NEW ORLEANS EYEWITNESS DESCRIBES PEOPLE HELPING PEOPLE

[Guest guest]

New Orleans Eyewitness

Describes People

Helping People

By Lyn H. Lofland

Research Professor

Department of Sociology

University of California, Davis

9-9-5

 

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 at

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 crowd 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 past 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 was little 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 of Katrina.

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 from possible 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 carrying any

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.

 

Lyn H. Lofland

Research Professor

Department of Sociology University of California, Davis

One Shields Avenue

Davis, California 95616 USA

Telephone: 530-756-8699/752-1585

FAX: 530-752-0783

email: lhlofland

ucdavis.edu