Swearing it is, then.
Sep. 2nd, 2005 09:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosenFucking hell.
Rescue services yesterday began the huge task of evacuating the arena and the rest of the city, although the plan to remove thousands of survivors had to be suspended when shots were reportedly fired at helicopters.
Most of the people waiting to be saved told remarkable stories of fear and desperation but none more than those who had been in the Superdome.
"We pee on the floor. We are like animals," said Taffany Smith, as she cradled her three-week-old son, Terry. In her right hand she carried a half-full bottle of formula provided by rescuers. Baby supplies were running low; one mother said she was given two nappies and told to scrape them off when they got dirty and use them again.
At least two people, including a child, were reportedly raped in the night and at least three people died, including one man who jumped 15 metres to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for.
The hurricane left most of southern Louisiana without power, and the arena was not spared. An emergency generator kept some lights on but quickly failed. The sanitation gave out early as well, and the dome soon filled with the overpowering stench of human waste, made worse by the swampy heat.
"There is faeces on the walls," Bryan Hebert said. "There is faeces all over the place."
And here:
The evacuation of patients from Charity Hospital was halted after the facility came under sniper fire, while groups of armed men wandered the streets, buildings smoldered and people picked through stores for what they could find.
...A police officer working in downtown New Orleans said police were siphoning gas from abandoned vehicles in an effort to keep their squad cars running.
The officer said police are "on their own" for food and water, scrounging up what they can from anybody who is generous enough to give them some -- and that they have no communication whatsoever.
...President Bush, in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," said that their [sic] should be "zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this."
You *fuckwit*. By all means, if they're threatening others or ripping off TVs, jewellery and the like, the National Guard and the cops can shoot on sight as far as I'm concerned. But a lot of the people who've been looting have been doing it for food, water, medical supplies, diapers, because you gouged the levee programs so badly the city flooded, and you gouged National Guard and FEMA so badly that they can't even keep order in the designated emergency shelter or keep people fed. And this is with several days' *notice* of impending disaster. Earthquakes and terrorists don't give that kind of warning. No bloody wonder many of those who couldn't get out of the city preferred to take their chances in their own homes.
Congratulations, George W. You're the first president in living memory to lose a major US city.
Rescue services yesterday began the huge task of evacuating the arena and the rest of the city, although the plan to remove thousands of survivors had to be suspended when shots were reportedly fired at helicopters.
Most of the people waiting to be saved told remarkable stories of fear and desperation but none more than those who had been in the Superdome.
"We pee on the floor. We are like animals," said Taffany Smith, as she cradled her three-week-old son, Terry. In her right hand she carried a half-full bottle of formula provided by rescuers. Baby supplies were running low; one mother said she was given two nappies and told to scrape them off when they got dirty and use them again.
At least two people, including a child, were reportedly raped in the night and at least three people died, including one man who jumped 15 metres to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for.
The hurricane left most of southern Louisiana without power, and the arena was not spared. An emergency generator kept some lights on but quickly failed. The sanitation gave out early as well, and the dome soon filled with the overpowering stench of human waste, made worse by the swampy heat.
"There is faeces on the walls," Bryan Hebert said. "There is faeces all over the place."
And here:
The evacuation of patients from Charity Hospital was halted after the facility came under sniper fire, while groups of armed men wandered the streets, buildings smoldered and people picked through stores for what they could find.
...A police officer working in downtown New Orleans said police were siphoning gas from abandoned vehicles in an effort to keep their squad cars running.
The officer said police are "on their own" for food and water, scrounging up what they can from anybody who is generous enough to give them some -- and that they have no communication whatsoever.
...President Bush, in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," said that their [sic] should be "zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this."
You *fuckwit*. By all means, if they're threatening others or ripping off TVs, jewellery and the like, the National Guard and the cops can shoot on sight as far as I'm concerned. But a lot of the people who've been looting have been doing it for food, water, medical supplies, diapers, because you gouged the levee programs so badly the city flooded, and you gouged National Guard and FEMA so badly that they can't even keep order in the designated emergency shelter or keep people fed. And this is with several days' *notice* of impending disaster. Earthquakes and terrorists don't give that kind of warning. No bloody wonder many of those who couldn't get out of the city preferred to take their chances in their own homes.
Congratulations, George W. You're the first president in living memory to lose a major US city.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 11:59 pm (UTC)Which part of "in living memory" is causing confusion here?
(Hint: Great Chicago Fire took place in 1871;
Dumb as he may be the man does not control the weather and is not responisble for building a city below sea level on the coast of an area that gets yearly hurricanes.
Nope; he sure as hell does have a lot of control over funding, though, and there was an *awful* lot of money taken out of the levee-building programs to fund our ill-conceived adventures in Iraq.
If you don't think it's viable to go on protecting New Orleans, fine, *make* that decision. Declare that federal funding for protection etc will cease. Make arrangements well in advance so the nation's economy isn't severely damaged by sudden loss of one of its biggest ports. Organise a relocation program for those who can't go elsewhere on their own resources, so you don't get the massive social disruption and death toll that inevitably occurs when thousands of refugees show up in the nearest town above water.
But don't treat it as a gamble where you can cut the programs below safe levels, do a half-arsed job, and hope that the next big one won't hit for a few year, when some other President will have to carry the can.