[Peakoil] Chaos and misery in New Orleans

[Alex P]

Hurricane Katrina is a glimpse of the chaos attributable to climate change, 
and the problems of a society that has got so used to things being normal 
it makes little preparation for the worst. As a result, there is no margin 
for error, and our complex and highly interdependent society can fall apart.

The ripple effects of Katrina include even higher oil prices, which will 
have many unforseen impacts. Like the USA, we continue to depend on cheap 
oil at our peril.

If Governments do not prepare us for climate change and Peak Oil, and all 
the crises they will bring, our society will gradually come to resemble the 
chaos and misery in New Orleans.

Alex
O4O4873828

ACT Peak Oil discussion list
http://act-peakoil.org

________________________________________
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgif=/n/a/2005/09/01/national/a155306D82.DTL


New Orleans in Anarchy With Fights, Rapes
By ALLEN G. BREED, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, September 1, 2005

 

(09-01) 18:50 PDT NEW ORLEANS, (AP) -- 


New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday, as corpses lay abandoned in 
street medians, fights and fires broke out and storm survivors battled for 
seats on the buses that would carry them away from the chaos. The tired and 
hungry seethed, saying they had been forsaken.


"I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here alive," said Canadian tourist 
Larry Mitzel, who handed a reporter his business card in case he goes 
missing. "I'm scared of riots. I'm scared of the locals. We might get 
caught in the crossfire."


Four days after Hurricane Katrina roared in with a devastating blow that 
inflicted potentially thousands of deaths, the frustration, fear and anger 
mounted, despite the promise of 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop the 
looting, plans for a $10 billion recovery bill in Congress and a government 
relief effort President Bush called the biggest in U.S. history.


New Orleans' top emergency management official called that effort 
a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually 
reach the increasingly lawless city.


About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at New Orleans 
convention center grew increasingly hostile after waiting for buses for 
days amid the filth and the dead. Police Chief Eddie Compass said there was 
such a crush around a squad of 88 officers that they retreated when they 
went in to check out reports of assaults.


"We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are 
getting beaten," Compass said. "Tourists are walking in that direction and 
they are getting preyed upon."


A military helicopter tried to land at the convention center several times 
to drop off food and water. But the rushing crowd forced the choppers to 
back off. Troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10 feet off 
the ground and flew away.


In hopes of defusing the situation at the convention center, Mayor Ray 
Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's 
unflooded west bank for whatever relief they could find. But the bedlam 
made that difficult.


"This is a desperate SOS," Nagin said in a statement. "Right now we are out 
of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses."


At least seven bodies were scattered outside the convention center, a 
makeshift staging area for those rescued from rooftops, attics and 
highways. The sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or 
medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement.


An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies 
wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her 
wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her 
wrapped in a sheet.


"I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he 
pointed at the woman in the wheelchair.


"You can do everything for other countries, but you can't do nothing for 
your own people," he added. "You can go overseas with the military, but you 
can't get them down here."


The street outside the center, above the floodwaters, smelled of urine and 
feces, and was choked with dirty diapers, old bottles and garbage.


"They've been teasing us with buses for four days," Edwards said. "They're 
telling us they're going to come get us one day, and then they don't show 
up."


Every so often, an armored state police vehicle cruised in front of the 
convention center with four or five officers in riot gear with automatic 
weapons. But there was no sign of help from the National Guard.


At one point the crowd began to chant "We want help! We want help!" Later, 
a woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and 
led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd ..."


"We are out here like pure animals," the Issac Clark said.


"We've got people dying out here — two babies have died, a woman died, a 
man died," said Helen Cheek. "We haven't had no food, we haven't had no 
water, we haven't had nothing. They just brought us here and dropped us."


Tourist Debbie Durso of Washington, Mich., said she asked a police officer 
for assistance and his response was, "'Go to hell — it's every man for 
himself.'"


"This is just insanity," she said. "We have no food, no water ... all these 
trucks and buses go by and they do nothing but wave."


FEMA director Michael Brown said the agency just learned about the 
situation at the convention center Thursday and quickly scrambled to 
provide food, water and medical care and remove the corpses.


At the hot and stinking Superdome, where 30,000 were being evacuated by bus 
to the Houston Astrodome, fistfights and fires erupted amid a seething sea 
of tense, suffering people who waited in a lines that stretched a half-mile 
to board yellow school buses.


After a traffic jam kept buses from arriving for nearly four hours, a near-
riot broke out in the scramble to get on the buses that finally did show 
up, with a group of refugees breaking through a line of heavily armed 
National Guardsmen.


One military policeman was shot in the leg as he and a man scuffled for the 
MP's rifle, police Capt. Ernie Demmo said. The man was arrested.


Some of those among the mostly poor crowd had been in the dome for four 
days without air conditioning, working toilets or a place to bathe. An 
ambulance service airlifting the sick and injured out of the Superdome 
suspended flights as too dangerous after it was reported that a bullet was 
fired at a military helicopter.


"If they're just taking us anywhere, just anywhere, I say praise God," said 
refugee John Phillip. "Nothing could be worse than what we've been through."


By Thursday evening, 11 hours after the military began evacuating the 
Superdome, the arena held 10,000 more people than it did at dawn. National 
Guard Capt. John Pollard said evacuees from around the city poured into the 
Superdome and swelled the crowd to about 30,000 because they believed the 
arena was the best place to get a ride out of town.


As he watched a line snaking for blocks through ankle-deep waters, New 
Orleans' emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate 
response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency.


"This is not a FEMA operation. I haven't seen a single FEMA guy," he said. 
He added: "We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we 
can't bail out the city of New Orleans."


FEMA officials said some operations had to be suspended in areas where 
gunfire has broken out, but are working overtime to feed people and restore 
order.


Displaced residents also expressed anger at government officials.


"All I want to say to Mayor Ray Nagin is thank you for helping us," Yolanda 
McZeal, 43, said calmly, sarcastically and bitterly. "Governor Blanco, 
thank you for helping us. President Bush, thank you for helping us."


A day after Nagin took 1,500 police officers off search-and-rescue duty to 
try to restore order in the streets, there were continued reports of 
looting, shootings, gunfire and carjackings — and not all the crimes were 
driven by greed.


When some hospitals try to airlift patients, Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri 
Ben-Iesan said, "there are people just taking potshots at police and at 
helicopters, telling them, `You better come get my family.'"


Outside a looted Rite-Aid drugstore, some people were anxious to show they 
needed what they were taking. A gray-haired man who would not give his name 
pulled up his T-shirt to show a surgery scar and explained that he needs 
pads for incontinence.


"I'm a Christian. I feel bad going in there," he said.


Earl Baker carried toothpaste, toothbrushes and deodorant. "Look, I'm only 
getting necessities," he said. "All of this is personal hygiene. I ain't 
getting nothing to get drunk or high with."


Several thousand storm victims had arrived in Houston by Thursday night, 
and they quickly got hot meals, showers and some much-needed rest.


Audree Lee, 37, was thrilled after getting a shower and hearing her teenage 
daughter's voice on the telephone for the first time since the storm. Lee 
had relatives take her daughter to Alabama so she would be safe.


"I just cried. She cried. We cried together," Lee said. "She asked me about 
her dog. They wouldn't let me take her dog with me. ... I know the dog is 
gone now."


While floodwaters in the city appeared to stabilize, efforts continued to 
plug three breaches that had opened up in the levee system that protects 
this below-sea-level city.


Helicopters dropped sandbags into the breach and pilings were being pounded 
into the mouth of the canal Thursday to close its connection to Lake 
Pontchartrain, state Transportation Secretary Johnny Bradberry said. He 
said contractors had completed building a rock road to let heavy equipment 
roll to the area by midnight.


The next step called for using about 250 concrete road barriers to seal the 
gap.


In Washington, the White House said Bush will tour the devastated Gulf 
Coast region on Friday and has asked his father, former President George 
H.W. Bush, and former President Clinton to lead a private fund-raising 
campaign for victims.


The president urged a crackdown on the lawlessness.


"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during 
an emergency such as this — whether it be looting, or price gouging at the 
gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance 
fraud," Bush said. "And I've made that clear to our attorney general. The 
citizens ought to be working together."


Donald Dudley, a 55-year-old New Orleans seafood merchant, complained that 
when he and other hungry refugees broke into the kitchen of the convention 
center and tried to prepare food, the National Guard chased them away.


"They pulled guns and told us we had to leave that kitchen or they would 
blow our damn brains out," he said. "We don't want their help. Give us some 
vehicles and we'll get ourselves out of here!"


____


Associated Press reporters Adam Nossiter, Brett Martel, Robert Tanner and 
Mary Foster contributed to this report.