EMS & Hurricane Katrina

September 8, 2005 9:32 AM

Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky, California paramedics give an eye witness account of their experience of Katrina in New Orleans
posted by threehundredandsixty (50 comments total)

Some thanks should go to quonsar for the find. It's an excellent read.
posted by Rothko at 9:37 AM on September 8, 2005

Also being discussed here.

Why no tags?
posted by sohcahtoa at 9:39 AM on September 8, 2005

Why no tags?

Well, that's easy, who wants to create a JRun exception with a tag like whythefuckiscostbenefitanalysispartofasystemthatissupposedtoprotectcitizens.
posted by gsb at 9:44 AM on September 8, 2005

You beat me to it. Just glad it got posted. Wow. Just wow. It simply boggles my mind when I read of the sheriff department response to these people. They just wanted out of the city -- and they were refused an exit. More, they were lied to and shot at when the deputies got "afeerd" of the mob. Fuck. I'm speechless. Just fucking shoot me.
posted by mooncrow at 9:46 AM on September 8, 2005

An intensely infuriating read.

A wise man once said "If you want to know what someone really thinks about you, make him angry with you." The lesson in all this is similar: to get a measure of the true character of people, observe how they behave under the most dire conditions.

The bright spot here is the story about how the "ordinary" working class folks, the construction workers and electricians and nurses, naturally sprung to action to help their fellow humans.

Big contrast with the behavior of the authorities and politicos of every stripe.

When is that fuckhead Brown resigning already?
posted by reality at 9:55 AM on September 8, 2005

This has been posted a number of places, including here and here. Most interestingly, it appears to have originated at the Socialist Worker, which is the (naturally) source of most of the right-wing criticism that is beginning to coalesce around this story.

I am always concerned that such stories seem almost "too bad to be true" so I was skeptical about the whole thing. But then I poked around and found a number of claims supported elsewhere. Stuff like the fact that there definitely was an EMS convention; that the claim of the "waiting for buses that were promised but never showed up" appeared in other news outlets, and that the two, well, exist (Slonsky, Bradshaw).

For what it's worth. I'm sure we'll hear more such stories in days to come.
posted by norm at 9:57 AM on September 8, 2005

Absolutely disgraceful.
posted by agregoli at 10:03 AM on September 8, 2005

shaking with rage.

but thank you for posting.
posted by killy willy at 10:06 AM on September 8, 2005

FYI I found this through an article posted at the guardian website
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2005/09/08/they_lied_to_us_to_get_us_to_move.html

I have been thinking this morning that the White House has yet again excelled in their Orwellian use of language.
"Blame game" It sounds so harmless - but I quite frankly don't know what part of all of this constitutes a game.
posted by threehundredandsixty at 10:06 AM on September 8, 2005

The incidence of the phrase "blame game" has rocketed in the last two days. It's very interesting to watch these memes be relayed around between R. loyalists.

Remember back when everyone started saying Gore had no 'gravitas'? When was the last time you heard anyone use that word before that election, and how often have you heard it since then?

I wish I understood the dissemination network better.
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:09 AM on September 8, 2005

it ain't no game and we ain't playing ... they're going to eat, sleep, breathe and live blame for a long damn time until they're out of office

remember the alamo? ... remember the maine? ... remember pearl harbor? ... remember 9/11?

remember new orleans
posted by pyramid termite at 10:12 AM on September 8, 2005

I read it yesterday and still have not recovered.
posted by OmieWise at 10:16 AM on September 8, 2005

Wow, its worse than I thought it was and that was pretty bad.

You have to go to one of two places and both places are off limits so you're on your own but don't you dare loot any food or we'll shoot you to death. Now get out of here, we have people to evacuate.

I can fully understand why people are feeling abandoned by their government.
posted by fenriq at 10:24 AM on September 8, 2005

To quote Jon Stewart, and any other reasonably clever person who hears the phrase "blame game"; "When somebody says they don't want to play the blame game, they're to blame."
posted by Happy Monkey at 10:24 AM on September 8, 2005

Yes. They are still living in a 'Pre-New Orleans' world. They need to realize that to the rest of us in the Post-New Orleans world, talking points aren't going to cut it.
posted by mullingitover at 10:24 AM on September 8, 2005

Yes. Many in government right now are still living in a 'Pre-New Orleans' world. They need to realize that to the rest of us in the Post-New Orleans world, talking points aren't going to cut it.
posted by mullingitover at 10:25 AM on September 8, 2005

Zogby's latest is out and it ain't pretty:

"Bush Job Approval Hits 41%—All Time Low; Would Lose to Every Modern President; Public Rates All Levels of Government Poorly in Katrina Handling; Red Cross Rated Higher Than Federal Government, 69%-17% —New Zogby America Poll"
posted by jperkins at 10:25 AM on September 8, 2005

Another EMS story

Gerano and his co-workers, Battalion Chief Vickie Koch and Fire Inspector Mark Guinn, had been attending an EMS conference in New Orleans and were stranded when the evacuation call came and the city shut down.

They went to the Superdome and offered to help with triage for the 500 hospital patients there.
posted by jjj606 at 10:25 AM on September 8, 2005

Don't miss Charmaine Neville's story on the metachat thread Rothko linked to.
posted by homunculus at 10:30 AM on September 8, 2005

At first I wondered why Bradshaw and Slonsky didn't try to volunteer at the Super Dome early on, but then I don't blame anybody who just wanted to get out of New Orleans. From the other EMS volunteers' reports it doesn't seem that there would have been any supplies to work with anyway, they did wind up helping people survive, and they lived to tell the story.
posted by davy at 10:54 AM on September 8, 2005

that charmaine neville video should be played on every television station on a loop until people wake up.
posted by felix at 10:55 AM on September 8, 2005

Now we can clearly see that it wasn't an evacuation, but a "containment". Shocking and sad. This also clearly shows how racism is considered standard operational procedure in our society.
posted by gallois at 10:58 AM on September 8, 2005

"From the other EMS volunteers' reports it doesn't seem that there would have been any supplies to work with anyway"

I hyperbolized slightly: the EMSes on the scene apparently had a small quantity of a small variety of supplies.
posted by davy at 10:59 AM on September 8, 2005

You know, I think I'd be a little more sympathetic to the administration's response if they wouldn't, you know, continue using the same tactics. These are our fellow citizens, not concentration camp inmates.
posted by norm at 11:11 AM on September 8, 2005

I'm looking forward to seeing & hearing discussion of that Zogby poll on the Sunday morning current-affairs panels on TV. Interesting that the one positive is Bush's approval rating on the war on terrorism, but there hasn't been any progress reported there in a good long while now.
posted by alumshubby at 11:13 AM on September 8, 2005

What I fail to understand from this thread is how "containment" is equal to "racism" because clearly the line of argument I see in this thread is that people were kept in New Orleans because they were black. Am I reading this correctly?

I'd like to get some information on just why the authorities wanted to keep people in the city versus letting them leave and what the timeline/sequence of events for the evacuation was.
posted by tgrundke at 11:23 AM on September 8, 2005

I doubt this by itself merits a FPP, and I don't feel up to doing a y2karl-style link-fest, I do want to say that Mefites who are more concerned about their security than their freedom might want to watch what you say. It turns out not to matter much what the utterance means (or whether it even means anything at all), nor does the impossibility of such an action make much difference.

"Come on people now,
Turn in your brother,
Everybody snitch together,
Gotta make a police state
Right now."

[end derail]
posted by davy at 11:23 AM on September 8, 2005

tgrundke - the implication of the statement by the sheriffs on the bridge that "you will not re-establish Superdomes in our town" is that Gretna is a horribly racist enclave (it was, after all, heavily supported former KKK leader David Duke in his prior race to be Louisiana state governor) and it didn't want to sully its streets with the presence of black evacuees.
posted by bl1nk at 11:37 AM on September 8, 2005

norm, that's a very disturbing story you linked to. To quote a cheesy movie line, "I've got a bad feeling about this."
posted by alumshubby at 11:38 AM on September 8, 2005

davy: I'm glad you posted that. Everyone (any Republicans who still care about free speech, particularly) ought to take a look at that link.

Many of us have never been angrier at our government. Nevertheless, judicious use of the "preview" button might save you from a visit from the feds.
posted by sonofsamiam at 11:43 AM on September 8, 2005

I got curious and did a little Googling: the lowest Presidential approval rating I found in a quick search was 24% when Tricky Dick graced us all with his double victory sign from the top of the aircraft steps. I'm sure Mr. Bush can beat that if he really tries.
posted by alumshubby at 11:58 AM on September 8, 2005

Mefites who are more concerned about their security than their freedom might want to watch what you say.

Part of the Secret Service's job is to investigate all reported threats, no matter how stupid or trivial they are. No surprise here. Wake me up when he's actually charged.
posted by shawnj at 12:01 PM on September 8, 2005

Charmaine breaks my heart! Dammit!
posted by nofundy at 12:17 PM on September 8, 2005

from sohcohtoa's link:

Why should people be prohibited from leaving New Orleans on foot, but the same people be allowed to leave if they’re in cars and trucks?

Very good question. Anyone have a rationale?

Gallup don't agree with Zogby.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:33 PM on September 8, 2005

Names. I want the names of the law enforcement officers that did these things.
posted by mania at 12:53 PM on September 8, 2005

Some thanks should go to quonsar for the find.

Actually flug was first in MetaLand, but threehundredandsixty didn't get it there either. (Neville was in the deleted thread too.)
posted by If I Had An Anus at 12:55 PM on September 8, 2005

Gallup's poll results simply boggle the mind. 69% of republicans think Bush's response was 'good or great'? 38% think 'no one is to blame' for the aftermath? I'm speechless, just fucking speechless.

But this cheered me up a tiny bit.
posted by maryh at 1:56 PM on September 8, 2005

Hey, stop worrying, it's all gonna be ok--we'll have us a Katrina Prayer Day!
posted by muckster at 2:00 PM on September 8, 2005

Okay, this is probably a dumb question, but why didn't security at the Superdome, in the interest of safety, separate the woman and children from the men, especially after it became apparent that there were incidences of sexual assault? AFAIK, this is pretty standard in homeless shelters for that very reason.
posted by echolalia67 at 2:59 PM on September 8, 2005

"Security at the Superdome"? I think one of the problems was that there wasn't any security to speak of at the Superdome.

Also, I think you'd have needed a massive number of security guards to forcibly break up all the families who were trying to survive the disaster together, and doing so would hardly have improved the mood there.
posted by klausness at 3:24 PM on September 8, 2005

Norm, that story was truly upsetting.

He then precedes to tell us that some churches had already enquired into whether they could send a van or bus on Sundays to pick up any occupants of their cabins who might be interested in attending church. FEMA will not allow this. The occupants of the camp cannot leave the camp for any reason. If they leave the camp they may never return. They will be issued FEMA identification cards and "a sum of money" and they will remain within the camp for the next 5 months.

This has got to be unconstitutional.
posted by Alison at 3:35 PM on September 8, 2005

I think I might be sick.
Thanks for posting this, and thanks metafilter for keeping these important stories coming.
posted by mai at 3:47 PM on September 8, 2005

Why are they being forced to stay in what amounts to a prison camp for five months? What's the purpose of that?

Why are evacuees being treated like criminals?
posted by fenriq at 4:05 PM on September 8, 2005

what are they going to do if they try to "escape"? shoot them????
posted by centrs at 4:19 PM on September 8, 2005

So, uh, who do we turn to to make things right in these camps?

And just out of interest - anyone know what the southern states' view of New Orleans is, in general? I mean, are New Orleanians liked in general or disliked in general? If local police 'helping' FEMA make wild tales of their own about rabid French Quarter madmen, maybe that's why the hostility.

But I think it's just because a lot of people are poor. Which makes me want to hit things. Hard.
posted by paperpete at 5:19 PM on September 8, 2005

jesus fucking christ!
posted by flummox at 5:41 PM on September 8, 2005

paperpete, you're half right: they're poor and black.
posted by davy at 5:49 PM on September 8, 2005

Ocala homeowners association says evacuees are not welcome. Translation - "we don't want no stinkin' **** in our community."
posted by caddis at 5:57 PM on September 8, 2005

"'We shut down the bridge,' Arthur Lawson, chief of the City of Gretna Police Department, confirmed to United Press International, adding that his jurisdiction had been 'a closed and secure location' since before the storm hit. 'All our people had evacuated and we locked the city down,' he said."
posted by homunculus at 6:56 PM on September 9, 2005

This really pisses me off. Gretna was high and dry and refused passage to five hundred refugees? I say no fucking aid period for their sorry city. At least put them at the tail end of the waiting list for assistance. Too bad these five hundred weren't carrying weapons sufficient to suppress the police on that bridge. Could this chief have broken some law in this upon which his ass could get roasted?
posted by caddis at 7:45 PM on September 9, 2005