Fort Apache: N'Awlins

[LIP]

Time to heavily arm ourselves!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

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

Sept 5, 2005


Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences by L.B. & L.S.

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 at 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 crowd 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 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.

[LIP]

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.

[lemon boy]

LIP-

Just to confirm, do you actually know these people?

Has this been posted somewhere else "public"

May we repost elsewhere?

[meatdrink9]

That's pretty scary shit if true. With the whole "firefighters for FEMA handouts" thing happening as well it seems like the only concern the gov has regarding this disaster is it's own image.

[KillingCokes]

I cried when I read this story.

I am ashamed to be an Amerikan

[DougW]

Holy crap, and people wonder why police get such a bad rap

When those foreign tourists get home what a black eye the states is going to get

[Tippster]

Jesus. Can I forward this to our news desk? Are these guys available for (and willing to do) interviews?

[Camilo]

Terrible. A coworker of mine was at the same conference, she got out 12 hours before the hurricane hit. She was trying to fly out, but the airport was basically out of planes. She managed to get a rental car to drive to Houston and fly home from there. She also said that things were so laid back in N.O., she saw a couple of people here and there heading out to nail some plywood to their windows, but no real preparation effort.

[dbp]

I did a little Googling and this story is everywhere. The two people are
Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky. Do a search for "Lorrie Beth Slonsky" and you will get plenty of hits and maybe a little more info.

[squirrelmurphy]

Holy shit, i feel like i just took a baseball bat to the chest reading that. wtf is wrong with people. proud and happy that our guardsmen are down there doing what they can... praying they are more helpful than the officials encountered by these two.

[bklyn]

Worse than I thought possible. Damn.
I wonder how long this will stay under the radar?

I guess walking out of town was not really an option. People tried it and failed.

[Obstruction]

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.

As Brendan Behan stated so eloquently "I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse."

What an ugly shitstorm of a clusterfuck.

[iceman]

LIP - answer Tipp, if this is first-hand info it needs to be made public NOW.

[Steezus Christ]

I have a hard time believing there were code words for rich people to cross the bridge. At least I hope it's not true. But say you are rich, how do you get those code words and how did you prove you were rich? There's so much bullshit going around in the world I just have to take everything with a grain of salt.

[Danno]

I have a hard time believing there were code words for rich people to cross the bridge. At least I hope it's not true. But say you are rich, how do you get those code words and how did you prove you were rich? There's so much bullshit going around in the world I just have to take everything with a grain of salt.

reading comprehension, it's your friend. The story does not say that there were code words to use to get off the bridge, read again.

[dbp]

I have a hard time believing there were code words for rich people to cross the bridge. At least I hope it's not true. But say you are rich, how do you get those code words and how did you prove you were rich? There's so much bullshit going around in the world I just have to take everything with a grain of salt.

I think you misunderstood that part. The "code words" spoken by the police were just an example of them not being overtly racist. No Superdome in their city = go away you're poor and black.

Because of my personality and experience with the Internet, I don't believe things I see just because they are in print. That is why I at least wanted to Google for the names of the authors in my previous post.

[enlosandes]

It stories like this that are the reason my wife and I moved out of the United States!

[72Twenty]

LIP - answer Tipp, if this is first-hand info it needs to be made public NOW.

Me too - I work at the local paper, but if we can get a story going, it might make it up on the AP....

[Superstar Punani]

I got my black shirt on.
I got my black gloves on.
I got my ski mask on.
This shit's been too long.
I got my twelve gauge sawed off.
I got my headlights turned off.
I'm 'bout to bust some shots off.
I'm 'bout to dust some cops off.

I'm a COP KILLER, better you than me.
COP KILLER, fuck police brutality!
COP KILLER, I know your family's grieving,
(FUCK 'EM!)
COP KILLER, but tonight we get even, ha ha.

I got my brain on hype.
Tonight'll be your night.
I got this long-assed knife.
and your neck looks just right.
My adrenaline's pumpin'.
I got my stereo bumpin'.
I'm 'bout to kill me somethin'.
A pig stopped me for nuthin'!

COP KILLER, better you than me.
COP KILLER, fuck police brutality!
COP KILLER, I know your momma's grieving,
(FUCK HER!)
COP KILLER, but tonight we get even, yeah!

DIE, DIE, DIE PIG, DIE!

FUCK THE POLICE!
FUCK THE POLICE!
FUCK THE POLICE!
FUCK THE POLICE!

FUCK THE POLICE!
FUCK THE POLICE!
FUCK THE POLICE!
FUCK THE POLICE!
Yeah!

COP KILLER, better you than me.
I'm a COP KILLER, fuck police brutality!
COP KILLER, I know your family's grieving,
(FUCK 'EM!)
COP KILLER, but tonight we get even, ha ha ha ha, yeah!

FUCK THE POLICE!
FUCK THE POLICE!
FUCK THE POLICE!
FUCK THE POLICE!

FUCK THE POLICE!
FUCK THE POLICE!
FUCK THE POLICE!
FUCK THE POLICE!
Break it down.

FUCK THE POLICE, yeah!
FUCK THE POLICE, for Darryl Gates.
FUCK THE POLICE, for Rodney King.
FUCK THE POLICE, for my dead homies.
FUCK THE POLICE, for your freedom.
FUCK THE POLICE, don't be a pussy.
FUCK THE POLICE, have some muthafuckin' courage.
FUCK THE POLICE, sing along.

COP KILLER!
COP KILLER!
COP KILLER!
COP KILLER!

COP KILLER! Whaddyou wanna be when you grow up?
COP KILLER! Good choice.
COP KILLER! I'm a muthafuckin'
COP KILLER!

COP KILLER, better you than me.
COP KILLER, fuck police brutality!
COP KILLER, I know your momma's grieving,
(FUCK HER!)
COP KILLER, but tonight we get even!

[Nobody Famous]

This would appear ot be the source: http://www.counterpunch.org/bradshaw09062005.html

[DJSapp]

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.

Sigh, for this simple reason this story will be overlooked by the media/goverment propaganda machine. Commies obviously want to subvert the government, and none of this story is factual.

[sftc]

Sigh, for this simple reason this story will be overlooked by the media/goverment propaganda machine. Commies obviously want to subvert the government, and none of this story is factual.

I thought the same thing when I read that byline. The article does have a very Socialist influence in it's theme, but the truth is the truth.
I can hear it now on FOX "yeah they are paramedics with years of excellent service in their communities, but they are also Commies, so you obviously can't believe them."
Maybe the press can find some pissed-off Republican who was with them and have him or her tell their story.

[Steezus Christ]

Sigh, for this simple reason this story will be overlooked by the media/goverment propaganda machine. Commies obviously want to subvert the government, and none of this story is factual.

Nice work man.

[bdog]

The same article can be found here:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090805A.shtml

a friend emailed this to me and I read it about fifteen minutes before finding it here on TGR. Incredible! No matter how one views the aftermath of this storm, it has been handeled poorly.

[Nobody Famous]

I thought the same thing when I read that byline. The article does have a very Socialist influence in it's theme, but the truth is the truth.
I can hear it now on FOX "yeah they are paramedics with years of excellent service in their communities, but they are also Commies, so you obviously can't believe them."
Maybe the press can find some pissed-off Republican who was with them and have him or her tell their story.

What is odd is they were trained EMTs, why didn't they volunteer to help in the aid and recovery efforts?