Hurricane Katrina - Our Experiences

September 14, 2005

By Parmedics Larry Bradsahw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky

EMSNetwork News

Tuesday 06 September 2005

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 to 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 crowed

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 pasted 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.

--

Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics from California that were attending the EMS

conference in New Orleans. Larry Bradshaw is the chief shop steward, Paramedic

Chapter, SEIU Local 790; and Lorrie Beth Slonsky is steward, Paramedic Chapter,

SEIU Local 790.

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can still do

something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the

something that I can do.

September 17, 2005

What an awful experience. There is no excuse for how these people were treated.fraggle <EBbrewpunx wrote:

Hurricane Katrina - Our ExperiencesBy Parmedics Larry Bradsahw and Lorrie Beth SlonskyEMSNetwork NewsTuesday 06 September 2005Two 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 NewOrleans. 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 ofNew 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 to 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

crowed 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 pasted 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.--Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics from California that were attending the EMS conference in New Orleans. Larry Bradshaw is the chief shop steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790; and Lorrie Beth Slonsky is steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790.I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can still do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.Jonnie

for Good Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.