This should be required reading

[unixronin]

A first-hand account from the streets of New Orleans discusses how a large group of evacuees kicked out of French Quarter hotels -- a mixture of locals, conference attendees, and foreign tourists -- tried everything they could to rescue themselves and were thwarted at every turn, not by Nature, but by the authorities.  They pooled $25,000 to charter ten buses to evacuate them; the buses were commandeered by the military upon arrival.  They camped out outside a police station trying to get attention, and were told by the police commander that buses were waiting to evacuate them.  The buses never existed; it was just a lie to get rid of them.  They tried to walk out of the city, and they -- and thousands of others, by ones and tens and scores -- were turned back at gunpoint at the Greater New Orleans Bridge by police who didn't want black folks crossing the Mississippi into places decent folks lived.  They set up a camp and started providing for their own shelter and sanitation, only to have it broken up at gunpoint by a Gretna sheriff backed up by a helicopter, who then took what food and water they'd managed to gather.

It'd be altogether a tale of misery and shame, if not for the discussions of how ordinary people banded together to rig generators, improvise local electrical power grids, transport the sick and disabled, and in general to pull together and work to rescue themselves.  With every word you read of what was done to them, remember what they did for themselves -- and that they never gave up.

When stories like this can come out of New Orleans, there's hope for America.  Maybe it just needs a big enough disaster to remind us what's important.

---

Edit:

rbos commented that when you hear things like this, it makes the stories of shooting at helicopters a bit more understandable.  "Oh, no, here the bastards come again...."

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Let's just say it wouldn't be a good idea to let me within range (I originally typed "rage" there, I think my slip is showing) of anybody with a Fed badge right now. g-dd--mnrevenooers.... (it's one word, you know.)

Hakkaa päälle!

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Interesting. That's a different spelling than the one I know ....

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

which one, g.d.revenooers, or hack them down?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The latter. I recall a slightly different spelling, but I can't currently find a reference to any other spelling than the one cited by Eric Flint.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah.

"Beware of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors, and miss." -- Lazarus Long

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Duly noted.

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

~speechless~