Hurricane Katrina: From people who were there

US: New Orleans: 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 been 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 repeatedly 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.

From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was 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.

By Disaster posted 12 September 05

Related:

How Bush sold New Orleans to Buy Iraq
George W Bush cut short his vacation by two days to go back to Washington, and play guitar. Doesn't look too worried about the utter destruction and desolation in New Orleans, does he? How about initiating a temporary withdrawal from Iraq so that there is enough National Guardsmen and equipment available in Louisiana?

In Praise of Looting
"The Iberville Housing Projects got pissed off because the police started to "shop" after they kicked out looters. Then they started shooting at cops. When the cops left, the looters looted everything. There's probably not a grocery left in this city."

The "Looting" in New Orleans: Not Insane in the Least
Some comments on recent events in New Orleans from an anarchist perspective. Despite the comment from the Philadelphia tourist, I can't find this insane.

Bush Expected to Visit Storm-Ravaged Areas
US: WACO, Texas - President Bush is expected to visit storm-ravaged areas of the Gulf Coast later this week, but first he is returning to Washington to oversee the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

In Praise of Looting

Blaming Katrina's victims for not being rich

"The Iberville Housing Projects got pissed off because the police started to "shop" after they kicked out looters. Then they started shooting at cops. When the cops left, the looters looted everything. There's probably not a grocery left in this city."

The devastation wrought on the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina is clearly evident three days after the winds started blowing and the journalists scampered out from their hotels. Most of New Orleans is under water. The Mississippi and Alabama coasts are obliterated. The situation in New Orleans is dire as thousands of people struggle to survive and get out of the worsening toxic cesspool that the city is becoming.

In the midst of all of this pain and misery, the media and the authorities have decided that the central story now is the looting and "lawlessness" that are taking place around the city. The poor, mostly black, victims of Hurricane Katrina are being blamed for their response to the situation. Their logical response to having the homes and neighborhoods destroyed is understandable given that this disaster has been happening for a long time in their neighborhoods and lives. The ongoing disaster that they are reacting to is the catastrophe known as capitalism.

The media knows that playing up the looting on TV plays well in Peoria. Comfortable middle class white people watch the New Orleans situation on TV and resort to simplistic Christian judgments about right and wrong. Some of them understand that the "looters" have a moral right to take food and medicine, but they seize on news that looters have taken guns and TVs as evidence that the looters are bad people. The authorities help reinforce these beliefs with their constant pontification about how looters will be punished. This morning the authorities are further demonizing the poor people of New Orleans by suspending rescue efforts because some person fired at a Coast Guard rescue worker. We all know that if some white dude in a rich neighborhood that was under water fired at rescue workers the rescue effort would continue uninterrupted.

What exactly is so evil about taking a package of Pampers or some cans of food from a Winn-Dixie or a Wal-Mart store? These people are trying to survive in neighborhoods that are under water, with no services of any kind. Are the rescue workers, the media, or the state dropping pampers and bottled water into the flooded neighborhoods of New Orleans? Are the on-the-scene Fox News anchors putting down their microphones, rolling up their sleeves, and helping rescue people?

The media and authorities' obsession with looting is racist, capitalist and simply inhumane. What difference does it make what people take from the stores near their neighborhoods? They have no access to food, clean water, diapers, medicine, shoes, liquor, cigarettes and all the things that they need to get through this crisis. It's not like these corporate grocery stores are going to go bankrupt because hungry people clear out an inventory that will have to be destroyed once the waters recede. People are "dumpster-diving" from stores who are insured, well capitalized, and which will have to throw away all of their stock anyway.

The Government Can't Help You

The failure of the American state to respond to this tragedy is abundantly clear at this point. In its typical fashion, the state will turn the situation into a circus before the capitalist profiteers move in. On Friday, American president George W. Bush will fly into New Orleans to perform a photo op while some residents of New Orleans are still trapped in their attics. Many poor residents will be dying as Bush speaks useless words about the catastrophe. The hungry and wet people won't be fed by Bush's visit, but perhaps if he falls out of a helicopter while surveying the damage, the residents can make a good jambalaya with the presidential corpse. Meanwhile, there are reports that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was laughing it up last night at a production in New York City of 'Spamalot'.

The catastrophe in New Orleans once again demonstrates the inability of the state to take care of its subjects, especially its poorest citizens. For all of the talk about "homeland security" over the past few years, very little homeland security was available for the residents of New Orleans. There are reports now about how the government cut back on programs that would have helped New Orleans weather this disaster. The immediate response by rescue workers was hampered by the fact that the Louisiana National Guard is stuck in Iraq, fighting and losing an imperialist war staged by Bush and his Halliburton cronies. The evacuation plan worked for middle and upper class people with cars, but apparently there was no effort to bus poor people out of the city as Hurricane Katrina approached.

If there is a silver lining in this ongoing tragedy, it involves the small acts of mutual aid being done by New Orleans residents for each other. This includes people rescuing people from flooded houses, people helping move sick people to dry ground, people sharing food and materials with each other, and much more. In times of natural or manmade disasters, humans have shown time and time again their ability to help each other out via mutual aid. These responses play out organically and can't be organized by the state. In many instances, the state's efforts interfere with this mutual aid and make situations worse. It's pretty clear in New Orleans that the state totally failed the poor residents of the city.

Looting is not a problem in New Orleans right now. People have a right to take what they need to survive. Even if they take things that aren't needed for survival, those of us watching from the comfort of our dry homes have no reason to complain about these actions. Finally, let's remember that looting is a form of wealth redistribution. When rich people loot, they call it capitalism, good business practices, third quarter dividends, the new economy and "giving people job." When your neighborhood is under water and there are no relief services in sight, taking diapers from a Wal-Mart is not a criminal or immoral act.

Hooray for the looters!

By Harry Looter 5 September 05

The "Looting" in New Orleans: Not Insane in the Least
Some comments on recent events in New Orleans from an anarchist perspective. Despite the comment from the Philadelphia tourist, I can't find this insane.

Bush Expected to Visit Storm-Ravaged Areas
US: WACO, Texas - President Bush is expected to visit storm-ravaged areas of the Gulf Coast later this week, but first he is returning to Washington to oversee the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

The "Looting" in New Orleans: Not Insane in the Least

Some comments on recent events in New Orleans from an anarchist perspective. Despite the comment from the Philadelphia tourist, I can't find this insane.

Let's review now:

* Major hurricane threatens New Orleans with damage much worse than it actually got.
* About 20% of the residents of that city are in households without automobiles.
* Most of them are low-income and live in the shoddiest buildings in the most flood-prone neighborhood, i.e. they are the people most at risk.
* Evacuation is called.
* Evacuation plan is to get in your car and drive out of New Orleans.
* Absolutely nothing is done to provide for the evacuation of those without cars to drive.
* Hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of buses (owned by school districts, transit districts, and private companies) were available throughout the metro area and could have been commandeered as evacuation vehicles.
* End result: an evacuation that systematically fails to evacuate precisely those in most need of evacuating.

Put yourself in the position of one of those survivors. Nobody's cared about rescuing you; the only people that really counted were those with more money than you have. People like the owners of the shops in your city.

Shops closed and not about to reopen precisely because the owners fled town. Shops with blown-out windows that can be walked through. Shops whose merchandise is about to be ruined by the disease-ridden and polluted water streaming through levee breaks and flooding your city. Merchandise that, in many cases, you need because you're running low on necessities and relief can't easily get to you because of flooded highways.

How can it be anything but logical to help yourself to some of that merchandise in such a situation? The still photos I've seen seem very revealing; nobody looks particularly menacing or threatening. The "looters" seem to be of all ages and genders; it's not just young gang-bangers we're talking about. In fact, I've noticed numerous scenes showing mothers with their children.

I've dragged out the TV and turned it on tonight. NBC News had two segments on the "looting" and the most violent scene they showed was of a young man throwing a rock at a store window, trying to break it. One scene showed people walking calmly into and out of a Walgreen's, passing right by the camera, while across the street a trumpeter played "When the Saints Go Marching In." Put aside the fact that money hadn't been exchanged for the merchandise being taken out, and it could have been a normal street scene.

One phrase NBC trotted out was "every man for himself." That seems to be directly contradicted by their own footage, which showed many examples of people helping each other (and not just to carry stuff out of stores). Looks more like the key defining behavior in the aftermath of this disaster is cooperation, not individualistic competition. If you want a real example of "every man for himself," look at that evacuation plan the authorities came up with.

With all that so-called "breakdown" of "law and order," there's been only one person shot (not fatally, thankfully) so far. That one shooting is tragic, but let's have some perspective here. In 2004, there were 265 murders in New Orleans. That's just the dead; it doesn't cover the non-fatal assaults with deadly weapons. Add those in and we're probably well above 1 per day on average. If it really was an outbreak of barbarism, the violence would be much worse.

Instead, there's very little of it, Just lots of peaceful folks who have decided that those stores are, in the words of one man, "everybody's store[s]." A breakdown, in other words, of law but not order.

By David B posted 5 September 05

Related:

Bush Expected to Visit Storm-Ravaged Areas
US: WACO, Texas - President Bush is expected to visit storm-ravaged areas of the Gulf Coast later this week, but first he is returning to Washington to oversee the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

Water conservation 'sacrificed for profits'

The New South Wales Government has been accused of siphoning so much profit from Sydney Water that the utility cannot afford to explore options to drastically reduce the city's water consumption.

It comes a day after Premier Bob Carr announced that the State Government would spend $4 million exploring desalination as an option to boost Sydney's dwindling water supply.

It is an option Carr had earlier dismissed because the energy-intensive process would lift greenhouse gas emissions.

But desalination would guarantee that Sydney Water still provides the city's water needs.

A former managing director of Sydney Water, Bob Wilson, has said that the utility is too focused on maximising profits to seriously explore water saving and recycling options.

"They are, all the time, trying to maximise this year's profit and that means that even when they're supposed to be doing demand management, that doesn't always succeed because they'll drop their profits if they're successful," Mr Wilson said.

"If they teach people to use less water and they encourage people to use water tanks and for industry to recycle water, they make less profits."

Graham Dooley, from water management company United Utilities has said he agrees with that assessment.

"About 30 per cent of the total cash that is generated by the better-performing water utilities ends up in Treasury," Mr Dooley said.

By Bone Dry 18 October 04