Shots were fired at the rescuers in the New Orleans superdome

[fpb]

Well, this, according to the majority of Americans, is what the "right to bear arms" is really about: to be able to point them at government if government gets uppity. Like trying to organize a rescue.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

We must at any rate not forget that NO has always been notorious for some of the most corrupt local government in the United States - which is saying something. There is in all this - understaffed and overworked police, inefficient civilian protection, a city sprawled across flood areas - something of the chicken coming home to roost.

[patchworkmind.livejournal.com]

Very true. Luisiana in general has almost always been "on its own", much to thje envy of its neighbor, Texas. The Napoleonic Code is still the order of the day, to a large extent (and the only place in the US), and the corruption and graft in NO government is legendary, to the point Chicago and New York (and even Washington, DC) are jealous.

Poor planning, very bad civilian attitudes and a lackluster local government caused this catastrophe -- which was a long time coming. The hurricane only made it apparent.

Re: bad civilian attitude

[patchworkmind.livejournal.com]

The media are only giving part of the truth. All race and social groups are stuck down there in a bad way.

The notion that the poor and the non-white can't leave a city is flatly ludicrous. Two of my neighbor's have relatives had sense to leave New Orleans two days prior to landfall. They're black. They're elderly, too. And they're poor. Latonya said they told her they remembered Hurricane Camille, pawned some of their gold, and Greyhounded out of there for <$100. The bad civilian attitude I'm talking about has nothing to do with the post-storm situation. It has to do with the pre-storm one.

My brother-in-law lived down there for 10 years, and has remarked on it often. The term he uses is "provincial". Lots of folks there (and other places, to be sure) don't want to leave for anything, not even giant hurricanes.

My friend Liz, whom neither I nor her family have heard from since, stayed down there, in the Garden District. She told me on the 28th that almost no one from the area was getting out. She had car problems, but instead of spending $150 to fix the car and leave they stayed to "wait it out". (And it's not like they couldn't afford it. They just didn't want to.)

A friend of mine in Southport, NC, his family did the same thing years ago when Hurricane David blew over the NC coast. He was at his grandparents' in Raleigh, NC for a week, and his mom and dad stayed at home and died. They stayed at home because "it was there home", as if the hurricane was just some kid trying to get into their house to steal stuff. It happens every hurricane, no matter where it hits. People just refuse to leave because "it's home". Well... in the face of what might as well be the Wrath of God, I'm afraid that's just asinine.

The government could've at least tried to force some districts to evacuate. The citizens porbably, from what I know and have heard of the place, would not have paid much attention. And the citizens could have heeded the week's worth of warnings and hype. It's not as if they didn't KNOW a C5 was on the way to blow everything to hell. Instead, folks just bought an extra loaf of bread and gallon of milk (like they always do for inclement weather), and they waited for the inconvenience to pass.

I am terribly sorry for the fate that has befallen so many thousands of my countrymen, but I can't help but also be just a little irritated at the indignation being flung about now by them, when quite a lot of the 'human tragedy' that fell into their laps could have been lessened. And any prevention of death on such a scale (screw the property damage) would be so worth it, in spades, the say after. I know. I've lived through them myself -- over eight major hurricanes. I've lived without electricity for a nine days. I've lived with having to boil water for two weeks. I've had to rummage throughthe wreckage of the family home to help salvage what we could. I've cried over the height of floodlines in the living room. I've even seen the cars washed out to see and deposited onto the barrier sandbars a half-mile out. I've seen the creeks and rivers swollen -- and the bodies of hundreds of cows, pigs, goats, deer, cats floating downstream. (Though I've never seen a human corpse like that.) I've seen the six-lane interstate highways that have been washed completely off the mountainside, driven the six-hour detour that turned the five hour drive into a day-long ordeal. I know hurricanes quite well.

No. I do not know destruction and death on the scale as the folks of New Orleans. No, I do not, but I'm much less a stranger to the storm and the destruction and everything else it does than 90% of everyone else in this country.

Not everyone currently residing in the Houston Astrodome or the crime-ridden and anarchic streets of New Orleans had to have it happen to them. Most of them, probably -- I suppose. I am just frustrated that after having seen so many hurricanes people just don't seem to take them seriously, and the human cost every time just keeps going up.

I'm sorry for the rant. I'm not really an unfeeling bastard. Not usually anyway. I'm just very upset and very concerned.