In Nursing Home, a Fight Lost to Rising Waters (14 Dead)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/national/nationalspecial/07chalmette.html?pagewanted=print

They nailed a table against one window, ran a heavy electric wheelchair with a table on top against another and pushed a couch against a door. These failed defenses are still in St. Rita's nursing home, as are at least 14 swollen, unrecognizable bodies.

St. Bernard Parish officials say that 32 of the home's roughly 60 residents died on Aug. 29, more than a week ago.

It is a measure of the enormity of the disaster that has struck southern Louisiana that no one has removed many of the bodies, and local officials say there are no immediate plans to do so. The flood victims still lie where they died - draped over a wheelchair, wrapped in a shower curtain, lying on a floor in several inches of muck.

[Mnemosyne]

1. This breaks my heart so much.

No one should have their life ended that way, least of all those that have lived so long and suffered so much. Will this country ever protect their elders? Not in this case, not in many.

sigh

[Shallah Kali]

2. Where is the Culture of Life-ers when you need them?

Why weren't they breaking down the barricaides for these people? Why couldn't Bush come off his vacation for thousands of people? I haven't cussed so much and cried so much in my life as I have this week. Disasters are bad enough but what shatters my heart is so much of this was PREVENTABLE! it didn't have to be this bad.