Katrina Response Mismanagement

[Ghoulish Delight]

I have received an eye-opening account from the ground in New Orleans. This comes to me by way of a family friend who is an acquaintance of the authors, so I have very good reason to trust the source. It's a disturbing read.

The authors were attending a paramedics conference in NOLA. They, along with about 500 people who had been stuck in hotels in the French Quarter, spent 2 days trying to get out. In the process, they were refused water by the national guard, lied to by the police chief simply to move them out of his sight, shot at by police from neighboring citys because "the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City", and had their encampments purposely destroyed by the wind of helicopter blades of a chopper from said same police department.

And all they wanted to do was get out of the city, something they are now trying to force people to do.

Among all of this, they made this poignant observation:

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.

Here are a couple links with the account. The second's got some commentary and a little bit of defense because the authors ARE associated with some socialist organizations, which some people feel invalidates their story.

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

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight...es/006754.html