Comments on: Blogging from New Orleans

By: Arun

Arun — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 02:49:52 +0000

He then precedes to tell us that some churches had already enquired into whether they could send a van or bus on Sundays to pick up any occupants of their cabins who might be interested in attending church. FEMA will not allow this. The occupants of the camp cannot leave the camp for any reason. If they leave the camp they may never return. They will be issued FEMA identification cards and “a sum of money” and they will remain within the camp for the next 5 months.

By: Arun

Arun — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 02:48:24 +0000

I read this and weep. I can’t believe it is true. I don’t dare track this to the source, so here is where I read it:

http://pratie.blogspot.com/2005/09/welcome-to-krakow-fema-oklahoma.html

Excerpt: Some folks have gone with gifts of supplies to a church youth-camp turned into evacuee shelter.

He then points to the vegetables and fruit. “You’ll have to take that back as well. It looks like you’ve got about 10 apples there. I’m about to bring in 40 men. What would we do then?”

My mother, in her sweet, soft voice says, “Quarter them?”

“No ma’am. FEMA said no… It could cause a riot. You don’t understand the type of people that are about to come here….”

By: Arun

Arun — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 22:44:22 +0000

Via atrios – the story that people evacuating by foot out of New Orleans were turned back by armed men with dogs apparently is true.

http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/2748

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.

Going to the source of the quote above, it continues:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sfsocialists/3687.html

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.