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Larry Bradshaw & Lorrie Beth Slonsky Tuesday, September 6, 2005 |
Hurricane Katrina - Our Experiences
By Parmedics Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky
EMSNetwork News
Tuesday 06 September 2005
Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's store
at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display
case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without
electricity, running water, plumbing. 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
Walgreen's windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and
hungry.
The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the
windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an alternative.
The cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit
juices, and bottle 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
yesterday (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 Walgreen's in
the French Quarter.
We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of
the National Guard, the troops and the 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 fork lift 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 hot-wire
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% of New Orleans that was not under water.
On Day 2, 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 in to 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 did
not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket 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 new born
babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses.
The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived to
the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.
By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously
abysmal. 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 the "officials" 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 Guards told us we would not be allowed
into the Superdome as the City's primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian
and health hellhole. The guards further told us that the City's only other
shelter, the Convention Center, was also descending into chaos and squalor
and that the police were not allowing anyone else in. Quite naturally, we
asked, "If we can't go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what was our alternative?"
The guards told us that that was our problem, and no they did not 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 did not 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 would constitute a highly visible
embarrassment to the City officials. The police told us that we could not
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 where the police had buses lined up to take us
out of the City. The crowed cheered and began to move. We called everyone
back and explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation
and wrong information and 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 pasted 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, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and others
people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up the
steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did not
dampen our enthusiasm.
As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna 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 of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs
informed us 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
waslittle traffic on the 6-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 were 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 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 to be
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 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 the
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 a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath ofKatrina. When individuals
had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only.
You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or food for your
parents. 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 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the 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 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 correct.
Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol
vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "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 or congealed 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" 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 8 people, in the dark, we sought
refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were
hiding frompossible 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 days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with 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 8 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 did not have air-conditioners.
In the dark, hundreds if 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) we 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, disabled as they
sat for hours waiting to be "medically screened" to make sure we were not
carryingany communicable diseases.
This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt reception
given to us by the 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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Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics from California who were attending the
EMSconference in New Orleans. Larry Bradshaw is the chief shop steward, Paramedic
Chapter, SEIU Local 790; and Lorrie Beth Slonsky is steward, Paramedic Chapter,
SEIU Local 790.