Posted on 09/05/2005 2:32:49 AM PDT by guitarnick40
BATON ROUGE, La. — In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard, this group of refugees stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road, holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around as if he were their leader.
They were holding hands. Three of the children were about 2 years old, and one was wearing only diapers. A 3-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love.
Thousands of human stories have flown past relief workers in the last week, but few have touched them as much as the seven children who were found wandering together Thursday at an evacuation point in downtown New Orleans. In the Baton Rouge headquarters of the rescue operation, paramedics tried to coax their names out of them; nurses who examined them stayed up that night, brooding.
Transporting the children alone was "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, knowing that their parents are either dead" or that they had been abandoned, said Pat Coveney, a Houston emergency medical technician who put them into the back of his ambulance and drove them out of New Orleans.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
OK so now we've got a 6 year old who was more resourceful and smarter than the frikin mayor.
I posted in a live thread on Saturday this wonderful picture that was in the Billings Gazette photo gallery.
 |
| Associated Press Tanisha Blevin, 5, holds the hand of Nita LaGarde, 105, as they are evacuated from the Convention Center in New Orleans Saturday. Hundreds of people have waited several days to be evacuated. |
That is the sweetest picture that I have seen yet. That must be why I haven't seen it anywhere else. We wouldn't want people to think many of the people are actually helping one another. The OLD MEDIA'S agenda exposed once again.
And the Governor was ------
Those guys in the yellow cart are catching up.
Pretty freakin sad isn't it. Maybe the dems can put him up in the next primary. Probably better than anything they have in the pipeline, plus they would sure save on diapers and tissues.
You know, in spite of the horrors, there is so much hope, here, so much bravery, goodness, and decency, on display, in the middle of this disaster. Just when you think Americans are down for the count, they rise up and surprise you.
Thank God for the happy ending!
BSF, thanks for posting that great, heartwarming pic with the accompanying info.
You got that right Pajamajan, kickin' a** for 229 and we ain't goin nowhere but forward.
One thing I've noticed is that the kids seem to be in more control than the supposed grownups who were running things. God Bless all of them and may they find safety and comfort.
Yes! God surely sent His "Guardian Angels" to help these little ones. Our family includes adopted children and one of the Mothers has been shedding tears over the helpless children all week..Thank God for the hands which are rescuing and lovingly caring for them..Everyone seems to be doing what everything possible to help..
HEAR, HEAR(sp?)
( Pajamajan raises glass to computer screen for a toast to America)
Precious pics, Thanks! Shows that prayers are answered and Who was holding "his tiny hands", doesn't it?
It is an awesome thing to see prayers being answered, and the providence of God in action.
IMHO, the kids, especially the smaller ones, will handle it better than adults because they don't understand the gravity of the situation.
To a child, it's like a big adventure, and they don't understand their parents are now homeless and jobless.
How cool is that name?
That part seemed to work well.
As to to L.A. Basin. No reverse flow only 4 good routes out in 2 days it would be "Lord of the Flies".
"OK so now we've got a 6 year old who was more resourceful and smarter than the frikin mayor."
Both the Governor and the Mayor lack leadership!
My hero is a bus thief - Houston Chronicle (Priceless Photo)
Houston Chronicle ^ | Sept. 1, 2005, 10:29PM | By RICK CASEY
Posted on 09/04/2005 12:39:33 PM CDT by joinedafterattack
"When he arrived at the Astrodome about 10 p.m. Wednesday, 20-year-old Jabbar Gibson modestly confessed that he had commandeered a school bus in New Orleans, then picked up about 70 passengers before heading out for the 13-hour trek to Houston." <!-- DIV.b2 { margin: .75em 0px; } -->
Jabbar Gibson rescues NO citizens on 8-31-05
It sure would have been good if that could have occurred before Katrina hit. Hindsight is 20/20, I know. But had the plans NO had actually been followed, more people would have been evacuated and more would have survived.
thanks for the great post! It was moving
He probably was used to haveing to take care of his family.
The kids have not been exposed to the race and welfare pimps yet, they are just sweet normal little childen.
State and local government????????????
YVW and happy labor day to you and all
The story is very touching, but I'd still like to know how the helicopter crew lost all seven of them.
That's a great picture! The old woman thinks she's taking care of the little girl and the little girl thinks she's helping the old woman.
Yes, and Fox seems to be focused on that. At times I switch over to MSNBC or CNN but they're full of hatred, "Let's hate Bush; let's hate the FEMA director, etc...". It's disgusting.
An idiot, just like the mayor?
Probably not any better is the short answer.
However, there are some differences, albeit easier to see in hindsight. As everyone now knows, New Orleans lies below sea level. I've know for years that NOLA was subject to complete flooding, though I thought the Mississippi changing course at Long-named-river would be the cause. But surely a category 5 storm approaching should have invoked the worst case scenario plans to evacuate the city, and "Orders" were giving and, as you point out, over a million people responded to the "word to the wise". But the mayor and other local officials, who are closest to their own (poor) residents, should have had a better plan. The worst case plans should have including using the school buses and transit buses and trains to move people to an area above sea level. That IMHO is the failure of the local officials.
But fears that the refugees will become an uncivil mob at the Astrodome are overblown. The concerns were, inevitably, tinged with race and class perceptions. The pictures we see from the Superdome are of people who are mostly poor and black.
After the MSM has spent so much time focusing on looting, violence, rape, and shooting, carefully constructing an image of all the people there in NOLA as criminals, is it any wonder folks would be concerned? Sheesh!
Until people stop, take a deep breeath, and realize that the majority of crime is perpetrated by a minority of the people, (and the MSM ditch the race/class crap), there will be a reaction ranging from an undercurrent of suspicion to complete antipathy toward these people.
The MSM continues to do a disservice to the people of New Orleans.
God bless the children.
Think not? I'll bet that 6-year-old has seen more than most of us can imagine. His mother might well have been a drug addict who was never able to take care of him. He might have been the man of the house since he was able to walk and talk.
The children are some of the most clear-headed people in this tragedy. What they haven't been exposed to yet is a lifetime of dependency that dulls any sense of initiative and self-reliance that people are born with. Unfortunately, many of the adults are more child-like than the children.
"The pictures we see from the Superdome are of people who are mostly poor and black.
After the MSM has spent so much time focusing on looting, violence, rape, and shooting, carefully constructing an image of all the people there in NOLA as criminals, is it any wonder folks would be concerned? Sheesh!"
I saw an interview with one of the doctors that was in the Superdome from the first night. He said he saw NO violence in the dome. If their were rapes and fights he would have been treating the injuries. He said he was never worried for his safety or afraid of the people in the dome. He said he lost weight and was hungry, but he got 2 MRE's and 2 bottles of water a day.
Sounds like a completely different story than the rumors the MSM has been spreading, doesn't it?
Just had to find the rest of the story.
Nita LaGarde, 105, was pushed down the street in her wheelchair as her nurse's 5-year-old granddaughter, Tanisha Blevin, held her hand. The pair spent two days in an attic, two days on an interstate island and the last four days on the pavement in front of the convention center.
"They're good to see," LaGarde said, with remarkable gusto as she waited to be loaded onto a gray Marine helicopter. She said they were sent by God. "Whatever He has for you, He'll take care of you. He'll sure take care of you."
LaGarde's nurse, Ernestine Dangerfield, 60, said LaGarde had not had a clean adult diaper in more than two days. "I just want to get somewhere where I can get her nice and clean," she said.
From what I saw, state and local ran around in circles wringing their hands. The feds organized the largest evacuation in the history of the United States.
Isaiah 11:6 ...and a little child shall lead them.
I don't think waiting until the last minute to throw their hands up and scream "Run!" was very organizational. Where were the busses? They should know their own people well enough to know that too many couldn't run.
I'm glad he didn't get a bus:') Most of the "hero" stories that I have seen are coming from the young people.
The MSM is having a Bush bash, anti-republican, racist anti-white, "have" vs "have-not" hissy-fit in an attempt to keep the poor in general and especially poor Blacks in thrall to the Democratic Party.
The worse they can paint the picture, the more they can blame on Bush.
Oddly, though, that portrayal may have unintended consequences, as few people are inclined to be generous when the victims are portrayed as welfare leeches, criminals, or worse. No one wants to subsidize low-life (as opposed to decent folks), regardless of color or economic standing.
Ironically, had the Democrat politicos-from the Clinton levee budget cuts through the incompetence of the Mayor and Governor--done their jobs right, much of this could have been mitigated, if not avoided.
It was a crime to leave those busses parked, and not even get the vehicles to higher ground. That was a colossal waste. It was more of a crime to not have driven them out of there with a load of poor people on each one.
Everyone reacts differently, but most victims of disaster tend to be quiet, subdued, in shock, even. The perpetrators of disaster (criminals, those who stayed to loot, etc.), are the problem types. I even wonder if some of that was staged...
But by playing tawdry political games with a disaster of Biblical proportions, the MSM soil their profession. That stain will take a long time to wear off.
However, my being in New Olreans prior to this storm I can know the time line. On Friday afternoon the NWS's Storm Tracking Cone showed landfall anywhere from east of Panama City to the Texas Border. Furthermore, winds were at 110 MPH at noon on Friday. That was not a threat.
On Friday evening the mayor was on TV saying "Everyone needs to make a plan to get out of the city in case the storm heads to New Orleans. By Saturday morning the storm had intensified QUICKER THAN ANY STORM THAT HAD EVER BEEN IN THE GULF.
The Mayor held a press conference and said "This is the storm we have feared all of our lives. This is Not a Drill, Everyone needs to evacuate the city. Between Saturday morning and Sunday evening 1.25 million people evacuated the city. An evacuation on that scale had never been done in American History.
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