RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Hurricane Katrina

Quote:

---

klinton said:
There is already a government fun supposedly earmarked for this. he already has donated to the relief by paying fucking taxes.

---

Quote:

---

Ebenezer Scrooge said:
Are there no prisons... and the Union workhouses, are they still in operation? I help to support the establishments I have mentioned--they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.

---

Quote:

---

the G-man said:

Quote:

---

Ebenezer Scrooge said:
Are there no prisons... and the Union workhouses, are they still in operation? I help to support the establishments I have mentioned--they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.

---

---

Quote:

---

Captain Sammitch said:
Because it's possible to be prepared for a major city being virtually WIPED OUT and a hundred thousand people stranded there with nowhere to go?

---

Quote:

---

the G-man said:

---

Quote:

---

PCG342 said:

Quote:

---

the G-man said:

---

Somebody, frontpage this shit!

---

Quote:

---

PCG342 said:

Quote:

---

the G-man said:

---

Somebody, frontpage this shit!

---

Quote:

---

unrestrained id said:
Murderous bastard.

---

Quote:

---

Flameswordsman said:
Apparently there are Great Whites and Aligators roaming the flooded streets. Is that true?

---

Quote:

---

britneyspearsatemyshorts said:
on the donation front i think alot of people under estimate what they can give. for instance if you were to cut out ordering out pizza one day this week a person could donate $10, or cut out extra truips around town it's not hard to burn $10 woth of gas. skip buying a cd or video game this week. $10 doesnt seem like alot but if everyone did im not sure how many people are in the country but that would add up pretty quick, and it's not like you'd be worse off for skipping a cd, pizza or car trip.

---

Looters found despoiling the dead were stood against the nearest wall or pile of debris and shot without hindrance of a trial. The grisly work of collecting the dead continued by torchlight. The workers were issued generous rations of bourbon and strong cigars. They breathed through handkerchiefs soaked in bourbon and smoked cigars to mask the smell.

In the sweltering heat that followed the storm, decomposition was rapid. The bodies soon lost the rigidity of rigor mortis and had to be shoveled into carts. At times the fixed bayonets of the militia were all that kept many of the men at their work. Superintendents of the work gangs were finally given permission to torch the wreckage wherever found rather than try to extricate pieces of flesh from the ruins and cart them away.

“It was like living in a battlefield. The fuel-oil smoke hung over the city, day and night, and the heavy air was never free of the smell of carbolic acid, of lime, of putrefaction.”

— Death from the Sea: The Galveston Hurricane of 1900, Herbert Molloy Mason, Jr.

Looters found despoiling the dead were summarily executed by the militia - stood against the nearest wall or pile of debris and shot without the hindrance of a trial. The same brutal justice was delivered to amateur photographers. “Word received from Galveston today indicates that Kodak fiends are being shot down like thieves. Two, it is stated, were killed yesterday while taking pictures of nude female bodies.”

— Dallas News, September 14, 1900.

Planes, trains and buses delivered refugees to safety on Saturday as the evacuation of this ruined city finally appeared to pick up steam.

Buses had evacuated most people from the frightening confines of the Superdome by early morning. At the equally squalid convention center, thousands of people began pushing and dragging their belongings up the street to more than a dozen air-conditioned buses, the mood more numb than jubilant.

More than 50,000 people had been trapped for days at the two filthy, sweltering buildings, suffering from a lack of food, water or medical attention. Help came too late for a number of them - dead bodies were a common sight, in wheelchairs, wrapped in blankets or just abandoned.

At Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, thousands of people remained in a triage center, many of them dying for lack of medical care.





"The hallways are filled, the floors are filled. There are thousands of people there," said Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who was at the airport. "A lot more than eight to 10 people are dying a day. It's a distribution problem. The doctors are doing a great job, the nurses are doing a great job."

Since the cavalry arrived in New Orleans on Friday, more than 25,000 residents have been evacuated, Mike Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said at a briefing Saturday morning in Baton Rouge.

Both the number of people left in the city and the death toll remained unknown, because people continued showing up at evacuation sites and dead bodies were still being counted, Brown said.

"There are people in apartments and hotels that you didn't know were there," Army Brig. Gen. Mark Graham said at the briefing.

At the convention center, Yolanda Sanders stood at a barricade clutching her cocker spaniel, Toto. She had been waiting to be evacuated for five days.




"I had faith that they'd come. I feel good that I know I can get to my family," she said. Sanders didn't know yet where they were taking her, but "anyplace is better than here. People are dying over there."

Quote:

---

Flameswordsman said:
Maybe its just me, but I really get disgusted when people leave their animals behind,

---

Quote:

---

Flameswordsman said:
Makes you really see what a corrupt and sometimes horrible World we live in when funding for a natural disaster was stripped. obviously Bush couldnt have predicted it, but New Orleans was a prime target what with their 'damn thingie', and you just dont strip money away from a Natural Disaster prevention fund to add more money to an already Very questionable war

---

Quote:

---

the G-man said:

Quote:

---

Flameswordsman said:
Apparently there are Great Whites and Aligators roaming the flooded streets. Is that true?

---

Alligators. Probably. Louisana is full of them.

Great Whites? Probably not. I don't think they can live very long in, or have much desire to head into, fresh water. Also, I believe the flooding came from rivers and lakes around New Orleans, not the ocean.

---

Quote:

---

Jim Jackson said:
Lake Pontchartrain was the chief culprit of the flooding into New Orleans once its levees failed. Accoridng to CNN, the Lake is the second biggest salt lake in the U.S., behind Utah's Great Salt Lake.

---

I did not know that



Even so, there would not be sharks in the lake and once the water in the lake mixed with the fresh water from the Mississippi it would seem that there would be little incentive for sharks to head up there.

But who knows.

A local doctor and his wife who were on their honeymoon in New Orleans quickly went from vacation mode to that of emergency volunteers.

Dr. Thuong Vo works at Greece's Park Ridge Hospital. He and his wife, Stephanie Tran, were married in June and went to the Big Easy for a delayed getaway.

As soon as they realized a hurricane was heading for New Orleans, the couple tried to get out. But no flights, rental cars or busses were available.

So they bought water and food at convenience stores, and joined the thousands at the superdome.

The doctor quickly realized people needed his help.

"They were passing out left and right, we saw police officers trying to care for them,” Dr. Thoung Vo said. “I told a lieutenant, ‘I can help you guys’. That's when I started triaging and helping out." Over the next few days people with health problems flooded into Dr. Vo's makeshift emergency room for some “survival medicine.”

Diabetics didn't have insulin, and Dr. Vo didn't have enough needles.

"By Tuesday there were no syringes left. I had five syringes for insulin. And you know, we do what we can. We share."

“We tell people, ‘this is your choice. This is what we're working with. If you agree to it we go for it.’"

Stephanie became a patient herself. She'd worked along Dr. Vo’s side for days, pregnant and dehydrated.

"I was flown out in a Helicopter,” Tran said. “My husband, the only reason he got to go is because he's a doctor to look after patients. We landed on an expressway."

After getting an I.V. at a shelter in Baton Rouge, they managed to get a ride to the airport and fly to Syracuse.

Dr Vo is glad he had the chance to help a few people, but thinks about the many that remain.

"We have a place to go home, to a community that cares about us. These are the folks who don't know when they'll go home, if there is a home to go home to."

Did they riot?
Did they loot?
Did they work their asses off helping other people, risking their own health?

Quote:

---

britneyspearsatemyshorts said:
it didnt happen during the tsunami. punks are punks. there are 2 types of people. those who rise above theirselves during times of disaster and those who take advantage of others.

---

Quote:

---

rex said:

Quote:

---

Flameswordsman said:
Maybe its just me, but I really get disgusted when people leave their animals behind,

---

Its been almost impossible for most people to escape the affected areas. Do you really think they have room for animals? I would hate to leave my dogs, but if it means saving another human, I would do it.

---

Quote:

---

britneyspearsatemyshorts said:if bad people get away stealing a tv, then they try rape and murder

---

Quote:

---

Wednesday said:
If they get in the way of relief efforts, arrest 'em, wound 'em if you must, but don't kill them.

---

As was said in another thread (I can't be arsed to dig it up right now), it's very difficult to shoot someone just to wound them, and military and law enforcement are trained only to draw a gun if they are prepared to kill someone.

And you can't really taser someone nonlethally if they're knee-deep in water, can you?

The only way to stop the looters without killing them would be to club them down with something. And since the cops and National Guard and everyone else are busy trying to save people, I guess I can understand why they're letting the looters slide for the time being.

It's still shitty, though, and I'm sure enough of those looters are paying their dues when they run into unstable buildings or fallen electrical lines - or tenacious property owners. But as for the bastards preying on innocent people, shoot on sight doesn't seem like that bad of a policy.