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National Guardsmen Reach New Orleans
More than four days after Hurricane Katrina struck, the National Guard arrived in force Friday with food, water and weapons, churning through the floodwaters in a vast truck convoy that was met with both catcalls and cries of "Thank you, Jesus!" from the suffering multitudes.
"Lord, I thank you for getting us out of here," Leschia Radford said at the New Orleans Convention Center as the military rolled in with orders to retake the streets and feed the hungry.
But 46-year-old Michael Levy said, "They should have been here days ago. I ain't glad to see 'em" — words that brought shouts of "Hell, yeah!" from those around him. He added: "We've been sleeping on the ... ground like rats. I say burn this whole ... city down."
The arrival of the thousands of soldiers came amid blistering criticism from the mayor and others who said the federal government had bungled the relief effort and let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine. Thousands are feared dead in New Orleans.
"The people of our city are holding on by a thread," Mayor Ray Nagin warned in a statement to CNN. "Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows."
In Washington, U.S. president George W. Bush admitted "the results are not acceptable" and pledged to bolster the relief efforts. He visited the stricken Gulf Coast later in the day, and pledged in Mobile, Ala.: "What is not working right, we're going to make it right."
With a cigar-chomping general in the convoy's lead vehicle, the camouflage-green National Guard trucks rolled through muddy water up to their axles to reach the convention center, where 15,000 to 20,000 desperate and often seething refugees had taken shelter.
Authorities set up six food and water lines, with dozens of armed guards keeping watch. The crowd was for the most part orderly and grateful to finally have a meal.
Diane Sylvester, 49, was the first person through the line, and she emerged with two bottles of water and a pork rib meal. "Something is better than nothing," she said as she mopped sweat from her brow. "I feel great to see the military here. I know I'm saved."
Guardsmen carrying rifles also arrived at the Louisiana Superdome, where a vast crowd of bedraggled people fanned themselves, waiting to rescued from the heat, the filth and the gagging stench inside the stadium.
Flatbed trucks carried huge crates, pallets and bags of relief supplies, including Meals Ready to Eat. Soldiers in fatigues sat in the backs of open-top trucks, their rifles pointing skyward.
Both the Superdome and the convention center had seemed like powder kegs in recent days: Fistfights and fires broke out, storm victims complained that the government had forsaken them, and furious evacuees menaced police.
While some of those at the convention center reacted bitterly to the soldiers' arrival, others awaiting their deliverance applauded or threw their hands heavenward.
The military said its first priority was delivering food and water, after which it would begin evacuating people — something that could take days.
"As fast as we can, we'll move them out," said Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore. "Worse things have happened to America," he added. "We're going to overcome this, too. It's not our fault. The storm came and flooded the city."
New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass got a hero's welcome as he rode down the street on the running board of a box truck and announced through a bullhorn to thunderous applause: "We got 30,000 people out of the Superdome and we're going to take care of you."
"We've got food and water on the way. We've got medical attention on the way. We're going to get you out of here safely. We're going to get all of you," he said.
As he came down the road, elderly people gave thanks and some nearly fainted with joy. Compass also warned that if anyone did anything disruptive, the troops would have to stop distributing the food and water and get out.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050902.w5katmay0902/BNStory/Front/
But 46-year-old Michael Levy said, "They should have been here days ago. I ain't glad to see 'em" — words that brought shouts of "Hell, yeah!" from those around him. He added: "We've been sleeping on the ... ground like rats. I say burn this whole ... city down."
The arrival of the thousands of soldiers came amid blistering criticism from the mayor and others who said the federal government had bungled the relief effort and let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine. Thousands are feared dead in New Orleans.
"The people of our city are holding on by a thread," Mayor Ray Nagin warned in a statement to CNN. "Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows."
In Washington, U.S. president George W. Bush admitted "the results are not acceptable" and pledged to bolster the relief efforts. He visited the stricken Gulf Coast later in the day, and pledged in Mobile, Ala.: "What is not working right, we're going to make it right."
With a cigar-chomping general in the convoy's lead vehicle, the camouflage-green National Guard trucks rolled through muddy water up to their axles to reach the convention center, where 15,000 to 20,000 desperate and often seething refugees had taken shelter.
Authorities set up six food and water lines, with dozens of armed guards keeping watch. The crowd was for the most part orderly and grateful to finally have a meal.
Diane Sylvester, 49, was the first person through the line, and she emerged with two bottles of water and a pork rib meal. "Something is better than nothing," she said as she mopped sweat from her brow. "I feel great to see the military here. I know I'm saved."
Guardsmen carrying rifles also arrived at the Louisiana Superdome, where a vast crowd of bedraggled people fanned themselves, waiting to rescued from the heat, the filth and the gagging stench inside the stadium.
Flatbed trucks carried huge crates, pallets and bags of relief supplies, including Meals Ready to Eat. Soldiers in fatigues sat in the backs of open-top trucks, their rifles pointing skyward.
Both the Superdome and the convention center had seemed like powder kegs in recent days: Fistfights and fires broke out, storm victims complained that the government had forsaken them, and furious evacuees menaced police.
While some of those at the convention center reacted bitterly to the soldiers' arrival, others awaiting their deliverance applauded or threw their hands heavenward.
The military said its first priority was delivering food and water, after which it would begin evacuating people — something that could take days.
"As fast as we can, we'll move them out," said Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore. "Worse things have happened to America," he added. "We're going to overcome this, too. It's not our fault. The storm came and flooded the city."
New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass got a hero's welcome as he rode down the street on the running board of a box truck and announced through a bullhorn to thunderous applause: "We got 30,000 people out of the Superdome and we're going to take care of you."
"We've got food and water on the way. We've got medical attention on the way. We're going to get you out of here safely. We're going to get all of you," he said.
As he came down the road, elderly people gave thanks and some nearly fainted with joy. Compass also warned that if anyone did anything disruptive, the troops would have to stop distributing the food and water and get out.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050902.w5katmay0902/BNStory/Front/
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I'm getting sick and tired of our country attacking itself and playing the blame game every time we are faced with a tragedy!! Why can't we pull together and try to focus our energy on doing good instead of using this as a political opportunity to leave out details and stretch truths to make people look bad?
And, for the record, many delays were created by the media's need to hold press conferences so that they could get their ratings with their ever-so-exclusive news stories. How about leaving people alone so that they can do their jobs and getting the story later?
[Don't forget logic and reality
by AP Wednesday, Sep. 07, 2005 at 3:44 PM
This has been a disaster, yes, but it's no one's fault but Mother Nature. It takes time to organize a relief effort this large. First you have to get real reports on the status of everything, which takes time. You can't just start telling people to go with no organization of who is going where and what they are taking with them, especially if you don't know what they are facing. It takes days just to collect the necessary supplies! Besides, sending in rescue operations too early can cost thousands more lives (remember our firefighters on 9/11).
[yes, it certainly takes a long time to understand the situation when a major flood occurs after a Category 4 hurricane, partially the result of the President's deliberate decision to divert levee repair and maintenance funds to the Department of Homeland Security
and, of course, when the Feds permit the local authorities in New Orleans to adopt a hurricane strategy in which poor people are told, essentially, "you are on your own", as the city of New Orleans did, along with the Red Cross, and then, cynically tell them to evacuate the city, knowing that over 100,000 people have no vehicles, then, of course, things are going to be difficult
naturally, you wouldn't want to do what Venezuela and Cuba have done in recent years, which is to effectively carry out evacuation plans when faced with the prospect of serious storms, so that you can almost completely eliminate the loss of life, but then, after all, Bush has never been known for his concern about poor people and black people, has he?
and, it is going to be very difficult when you turn down an offer of medical assistance from Cuba, who was willing to immediately send about 1,500 doctors to New Orleans the day after the storm to provide assistance, while, to this day, US doctors are having trouble getting to people to help them, but then, if it comes between choosing between the victims and his anti-Castro Cuban friends, and the lives of African Americans, well, I guess that they are just going to have to sacrifice for the cause]
I'm getting sick and tired of our country attacking itself and playing the blame game every time we are faced with a tragedy!! Why can't we pull together and try to focus our energy on doing good instead of using this as a political opportunity to leave out details and stretch truths to make people look bad?
[Pull together with a President who remained on vacation while people were dying in the flood waters of New Orleans? Pull together with a President who stocked FEMA with patronage appointees, so that it has been, and remains, grossly non-responsive to the needs of people? Pull together with a President who uses FEMA for publicity events, while FEMA tries to help him hide the extent of the disaster by telling the media that it doesn't want the media to take any pictures of the people who died? Well, he didn't want us to see any pictures of the people who died in Falluja, either. And, seeing pictures of the dead, that wouldn't be very productive, would it, just prompt more of the blame game, as the truth tends to do that]
And, for the record, many delays were created by the media's need to hold press conferences so that they could get their ratings with their ever-so-exclusive news stories. How about leaving people alone so that they can do their jobs and getting the story later?
[pure nonsense, but I will play along. German and Dutch media report that FEMA constructed food distribution centers for Bush to "visit" during his trip to New Orleans last Friday, and then immediately disassembled them after he departed]
--Richard