The Real Word on the Street
September 2nd, 2005 at 8:58 am by Preston Taylor HolmesIf you haven’t yet checked out the Interdictor – a street-level New Orleans blog run by the guys at Directnic.com, you should be checking it regularly. They’ve got the scoop on what’s going down. These guys (and gals) have balls the size of watermelons.
The following is the result of an interview I just conducted via cell phone with a New Orleans citizen stranded at the Convention Center. I don’t know what you’re hearing in the mainstream media or in the press conferences from the city and state officials, but here is the truth:
“Bigfoot” is a bar manager and DJ on Bourbon Street, and is a local personality and icon in the city. He is a lifelong resident of the city, born and raised. He rode out the storm itself in the Iberville Projects because he knew he would be above any flood waters. Here is his story as told to me moments ago. I took notes while he talked and then I asked some questions:
Three days ago, police and national guard troops told citizens to head toward the Crescent City Connection Bridge to await transportation out of the area. The citizens trekked over to the Convention Center and waited for the buses which they were told would take them to Houston or Alabama or somewhere else, out of this area.
It’s been 3 days, and the buses have yet to appear.
Although obviously he has no exact count, he estimates more than 10,000 people are packed into and around and outside the convention center still waiting for the buses. They had no food, no water, and no medicine for the last three days, until today, when the National Guard drove over the bridge above them, and tossed out supplies over the side crashing down to the ground below. Much of the supplies were destroyed from the drop. Many people tried to catch the supplies to protect them before they hit the ground. Some offered to walk all the way around up the bridge and bring the supplies down, but any attempt to approach the police or national guard resulted in weapons being aimed at them.
There are many infants and elderly people among them, as well as many people who were injured jumping out of windows to escape flood water and the like — all of them in dire straights.
Any attempt to flag down police results in being told to get away at gunpoint. Hour after hour they watch buses pass by filled with people from other areas. Tensions are very high, and there has been at least one murder and several fights. 8 or 9 dead people have been stored in a freezer in the area, and 2 of these dead people are kids.
The people are so desperate that they’re doing anything they can think of to impress the authorities enough to bring some buses. These things include standing in single file lines with the eldery in front, women and children next; sweeping up the area and cleaning the windows and anything else that would show the people are not barbarians.
The buses never stop.
Before the supplies were pitched off the bridge today, people had to break into buildings in the area to try to find food and water for their families. There was not enough. This spurred many families to break into cars to try to escape the city. There was no police response to the auto thefts until the mob reached the rich area — Saulet Condos — once they tried to get cars from there… well then the whole swat teams began showing up with rifles pointed. Snipers got on the roof and told people to get back.
He reports that the conditions are horrendous. Heat, mosquitoes and utter misery. The smell, he says, is “horrific.”
He says it’s the slowest mandatory evacuation ever, and he wants to know why they were told to go to the Convention Center area in the first place; furthermore, he reports that many of them with cell phones have contacts willing to come rescue them, but people are not being allowed through to pick them up.
They are also checking out rumors of a chemical explosion just this morning.
Houston has reached capacity at the Astrodome and is no longer accepting refugees.
Houston, you’ve got a big-time problem. It was big-hearted of you to taken in these thousands of refugees, but you better have plenty of security and plenty of people with some heavy weaponry. They released prisoners – some serious convicts – into the general population – and when they were done raping and killing people in the Superdome, you can bet your ass that quite a few of them are new guests in your city.
Speaking of the lawlessness, looters, etc, I have a few thoughts on that. Due to the colorful language I won’t be able to hold back, I’m posting the rest of it below the fold.
In a humanitarian crisis such as this, I can excuse people who break into a store and take water, baby formula, food – the basic needs to stay alive. That, I understand – and if I’d been foolish enough to stay behind, I’d probably do the same thing.
However, when the motherfuckers started taking shopping carts full of Nikes, DVD players, televisions and weapons, they needed to be taken out early. Yes, shot dead. Brute force SHOULD HAVE been used early on, letting the animals know – you need water, fine; you think you need a television, you’re going down. It wouldn’t have taken too many of those to reign in a lot of the criminal crowd.
It’s all devolved into roving gangs attacking hospitals, carjacking ambulances, SHOOTING AT FUCKING RESCUE HELICOPTERS. I saw a television report last night talking about how they had people with boats lined up to go pull more people off their rooftops, but they had to be pulled back because they’re being FUCKING SHOT AT by thugs.
It’s long past time to send the full force of the military into the city. Treat it like an American Fallujah. Find the roving gangs – find the thugs with the weapons – KILL THEM. Save the sick, elderly, hospitalized, familes, babies – the majority of these people need help before they become just more bodies floating in the water.
Send in the fucking military, secure the hospitals, secure the places where the decent people are literally dying for help – KILL THE REST OF THE MOTHERFUCKERS WHO ARE HOLDING UP THEIR RESCUE.
It absolutely eats at my core to even suggest having government at any level take out it’s own citizenry, but these thugs are ANIMALS that need to be put down like rabid dogs. Kill the perps, save the innocent. Brute fucking force.
UPDATE:
Sounds like I may get my wish according to this story.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco called the looters “hoodlums” and issued a warning to lawbreakers: Hundreds of National Guard troops hardened on the battlefield in Iraq have landed in New Orleans.
“They have M-16s and they’re locked and loaded,” she said. “These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will.”
At the Superdome, group of refugees broke through a line of heavily armed National Guardsmen in a scramble to get on to the buses.
Nearby, about 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at New Orleans Convention Center grew ever more hostile after waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead.
Police Chief Eddie Compass said there was such a crush around a squad of 88 officers that they retreated when they went in to check out reports of assaults.
“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.”
What the hell are tourists doing walking anywhere in New Orleans? Does this Police Chief even have a fucking clue?
I really thought that President Bush was going to fly in with his superman cape and all would be well. I must have been misinformed about the omnipotence of government.
September 2nd, 2005 at 4:12 pm
i hope the television channels in houston have a 24 hour ticker scrolling of all the faces of criminals that have been let loose. that would give the people some kind of “protection” against these thugs.