Re: "People dying at the convention center"; police are "on their own" for food and water
- From: jim <jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 19:03:39 GMT
Bullshit. More propaganda from the liberal media. We need to get the
truth from fair and balanced Fox.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168112,00.html
NEW ORLEANS ? The evacuation of the New Orleans Superdome was
disrupted Thursday after a gun shot reportedly was fired at a military
helicopter as thousands of National Guard troops poured into the
Crescent City to boost security in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
(search).
Fights and trash fires broke out at the hot and stinking Superdome and
anger and unrest mounted across New Orleans as the first of nearly
25,000 refugees being sheltered at the Superdome began to arrive in
Houston, Texas. Thousands of people rushed from nearby hotels and
other buildings, hoping to climb onto the buses taking evacuees from
the arena.
"We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," the Rev.
Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where
corpses lay in the open and evacuees complained that they were dropped
off and given nothing.
One ambulance official overseeing the airlift rescue operations said a
gunshot was fired at a military helicopter over the Superdome before
daybreak.
"We have suspended operations until they gain control of the
Superdome," said Richard Zeuschlag, head of Acadian Ambulance, which
was handling the evacuation of sick and injured people from the
Superdome.
The military, which was overseeing the removal of the able-bodied by
buses, continued the ground evacuation without interruption, said
National Guard Lt. Col. Pete Schneider. Schneider said those
evacuations were continuing and were not affected by trash fires
burning outside the Superdome. Law enforcement officers will ride with
the school buses, he said.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff (search) said the
government is sending in 1,400 National Guardsmen to help stop looting
and other lawlessnes in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Already, 2,800 National Guardsmen are in the city, he said.
But across the city, the rescuers themselves came under attack from
storm victims hungry, desperate and tired of waiting.
"Hospitals are trying to evacuate," said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri
Ben-Iesan, spokesman at the city emergency operations center. "At
every one of them, there are reports that as the helicopters come in
people are shooting at them. There are people just taking potshots at
police and at helicopters, telling them, `You better come get my
family."'
Meanwhile, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (search) ordered virtually the
entire police force to abandon search-and-rescue efforts and stop
thieves who were becoming increasingly hostile.
"They are starting to get closer to heavily populated areas ? hotels,
hospitals, and we're going to stop it right now," Nagin said
Wednesday.
Volunteers with boats hoping to help rescue those still stranded on
rooftops in New Orleans were told to stand down by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency after shots were fired.
"The truth is, a terrible tragedy like this brings out the best in
most people, brings out the worst in some people," said Mississippi
Gov. Haley Barbour on NBC's "Today" show. "We're trying to deal with
looters as ruthlessly as we can get our hands on them."
President Bush will tour the hurricane devastated Gulf Coast region on
Friday and has asked his father, former President George H.W. Bush,
and former President Clinton to lead a private fund-raising campaign
to help victims recover, the White House said Thursday.
Bush will survey the Alabama and Mississippi coast by helicopter, then
go on to New Orleans. He also will tour some locations on the ground.
The president on Thursday warned that looters, price gougers,
insurance fraudsters, those taking advantage of charity and others
will face the maximum consequences for their actions.
There will be "zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an
emergency such as this," Bush said in a live interview at the White
House with ABC's "Good Morning America." "I've made that clear to our
attorney general."
Chaos at the Superdome
Evacuees who had taken refuge in the Superdome were waiting hours to
get onto buses that were taking them 350 miles away to the Houston
Astrodome, which can hold 27,000 people. Conditions in the Superdome
had become horrendous: There was no air conditioning, the toilets were
backed up, and the stench was so bad that medical workers wore masks
as they walked around.
"We are going to do everything we can to make people comfortable," Red
Cross spokeswoman Margaret O'Brien-Molina said. "Places have to be
found for these people. Many of these people may never be able to
rebuild."
In New Orleans, the refugees had lined up for the first buses, some
inching along in wheelchairs, some carrying babies. Almost everyone
carried a plastic bag or bundled bedspread holding the few possessions
they had left. Many had no idea where they were heading.
"We tried to find out. We're pretty much adrift right now," said Cyril
Ellisworth, 46. "We're pretty much adrift in life. They tell us to
line up and go, and we just line up and go."
At the Supredome, fights broke out. A fire erupted in a trash chute
inside the dome, but a National Guard commander said it did not affect
the evacuation.
The sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical
care, and with no sign of law enforcement. Thousands of storm refugees
had been assembling outside for days, waiting for buses that did not
come.
At least seven bodies were scattered outside, and hungry, desperate
people who were tired of waiting broke through the steel doors to a
food service entrance and began pushing out pallets of water and juice
and whatever else they could find.
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. "I buried my dog."
Just above the convention center on Interstate 10, commercial buses
were lined up, going nowhere. 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.
People chanted, "Help, help!" as reporters and photographers walked
through. The crowd got angry when journalists tried to photograph one
of the bodies, and covered it over with a blanket. A woman, screaming,
went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in
reciting the 23rd Psalm.
>IF THE PRESS CAN GET TO THESE PEOPLE TO TAKE PICTURES, WHERE IS THE
>HELP???
>
>Despair, death pervade New Orleans
>Some boat rescue operations suspended
>Thursday, September 1, 2005; Posted: 1:37 p.m. EDT (17:37 GMT)
>
>NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Thousands of people forced from their
>homes by Hurricane Katrina have crammed into the New Orleans
>convention center, where they've had no food, no water and no word on
>when help would come.
>
>And people are dying.
>
>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," he 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."
>
>People were "being forced to lived like animals," Lawrence said --
>surrounded by piles of trash and feces.
>
>He said while he has seen police SWAT teams drive by in armored
>vehicles, no one has stopped to talk with the refugees.
>
>"People are asking, 'Where are the buses? Where is the plan? Where is
>the help?" he said.
>
>More people were arriving at the center, walking south along Canal
>Street. The route north to the Superdome is blocked by chest-deep
>water.
>
>The convention center was used as a secondary shelter when the
>Louisiana Superdome was overwhelmed....
>
>A police officer working in downtown New Orleans said police were
>siphoning gas from abandoned vehicles in an effort to keep their squad
>cars running, CNN's Chris Lawrence reported.
>
>The officer said police are "on their own" for food and water,
>scrounging up what they can from anybody who is generous enough to
>give them some -- and that they have no communication whatsoever.
>Police also told CNN they were removing ammunition from looted
>gunshops in an effort to get it off the streets. ....
>
>< SNIP >
>
>A man covers the body of a man who died Thursday outside the
>convention center in New Orleans.
>Image:
.
- References:
- Prev by Date: Re: Let Us Not Go Whacko Over Iraqo !
- Next by Date: Re: Let Us Not Go Whacko Over Iraqo !
- Previous by thread: "People dying at the convention center"; police are "on their own" for food and water
- Next by thread: Re: a report from New Orleans
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
