First By the Floods, Then By Martial Law Trapped in New Orleans
http://www.counterpunch.org/bradshaw09062005.htmlBy LARRY BRADSHAW and LORRIE BETH SLONSKY
LARRY BRADSHAW and LORRIE BETH SLONSKY are emergency medical services
(EMS) workers from San Francisco and contributors to Socialist Worker.
They were attending an EMS conference in New Orleans when Hurricane
Katrina struck. They spent most of the next week trapped by the
flooding--and the martial law cordon around the city.
Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreens
store at the corner of Royal and Iberville Streets in the city's
historic French Quarter remained locked. The dairy display case was
clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without
electricity, running water, plumbing, and the milk, yogurt, and cheeses
were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat.
The owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers and
prescriptions, and fled the city. Outside Walgreens' windows, residents
and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry. The much-promised
federal, state and local aid never materialized, and the windows at
Walgreens gave way to the looters.
There was an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window
and distributed the nuts, fruit juices and bottled water in an
organized and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead, they spent
hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters.
We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived
home on Saturday. We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look at
a newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or
front-page pictures of European or affluent white tourists looting the
Walgreens in the French Quarter.
We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images
of the National Guard, the troops and police struggling to help the
"victims" of the hurricane. What you will not see, but what we
witnessed, were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief
effort: the working class of New Orleans.
The maintenance workers who used a forklift to carry the sick and
disabled. The engineers who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators
running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords
stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order
to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for
mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air
into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who
rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat
yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their
roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hotwire any car that could
be found to ferry people out of the city. And the food service workers
who scoured the commercial kitchens, improvising communal meals for
hundreds of those stranded.
Most of these workers had lost their homes and had not heard from
members of their families. Yet they stayed and provided the only
infrastructure for the 20 percent of New Orleans that was not under
water.
* * *
ON DAY Two, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in
the French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference
attendees like ourselves and locals who had checked into hotels for
safety and shelter from Katrina.
Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends outside of
New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources,
including the National Guard and scores of buses, were pouring into the
city. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible,
because none of us had seen them.
We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up
with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the city. Those
who didn't have the requisite $45 each were subsidized by those who did
have extra money.
We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours
standing outside, sharing the limited water, food and clothes we had.
We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and newborn
babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the
buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute they
arrived at the city limits, they were commandeered by the military.
By Day Four, our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was
dangerously bad. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime
as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and
locked their doors, telling us that "officials" had told us to report
to the convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the
center of the city, we finally encountered the National Guard.
The guard members told us we wouldn't be allowed into the Superdome, as
the city's primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian and health
hellhole. They further told us that the city's only other shelter--the
convention center--was also descending into chaos and squalor, and that
the police weren't allowing anyone else in.
Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only two shelters in
the city, what was our alternative?" The guards told us that this was
our problem--and no, they didn't have extra water to give to us. This
would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile
"law enforcement."
* * *
WE WALKED to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and
were told the same thing--that we were on our own, and no, they didn't
have water to give us. We now numbered several hundred.
We held a mass meeting to decide a course of action. We agreed to camp
outside the police command post. We would be plainly visible to the
media and constitute a highly visible embarrassment to city officials.
The police told us that we couldn't stay. Regardless, we began to
settle in and set up camp.
In short order, the police commander came across the street to address
our group. He told us he had a solution: we should walk to the
Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge to
the south side of the Mississippi, where the police had buses lined up
to take us out of the city.
The crowd cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and
explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation,
so was he sure that there were buses waiting for us. The commander
turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear to you that the
buses are there."
We organized ourselves, and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with
great excitement and hope. As we marched past the convention center,
many locals saw our determined and optimistic group, and asked where we
were headed. We told them about the great news.
Families immediately grabbed their few belongings, and quickly, our
numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined
us, as did people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and other
people in wheelchairs. We marched the two to three miles to the freeway
and up the steep incline to the bridge. It now began to pour down rain,
but it didn't dampen our enthusiasm.
As we approached the bridge, armed 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 the commander's
assurances. The sheriffs informed us that 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 six-lane highway. They responded that
the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans, and there would be
no Superdomes in their city. These were code words for: if you are poor
and Black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River, and you are not
getting out of New Orleans.
* * *
OUR SMALL group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the
rain under an overpass. We debated our options and, in the end, decided
to build an encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway--on
the center divide, between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We
reasoned that we would be visible to everyone, we would have some
security being on an elevated freeway, and we could wait and watch for
the arrival of the yet-to-be-seen buses.
All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the
same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be
turned away--some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no,
others verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were
prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the city on foot.
Meanwhile, the only two city shelters sank further into squalor and
disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw
workers stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car
that could be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape
the misery that New Orleans had become.
Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery
truck and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! A mile or so
down the freeway, an Army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations
on a tight turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping
carts.
Now--secure with these two necessities, food and water--cooperation,
community and creativity flowered. We organized a clean-up and hung
garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and
cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the bathroom, and the kids
built an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken
umbrellas and other scraps. We even organized a food-recycling system
where individuals could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for
babies and candies for kids!).
This was something we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When
individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out
for yourself. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your
kids or food for your parents. But when these basic needs were met,
people began to look out for each other, working together and
constructing a community.
If the relief organizations had saturated the city with food and water
in the first two or three days, the desperation, frustration and
ugliness would not have set in.
Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing
families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our
encampment grew to 80 or 90 people.
From a woman with a battery-powered radio, we learned that the media
was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and
news organizations saw us on their way into the city. Officials were
being asked what they were going to do about all those families living
up on the freeway. The officials responded that they were going to take
care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had
an ominous tone to it.
Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking city) was
accurate. Just as dusk set in, a sheriff showed up, jumped out of his
patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces and screamed, "Get off the
fucking freeway." A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its
blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff
loaded up his truck with our food and water.
Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law
enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated into
groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims," they saw
"mob" or "riot." We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together"
attitude was impossible because the agencies would force us into small
atomized groups.
In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we
scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of eight people, in the
dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on
Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements, but
equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs
with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.
The next day, our group of eight walked most of the day, made contact
with the New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out
by an urban search-and-rescue team.
We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a ride with
the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited
response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section
of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were
unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.
* * *
WE ARRIVED at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The
airport had become another Superdome. We eight were caught in a press
of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush
landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on
a Coast Guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.
There, the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort
continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we
were forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses didn't have
air conditioners. In the dark, hundreds of us were forced to share two
filthy overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with
any possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) were
subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches.
Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been
confiscated at the airport--because the rations set off the metal
detectors. Yet no food had been provided to the men, women, children,
elderly and disabled, as we sat for hours waiting to be "medically
screened" to make sure we weren't carrying any communicable diseases.
This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heartfelt
reception given to us by ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker
give her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street
offered us money and toiletries with words of welcome.
Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept and racist.
There was more suffering than need be. Lives were lost that did not
need to be lost.
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