Mayor Ray Nagin ordered an immediate evacuation Sunday for all of New Orleans

[Winston]

Originally posted by Ming
Last warning... this is an informational thread... NOT a political thread. If you continue to push your politics in this thread, you will have to find someplace else to post them, because you WILL GET RESTRICTED here!

I suggest starting a new information thread, laying out the rules in the opening post - and enforcing them vigorously.

Close this one since it's already become impossible to navigate.

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Ming
Last warning... this is an informational thread... NOT a political thread. If you continue to push your politics in this thread, you will have to find someplace else to post them, because you WILL GET RESTRICTED here!

SpencerH, MOBIUS, SlowwHand and all others who want to talk politics... DO IT SOMEWHERE ELSE!

Sorry didn't see this...

I thought about that, but every time I start that sort of thread *someone* usually closes or deletes it...

Are you saying I have your permission to open a new thread regarding the specifics of the effect of the National Guard of La being in Iraq, or that the Bush admin cut the funding for levee defence since the 'War on Terror' began?

[Ming]

I guess some people can't read...

See ya in 24 hours MOBIUS...

Who wants to be next?

[Ming]

Originally posted by Ming
I guess some people can't read...

See ya in 24 hours MOBIUS...

Who wants to be next?

Ok... I see your next post... so you won't bite the dust this time...

But NO MORE POLITICAL CRAP IN THIS THREAD...

And as far as any more Hurricane threads... just find one of the many other threads, because there is a limit to how many we will allow... and frankly, I think they are getting out of hand now.

[Jack_www]

I just heard on the news that they are almost done fixing one breach in the dikes. At least some good news coming out of New Orleans.

[MOBIUS]

[Jack_www]

Also the national guard is finally getting some controll of the city now. If they can get order restored it will now be easier to get people out of the city now.

[MOBIUS]

About time!

[techumseh]

"A national disgrace", NO official:

New Orleans official criticizes FEMA
Last Updated Thu, 01 Sep 2005 14:22:27 EDT
CBC News
The head of New Orleans emergency measures office has criticized the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency for indaquate response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

Terry Ebbert says it's a national disgrace. He says FEMA has been in the city for three days, yet there is no command and control.

Ebbert says the U.S. can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims in Asia but can't bail out the city of New Orleans. He says the city has a mayor who has been pushing and asking but not getting supplies.

He says the evacuation is almost entirely a Louisiana operation. At the Superdome Wednesday morning, Ebbert said he hasn't seen "a single FEMA guy."

One hundred buses were due to arrive at the Superdome at 6 a.m., but the first buses of the morning didn't get there until more than three-and-a-half hours later.

Ebbert -- local co-ordinator of the Office of Homeland Security in New Orleans -- says the evacuee numbers have slowed because of the lack of civil authority in Louisiana.

[Jack_www]

President Bush has gotten Bush Sr. and Clinton to raise money again for the relief effort.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Ming
Last warning... this is an informational thread... NOT a political thread. If you continue to push your politics in this thread, you will have to find someplace else to post them, because you WILL GET RESTRICTED here!

SpencerH, MOBIUS, SlowwHand and all others who want to talk politics... DO IT SOMEWHERE ELSE!

Any suggestions? Personally, I think a whole lot of what is happening in New Orleans is extremely political and will have major long term political consequences. And I'd like to talk about it - somewhere.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by techumseh


Any suggestions? Personally, I think a whole lot of what is happening in New Orleans is extremely political and will have major long term political consequences. And I'd like to talk about it - somewhere.

I thought MIng was pretty clear-- pick one of the other disaster threads--

[Imran Siddiqui]

Don't know if it's been posted, but damn:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/01/katrina.impact/index.html

The city is "out of resources at the convention center and doesn't anticipate enough buses," the mayor said in his statement.

CNN's Chris Lawrence described "many, many" bodies, inside and outside the facility on New Orleans' Riverwalk.

"There are multiple people dying at the convention center," Lawrence said. "There was an old woman, dead in a wheelchair with a blanket draped over her, pushed up against a wall. Horrible, horrible conditions.

"We saw a man who went into a seizure, literally dying right in front of us."

Nagin said that "the convention center is unsanitary and unsafe and we are running out of supplies for [15,000 to 20,000] people."

Residents expressed growing frustration with the disorder evident on the streets, raising questions about the coordination and timeliness of relief efforts.

Video from the city's convention center showed a group chanting "we want help, we want help," as mothers tried to console their tired and hungry children.

[ajbera]

Other developments:

4:15 P.M. - (AP): Police say storm victims are being raped and beaten inside the New Orleans Convention Center.

About 15,200 people who had taken shelter at the convention center to await buses grew increasingly hostile.

Police Chief Eddie Compass says he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly beaten back by an angry mob.

Compass says, "We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten."

He says tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon.

http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea.html

Fats Domino among the missing.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/01/katrina.fatsdomino.ap/index.html

And two points I heard: this will probably serve to swell the number of gun owners in the nation (a good thing, IMO), and Cindy Sheehan ought to get her fvcking tour busses to LA to help with evacuations.

Waiting for footage of armed mobs vs. soldiers.

[SlowwHand]

That won't be very long footage if they handle it properly.

New Orleans in Anarchy With Fights, Rapes

By ALLEN G. BREED, Associated Press Writer
7 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday, as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out and storm survivors battled for seats on the buses that would carry them away from the chaos. The tired and hungry seethed, saying they had been forsaken. "This is a desperate SOS," mayor Ray Nagin said.
ADVERTISEMENT


"We are out here like pure animals," the Rev. Issac Clark said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where he and other evacuees had been waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead.

Four days after Hurricane Katrina roared in with a devastating blow that inflicted potentially thousands of deaths, the frustration and anger mounted, despite the promise of 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop the looting, plans for a $10 billion recovery bill in Congress and a government relief effort
President Bushcalled the biggest in U.S. history.

New Orleans' top emergency management official called that effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly lawless city.

About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at New Orleans convention center to await buses grew increasingly hostile. Police Chief Eddie Compass said he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly driven back by an angry mob.

"We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten," Compass said. "Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon."

A military helicopter tried to land at the convention center several times to drop off food and water. But the rushing crowd forced the choppers to back off. Troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10 feet off the ground and flew away.

In hopes of defusing the situation at the convention center, Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they could find. But the bedlam made that difficult.

"Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses," Nagin said in a statement.

At least seven bodies were scattered outside the convention center, a makeshift staging area for those rescued from rooftops, attics and highways. The sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement.

An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.

"I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair.

"You can do everything for other countries, but you can't do nothing for your own people," he added. "You can go overseas with the military, but you can't get them down here."

The street outside the center, above the floodwaters, smelled of urine and feces, and was choked with dirty diapers, old bottles and garbage.

"They've been teasing us with buses for four days," Edwards said. "They're telling us they're going to come get us one day, and then they don't show up."

Every so often, an armored state police vehicle cruised in front of the convention center with four or five officers in riot gear with automatic weapons. But there was no sign of help from the National Guard.

At one point the crowd began to chant "We want help! We want help!" Later, a woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd ..."

"We've got people dying out here — two babies have died, a woman died, a man died," said Helen Cheek. "We haven't had no food, we haven't had no water, we haven't had nothing. They just brought us here and dropped us."

At the hot and stinking Superdome, where 30,000 were being evacuated by bus to the Houston Astrodome, fistfights and fires erupted amid a seething sea of tense, suffering people who waited in a lines that stretched a half-mile to board yellow school buses.

After a traffic jam kept buses from arriving for nearly four hours, a near-riot broke out in the scramble to get on the buses that finally did show up, with a group of refugees breaking through a line of heavily armed National Guardsmen.

One military policeman was shot in the leg as he and a man scuffled for the MP's rifle, police Capt. Ernie Demmo said. The man was arrested.

"These are good people. These are just scared people," Demmo said.

Some of those among the mostly poor crowd had been in the dome for four days without air conditioning, working toilets or a place to bathe. An ambulance service airlifting the sick and injured out of the Superdome suspended flights as too dangerous after it was reported that a bullet was fired at a military helicopter.

"If they're just taking us anywhere, just anywhere, I say praise God," said refugee John Phillip. "Nothing could be worse than what we've been through."

As he watched a line snaking for blocks through ankle-deep waters, New Orleans' emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate response on the
Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"This is not a FEMA operation. I haven't seen a single FEMA guy," he said. He added: "We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."

FEMA officials said some operations had to be suspended in areas where gunfire has broken out.

A day after Nagin took 1,500 police officers off search-and-rescue duty to try to restore order in the streets, there were continued reports of looting, shootings, gunfire and carjackings — and not all the crimes were driven by greed.

When some hospitals try to airlift patients, Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan said, "there are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, `You better come get my family.'"

Outside a looted Rite-Aid drugstore, some people were anxious to show they needed what they were taking. A gray-haired man who would not give his name pulled up his T-shirt to show a surgery scar and explained that he needs pads for incontinence.

"I'm a Christian. I feel bad going in there," he said.

Earl Baker carried toothpaste, toothbrushes and deodorant. "Look, I'm only getting necessities," he said. "All of this is personal hygiene. I ain't getting nothing to get drunk or high with."

While floodwaters in the city appeared to stabilize, efforts continued to plug three breaches that had opened up in the levee system that protects this below-sea-level city.

Helicopters dropped sandbags into the breach and pilings were being pounded into the mouth of the canal Thursday to close its connection to Lake Pontchartrain, state Transportation Secretary Johnny Bradberry said. He said contractors had completed building a rock road to let heavy equipment roll to the area by midnight.

The next step called for using about 250 concrete road barriers to seal the gap.

In Washington, the White House said Bush will tour the devastated Gulf Coast region on Friday and has asked his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and former
President Clintonto lead a private fund-raising campaign for victims.

The president urged a crackdown on the lawlessness.

"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this — whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud," Bush said. "And I've made that clear to our attorney general. The citizens ought to be working together."

Donald Dudley, a 55-year-old New Orleans seafood merchant, complained that when he and other hungry refugees broke into the kitchen of the convention center and tried to prepare food, the National Guard chased them away.

"They pulled guns and told us we had to leave that kitchen or they would blow our damn brains out," he said. "We don't want their help. Give us some vehicles and we'll get ourselves out of here!"