The Looting in New Orleans

[Faeden]

Well I do not agree with killing your own citizens for stealing TV’s or VCR’s either. Sorry about that.

[Nameless]

At times like these, people begin to lose what sanity they have left. They get hungrier and thirstier and soon will begin to get desparate. It's very dangerous.

In Cuba, it didn't take alot of time to evacuate 1.4 million people from hurricane Dennis. You'd think in a more "orderly" country, the rescue teams would take half as much time to evacuuate.

[Raptor]

Estimated 10,000 dead in Louisiana alone apparently :/

[Wrighty]

I heard that, hope it doesn't reach that figure.

[Nadia B.]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet, but a rather large convoy of military trucks filled with food, water, etc arrived at the superdome earlier. Also, lots and lots of buses to get more people out of there.

Now, I don't approve of stealing, but if my kids and I were in that situation, you can bet your a** I'd be doing whatever I could to get them food and water and the basics. And that includes stealing. As far as stealing electronics???? Is this true? If so, those guys are idiots. I mean, where are they going to take a TV? And what are they going to plug it into????

And early on, people were shooting at the helicopters when they were trying to get the people out of the hospitals. So, they stopped flying in. It's just a complete mess. It's very desparate.

[JayRob303]

" 'Seventy-two hours into this, to be openly posturing about this, to be attacking the president, is not only despicable and wrong, it's not politically smart,' said one White House official who asked not to be named because he did not want to be seen as talking about the crisis in political terms. 'Normal people at home understand that it's not the president who's responsible for this, it's the hurricane. This will get better, hour by hour and day by day.' "

[Wrighty]

Glad to hear the food and water has got there safely.

I totally agree about the TV's what is the point in stealing them it's pointless. Those people should just stop and think about what they are doing, pinching from people who are just trying to survive or are just looking out for injured/dieing people and kids. The last thing I would be thinking about if I was in that situation was a TV.

[Michelle]

Some of the people in my neighborhood and I have arranged housing for twelve families, two of which showed up yesterday.

We just got word that 3000 more people will arrive in the next couple of days. People in town are getting every available space ready for the influx. They will be well taken care of while trying to take back control of their lives.

That is the part that most of us in the US will be concentrating for a while.

[Mr Ed]

I just don't see the point in stealing televions when there is no electricity. If the police forces stop people from stealing food then that is completely ridiculous.

[BurnSide]

They're not stealing TVs and the like to watch TV on them.

People are loading up trucks and driving out of state with stolen good to sell them.

On CNN yesterday it was talking about how law enforcement stopped a looted stolen vehicle from NO packed full of looted goods, ready for selling.

Petty theives.

[__Kratos__]

The church of scientology is down there helping as well... for those people's sake I hope Tom Cruise isn't with them.

Now, I am hearing on the news right now that the 10K dead number might be to low and will grow.

[BurnSide]

Is tehre a source on the net with those kind of numbers?

I can't find anything on CNN.

[Commander CMG]

The water level at the local kids pool would be above Tom Cruises head, so I doubt he will bless them with his presence.. lol

[__Kratos__]

Is tehre a source on the net with those kind of numbers?

I can't find anything on CNN.

823632[/snapback]

I know... :S I can't find anything either. I'll keep looking.

The water level at the local kids pool would be above Tom Cruises head, so I doubt he will bless them with his presence.. lol

823636[/snapback]

[BurnSide]

I'm sure i'll hear it myself when i get off work and catch the news.

I just can't believe it. It's just too incredible.

[JayRob303]

Relief convoy arrives

[Nadia B.]

If the police forces stop people from stealing food then that is completely ridiculous.

823604[/snapback]

Precisely.

Apparently, we've got lots of refugees here in town in the hotels. Problem is, the FSU game has got all the rooms booked for the weekend, so they're getting booted out. My boss is supposed to be getting folks to the church where he preaches, but it's not big enough to hold them all. I didn't realize there were so many of them here.

Forgot to add. They don't have a precise number yet. There's no way of actually counting right now, because the military and other officials haven't had a chance to concentrate on that yet. They're saying it could well be in the thousands.

Edited September 2, 2005 by WannabeSkeptic

[The Caspian Hare]

I don't think anyone's going to be shot for stealing food or water. As for non-survival items: yes, in extreme circumstances shooting looters makes sense.

No, Walmart isn't going to suffer if someone takes a TV that would be written off as damaged anyway. But rampant looting can lead to an atmosphere of lawlessness that will make more serious crimes easier to contemplate. Property rights are at least as old as civil rights, probably older, and they are one pillar on which society rests.

They should send in infantry units with urban warfare experience in Iraq and clean house.

[Nadia B.]

Actually, some of the troops they sent in were fresh from Iraq.

[__Kratos__]

Actually, some of the troops they sent in were fresh from Iraq. 

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Infantry units from Ft. Hood.

The guys that caught Saddam are in there helping.

[Faeden]

Its good to see food and water getting in there at last.

I do not want to anger people, but some people where begging authorities with guns to let them have the food and water from the destroyed stores, and they where telling them no looting, I think that is terrible.

What I also do not understand is Bush was saying he supported the response, now he is saying it was unacceptable?

I saw a figure of 10'000 to on Sky News, God I hope is not true.

Here is something with a reference to that 10,000 number

Bush vows to step up Katrina aid

All the best

Faeden

Edited September 2, 2005 by Faeden

[BurnSide]

However one senator from Louisiana, David Vitter, has predicted the death toll could climb above 10,000 in Louisiana alone.

Thanks Faeden.

[Guest]

The big disconnect on New Orleans

The official version; then there's the in-the-trenches version

Friday, September 2, 2005; Posted: 5:17 p.m. EDT (21:17 GMT)

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Diverging views of a crumbling New Orleans emerged Thursday, with statements by some federal officials in contradiction with grittier, more desperate views from the streets. By late Friday response to those stranded in the city was more visible.

But the conflicting views on Thursday came within hours, sometimes minutes of each of each other, as reflected in CNN's transcripts. The speakers include Michael Brown, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, evacuee Raymond Cooper, CNN correspondents and others. Here's what they had to say:

Conditions in the Convention Center

FEMA chief Brown: We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need. (See video of Brown explaining how news reports alerted FEMA to convention center chaos. -- 2:11)

Mayor Nagin: The convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we are running out of supplies for the 15,000 to 20,000 people. (Hear Nagin's angry demand for soldiers. 1:04)

CNN Producer Kim Segal: It was chaos. There was nobody there, nobody in charge. And there was nobody giving even water. The children, you should see them, they're all just in tears. There are sick people. We saw... people who are dying in front of you.

Evacuee Raymond Cooper: Sir, you've got about 3,000 people here in this -- in the Convention Center right now. They're hungry. Don't have any food. We were told two-and-a-half days ago to make our way to the Superdome or the Convention Center by our mayor. And which when we got here, was no one to tell us what to do, no one to direct us, no authority figure.

Uncollected corpses

Brown: That's not been reported to me, so I'm not going to comment. Until I actually get a report from my teams that say, "We have bodies located here or there," I'm just not going to speculate.

Segal: We saw one body. A person is in a wheelchair and someone had pushed (her) off to the side and draped just like a blanket over this person in the wheelchair. And then there is another body next to that. There were others they were willing to show us. ( See CNN report, 'People are dying in front of us' -- 4:36 )

Evacuee Cooper: They had a couple of policemen out here, sir, about six or seven policemen told me directly, when I went to tell them, hey, man, you got bodies in there. You got two old ladies that just passed, just had died, people dragging the bodies into little corners. One guy -- that's how I found out. The guy had actually, hey, man, anybody sleeping over here? I'm like, no. He dragged two bodies in there. Now you just -- I just found out there was a lady and an old man, the lady went to nudge him. He's dead.

Hospital evacuations

Brown: I've just learned today that we ... are in the process of completing the evacuations of the hospitals, that those are going very well.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta: It's gruesome. I guess that is the best word for it. If you think about a hospital, for example, the morgue is in the basement, and the basement is completely flooded. So you can just imagine the scene down there. But when patients die in the hospital, there is no place to put them, so they're in the stairwells. It is one of the most unbelievable situations I've seen as a doctor, certainly as a journalist as well. There is no electricity. There is no water. There's over 200 patients still here remaining. ...We found our way in through a chopper and had to land at a landing strip and then take a boat. And it is exactly ... where the boat was traveling where the snipers opened fire yesterday, halting all the evacuations. ( Watch the video report of corpses stacked in stairwells -- 4:45 )

Dr. Matthew Bellew, Charity Hospital: We still have 200 patients in this hospital, many of them needing care that they just can't get. The conditions are such that it's very dangerous for the patients. Just about all the patients in our services had fevers. Our toilets are overflowing. They are filled with stool and urine. And the smell, if you can imagine, is so bad, you know, many of us had gagging and some people even threw up. It's pretty rough.(Mayor's video: Armed addicts fighting for a fix -- 1:03)

Violence and civil unrest

Brown: I've had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they're banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I've had no reports of that.

CNN's Chris Lawrence: From here and from talking to the police officers, they're losing control of the city. We're now standing on the roof of one of the police stations. The police officers came by and told us in very, very strong terms it wasn't safe to be out on the street. (Watch the video report on explosions and gunfire -- 2:12)

The federal response:

Brown: Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well.

Homeland Security Director Chertoff: Now, of course, a critical element of what we're doing is the process of evacuation and securing New Orleans and other areas that are afflicted. And here the Department of Defense has performed magnificently, as has the National Guard, in bringing enormous resources and capabilities to bear in the areas that are suffering.

Crowd chanting outside the Convention Center: We want help.

Nagin: They don't have a clue what's going on down there.

Phyllis Petrich, a tourist stranded at the Ritz-Carlton: They are invisible. We have no idea where they are. We hear bits and pieces that the National Guard is around, but where? We have not seen them. We have not seen FEMA officials. We have seen no one.

Security

Brown: I actually think the security is pretty darn good. There's some really bad people out there that are causing some problems, and it seems to me that every time a bad person wants to scream of cause a problem, there's somebody there with a camera to stick it in their face. ( See Jack Cafferty's rant on the government's 'bungled' response -- 0:57)

Chertoff: In addition to local law enforcement, we have 2,800 National Guard in New Orleans as we speak today. One thousand four hundred additional National Guard military police trained soldiers will be arriving every day: 1,400 today, 1,400 tomorrow and 1,400 the next day.

Nagin: I continue to hear that troops are on the way, but we are still protecting the city with only 1,500 New Orleans police officers, an additional 300 law enforcement personnel, 250 National Guard troops, and other military personnel who are primarily focused on evacuation.

Lawrence: The police are very, very tense right now. They're literally riding around, full assault weapons, full tactical gear, in pickup trucks. Five, six, seven, eight officers. It is a very tense situation here.

Source: CNN.com

[JayRob303]

As desperation grows among the thousands stranded without food or water in New Orleans four days after Hurricane Katrina, there are signs of growing lawlessness in the city.

[Guest]

They're talking on CNN right now about a bus carrying evacuees that just flipped over.

Just unbelievable. Those poor people.