Evacuees' stories are moving, but fence isn't

[seemslikeadream]

Evacuees' stories are moving, but fence isn't
By Diane Carman
Denver Post Staff Columnist




Verne Stovall, foreground, and her daughter-in-law, Jacquelyn Augustine, stand at a fence separating them from reporters and others Tuesday at the Community College of Aurora. Stovall recalled how she was rescued Sunday with 23 other people from a flooded house in New Orleans. (Post / Glenn Asakawa)


If I didn't know better, I'd have thought I was peering through the fence at a concentration camp.

The signs on the buildings say "Community College of Aurora," though for now they're serving as an impromptu Camp Katrina. About 160 hurricane survivors are being housed in the dorms, surrounded by fences, roadblocks, security guards and enough armed police officers to invade Grenada.

There's a credentials unit to process every visitor, an intake unit to provide identification tags and a bag of clothes to every evacuee, several Salvation Army food stations, portable toilets, shuttle buses, a green army-tent chapel with church services three times a day and a communications team to keep reporters as far away from actual news as possible.

It probably was easier for a reporter to get inside Gitmo on Tuesday than to penetrate the force field around Lowry.

http://www.denverpost.com/carman/ci_3006502

[Catch22Dem]

1. That looks like old Lowry AFB

Anyone know?

[donco6]

2. Yes, that's where they are. eom

[Catch22Dem]

3. Whaddya know.

I knew those dorms looked familiar. Spent 10 months there many years ago. Obviously under VERY different circumstances? Why are they treating it like a compound? I mean, can they go down the street to Burger King or something if they want? Are they free to catch a cab and spend the day at the mall? We're talking about Americans in America, right?

[sandnsea]

10. I read that they are not

Somewhere around here is a blog post from someone who took items to a Baptist shelter in Oklahoma. Very highly regulated, and NO, people will not be allowed to come and go, not even with a curfew it sounds like. I imagine this will be the next story, once people get over the shock of the deaths coming out of NO. I cannot wrap my head around this whole thing, it's mind numbing.

[bpilgrim]

8. Added to the Katrina Archive

http://news.globalfreepress.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=0

paging will pitt

:cry:

peace

[gademocrat7]

4. Why are these people being treated like criminals?

Every day, every hour a new outrage emerges from this terrible tragedy.
Impeach shrub NOW!!!!!!

[anarchy1999]

5. This all is just getting so much worse.

over in GD someone asked how Katrina and this disaster compared you how one felt after 9/11.

I knew how I felt then, but I did not respond. Much the same, but this is a much slower drip. Conversely, with having been subjected to outrages consistently now, this is rapid fire, every hour of every day a new outrage. We are getting no chance to catch a breath or to recover as in the past.

[iverglas]

6. skepticism is good ...

but everything has to be considered.

I can't get the link to work, so I can't consider everything ;) ... but:

- many evacuees may not want to be poked and pried at by reporters; they may want a little privacy and respite in the only "home" they have for now, and in fact be grateful that reporters are not wandering around it at will

- given the conditions that some evacuees were living in for days, it is wise to monitor, if not control, their comings and goings; communicable disease is still a possibility

- evacuees do genuinely need a feeling of security, that they are not vulnerable to whoever might happen to wander among them, that society is going to protect them from all varieties of harm, finally

Those may not be the reasons, or all the reasons, why these arrangements have been made, but they really are very valid reasons for making such arrangements.

It doesn't seem that evacuees are actually being prevented from having contact with reporters or anyone else -- that isn't exactly concrete or barbed wire between them.

These people have been through horrific trauma. They need security, safety and privacy. They need to see those things being provided.

And the authorities in charge of the shelter probably do not know very much about some of the people in it, and whether some of the people there might be at risk of victimization by others.

Yes, if their own desire for contact with the outside world is being interfered with, or if their ability to come and go from their shelter is being interfered with for anything other than genuine public health concerns or reasonable concerns for their safety, there would be a problem.

The media do have a role to play in a democracy, in disseminating information, and some of them even play it responsibly. But like all the rest of us, they also have their own interests, which come down to making a profit by accessing and disseminating things that people want to see. In this instance, from the snippets introduced, I would have to wonder whether it isn't that interest, rather than the interests of the evacuees or the public, that the media are most concerned about.

Is there "actual news" going on in the shelter? I really can't imagine there's much, other than people's personal accounts of their recent experiences, and it seems that people are quite free to contact the media to offer them if they wish.

Again -- I would never discount the presence of entirely different and less protective motives for the measures in place. They still look pretty close to the measures that *I* would put in place for severely traumatized and dislocated people, in their interests, and also in the public interest, temporarily of course.

[seemslikeadream]

7. Link works for me

[iverglas]

11. well, it worked for me this time too

The previous three times it didn't. Mea culpa, I guess.

I still don't see anything to suggest that the *evacuees* are unhappy with the situation, despite the reporter's displeasure.

Verne Stovall, 67, landed in Denver on Monday. She had spent a week along with 23 other people in a flooded house in New Orleans before rescuers ordered them to leave. They survived on canned food and water that National Guard troops dropped from helicopters.

On Sunday, police officers came to the door and gave them no choice. Stovall, who has diabetes, ulcers and vision blurred by glaucoma, reluctantly scrambled up onto the roof.

"I didn't want to go in that helicopter," she said. "I was so scared, I dropped my pocketbook into the water."

I'm sure there would be some who would applaud a decision to leave that woman on a roof rather than "order her to leave", in the name of liberty. I wouldn't be one of them. People really do need security just as much as they need liberty, and leaving a diabetic senior with multiple health problems, who cannot be expected to have the knowledge and comprehension of her situation she needs in order to make an informed decision, in a flooded house, is one time when a decision needs to be made for someone on her behalf, and in her best interests, by someone who really does know what is best for her at the time.

I'm not persuaded that the decisions being made at this shelter -- where people are continuing to arrive and conditions are therefore still hardly stable -- are not equally defensible.

Like so many survivors of Hurricane Katrina, their needs are complex and immediate. But help is trickling in.

Really, someone who shows up to offer jobs to people in this situation, while absolutely undoubtedly a good person with the absolutely best intentions and entirely deserving of recognition for her efforts, doesn't quite grasp the reality of the situation if she expects to walk away with employees, or even find someone to talk to about it, even as evacuees are still arriving.

Their needs are complex and immediate and more basic even than employment, and the people helping them have a need for the kind of conditions in which those needs can be met promptly and appropriately. Having television cameras and microphones be part of those conditions just isn't really likely to be helpful.

I know that the whole idea of the importance of human security -- the importance of having food, water, shelter, clothing, privacy, safety, and of knowing that one can expect these things and rely on them being there -- is a foreign concept to many of my neighbours to the south, who continue to firmly believe that "freedom!" is what everybody else wants. Really, most people want food, water, shelter, clothing, privacy and safety, and need the psychological security of knowing that they will continue to have them. Those things are what it is most important to provide the disaster victims now. And they're far more important than the media interest in having access to them.

[sattahipdeep]

9. She just needs to get through the fence.

Kathy Arford, who owns a small remodeling company, Kateri Homes, arrived
offering two jobs at $10 an hour.

"I need help," she said, "and I can teach people how to do the work."

The only problem was she couldn't get near the survivors.

"I've spent two hours trying to find somebody who'll listen to me," she said.

She wants to give a couple of desperate people a chance at a new life.
She just needs to get through the fence.

http://www.denverpost.com/carman/ci_3006502

Thanks seemslikeadream :hug:

[stickdog]

13. Sure that wasn't Kathy Gifford? (nt)

[sunnystarr]

12. I'm really getting freaked ... check this out

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread167902/pg1

It was on a DU post but the link didn't save right and doesn't work. I questioned the site and knew it had to be vetted but it had all those pictures and looked very real.

On edit:

The link is taking long to load but it will. I saved the whole thing to Word to keep the pictures.

[all.of.me]

14. what is the point of this?!

why are these people being treated like criminals?! what have THEY done?! god, this makes me sick. i am sure they are bursting at the seams to talk to someone about their ordeal, to process it, to get feedback, to heal. but noooooooooooooooooooo.... we treat these traumatized people like they have fucked up. yeah, that'll help heal them. ugh.

[KLF44]

15. So they can be reprogrammed

and answer all questions about FEMA and Bush in a positive way. I would not doubt that might happen.

edit for spelling

[all.of.me]

16. THAT is a scary thought.

[iverglas]

18. yeah, and a fairly ridiculous one

Volunteers came to offer counseling and help finding housing, furniture and clothing for evacuees.

Now, maybe all those volunteers, and all staff from local mental health agencies, and all school counsellors, and all Red Cross workers, etc., are being turned away so that the reprogrammers from FEMA can be brought in to do the job.

Given the evidence to date, I'd be skeptical that FEMA was capable of organizing such an effort ...

[iverglas]

17. well, I did try to offer an hypothesis about the point of it

My post "skepticism is good", right here in this thread.

There is simply no evidence that "these people" are "being treated like criminals". What I'm seeing potential evidence of is a reporter irked at not being able to get some juicy stories.

The people there may indeed be bursting at the seams to talk to someone about their ordeal -- and as I understand it, they are being offered appropriate people to talk to, professionals who have their interests at heart, not reporters who have an obvious conflict of interest.

They're also being offered food, shelter, privacy, safety and security, which are what they are really bursting at the seams for when they arrive (as people were continuing to do when the story was written).

I don't see anyone being prevented from talking to the media in that photo, do you?

I am seeing a variety of people failing to put the interests of the survivors first, unfortunately. And those who think that the media should be given unlimited access to them, in the shelters where they are being provided with the safety and security that are essential to them in the immediate term, are (hopefully out of all good intentions) among them.

[seemslikeadream]

19. I guess they are the lucky ones

Current Events: Charmaine Neville - Katrina Survivor, Tells Her Story

CurrentEvents
Charmaine Neville, a survivor of Hurricane Katrina, speaks to a Priest and details her experience during the storm in New Orleans 9th ward.
There are many many more stories like hers but, yet to be heard.
What Charmaine describes is beyond what anyone should go through. In America her story makes it ever worse to believe such events could happen. This video will and should being you to tears...




A singer, Neville is a member of one of New Orleans' great musical families. Her father, Charles Neville, performs with uncles Aaron, Art and Cyril in the Neville Brothers band. She estimates the musicians in her family number well over 100. In New Orleans, she said, every neighborhood and every family has musicians.

... Just back from a visit to Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center on Saturday afternoon, Neville was cut, bruised and a little despondent. Among the horrible things she'd seen last week, she said, was the rape of old women, girls and boys.

"Some people hate themselves, so they hate everybody else. Those people were not true New Orleanians," she said.

But Neville saw heroes, too. "There are many, many heroes that have come out this. People talking about what I did. I didn't do nothing. Everybody did something."

Neville said that she, too, was raped during those chaotic days. "What he took from me was nothing, because he can't take my spirit, he can't take my soul. My soul is New Orleans."


AND

Whoopsi Gras by Mark Fiore

The reality float
http://sfgate.com/comics/fiore/

[iverglas]

20. links to the Charmaine Neville video here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1758671&mesg_id=1758671

Just another way in which the victims' society failed to protect them -- a failure that I am as outraged about as anyone.

That's one reason I'm somewhat distressed by criticism of the efforts now being made to protect them. It's one thing to denounce the failure to do anything at all; it's another to poke sticks at what is being done in apparent, or even conceivable, good faith, even if it isn't perfect. The emergency is still on; let's at least wait and see how the efforts finally being made to aid evacuees pan out in the short term, rather than hunting for every little flaw that might be found.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

21. One hell of a concentration camp...

...what with the plastic fence and all. :eyes:

[seemslikeadream]

22. You go there and stand behind that fence

LIVE IT

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

23. As opposed to a fetid cesspool or the superdome?

I'll take my chances with the plastic fence.

[seemslikeadream]

25. Then go there and take your chances

LIVE IT

and then come back and let us know how it's going

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

33. Uh huh.

Certainly comfy in front of your PC there, isn't it?

[iverglas]

24. for pity's sake

Have you established yet that someone is being prevented from coming out from behind the fence?

And if so, that this is being done any more than temporarily in order to maintain the kind of control and record-keeping that is NECESSARY if the residents of the shelter are to be SERVED appropriately?

The report you posted said that the media were not able to get IN. Well, the media would not be able to get in to MY home, either. They are not able to get in to hospitals, women's shelters, university residences, apartment buildings, etc. etc. etc., unless invited. And when people are living collectively, the invitation can't be issued at the whim of any individual resident.

Has any resident of a shelter expressed dissatisfaction with media being excluded from the places where they are being accommodated after being evacuated?

This is simply not the same as media being excluded from the actual site of news events. There are things worth criticizing, and things that one ought to actually know something about before denouncing them.

[seemslikeadream]

26. I didn't write the story

did ya notice that?

[iverglas]

30. indeed

The problem is, you haven't come up with anything from the story that provides any basis for all this outrage of yours.

A REPORTER saying "If I didn't know better, I'd have thought I was peering through the fence at a concentration camp" doesn't actually establish that there is any similarity between the evacuees' temporary housing and a concentration camp.

And in point of fact, there seems to be very little resemblance between the two at all. I actually DON'T KNOW what all the details of the arrangements are, and whether anyone is being confined against his/her will for reasons that are not legitimate (e.g. temporary quarantine because of the possibility of contagious disease, although this does not seem to be considered an issue). DO YOU?

Ever tried to get into a shelter for battered women without an invitation? Got any concern for the evacuees' right to PRIVACY and SECURITY?

Any reason to think that the puny snowfence in the picture, or any of the other things referred to in the article, is intended to keep anyone in, rather than to keep uninvited persons out?

[seemslikeadream]

34. Please show me this outrage you are talking about

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

27. There are those who are willing to perpetuate...

...any piece of "information" that contributes to the FEMA-as-secret-government conspiracy theory.

[seemslikeadream]

28. and there are those who always show up with the word

concentration

[seemslikeadream]

29. Denver Post story

:eyes:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

31. Look, I'm sorry the New World Order isn't working out as you expected.n/t

[seemslikeadream]

32. I have never said anything about New World Order

http://www.fema.gov/library/eo12148.shtm

Executive Order Number 12656 appointed the National Security Council as the principal body that should consider emergency powers. This allows the government to increase domestic intelligence and surveillance of U.S. citizens and would restrict the freedom of movement within the United States and grant the government the right to isolate large groups of civilians. The National Guard could be federalized to seal all borders and take control of U.S. air space and all ports of entry.
http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/12656.htm

Executive Order 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/jfkeo/eo/10990.htm

Executive Order 10995 allows Seizure of all communications media in the United States.
http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/10995.htm

Executive Order 10997 allows Seizure of all electric power fuels and minerals, public and private.
http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/10997.htm


Executive Order 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.
http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/10998.htm

Executive Order 10999 allows Seizure of all means of transportation, including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind and total control of highways, seaports and waterways.
http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/10999.htm

Executive Order 11000 allows Seizure of all American people for work forces under federal supervision including the splitting of families if the government finds it necessary.
http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/11000.htm

Executive Order 11001 allows seizure of all health, education and welfare facilities, public and private.
http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/11001.htm

Executive Order 11002 empowered the postmaster general to register all men, women and children in the U.S.
http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/11002.htm

Executive Order 11003 allows seizure of all airports and aircraft.
http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/11003.htm

Executive Order 11004 allows seizure of all housing and finance authorities to establish Forced Relocation Designated areas to be abandoned as "unsafe."
http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/11004.htm

Executive Order 11005 allows seizure of all railroads, inland waterways and storage facilities, public and private.
http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/11005.htm

Executive Order 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.
http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/11051.htm

Executive Order 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months.
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-11921.htm

Executive Order 12919 Signed June 3, 1994, by President Clinton. Encompasses all the above executive orders.
http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/12919.htm

[all.of.me]

36. the psychological effect of cops, military, tape, fences, and so on...

... can be devastating. they certainly don't deserve that.

[iverglas]

37. the psychological effect of those things

can also, for people who have just lived for several days without the security of cops, walls, and so on, with nothing and no one to protect them from the elements or other people, comforting. It will depend on a variety of things.

I suffer from post-traumatic stress, of the complex sort -- multiple sources, with the result that I am sensitized to trauma and fresh trauma exacerbates my symptoms. I know what it's like to sleep with two by fours jammed against the door because of "irrational" fear, fear of something that was not going to happen but that my mind and body were expecting to happen nonetheless.

People who have been in such dangerous and insecure situations for so long really do need safety and security, and the knowledge of safety and security, in order to begin to recover.

Now, yes -- people whose trauma has involved being trapped and unable to escape danger (and mine did) also do certainly need not to be made to feel trapped and denied control over their fates, again; that particular trauma is a fresh injury, and there must be sensitivity on the part of caregivers to that fact and care taken not to rub salt in it.

But just because some of us may see the police and military as the jack-booted thugs of fascism, that doesn't mean that the ordinary people who are the victims of this disaster feel that way, or that the police and military are actually behaving that way. The people may well see them as protectors and providers of the security they need, if they think about it at all, and of course if they are *not* being arbitrarily confined or controlled. And I still haven't seen any evidence that they are.

[all.of.me]

39. well, i've been traumatized, too, so we can agree to disagree.

[iverglas]

40. yeah, or

we can agree that while I offered reasons for thinking that the situation offered to these people was probably appropriate and acceptable to them, and did not claim that this opinion was not susceptible to exceptions or that disproof of the premises on which it was based was not possible, you just offered the bald assertion that the situation "can be devastating" and that the people in it were undeserving of it, and declined to offer any reasons for characterizing the situation that way at all.

I'll take door number two.

If you don't like your opinions being disagreed with or having your assertions challenged, you might not want to bother offering opinions or making assertions in public. "Agree to disagree" may be reasonable between two people who have attempted to persuade each other but can't, in all good faith, agree on a premise or a conclusion from it. But there is no equivalency between someone who has attempted to engage in that effort and someone who does no more than offer opinions without reasons and make assertions without substantiation. In that case, it's the proverbial cop-out.

I have yet to see any reports of anyone living in the situation in question objecting to it or being unhappy about it; in fact, the women interviewed in the report, who did not really seem to be under any supervision or coercion, said they were happy to be there. I don't discount the possibility that people in that situation would be reluctant to challenge the authorities there, because they are still vulnerable and they don't feel secure; I am familiar with situations where that was the case. But negative opinions and statements about the situation based on nothing at all aren't much use to anybody.

[all.of.me]

46. perahps we can agree that only THOSE people know how THEY feel.

i don't know. you don't know. i don't profess to know. i only know how it makes me feel from MY point of view. and you only know how it makes you feel from YOUR point of view, which is different than mine. but you keep trying to beat your point of view into every person on this thread, and you're upset with anyone who disagrees with you. i'm not engaging in this conversation anymore.

[iverglas]

48. oh well, buh bye then, eh?

but you keep trying to beat your point of view into every person on this thread, and you're upset with anyone who disagrees with you.

Gosh, that'll be your point of view about me I guess, hmm?

I'm seriously irked when people who profess to be the ones giving a damn about the victims use them as springboards for agendas. And I've seen a lot of that in threads about how they are allegedly being treated in the evacuation process, including this one.

perahps we can agree that only THOSE people know how THEY feel.
i don't know. you don't know. i don't profess to know. i only know how it makes me feel from MY point of view.

That's nice -- except that the people actually interviewed in the story said they were HAPPY to be where they were, and the only complaints about the arrangements made for them came from the REPORTER. Damn, eh?

[xxqqqzme]

35. after reading this thread

I recall the oft quoted st ronnie line - scary nine words - 'I'm from the government, I'm here to help you.' The story @ the link about the 'camp' in Oklahoma is frightening. These R people who can easily B forgotten; stashed out of sight; disconnected - who will miss them or ever pick up the trail 2 where they have been sent?

[Megahurtz]

38. What the Hell???

They can't force these people behind a fence!!!!

This is fucking insane!!!:grr:

[iverglas]

41. what the hell?????

Where did you read that someone was being forced behind a fence?????????

[Megahurtz]

42. Uh...well........

If they're denying these people their right to talk to people, it sounds like force to me.
It sounds like jail or something.
Breaching lockdown? What does that tell you?:shrug:

I don't trust them at all.:(

[iverglas]

44. uh ... well ...

Breaching lockdown? What does that tell you?

It tells me that a reporter who writes:

But survivors occasionally breached the lockdown and came to the fence to tell their stories, each one astonishing.

while standing talking to two people over a flimsy plastic snowfence is engaging in just a teeny little bit of hyperbole.

I mean, you did read the entire story, right?

And again ... if there was a "lockdown" at a facility where new arrivals were still arriving in large numbers --

As he slowly walked away, a car pulled up depositing more evacuees. Organizers said a few were coming from Houston and other cities by car. They have been told to prepare for planeloads of survivors over the next few days.

-- I just don't find it all that difficult to understand, that the people responsible for the survivors' safety and security wanted to maintain some control over entries and exits at the facility.

I'm still waiting for someone to provide something that genuinely indicates that people were being prevented from leaving the facility or speaking with the press. Journalistic hyperbole doesn't do it.

[earth mom]

43. Those people are SUPPOSEDLY FREE

Why have a fence at all, EVER?! It's a barrier, it bars people from FREELY coming and going! What part of that don't you understand???!!! How about you go there and see how you like it and how "FREE" you feel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[iverglas]

45. how about I go make dinner

There's a point at which the tedious repetition of the same sorry crap no longer calls for answering.

There has been discussion in this thread. I have answered your questions, long before they were asked. Feel free to read a discussion before lunging into it feet first, okay?

And when you've done that, then, if you like, you can tell me what part of what I had already said you didn't understand, and why you'd waste time asking me what part of your unsubstantiated nonsense about plastic snow fences so obviously erected to demarcate the space set aside for housing survivors, and put potential intruders of all varieties on notice to stay out, you didn't understand ...

[petronius]

47. Fences keep people out as well as in

The general sense I get from this article is of a reporter who didn't get to go exactly where she wanted exactly when she wanted and is trying spin her own disappointment into a crime against humanity. The key sentence for me is the snippy "...and a communications team to keep reporters as far away from actual news as possible."

There's nothing in the article to suggest that anyone is being prevented from leaving the area, just that some are being prevented from entering. And in fact, some visitors are being allowed in ("...a credentials unit to process every visitor..."), just not this reporter.