No Way Out: Many Poor Stuck in Houston

[buzzsaw_23]

No Way Out: Many Poor Stuck in Houston

Friday September 23, 2005 6:46 PM

By DEBORAH HASTINGS

AP National Writer

HOUSTON (AP) - Wilma Skinner would like to scream at the officials of this city. If only they would pick up their phones.

``I done called for a shelter, I done called for help. There ain't none. No one answers,'' she said, standing in blistering heat outside a check-cashing store that had just run out of its main commodity. ``Everyone just says, 'Get out, get out.' I've got no way of getting out. And now I've got no money.''

With Hurricane Rita breathing down Houston's neck, those with cars were stuck in gridlock trying to get out. Those like Skinner - poor, and with a broken-down car - were simply stuck, and fuming at being abandoned, they say.

``All the banks are closed and I just got off work,'' said Thomas Visor, holding his sweaty paycheck as he, too, tried to get inside the store, where more than 100 people, all of them black or Hispanic, fretted in line. ``This is crazy. How are you supposed to evacuate a hurricane if you don't have money? Answer me that?'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5297917,00.html

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

1. Hard to believe they can fuck up two identical disasters in a row

I mean, really. We already KNOW they don't learn from history, but this is more than just slightly ridiculous!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Same old same old

the poor-and in this case, lurking freepers-obviously the WORKING poor-are being left behind. I remember hearing an interview with a mayor of a suburb of Houston this morning on NPR. The mayor basically said it was every man for himself; 60% of the poor could walk to bus stops, and that was all he said about them. Nothing about helping the other 40%, nothing about how long the buses would run.

[Moderator]

3. Duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1800076