies of majestic oaks, their reflections still in the water until we passed. The only problem was the rooftops and second stories. Seriously your mind has a hard time grasping what it's witnessing. For moments it would appear that we were simply paddling down a bayou or an engorged river. I even started having memories of the last time I had paddled around with my Dad on a trip in North Louisiana when I was 10 or so.
Those memories would crash though the second we would snag on something, and after a moment, realize it was the roof of a van, or someone's grandmothers antique chair.
There were several boats around, floating. We saw at least three jetskiis bobbing around. Even a Hobie Cat. And garbage, lots of crazy floaty stuff, DVD's, gas cans, little keep-safe type boxes, books - I was hard pressed not to pick one or two of those up in order to check out the title, looking for some mystical message. I dared not. The water is ill.
On several occasions, our expedition got thrown off by enormous downed trees blocking our path, and twice we had a blackhawk hover over us making sure we weren't in need of saving or in need of being shot for looting. Without the helicopters, it was dead quiet, other than the sound of birds who will probably all die from drinking this water.
As we finally approached our house, I expected for both of us to breakdown... but I think we're all past that now down here. We've hardened I think, or maybe are still not comprehending what we're seeing. The permanence of it. The massiveness of it.
We paddled straight up to the front porch, and just sat for a few minutes. My grandmother's antique brass planter that we use as a mailbox sat next to the door quietly, lapped by water. The window immediately to my left looks into my three month old Godchild's room. All the clothes for him until he's three, all of his stuffed animals and future toys, his antique crib sat right there through that window. I didn't look in. I couldn't.
We paddled our way through to the backyard. A large woodsy area where I've had countless crawfish boils. Crazy beer drinking parties. Barbecues. Or simply just sat and read the Sunday paper over coffee. The brand new porch that was finished three weeks ago sat and looked back at us. The only damage on the entire house from the actual hurricane was one torn screen on that porch. One torn screen. ONE TORN SCREEN.
This house that we've lost. This home that has sheltered four generations of my family has been lost due to a levee breach.
I thought of many things while paddling back to higher ground... I worried for the grand oaks and pines, our mature urban forest, how long can they survive with their trunks covered by 14 feet of water? How toxic is this water? Will the EPA demand it all be bulldozed? After the water recedes, will any family be allowed to return and collect their silver, their heirlooms that could be salvaged? How many dead had we paddled by in those short ten blocks? Would we ever see any of our neighbors again?
After returning back onto Lake Marina Ave., we spoke with several groups of soldiers, most from Massachusetts and all young. They treated us with the utmost respect. They were kind. They were watching out for our safety and the safety of our homes. They were all heros.
When I shook the hand of one soldier, probably 20 years old, and thanked him - he replied to me... "We're honored to be here."
As we walked back on the levee towards the Jeep, Dick Cheney's helicopter was landing. On the top of the levee journalists and reporters were starting to line up for his photo-op. My Dad and I didn't even have to ask each other if we wanted to stay and watch. |
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planet
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Peace and Good will to all in this time of rememberance, and this time of fresh sadness.
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boann
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ice queen colorado
Sep 2000
time: 22:33
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i found this online .. wondered if was true..
just a bit ago i saw them on TV being interviewed.
the story is real.
Intense Personal Survival Story - Trapped in NO; by floods, and Martial Law
Posted on Wednesday, September 07 @ 10:13:35 EDT by Lisa
Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreens store at the corner of Royal and Iberville Streets in the city's historic French Quarter remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing, and 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 Walgreens' windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry. The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized, and the windows at Walgreens gave way to the looters.
There was an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit juices and bottled 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 on 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 Walgreens in the French Quarter.
We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of the National Guard, the troops and 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 hotwire 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 percent of New Orleans that was not under water.
* * *
ON DAY Two, 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 into 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 didn't have the requisite $45 each 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 they arrived at the city limits, they were commandeered by the military.
By Day Four, our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously bad. 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 "officials" had 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 guard members told us we wouldn't be allowed into the Superdome, as the city's primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole. They further told us that the city's only other shelter--the convention center--was also descending into chaos and squalor, and that the police weren't allowing anyone else in.
Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only two shelters in the city, what was our alternative?" The guards told us that this was our problem--and no, they didn't 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 didn't 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 constitute a highly visible embarrassment to city officials. The police told us that we couldn't 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 to the south side of the Mississippi, where the police had buses lined up to take us out of the city.
The crowd cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation, so 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, as did people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and other people in wheelchairs. We marched the two to three miles to the freeway and up the steep incline to the bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it didn't dampen our enthusiasm.
As we approached the bridge, armed 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 the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us that 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 six-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 that 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 that 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 these 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 something we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or food for your parents. But 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 two or three days, the desperation, frustration and 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 that 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 accurate. Just as dusk set in, a sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces and screamed, "Get off the ****ing 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 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" attitude 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 eight 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 day, our group of eight walked most of the day, made contact with the 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 eight 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 didn't 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) 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 and disabled, as we sat for hours waiting to be "medically screened" to make sure we weren't carrying any communicable diseases.
This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heartfelt reception given to us by 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.
LARRY BRADSHAW and LORRIE BETH SLONSKY are emergency medical services (EMS) workers from San Francisco and contributors to Socialist Worker. They were attending an EMS conference in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck. They spent most of the next week trapped by the flooding--and the martial law cordon around the city.
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08-09-2005 14:44
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