Read it and weep.
Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences
Larry Bradshaw, Lorrie Beth Slonsky
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 to 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 crowed 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 pasted
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.
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 repe atedly 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.
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.
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