Martial law in New Orleans

by **DrDebugDU** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 12:09 pm

By DAVID S. CLOUD Published: September 7, 2005 PENSACOLA, Fla., Sept. 6 - Two Navy helicopter pilots and their crews returned from New Orleans on Aug. 30 expecting to be greeted as lifesavers after ferrying more than 100 hurricane victims to safety. Instead, their superiors chided the pilots, Lt. David Shand and Lt. Matt Udkow, at a meeting the next morning for rescuing civilians when their assignment that day had been to deliver food and water to military installations along the Gulf Coast. "I felt it was a great day because we resupplied the people we needed to and we rescued people, too," Lieutenant Udkow said. But the air operations commander at Pensacola Naval Air Station "reminded us that the logistical mission needed to be our area of focus." The episode illustrates how the rescue effort in the days immediately after Hurricane Katrina had to compete with the military's other, more mundane logistical needs. (...) In protest, some members of the unit have stopped wearing a search and rescue patch on their sleeves that reads, "So Others May Live." <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/national/nationalspecial/07navy.html">www.nytimes.com/2005/09/0...7navy.html</a> <hr /> Frustrated: Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMA By Lisa Rosetta The Salt Lake Tribune ATLANTA - Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?" As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta. Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers. Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA. (...) But Louis H. Botta, a coordinating officer for FEMA, said sending out firefighters on community relations makes sense. They already have had background checks and meet the qualifications to be sworn as a federal employee. They have medical training that will prove invaluable as they come across hurricane victims in the field. (...) But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas. <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197">www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197</a>

by **DrDebugDU** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 12:20 pm

Memo: Rescuers should "convey a positive image" of fed efforts SEPTEMBER 7--With the lives of Hurricane Katrina victims in the balance, Federal Emergency Management Agency boss Michael Brown declared that rescue workers should make sure to "convey a positive image of disaster operations," according to an internal FEMA document. The embarrassing spin control directive came in an attachment to an August 29 memo Brown sent to Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff. In the memo, which Brown sent five hours after the hurricane made landfall, the FEMA head asked Chertoff to send 1000 DHS workers to the Gulf Coast region. The Brown document, first reported by the Associated Press, refers to Katrina as "this near catastrophic event." (3 pages) <a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0907051fema1.html?link=rssfeed">www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0907051fema1.html?link=rssfeed</a> <img src="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/art3/0907051fema1.gif"/> <img src="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/art3/0907051fema2.gif"/>

by **robertdreed** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 1:13 pm

I just thought to point out that if there actually is a concerted "Islamo-fanatic" terror group out there capable of doing serious damage to the infrastructure of the USA, the ideal time for them to strike would be as close as possible to the Hurricane K catastrophe, in order to take maximum advantage of the confusion and over-extension of the military and other internal defense and relief agencies. In fact, the ideal time for a "sleeper cell" to mount attacks would have been last week. But any attack in the next several weeks, while chaos is still reigning in the Southeast, would have its affects augmented by the stresses already present in the aftermath of the hurricane. That leads to another question to be mulled over, perhaps six months or a year down the road: what if no such attempt at a terror strike takes place in the near future? Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 9/7/05 11:17 am

by **DrDebugDU** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 1:18 pm

Luckily the 'terrorists' were operating under governmental approval, so the changes of an al-CIA-da attack are close to zero... Actually it shows that if there is a real terrorist attack which wasn't orchestrated then it'll be a disaster <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/eyes.gif ALT=":rolleyes">

by **dbeach** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 1:25 pm

no longer wants thinking persons with feelings..they want cold blooded murderers without any sense of humanity..like their illegal leaders in DC..the good folks with souls who are left in the Military are being marginalized and forced out.. MOST PERILOUS times in humanity are yet to come BUT bush will deliver them here..ITS HIS MISSION "Two Navy helicopter pilots and their crews returned from New Orleans on Aug. 30 expecting to be greeted as lifesavers after ferrying more than 100 hurricane victims to safety. Instead, their superiors chided the pilots, Lt. David Shand and Lt. Matt Udkow, at a meeting the next morning for rescuing civilians when their assignment that day had been to deliver food and water to military installations along the Gulf Coast."

by **hanshan** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 2:54 pm

Bush to Seek $51.8 Billion in Storm Aid Op-Ed Columnist Killed by Contempt By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: September 5, 2005 But the federal government's lethal ineptitude wasn't just a consequence of Mr. Bush's personal inadequacy; it was a consequence of ideological hostility to the very idea of using government to serve the public good. For 25 years the right has been denigrating the public sector, telling us that government is always the problem, not the solution. Why should we be surprised that when we needed a government solution, it wasn't forthcoming? <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/opinion/05krugman.html" target="top">www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/opinion/05krugman.html</a> ...

by **DrDebugDU** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 4:36 pm

Bob Brigham has just reported - and this is why we need OUR folks on the ground, to report this stuff - the military is banning all reporters from New Orleans. Outrageous. If you kill a couple thousand people, you definitely want to keep the media and the public from finding out. Bush is literally trying to hide the bodies. This is beyond outrageous. They're trying to hide the bodies. Who the hell does Bush think he is? So much for the First Amendment, so much for the Constitution, so much for a democratic government. Hey, Democrats, time to speak up LOUDLY. This is what military regimes do, what dictatorships do, it's not what democracies do. We don't hide our dead bodies in our to spare our leaders their well-due shame. I hope the media is all over this. PS And Kyle is still on his way as our correspondent - we're not gonna let some petty dictator stop us <a href="http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/breaking-bush-banning-all-media-from.html">americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/breaking-bush-banning-all-media-from.html</a> <hr /> Police violence against journalists in New Orleans in Katrina aftermath Reporters Without Borders voiced concern today about police violence against journalists covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, especially about the attacks on reporters and photographers that took place on 1 September. “We understand that the security forces are overwhelmed and we are aware of the great tension and the difficult conditions under which they are having to work in areas hit by Katrina, but it is very worrying that this is reflected in violence against journalists,” the press freedom organisation said. “We believe that is essential that news coverage should be completely free and unobstructed in such a serious situation,” Reporters Without Borders added. Reporter Tim Harper and photographer Lucas Oleniuk of the Canadian Toronto Star daily were the victims of police violence while covering a clash between police and looters. The police threatened them several times at gunpoint and, when they realised Oleniuk had photographed them hitting looters, they hurled him to the ground, grabbed his two cameras and removed memory cards containing around 350 pictures. His press card was also torn from him. When he asked for his pictures back, the police insulted him and threatened to hit him. Harper said in a report about the police violence in the Toronto Star that, given the situation in New Orleans, there was not doubt that the police saw journalists as an obstacle to their efforts to regain control of the city. A second incident involved Gordon Russell of the New Orleans- based Times-Picayune daily as he was covering a shoot-out between police and local residents near the convention centre where hurricane victims were awaiting evacuation. The police detained Russell and smashed all of his equipment on the ground. Russell was forced to flee to avoid further violence and reportedly left the city the same day. <a href="http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=14894">www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=14894</a>

by **Dreams End** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 7:29 pm

One of the ways we can "test" our rigorous intuitions is by making predictions and seeing if they are born out by real events. I predicted (easy enough one to make) the banning of the press way back in the "what we are seeing" post. Another prediction of mine has not come true, but I'm getting nervous. Stories today about the increasing number of fires. Lots of firefighters there, so they are keeping things under control, but one oil leak...no need to worry about forced evacuations. While on the subject of evacuations, the chief of police TODAY said there were still TENS OF THOUSANDS desiring evacuation which is why he's refusing to divert resources to forced removals at the moment. Has anyone else seen "TENS OF THOUSANDS" still in NO anywhere else in the press?

by **Dreams End** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 7:41 pm

From front page of today's counterpunch <blockquote>Quote:<hr> September 7, 2005 Women were Being Raped, Babies were Being Killed, Alligators were Eating People, But Where the Hell was the National Guard? How We Survived the Flood By CHARMAINE NEVILLE This is a transcription of an interview Charmaine Neville, of New Orleans's legendary Neville family, gave to local media outlets on Monday, September 5. I was in my house when everything first started. When the hurricane came, it blew all the left side of my house off, and the water was coming in my house in torrents. I had my neighbor, an elderly man, and myself, in the house with our dogs and cats, and we were trying to stay out of the water. But the water was coming in too fast. So we ended up having to leave the house. We left the house and we went up on the roof of a school. I took a crowbar and I burst the door on the roof of the school to help people on the roof. Later on we found a flat boat, and we went around the neighborhood in a flat boat getting people out of their houses and bringing them to the school. We found all the food that we could and we cooked and we fed people. But then, things started getting really bad. By the second day, the people that were there, that we were feeding and everything, we had no more food and no water. We had nothing, and other people were coming in our neighborhood. We were watching the helicopters going across the bridge and airlift other people out, but they would hover over us and tell us "Hi!" and that would be all. They wouldn't drop us any food or any water, or nothing. Alligators were eating people. They had all kinds of stuff in the water. They had babies floating in the water. We had to walk over hundreds of bodies of dead people. People that we tried to save from the hospices, from the hospitals and from the old-folks homes. I tried to get the police to help us, but I realized they were in the same straits we were. We rescued a lot of police officers in the flat boat from the 5th district police station. The guy who was in the boat, he rescued a lot of them and brought them to different places so they could be saved. We understood that the police couldn't help us, but we couldn't understand why the National Guard and them couldn't help us, because we kept seeing them but they never would stop and help us. Finally it got to be too much, I just took all of the people that I could. I had two old women in wheelchairs with no legs, that I rowed them from down there in that nightmare to the French Quarters, and I went back and got more people. There were groups of us, there were about 24 of us, and we kept going back and forth and rescuing whoever we could get and bringing them to the French Quarter because we heard that there were phones in the French Quarter, and that there wasn't any water. And they were right, there were phones, but we couldn't get through to anyone. I found some police officers. I told them that a lot of us women had been raped down there by guys, not from the neighborhood where we were, they were helping us to save people. But other men, and they came and they started raping women and they started killing, and I don't know who these people were. I'm not gonna tell you I know, because I don't. But what I want people to understand is that, if we hadn't been left down there like the animals that they were treating us like, all of those things wouldn't have happened. People are trying to say that we stayed in that city because we wanted to be rioting and we wanted to do this and, we didn't have resources to get out, we had no way to leave. When they gave the evacuation order, if we could've left, we would have left. There are still thousands and thousands of people trapped in their homes in the downtown area. When we finally did get into the 9th ward, and not just in my neighborhood, but in other neighborhoods in the 9th ward, there were a lot of people still trapped down there... old people, young people, babies, pregnant women. I mean, nobody's helping them. And I want people to realize that we did not stay in the city so we could steal and loot and commit crimes. A lot of those young men lost their minds because the helicopters would fly over us and they wouldn't stop. We would make SOS on the flashlights, we'd do everything, and it really did come to a point, where these young men were so frustrated that they did start shooting. They weren't trying to hit the helicopters, they figured maybe they weren't seeing. Maybe if they hear this gunfire they will stop then. But that didn't help us. Nothing like that helped us. Finally, I got to Canal St. with all of my people I had saved from back there. I don't want them arresting nobody else. I broke the window in an RTA bus. I never learned how to drive a bus in my life. I got in that bus. I loaded all of those people in wheelchairs and in everything else into that bus, and we drove and we drove and we drove and millions of people was trying to get me to help them to get on the bus, too. Charmaine Neville is a member of the third generation of New Orleans's legendary Neville musical family. She fronts the Charmaine Neville Band. <hr></blockquote><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org">www.counterpunch.org</a>

by **Col Quisp** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 7:47 pm

From: <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/alobar/">www.livejournal.com/users/alobar/</a> This just in from Alternative Medicine Forum: This is something that needs to be looked at regarding why Homeland Security is keeping the Red Cross out of NO: There is a provision in the misnamed Homeland Security Act which provides for the forced vaccinations of every man, woman, and child within the US without exceptions for health reasons, religion, or choice. For years the government and industry have been getting away with forced anthrax vaccinations of troops with a vaccine which not only is dangerous but hasn't even been proved effective against anthrax. Now there is a provision in the HSA which provides for this type of experimentation and forced vaccinations for all Americans or a segment of Americans. The one person who has the power to order vaccinations of all Americans or a segment of Americans is the head of Homeland Security. The same HS which is keeping the Red Cross out of New Orleans. Members of the Red Cross have enough experience with disaster relief and certain medical matters like disease prevention to recognize when the usual vaccines are not being used and the usual protocols are not being followed. Reporters on the scene wouldn't have this kind of knowledge and experience. Overworked doctors and nurses who have been working around the clock since Katrina hit would be glad to have military and government doctors come in to perform vaccinations and do other things, and give them a chance to rest. The survivors of Katrina may be about to become part of a Homeland Security - Pharmaceutical Industry testing program without their knowledge or consent. Any deaths or other adverse reactions will be chalked up to Katrina and its aftermath. Also, the government can hide or even fail to keep records of the vaccinations - just like the government currently hides and in some cases doesn't keep records on the adverse effects of the anthrax vaccinations or even on who received the shots. The Red Cross would keep records that could be examined.

by **heath7** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 7:49 pm

Here's a new Gallup poll where only 13 percent of respondents blame Bush for 'bungling' the worst disaster in United States history. ...and let the spin begin. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/07/katrina.poll/" target="top">www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/07/katrina.poll/</a> Bush IS to blame: He cries constantly that he represents security yet it was he that decimated funding for the levees that destroyed N'Awlins. Would the money have made a difference? Possibly not. We don't find out by taking away the resources. It was he that withheld the command to Northern Command to implement their relief plans, including the naval vessel Bataan, which followed Katrina into the north gulf region in the very beginning (one of many horrible examples of withheld aid). It was his administrationt that fielded offers of much needed help, only to obfuscate the offers with beauracracy. It was Bush that appointed the wastes of space Chertoff and Brown to lead the emergency management duties of the federal government. He admits he hesitated relieving the region, blaming the local authorities' poor communication, while the stated duties of Homeland Security and FEMA are to be first responders during national emergencies. He's heartless. The local leaders in Louisianna damn sure could have done better than they did. They thought the cavalry was on the way, and I don't doubt that they were told it was, but their deference doesn't excuse their lack of leadership (they could've gotten the damn buses themselves). They should be fired for not being leaders, but the buck stops with Bush.

by **DrDebugDU** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 7:52 pm

Well those polls are just as reliable as the MSM or FEMA... It is part of the psychological warfare. All the online polls are severely negative, however the published polls - which often have less than 1,000 participants - always give a positive impression.

by **bingbangbongbung** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 8:00 pm

amazing quote, annalivia - gave me goosebumps

by **Qutb** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 8:45 pm

Wonder why they are banning the press? Congressman reports more than 100 died in a warehouse, waiting for rescue Posted: 09/07/2005 15:05:14 NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Even as crews in New Orleans try to find and count the corpses that are decaying in the 90-degree heat, reports of the extent of the tragedy are starting to emerge. A Louisiana congressman says more than 100 people died at a warehouse along a New Orleans dock. Congressman Charlie Melancon (muh-LAWN'-suhn) says they died as they waited for rescuers to take them to safety. And a state lawmaker says 30 people died at a flooded-out nursing home just outside New Orleans. Nita Hutter says the staff had left the residents behind in their beds. A rescue that was supposed to take place never materialized. (Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) <a href="http://www.abc15.com/news/morenews/index.asp?did=21273">www.abc15.com/news/morene...?did=21273</a> Qutb means "axis," "pole," "the center," which contains the periphery or is present in it. The qutb is a spiritual being, or function, which can reside in a human being or several human beings or a moment. It is the elusive mystery of how the divine gets delegated into the manifest world and obviously cannot be defined.

by **seemslikeadream** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 9:45 pm

Trapped EMS workers in NOLA have their say: First By the Floods, Then By Martial Law Trapped in New Orleans <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/bradshaw09062005.html">www.counterpunch.org/brad...62005.html</a> By LARRY BRADSHAW and LORRIE BETH SLONSKY 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. 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 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 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.

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