Message #536
| Name: |
Andrew Sullivan | | Date: | Friday September 9, 2005 5:52:09 pm MDT |
| Subject: | Glimpses from Bush's Hell |
| Message: | HELL III: The details are almost indescribable:
"Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks stepped through the food service
entrance of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Monday, flipped on the
light at the end of his machine gun, and started pointing out bodies. "Don't
step in that blood - it's contaminated," he said. "That one with his arm
sticking up in the air, he's an old man."
Then he shined the light on the smaller human figure under the white sheet
next to the elderly man.
"That's a kid," he said. "There's another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old
with her throat cut."
He moved on, walking quickly through the darkness, pulling his camouflage
shirt to his face to screen out the overwhelming odor.
"There's an old woman," he said, pointing to a wheelchair covered by a
sheet. "I escorted her in myself. And that old man got bludgeoned to death,"
he said of the body lying on the floor next to the wheelchair.
Note that these people were not killed by the force of a hurricane, but by
the lack of response to it. (Hat tip: Jeff.)
- 2:19:00 PM
BLAMING THE LOCALS II: An alert emailer writes the following:
"Plain and simple: President Bush signed Gov. Blanco's request to declare a
state of emergency in Louisiana on 8/27. Within the text of that declaration
the Gov. declares:
Pursuant to 44 CFR § 206.35, I have determined that this incident is of such
severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of
the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal
assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and
safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.
The Stafford Act is the legal stipulator in that declaration. Under The
Stafford Act:
§ 5170a. GENERAL FEDERAL ASSISTANCE {Sec. 402}
In any major disaster, the President may--
# direct any Federal agency, with or without reimbursement, to utilize its
authorities and the resources granted to it under Federal law (including
personnel, equipment, supplies, facilities, and managerial, technical, and
advisory services) in support of State and local assistance efforts.
When President Bush signed that declaration on 8/27 he accepted a
responsibility to the citizens of Louisiana. Who has the greater resources,
Gov. Blanco, or President Bush? Why is Gov. Blanco held to a higher standard
of competence than President Bush, when they each had the same
responsibility?"
The only problem here is the formulation: "accepting responsibility." This
is something this president has a great deal of trouble doing.
- 1:59:00 PM
"WHAT DIDN'T GO RIGHT?": The president is still out of it. I must say that
the Katrina response does help me better understand the situation in Iraq.
The best bet is that the president doesn't actually know what's happening
there, is cocooned from reality, has no one in his high-level staff able to
tell him what's actually happening, and has created a culture of denial and
loyalty that makes fixing mistakes or holding people accountable all but
impossible.
- 1:51:00 PM
THE HELL II: Another first-hand account of amazing personal courage and
brutal government inefficiency and stupidity:
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.
Read the whole thing. Yeah, blame the locals. Many of the locals were
fricking heroes. One thing we have to learn from this. If a terrorist attack
strikes, you have to fend for yourself. We have no competent government to
deal with these things; and, given Bush's track record for reforming his own
administration, we are at serious risk for another three years. Build up
your own food supplies; line up your own evacuation plans; care for your own
sick and needy and old. The government is broken.
- 1:20:00 PM
THE HELL: A first-hand account of what actually happened to one stranded New
Orleans victim of Katrina:
Denise said she thought she was in hell. they were there for 2 days, with no
water, no food. no shelter. Denise, her mother (63 years old), her niece (21
years old), and 2-year-old grandniece. when they arrived, there were already
thousands of people there. they were told that buses were coming. police
drove by, windows rolled up, thumbs up signs. national guard trucks rolled
by, completely empty, soldiers with guns cocked and aimed at them. nobody
stopped to drop off water. a helicopter dropped a load of water, but all the
bottles exploded on impact due to the height of the helicopter.
the first day (Wednesday) 4 people died next to her. the second day
(Thursday) 6 people died next to her. Denise told me the people around her
all thought they had been sent there to die. again, nobody stopped. the only
buses that came were full; they dropped off more and more people, but nobody
was being picked up and taken away. they found out that those being dropped
off had been rescued from rooftops and attics; they got off the buses
delirious from lack of water and food. completely dehydrated. the crowd
tried to keep them all in one area; Denise said the new arrivals had mostly
lost their minds. they had gone crazy.
inside the convention center, the place was one huge bathroom. in order to
shit, you had to stand in other people's shit. the floors were black and
slick with shit. most people stayed outside because the smell was so bad.
but outside wasn't much better: between the heat, the humidity, the lack of
water, the old and very young dying from dehydration... and there was no
place to lay down, not even room on the sidewalk. they slept outside
Wednesday night, under an overpass.
Denise said yes, there were young men with guns there. but they organized
the crowd. they went to Canal Street and "looted," and brought back food and
water for the old people and the babies, because nobody had eaten in days.
when the police rolled down windows and yelled out "the buses are coming,"
the young men with guns organized the crowd in order: old people in front,
women and children next, men in the back. just so that when the buses came,
there would be priorities of who got out first.
Denise said the fights she saw between the young men with guns were fist
fights. she saw them put their guns down and fight rather than shoot up the
crowd. but she said that there were a handful of people shot in the
convention center; their bodies were left inside, along with other dead
babies and old people.
Denise said the people thought there were being sent there to die. lots of
people being dropped off, nobody being picked up. cops passing by, speeding
off. National Guard rolling by with guns aimed at them. and yes, a few men
shot at the police, because at a certain point all the people thought the
cops were coming to hurt them, to kill them all. she saw a young man who had
stolen a car speed past, cops in pursuit; he crashed the car, got out and
ran, and the cops shot him in the back. in front of the whole crowd. she saw
many groups of people decide that they were going to walk across the bridge
to the west bank, and those same groups would return, saying that they were
met at the top of the bridge by armed police ordering them to turn around,
that they weren't allowed to leave.
They thought they were being sent there to die. |
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