AGAIN: Many poor Texans left behind to face Rita

[npincus]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8CPVTKO0.html

Lessons learned from Katrina? Hardly. No wonder Bush is keeping his ass out of Texas.



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?"

<snip>

Census figures show Harris County had 3.6 million people in 2004, of whom 14.7 percent lived below the poverty level while 8.7 percent of households lacked a vehicle, both percentages slightly higher than national figures. More than one-third spoke a language other than English at home.

For the poor and the disenfranchised, the mighty evacuation orders that preceded Rita were something they could only ignore.

Eddie McKinney, 64, who had no home, no teeth and a torn shirt, stood outside the EZ Pawn shop, drinking a beer under a sign that said, "No Loitering."

"We got no other choice but to stay here. We're homeless and we're broke," he said. "I thought about going to Dallas, but now it's too late. I got no way to get there."

[Igel]

1. If they could afford a radio,

they would know that at 4 pm the last bus leaves, evacuating those with no other way out, esp. the ill, homeless, and those unable to take care of themselves. They've been running buses for more than 24 hours. Oh.

Unless they're homeless, or in a flood-prone area, they can just hole up in their apartments or houses.

[Moderator]

2. npincus

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[npincus]

3. gotcha

thanks