kyburg | Oh, and another thing?

That's why a lot of my friends won't go - that, and the fact they they can't bring their pets.
Bits of the superdome roof are apparently blowing away now, but they say it isn't a big problem.

I have two dogs. I think I would have left Saturday night or early Sunday, at the latest.

That would be difficult with no car.

Yes, and lots of folks don't have cars. That's sad, and I wish they had other ways out. Leaving earlier would have helped, it was more possible to find friends with room (I can't imagine not wanting to offer a carless friend a ride) but some also stayed behind for jobs.

I was just thinking of this last night and I said to myself "Self, New Orleans has a buttload of boats." Couldn't they have put some people on boats and gone upriver? I mean, even the tourist boats could have ferried people out of there. The city should be empty right now. I mean, if it can't be saved in the face of the storm, then the only thing that can be saved is lives.

I gave that a moment this morning after Jim proposed that the government commandeer the Greyhound fleet to get the flock out of Dodge.

Greyhound is probably running at capacity already - full of people who could pay to use them. All of the available transportation services are probably full to bursting being used by people who could pay to leave.

Another liability to being less than greedy. You can get left behind if you can't pay to keep up.

I'm of two minds about the poor, indigent, sick and elderly being left behind like this. One, being Christian (and a student of a number of other belief systems), I've been taught that you don't do this. It's one of the things you have to remember not to do - because the World is like that. It leaves the lesser of our society in the dust -

And the other mind is that our conventional wisdom, which claims to be Christian - isn't - and this is the proof of it. People are going to be left behind - and the justification is that it was their own fault.

Actually, I have to speak up about this, and defend New Orleans about their handling of the situation. There are 1.3 M people living in the NO metropolitan area. When the storm finally made landfall, maybe 200,000 were left, and they were all rushed to shelters such as the Superdome. And yes, the city took it upon themselves to reserve most busing facilities for the elderly and sick, because if they left it up to private companies to help bus people out, the companies would have gone for the "quick buck built on panic" angle. Moreover, from what I understand, most of the people who stayed behind were too old and sick to survive being bussed out, which means that the Superdome was their best shot at survival.

The problem isn't so much that there are people who are too poor, too old, and who nobody cares about. The problems, as I see them, with evacuating New Orleans, no matter, what are:
1. There are very few ways out of New Orleans by car. The backups on the highways that you folks have seen plastered all over the news happen even when people are leaving the city for a Category 2 storm. Hell, getting to the I-10/I-55 exchange on a normal day outside of rush hour can still be pretty tedious. But there is nothing that can be done about that, because to literally build more highways out of New Orleans, the only place to build them would be around the town, on the gulf itself, which would render them useless before a hurricane hit anyway (to mention only the most practical reason).
2. Besides, some long time residents of New Orleans are really proud of their homes, and are deeply attached to them. We know of a few people who had the means, the ability, and plenty of opportunity to leave, and still decided not leave their homes behind. We're worried about them, but there's nothing we or anyone could have done to convince them to leave. For better or for worse, telling them to leave while admonishing that they couldn't come back to help clear out their homes for days was asking too much, at least to them.
3. Not everyone can leave, period. My husband's sister has childhood friends who are now in the medical professions and in the armed forces. Both groups had to stay behind no matter what because of the aforementioned people who were too sick or stubborn to leave. So a lot of those people who were left behind: they had no choice, and were staying for the most noble reason of all, to care for others. So anyone saying "it was their own fault for waiting too long" are not so much lacking conventional wisdom, as they are rather ignorant about the situation itself.

That said, do you know if they moved patients out of the hospitals to the Superdome? My mind can't get around that. It just can't. Anyone too sick to move, even by ambulance, has no business in a shelter situation like that one. Head just won't process the data. That's nothing short of heinous.

Leaving by car is one thing - I'm with

kimonthejourney - boats? Upstream? Possible?

And people in the rescue services are there for a reason, and by choice. Having to stay because you can't leave by your own choice? Those are the cases I hate seeing labeled "it was their own fault for being lazy/stupid/broke/etc." You understand.

I wonder if we'll ever know much about how good a shelter the Superdome was, after all. Crisis is over, if you're watching the national news....

do you know if they moved patients out of the hospitals to the Superdome?

A google of "New Orelans hospital Katrina" gets you here:

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/

Just do a search for "hospital" and you'll find that they did not evacuate patients (or not all of them, it's unclear) from the hospital to the superdome, as the doctors and nurses were still watching over them. The hospitals would have made for terrible shelters for any large number of people, though, as it notes the windows blowing out in five floors.

Well... From what I understand, there's at least two hospitals in downtown NO that are only steps from the superdome, so it stands to reason that some patients were moved to the highest floors of those buildings, and others might have been moved to the Superdome.

Even as NO is pretty much built on the gulf, it's not, structurally speaking, the same as Venice, or Amsterdam: most of the waterways or canals that existed in it originally have since been filled, paved, or built over. They're hardly navigable. The NO port on the Mississippi is actually not near the city's downtown, but about 20 miles west of the city, connected by it by causeways (i.e., tall bridges going over swamp land)

So that's where structures such as the Superdome that can compensate for the fact that NO is on average 7 feet under the sea level become emergency shelters.

The Superdome is pretty sound, structurally speaking, and it's very wide, so to afford a lot of room per person, not to mention the fact that aside for a couple of five star hotels in the area, it is the only building over 25 stories or so, being one of the newer buildings in town. New Orleans is a very old town, with very old buildings, most of them historically relevant enough where one can't necessarily get a permit to demolish them, and put more high rises in place. Sure, pieces of the Superdome's roof roof fell off because it got dumped on by waves of water making their way inland, rain, and winds that were out of the norm, but most any buildings in the area other than the Superdome would and probably have imploded on themselves under the same pressure it managed to withstand for several hours.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the choice of the Superdome as one of the 10 or so shelters within New Orleans and Jefferson Parishes makes a lot more sense than national newscasters are probably conveying on TV, based on their own half assed impressions of what the town is and is not like (the only reason I am pretty sure gathering in the Superdome makes a lot more sense than to stay in most hotels or office/hospital buildings is because I've been to visit several parts of town over the last five years, so I've got a pretty good idea of where I'd want to be, were I there and unable to leave).

As for rescue services, paramedics and doctors, a friend of my husband's sister was on call on Sunday, and told her on the phone Sunday afternoon that she couldn't possibly leave in the middle of her shift, and she was unlikely to be able to pack up and leave safely on Monday morning with the storm so closeby, so she might as well stay and help. I would hardly call that having a choice (i.e., their reason to stay is also what makes the choice to stay unavoidable).

In my experience with floods, when the govt says get out, the police and the military are both sent door-to-door to get everyone out and evacuated(even if it was risky for them to be moved!). I've even seen resistant people get temporarily arrested and carried out while screaming and yelling.

I was shocked when the mayor AND the govornor of Louisianna didn't do that. Ditto for Mississippi and Alabama. Pres. Bush could of enacted martial law with his executive order privilage that he loves so much.

There was a week notice that Katrina was coming. The Hurricane center announced via media that a CATAGORY 5 hurricane was coming. Plus, the leaders of these three states know the physical conditions of these areas better than anyone else. For instance, the leaders of Lousianna knew about that New Orleans was a below sea level city. It doesn't take a meteorologist to figure out what could happen in a Catagory 5 storm.

Plus, they could of looked at the history of another city with a simillar problem in the past: Seattle, WA. A hundred years ago, that place (a gold rush town then) was below sea level and was occasionally flooded by the Puget Sound. With the help of the natives, the people knew when to run to the hills. Eventually, old Seattle was covered in concrete and the current Seattle we know, was raised above sea level and built on top of the old ruins.

As for the private companies argument, Pres. Bush hired mercenaries and private companies when he started the Iraq War. He's plenty comfy with hiring private companies and corporations, and he's got tons of connections due to his upbringing. His family is one of money and influence in the rich circles. He's officially got no excuse and God knows it. My family knows how the Bushie dynasty works.

Looking back at the New Orleans history, this isn't the first time the black people have been attacked like this. In 1927, the black people here were put in concetration camps to build a giant dam for rich white people. After the 1960s' hurricane, more black were forced by military to plug up the levies because it was too dangerous for the soldiers. Lots of black people died in these instances. And it explains the desperate acts seen on the news too. I don't condone looting, but I understand why these people felt so desperate to steal and fight each other.

And let me add on too that the US govt. responded faster to the 2004 Asian Tsunami than to this event. I have family who work at WorldVision and a roommate who was in Thailand when the waves hit. They can confirm that. The US military dropped packages to impossible to get to areas that were hard hit a couple days after the tsunami.

I could go on and on. However, I shall end it here... for now.

--Kadiya

I generally agree with you on most of that (especially re: the left behind and forgotten just being pissed at being let down once again), with two small caveats:

1. My in-laws are from there. From what I understand, New Orleans is a very poor town, with very many special needs, run on a shoestring budget. While I'm beginning to think that Blanco had her head up her ass some of the time, I'm loathe to blame the mayor for what happened because, simply put, local government did use all the resources they had on hand (minus the defection of some police officers who, as I understand, bolted out of town as fast as could be, and should be ashamed of themselves). Besides, it had gotten to the point where so many suggested evacuations were called over the past two years for storms that hit nowhere near the town that the only fault I could find with Nagin is that he upgraded evacuations orders from suggested to mandatory a day too late, perhaps wanting to avoid looking foolish to his constituents (or as my mother in law told us the Friday before Katrina hit: "they always say to evacuate, and then it passes right over us"), and

2. That is because Katrina was not upgraded to a Category 4 until Friday night, at which point my husband and I started telling our relatives who are in the area to please leave there and then (and they still didn't until the mayor called for a mandatory evacuation on Sunday morning - see above). Believe you me, I remember this because given said relatives, my husband actually checks the National Hurricane Center's website for hourly bulletins whenever any hurricane above Category 2 is set to hit the gulf coast.

All those people were searched upon entering, their cigarettes and lighters confiscated!

That sucks so bad I don't even have words for it.

This whole thing is just scary.

No air conditioning, either. Gosh, I hope Nawlins pulls through this okay. >

Multiply it exponentially. Because the roof is peeling off.

Put everyone into a big room, where if the roof gets removed leaves them completely open to the air...not a good idea. It may not happen, but if it did...the loss of life... better to use alot of smaller buildings so if a few lose their roofs the numbers wouldn't be so great.

it has a terrace level they are going to (think of sports statiums that have a lot of levels for vendors and getting around)

As you can now see, if they had gone to smaller buildings, they would all be dead or grasping onto what is left of the shelter. Where else is there a stable, smaller building that is dry with even limited power? None. Simply put, there weren't enough buildings tall enough and equipped to house that many people from the storm.

Now, they can peel back the dome and airlift them to other shelters. That dome DID save thousands of lives, and it looks like that's the last event that'll ever take place there.

I'd be far, far more scared of the result had those people been anyplace else in NO.

add the part where a 12th of the roof gets ripped off.

And all the Feds could provide were enough guard troops to 'screen' them as they came in. Definately makes you wonder.

Power is one thing. Water is another. I hope the facilities remain functional over the period....

My future son-in law is from Slidell. They just reported it to be a catastrophic situation there. Needless to say he is just sick at the thought of his home town being virtually gone.His family left town in time besides his brother in law who wanted to stay to protect his "stuff". Dosent sound good..and of course there is no communication.This is aweful.

All I could think about last night was that they've put all the most needy and fragile people in a freaking stadium? Not enough bathrooms to start with, hard seats, lots of stairs, horrible noise, bad ventilation, and now it's lost power and part of the roof and the plumbing is next and we expect it to flood? This is *shelter*?

And yet I'll be you anything they evacuate the fancy high-rises first when they can get copters in there, because those people in the stadium are *safe*.

With my health conditions, I'd have stayed home rather than go there, or found a better safer building to camp in. The stadium sounds like - well, the whole thing sounds like a guaranteed relapse for me, but the stadium sounds like hell and a really bad relapse. My wheelchair batteries only last so long...

Doesn't this town have buses? Couldn't they have got those people out somehow? I keep hearing about how all the rental cars in town were snapped up - of course - but does the city not have wheels with which to evacuate anybody? A freaking freight train to St Louis would probably get them out of misery faster. And how much worse can a boxcar be than sleeping in your coat on a bunch of hard stadium seats? Especially since we're talking about days spent like this. They aren't saying so, but if people haven't died in the dome already I'll be damn surprised.

Note to self: while my local flavor of disaster is unlikely to give me any warning, it's still a damn good idea to make sure either I or my caretaker have a driver's license.

The buses were probably A) already full B) running out of fuel.

Consider that all the routes out of town were already choked with traffic, AND they used both-way evacuation (meaning they closed off the freeway lanes heading to NO and used them for people to get out).

If you can successfully plan evacuating 1.5 million people out of ANY city in two days, then you should be Louisiana and not on LiveJournal. The truth is there is no magic wand you can wave to save everyone. People are doing what they can to get by and to help others if they can.

Maybe you should too.

I guess you haven't seen my posts pimping the Red Cross everywhere.

And there's nothing I can do *now* to remedy things like three years' worth of Federal funding that was supposed to go to levee repairs going to the Iraq war instead.

I'd be dead if I was in LA right now because I'm a disabled, medication-dependent wheelchair user. I'd be working at my local Red Cross now if I could do a goddamned thing that wouldn't just be more of a burden. I've dumped my change jars into CoinStar machines and given every penny we could spare to the Red Cross, but since I'm living on a Social Security check, that wasn't much. But I've done all I can, and I'm still doing it. I'm considering sending out my fiancee if they can use him, which leaves me without a caretaker, but I think I can manage to feed and bathe myself for a month, mostly.

Thanks for the cruel assumptions. Next time, check them at the door of your own LJ.

I had a widow friend who was in Jamaica doing dolphin research when the hurricanes hit last year. (Along with her three infant children.) They started evacuating the place the day before the worst was predicted to hit, and she sent her children off with the rest of her family, opting to stay a few extra hours to try to salvage what she could of her life's work. The weather got so bad that all flights were grounded until just a few hours before the hurricane hit. She was evacuated just in time. Her laboratory was completed flattened. THAT is the most terrifying thing I can imagine; making a snap decision to try to protect your life's work, and then spending almost a full day thinking your three children are about to become orphans because of it. *shiver* Almost makes you feel fortunate to live in a place that doesn't actually have weather, doesn't it?

Howabout being told you have to stick it out on your own because you're not welcome anywhere safe, and if you die, nobody cares?

Believe it or not, in some communities, some people are actually being told that by their governments. If you're a registered sex offender, you're not permitted in most shelters (for obvious reasons). In many communities, however, not only have people passed legislation to keep such people out of the shelters, but they've (in some cases deliberately) provided no other safe place for them to go instead.

Add to that the fact that in most cases, these people's movements are monitored so they're not allowed to leave the area (and if they do they'll be hunted down and locked up), and being ostracized from most "good" communities a lot of the places they're living aren't the safest in the world even in non-hurricane conditions, and you're looking at people huddling in a ditch, alone, because it's mildly safer than the trailer they live in, praying for themselves that they live through it, and knowing nobody else is.

I'll be the first to admit that what many of these people did were horrible things, but they are still human beings. Denying them the basic tools they need to survive while at the same time forcing them to stay in the path of disaster is just downright barbaric, no matter what their past history is.

Anyway, I don't know if this particular problem is true of any of the specific areas being hit at the moment.. it may not be. Still, after hearing a while back about these situstions which do exist in many disaster-prone areas of the US, I have a hard time not thinking about it whenever the issue of natural disasters and shelters comes up.

Some people might be out there right now wishing they had a dark arena to cower in..

If you look at any of the belief systems that have a Good Guy as a Deity, you see the admonishments to care for the sick, elderly and poor.

Because it's Hard. Because you won't want to do it.

And you have to be taught, reminded and threatened, in some cases, into it.

This makes me sad in ways I forgot I knew.

I dunno that she'd look like Ann Coulter; she's basically shaped like a giant breast, anyway, right? Seems to me like Katrina just wanted to get some beads.

I'm glad the Superdome held. And I'm glad my friends decided to take their vacation rental car and drive from New Orleans to Fort Worth when they did, two days ago. Yeesh.

And why is it always the poorest people, the slummiest part of the city, whose houses get flooded to the roof? They don't have enough to deal with as it is?

And why is it always the poorest people, the slummiest part of the city, whose houses get flooded to the roof?

Because the poorest people build closest to the levee. Because the land is cheapest there.

Because it floods.

Sorta follows...

And in those cases, they have the fewest reserves to toss towards a quick change of any kind. Bug out? Where? With what?

Sad, I tell you.

Oh, and another thing?

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Well

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Wow..

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