Get Your Act On reports from Baton Rouge

Morning everyone -

Get Your Act On! has reached Baton Rouge. On the way in, we were able
to pick up our friend Daniel who managed to get a ride out of the city
to Gonzales, LA yesterday. 2 dogs, 6 cats and 3 humans in a van already
packed to the gills made for an interesting ride....

It appears that the rest of New Orleans is now being evacuated, the
National Guard is there in full force, and we have determined that there
is no way to enter the city for the time being - and likely not to be
anyone left there to take care of if we are able to gain access.

Towns and cities outside of New Orleans are swamped with refugees, so
there are no lack of people to help without being able to get into the
city. We will be heading to Covington, LA - 24 miles north of New
Orleans - to join up with the Vets for Peace who have established a triage
center and have been taking care of refugees for almost a week now.

We are all a little shell-shocked at the moment - we had been hoping
against all hope our whole way here that we would be able to get into the
city, and finding out that there is no access and none of us may be
allowed back in for months is hard to bear. We are glad to hear that
rescue efforts are finally getting into the city and evacuating the rest of
the city - while we have strong feelings about not being allowed back
into the city and our homes - at least we know that the people that are
stranded and need to get out will be getting out.

Meanwhile, the denial of aid appears to be continuing, though some
supplies are getting into the city. Daniel, our friend that just got out of
the city, reports that the National Guard troops that arrived in his
neighborhood two days ago - the first signs of anyone other than the few
residents left, were "good guys" and astounded to find out that the
people left there had received no supplies of any kind. One helicopter
pilot, upon finding this out, took it upon himself to go get supplies and
within an hour had made 3 supply drops to the neighborhood. However,
this was the action of an individual, the guard had not been given
directions to bring food and water to people, merely to patrol the streets
and 'keep the peace.'

The stories Daniel has to tell are horrific, and we will be relating
them over the next few days. He describes living in a complete war zone -
the few people left in houses holed up together with guns, fearing for
their lives. A big fire broke out in a warehouse on the levy that they
thought was going to burn down the entire neighborhood. He talked about
the 'ghosts' walking down St. Claude - the people who managed to escape
from their attics in the flooded out lower 9th ward - people in a state
beyond shock. Again, the stories of people calling the one radio
station in town from their attics, desparate, saying there was but a foot of
space left between the flood waters and the roof and to please come get
them before they died - but there was no one to come get them.

So many stories of relief efforts being turned away. Wildlife and
Fisheries who had a couple hundred boats going into the lower 9th ward for
the first two days, rescuing the people trapped in attics and on roofs -
until they were ordered to stop. A group of Virginia State troopers who
came down with a truckload of supplies to help NOPD - who were stopped
at the perimeter of New Orleans and ordered to go away. A US Naval
hospital ship with 400 beds, doctors, helicopters, all sorts of equipment -
they were in the gulf when the storm hit and were the first to arrive
in the area - they are sitting empty, not allowed to help.

The stories go on and on and on. It is heartbreaking and devestating.
The city is now being completely emptied and no one knows when we will
be allowed back in. Official relief efforts are disorganized and chaotic
as far as dealing with the actual refugees, though it looks like things
are getting better set up in Baton Rouge to process people for
emergency assistance. Still, I wonder about the poor of New Orleans with a 40% rate of illiteracy, products of bad schools - will they know where to
apply for help, how to apply for help? Families have been split up -
forced onto busses not knowing where the busses were going, people are
everywhere and few know where anyone is.

Grassroots efforts are setting up databases to help people find each
other, setting up networks of places around the country willing and able
to take people in, matching people up with people who can assist them -
they are succeeding where our government has failed miserably.
Inevitably, it is taking a little time to get some of these more long term
things set up, but these are all in the works and people are working around
the clock.

But as far as getting immediate relief to the refugees - the grassroots
efforts are already here and working. As I said above, we are headed to
Covington later this afternoon and will be working there until we get
further word about what is going to happen with New Orleans.

Daniel has been keeping a journal through his experiences in the city
and has given me permission to transcribe and post them. We will get to
that as soon as possible.

I apologize for the scattered nature of this email - everything is
rather chaotic and we are dealing with having to shift the focus of our
relief operation from inside New Orleans to the outlying areas, as well as
the personal stress of finding out that, while our house is standing
and apparently in decent shape, we can not go home, probably for a long
long time. While I have spent plenty of time in my life on the road
without a physical home, it is quite a different situation when you have a
home and can not go back. We miss our city beyond belief. Seeing the
signs on the highway for New Orleans and not being able to there - so
close, but so far - well, I can't even describe how we feel right now.

However, we will not be deterred in our mission to help others - there
are so many so less fortunate than we are - and helping is the only
thing that can keep us alive and sane through these times. Thank you again
to everyone who has been helping - sending money, bringing supplies,
physically coming to help, setting up interviews so we can get the word
out about what is really going on, and just caring about us in general.
Please keep it up - as soon as we unload the supplies we brought with
us, we will find out what more is needed and send our driver back out
for more. And so on and so forth.

Once we reach Covington, phone contact may be difficult - here is
something we could use help with - please get in touch with cell phone
companies and let them know that mobile cell towers are desparately needed
in Covington. However, the Vets for Peace do have a satellite internet
connection set up, so as soon as we are organized down there, we will be
online and relaying information to you all. As promised, the real life
stories will come soon - as well as further information about other
ways you can help and what is needed.

Peace from the war zone -

Andrea

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