The Real News - interview via cell phone "Bigfoot" is a bar manager and DJ on Bourbon Street

Survival of New Orleans ^ | September 1st, 2005

[Former Military Chick]

Thursday, September 1st, 2005

10:46 pm The Real News

The following is the result of an interview I just conducted via cell phone with a New Orleans citizen stranded at the Convention Center. I don't know what you're hearing in the mainstream media or in the press conferences from the city and state officials, but here is the truth:

"Bigfoot" is a bar manager and DJ on Bourbon Street, and is a local personality and icon in the city. He is a lifelong resident of the city, born and raised. He rode out the storm itself in the Iberville Projects because he knew he would be above any flood waters. Here is his story as told to me moments ago. I took notes while he talked and then I asked some questions:

Three days ago, police and national guard troops told citizens to head toward the Crescent City Connection Bridge to await transportation out of the area. The citizens trekked over to the Convention Center and waited for the buses which they were told would take them to Houston or Alabama or somewhere else, out of this area.

It's been 3 days, and the buses have yet to appear.

Although obviously he has no exact count, he estimates more than 10,000 people are packed into and around and outside the convention center still waiting for the buses. They had no food, no water, and no medicine for the last three days, until today, when the National Guard drove over the bridge above them, and tossed out supplies over the side crashing down to the ground below. Much of the supplies were destroyed from the drop. Many people tried to catch the supplies to protect them before they hit the ground. Some offered to walk all the way around up the bridge and bring the supplies down, but any attempt to approach the police or national guard resulted in weapons being aimed at them.

There are many infants and elderly people among them, as well as many people who were injured jumping out of windows to escape flood water and the like -- all of them in dire straights.

Any attempt to flag down police results in being told to get away at gunpoint. Hour after hour they watch buses pass by filled with people from other areas. Tensions are very high, and there has been at least one murder and several fights. 8 or 9 dead people have been stored in a freezer in the area, and 2 of these dead people are kids.

The people are so desperate that they're doing anything they can think of to impress the authorities enough to bring some buses. These things include standing in single file lines with the eldery in front, women and children next; sweeping up the area and cleaning the windows and anything else that would show the people are not barbarians.

The buses never stop.

Before the supplies were pitched off the bridge today, people had to break into buildings in the area to try to find food and water for their families. There was not enough. This spurred many families to break into cars to try to escape the city. There was no police response to the auto thefts until the mob reached the rich area -- Saulet Condos -- once they tried to get cars from there... well then the whole swat teams began showing up with rifles pointed. Snipers got on the roof and told people to get back.

He reports that the conditions are horrendous. Heat, mosquitoes and utter misery. The smell, he says, is "horrific."

He says it's the slowest mandatory evacuation ever, and he wants to know why they were told to go to the Convention Center area in the first place; furthermore, he reports that many of them with cell phones have contacts willing to come rescue them, but people are not being allowed through to pick them up.

I have "Bigfoot"'s phone number and will gladly give it to any city or state official who would like to tell him how everything is under control.

Addendum: Bigfoot just called to report that "they" (the authorities) are cleaning up the dead bodies at the Convention Center right now.

[chris1]

No S Sherlock. I'm talking about people stealing dvd's and tv's. I'm talking about people looking for food and supplies to live.

[GoBucks2002]

From what I've heard, most of the Mayor's 'base' is ready to lynch him. But you don't hear that through the 'Bush's Fault' media.

I would gather that, too, just from the pictures I have seen that no incumbent whose District includes New Orleans is safe. How and ever, the RATs will do their fear-mongering like they always do and the gullible and ignorant will keep electing them.

[weegee]

I think I'll take up this banner issue with my sig...

[Hank Rearden]

From what I've heard, most of the Mayor's 'base' is ready to lynch him.

Did any Louisiana politicians die during this clusterf? And if not, why not?

[chris1]

This truly is the height of negligence, stupidity, ineptness, and wastefulness.

[weegee]

Fortunately for hizhoner and the state reps/senators, these refugees don't live in his district anymore. Some aren't even in the same state.

[Natty Bumppo@frontier.net]

And for "smart growth" types who insist on not widening highways and push instead for increasing population density "downtown", it does nothing to help evacuate a city if a natural or man-made disaster occurs

Weegee, you have identified the most important lesson learned from this tragedy to date: Above a certain population density, it requires a tremendous amount of properly functioning technology to sustain order. You can build as densely as you want, but when the technology fails (AND IT WILL) or is destroyed, you must have a rapid, foolproof means to evacuate and disperse the population.

From a tactical point of view, it appears that without mass transit, at least 20% of the population of New Orleans was only foot mobile. For reasons of age, health, and lifestyle, that part of the population was incapable of conducting effective movement by foot. The problem in New Orleans is not a lack of supplies, but (similar to my usual Bridge hands) a lack of transportation and distribution. (This was also the major issue during tsunami relief efforts as well.)

By its centralized nature, mass transit will be the first thing to fail in a disaster. If you want to be able to effectively evacuate a city in a timely fashion, you had better pour a lot more concrete (and money) into the Interstate highway system, because when the crunch comes, individual vehicles (those "hated" SUVs) may be all you have.

Management will always choose efficiency over redundancy. It is a natural result of a free market and the profit motive. (One of the hardest lessons to teach military unit leaders is the need to keep a force in reserve. There are a lot of painful "lessons relearned" behind the concept of 1/3 of the force being held in reserve.)

If the "grid;" be it power, water, sewage, information, or supplies; is efficient it is by nature fragile because there is limited excess capacity. I am sure a lot of companies in the area had their Business Continuity Plans and Disaster Preparedness Plans put through the wringer in the last four days and most failed spectacularly because the companies chose low cost over redundancy to ensure reliability .

To effectively deal with the displacement of over a million people requires excess capacity in our housing, transportation, education, health, and job markets. It may not have existed at landfall, but the beauty of Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" is that it is being created as I type.

[Hank Rearden]

Browse around the site and you'll find more. Do it quickly though, I doubt it will be accessable for long.

If FReepers archive it, it'll be around forever.

[brytlea]

I'm not sure who S Sherlock is, but I recall seeing people breaking into stores and taking away grocery carts of food. Lots of people were applauding them saying "Hey they're just trying to survive." This only a day or so into the disaster. My point is, what is left to loot for survival now anyway? How much was wasted in the first couple of days as New Orleans inhabitants went berzerk?
susie

[Rome2000]

Katrina roared thru south florida on Thursday with a vengeance.

The polidiots in LA had PLENTY OF WARNING(72 plus hours)and did not order a MANDATORY evacuation until it was TOO LATE.

When they did order a MANDATORY evacuation, it was not enforced.

They have nobody to blame but THEMSELVES.

[chris1]

Are we going to hear ala post 9/1 that no one connected the dots, etc etc????

This is a true catastrophe and is a sin that we are treating AMERICAN CITIZENS like this by not letting them walk the bridge to safety while nothing is getting to them other than boxes thrown off the highway.

[chris1]

I'm talking about now, not then. Many people like the old and sick did not loot, what are they to do?

[timestax]

Shep Smith said he has YET to see a Red Cross truck.

Shep said this, and Shep said that....sounds like ole Shep is trying to get ratings up and get an award. O Reilly asked Shep for an update, and Shepherd Smith went into a rambling, incoherent blather about what he had allegedly "seen" two days ago. He was acting goofy!

[Roccus]

I don't have a computer, only internet access. Someone else is gonna have to do it. Sorry

[weegee]

Pretty much ever major metropolitan area is Rat controlled (and the same corruption scandal has been tied to a number of city halls). Much of the rest of the counties across America are Bush country.

With it being plainly obvious that there is no contingency plan for public welfare (where to send people when they are "evacuated") or even decent evacuation routes, I may have given up on living in a megalopolis. I've never thought that cities of millions work well but with the target they pose for terrorists and the absolute numbers than cannot be handled in an emergency, we are all playing odds.

[brytlea]

I'm just suggesting that most of the usable stuff has probably already been looted. People were applauding this from the outset. How shortsighted of them.
susie

[chris1]

Excuse me Mr. keyboard warrior, he is on the ground and there. I believe him a lot faster than the mayor or some of the other polidiots as one put it.

Its criminal to force these people to stay and not let them walk the bridge to safety.

[mountainfolk]

I read on another thread that the reason people are not being allowed to cross the bridge into Gretna is because the chief of police there is protecting his city. Gretna has already been victimized by looters and he will not allow an uncontrolled mob to come thru. What would you do? I would be torn between compassion and the reality of knowing what has already happened in NO would undoubtedly happen in Gretna. Things are not always what the media tells us and it seems to me that Shep is close enough to have gotten this information himself.

[Roccus]

Read on an earlier thread that Nagin sent his family out of town last FRI.

[SunnySide]

A spokesman for the ARC was on Hannity and Colmes (or O'Reilly), and said that the ARC is not allowed in to unsecured areas, since they are a civilian organization. It's not their choice; those are the rules (and rightfully so).
.......

This has to be repeated over and over. Search and rescue volunteers like the Red Cross volunteers are not armed citizens. Why on earth should they be trained to go into hazardous situations and maybe get killed by drug crazed gangs thus adding to the victim list. It would be foolish. This is what isn't being reported or is being incorrectly reported by the MSM. Let the MSM staff go in thee to give aid and comfort to the suffering. See how easy it is. Bet they wouldn't VOLUNTEER for FREE!