Posted on 09/07/2005 7:34:16 PM PDT by BykrBayb
Posted on Mon, Aug. 29, 2005
Shelter-seekers find long lines, noisy conditions in Superdome
BY DAVID OVALLE Knight Ridder Newspapers
NEW ORLEANS - (KRT) - As Hurricane Katrina pounded relentlessly on its roof, the tourists and the vagabonds, the poor and the frail dozed awkwardly - if at all - in Mardi Gras-colored chairs in the giant Louisiana Superdome.
When they got hungry, there was not the beer-and-hot dog fare served up at Saints football games. More than 10,000 refugees from Katrina dined on the same instant meals as U.S. soldiers in Iraq, fitting because it was soldiers who were watching over them now.
They begged for water and bemoaned the stinking humidity that made it feel like a tropical forest. They stood in long lines to use the bathrooms, and complained there weren't enough. They shuddered at the howling winds and prayed the storm would not tear off the roof, which was leaking like a sieve.
Local officials called the Superdome a refuge of last resort, and after spending a tough 24 hours in nasty discomfort, many of the people understood why.
"No sleep; too many children," said one of the shelter-seekers, M.D. Richman, 54.
"I felt pretty safe, but my daughter didn't," said Willanne Hughes, 44. "I told her to start praying."
Especially when the 100-mph winds banged away on the city's crown jewel. ``It shook - the dome shook!" Hughes said.
Local officials stressed ahead of time this visit to the Superdome was not going to be a pleasant experience. Refugees should not expect hot meals and even cots. And don't bring any pets.
Like the city itself, the dome has its color and charm, home to many a Super Bowl as well as the Saints - or the Aints, when they were losing left and right.
As Katrina bore down on New Orleans, anyone who couldn't get out of town or had no other place to go queued up for up to three hours to get in.
Mayor Ray Nagin urged shelter-goers not to bring alcohol or weapons, but officials still confiscated their fair share of guns and knives at the door.
Even as sheets of rain began pelting the city, the Superdome continued to receive refugees. Monique Garner and her three children were dropped off near the parking garage, but only after being saved by rescuers who picked them from flood waters off the upper level of their home.
"We thought the hurricane wasn't going to be for real," Garner said, " like all the other times," referring to the many near-misses the city has had in recent years.
At the entrance, Joe Barnes cursed the Louisiana National Guard members who were checking people in. He said they would not let him in because he brought Patches, his cat.
"She's only 7 months," Barnes said before walking off.
Inside, the new turf on the field - off-limits to the storm refugees - was in good shape for the upcoming start of the NFL season.
In the upper field-level seats, people settled in for a long night. MREs - meals ready to eat in Army lingo - littered the floor. On the menu: spaghetti with meat sauce or vegetable manicotti.
Ramona Delgado, 63, and Diana Chavez, 60, camped out in section 109, refused to eat.
"Looks like I'll be skinnier," Chavez joked.
She was sprawled out on a blanket above an oily aisle, surrounded by clothes and packages. Some people were drinking and some argued and fought, they said. Above the roar of the winds, they said little to each other.
"We couldn't talk with all the noise, and with the nerves?" Chavez said.
Nearby, Hughes and friend Kathryn Alvarez sat in the dark and talked about the man who had just fallen from the concourse about 50 feet to a bottom level.
Soldiers standing near a pool of blood said they didn't know how he fell, but the good news was that he was still alive.
They and their families did not sleep much during the night. The lights went out in the morning, the air thickened. When chunks of the dome came off, the soldiers moved them away from lower-level field seats.
"Some of those soldiers need to take training in interpersonal skills," Alvarez said. "People need to know how to handle - some of them were very nasty."
The stories and characters inside the dome ran the gamut.
There was the tourist family from Central California who got kicked out of their hotel and checked in the Superdome, hauling their luggage with them. And the 59-year-old New Orleans man whose disability check will not come for two weeks, said taking refuge in the dome was cheaper than fleeing by car.
Nicole Rios said she never watches television, but for some reason she felt compelled to tune in a few days ago. That was when she learned about Katrina and the Superdome shelter.
Not surprising, Rios works in New Orleans as a psychic.
---
© 2005, The Miami Herald.
Visit The Miami Herald Web edition on the World Wide Web at http://www.herald.com
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
I've asked around, and nobody else seems to remember any of this. But here's a story written on the 29th, claiming MREs "littered the floor" during the hurricane. Where did those MREs come from? And better yet, where did they go?
This same story is repeated at the following URLs...
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/12508463.htm,
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/nation/12508463.htm,
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/nation/12508463.htm
Now tell me again that I just imagined it.
--------
Here's another article of interest from that day. Assistance continues to areas impacted by Hurricane Katrina.
-snip-
As of early August 29, approximately 52,000 people were in 240 shelters in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida and Texas, with the majority in the New Orleans Superdome. Strategic housing planning is underway to address expected continued sheltering and eventual housing needs.
In addition to holding regular briefings with emergency management officials in the affected states, FEMA reported the following activities, as of 10 a.m. today, as part of the ongoing federal response.
·FEMA's emergency teams and resources are being deployed and configured for coordinated response to Hurricane Katrina. This includes pre-staging critical commodities such as ice, water, meals, and tarps in various strategic locations to be made available to residents of affected areas.
·FEMA's Hurricane Liaison Team is onsite and working closely with the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Fla.
·FEMA's National Response Coordination Center and Regional Response Coordination Centers in Atlanta, Ga., and Denton, Texas, are operating around the clock, coordinating the prepositioning of assets and responding to state requests for assistance.
-snip-
Does anyone believe that FEMA supplied all of the shelters except the one they knew would house the most people?
Time's up. Let the chips fall where they may.
Doesn't meet the media template, though. I expect the same editors who ran this story are now running the 'left them to die' tack which is the accepted version of history, now.
I'm afraid the full truth of all these dimensions is going to take a long time to finally settle out.
Thanks for putting that together and posting it. I'm keeping a copy of it.
Yeah, these poor souls were stuck with MREs to eat, until the media decided to claim they didn't even have MREs. They've repeated the lie about "no food" so many times, even Freepers believe it now. Doesn't anyone else remember this?
I'm afraid that the more time that passes, the more people will forget the truth. How long did it take everyone to forget that the Superdome was supplied with MREs before the hurricane?
Good. And please post it whenever you see the lie about "no food" repeated.
FNC's Major Garrett: Red Cross Blocked by Order of the Louisiana State Government
I'm not sure. My brother just sent me 3 different articles. One blames the politicians. One blames global warming. And the other blames God and ourselves. Personally, I think it's Cindy Sheehan's fault.
I seem to remember them saying the night they were filing into the dome that there was no food. This seems to contradict that.
Yes, I remembered that, too. And another important point about the story - the National Guard was already there before the hurricane. When did they leave the Superdome (or did they?) and who ordered that? The same people who blocked the Red Cross volunteers headed to the dome with food and water?
/sarcasm
That's twice today I left off a sarcasm tag after what I consider to be obvious sarcasm. I hope I don't get slammed by anyone with a lecture on cause and effect.
I was beginning to feel like the main character in 1984 (what was his name?). I'm so happy to learn that I'm not the only one who remembers. Can anyone find a link to a source that verifies the National Guard delivered the MREs?
I don't know, but I wonder if it was also the same people who turned away the buses that arrived from other cities to evacuate people from the Superdome.
Yes, I believe it, because Governor Blanco decided that the Superdome wasn't a shelter, and didn't want ANY food and water supplied there because it would encourage people to stay and she wanted to convince them to leave.
She also refused access to the Red Cross. Nobody was allowed to bring food and water to the Superdome or the Convention Center, because the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security, and the Governor, decided it would be better to get people back out of there.
This was before the levy breaks were evident -- so it may be that without those breaks, this would have been a good plan, forcing people out of the dome and back to their homes or other shelters.
Once the city flooded things became much worse in the dome, and then there was a lot of rescue efforts and more people were brought to the dome and convention center -- but still nobody allowed food into the dome.
So far as I can tell, even when the federal government brought supplies into the dome, they were doing so without authorization from the state. But I'm not sure of that. I can't find any specific declaration that it was OK to bring food in.
And we have the FOX news report thursday night that the state guard was preventing traffic from coming over the bridge. Shep thought they were just keeping people in, but maybe they were also keeping supplies out.
Then where did the MREs come from? Did everybody bring their own? Somebody stocked the Superdome with MREs before the hurricane. IIRC, it was the National Guard.
Preventing supplies from getting to the Superdome was never a good plan. Nobody was allowed to leave the Superdome. Buses were sent from other cities to evacuate them, and they were turned back.
After reading about the couple who refused to eat because MREs weren't good enough, I think you may be right.
Supplies WERE delivered to the dome before the hurricane, because they knew people would be there before the hurricane. There was enough for a few days. Apparently, the plan was to get the people back out as soon as the storm was over, and the state didn't want the Red Cross or FEMA delivering more supplies because it would encourage people to come back to the city and move into the dome.
Of course after the canal wall collapsed that was a silly thought -- and denying access to food and water simply to convince people to leave is a risky proposition.
The mayor may not have had anything to do with this. We are seeing now that the governor is a control freak who doesn't know what to do but won't let anybody else take charge.
She denied the federal government takeover, and when the mayor tried to make a mandatory evacuation yesterday she overruled him. BUT, showing her lack of decisionmaking, she didn't say for certain she was stopping the evacuation, she said she wanted to collect more information first.
Well, the LANG is under the control of the Governor (still) so I guess there is only one place the order to abandon the Superrdome could have originated. I cannot confirm that such an order was given, nor even that they ever left. But we know that they were there before and during the hurricane, and it's hard to imagine the other stories of crime in the Superdome could have occured had the Guard remained. Or am I missing something?
Of all the stories I've seen, the one that got me the most was the woman, guess what color, at the NO Dome who had been given drink and food...coplaining that she hadn't had a "HOT meal" in three days.
I'm sure the ingratful bitc# has never sucked sand for a year!
Doesn't anyone else remember this?I remember; despite our Goebels's press trying to rewrite the history of it ...
Do you remember who delivered the MREs? How many they delivered? Can you find a link to verify it?
Right. And now the media is denying it. Who delivered those supplies? Am I right that it was the National Guard? Am I right that there were 360,000 MREs? That would feed 30,000 people for four days. How many people were at the Superdome at any given time?
This article claims there up to 10,000 people, and the day after the hurricane there was no food. If that's true, they had to each eat at least 36 MREs in one day.
Winston Smith
Thank you.
I saw her too. She also said,water, water, that's all they gave us to drink was water. Did you see the women I interviewed last night at the astrodome. She was asked, "are you getting everything you need?" No, she said, not really, I don't have any money.
I remember multiple reports on TV - I would go back a week or so here on FR and find some news articles that might have been posted ...
A lady, in the shelter that I volunteer in, told me today that they had MRE's and water the entire time. She didn't eat or drink, much, because the bathroom facilities were so awful. Being in a wheelchair just made it more difficult for her.
Thanks. I tried that before I ever posted this thread. There are about a gazillion articles about Katrina. The report I read might not have even been a thread of its own. It might be buried among thousands of posts in one of the live threads. Or maybe I saw it on TV, which is even worse.
It's a relief to hear from so many people that I wasn't hallucinating. There really were MREs delivered to the Superdome before the hurricane.
Here's one of the Katrina threads, on 08/28/2005:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1472123/posts?q=1&&page=2201
I would expect that somebody posted details about MRE's in that thread and the ones that followed; near the end they post a link to the next Katrina thread in the series.
" No, she said, not really, I don't have any money."
So did you give her some? LOL
Not surprising, Rios works in New Orleans as a psychic.
I good psychic would've planned her vacation for that week.
----About the MRE's before the Hurricane
To help keep them fed and hydrated, the Louisiana National Guard delivered three truckloads of water and seven truckloads of MREs, short for "meals ready to eat." That's enough to supply 15,000 people for three days, according to Col. Jay Mayeaux, deputy director of the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Emergency Preparedness.
---Also on Monday, the Red Cross
Red Cross to the rescue
Monday 11:18 p.m.
American Red Cross spokesman Victor Howell said 750 to 1,000 Red Cross personnel are now at work on hurricane recovery in Louisiana, and 2,000 more volunteers will be here in the next few days.The Red Cross will bring in three large mobile kitchens to prepare 500,000 meals per day. There are 40 shelters statewide, housing about 32,000 people, "and you're going to have more," Howell said.
---Also from Monday. What I believe is the most crucial cause of all the problems with the recovery: Lack of Communications.
"Police, firefighters and private citizens, hampered by a lack of even rudimentary communication capabilities, continued a desperate and impromptu boat-borne rescue operation across Lakeview well after dark. Coast Guard choppers with search lights criss-crossed the skies"
Thanks so much for finding this!
With those figures, it would have taken 45,000 people to eat all the MREs in one day (at three meals per day.) I read there were up to 10,000 people there. It should have lasted them 4 1/2 days. To eat them all in one day, each person (including the babies) would have had to eat 13 1/2 MREs. Bon appetit!
I think the Louisiana National Guard was still under the governor's control when they stocked the Superdome. They didn't come under the control of FEMA until... I'm not sure they ever did. Other states' National Guards were operating under FEMA's orders before the hurricane even hit. In other words, the only thing FEMA didn't do was illegally seize control of the Louisiana National Guard. They provided assistance through other states' National Guards, the Coast Guard, and the Navy. (I hope I didn't leave anyone out.)
According to the Navy, on Aug 31, the National Guard brought more supplies to the Superdome. They don't specify under whose orders, but since they didn't specify that it was the Louisiana National Guard, I'm guessing it was the National Guard serving under FEMA. http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=27554 .
That was idiotic considering that they didn't let people back out, or if they walked to the bridge they were turned back. Once the buses did come one could worry about that issue (easily solvable if necessary by segregating a group out to go onto a waiting bus and telling them that their next meal is on the bus). Because of these unnecessary privations, people are going to be ill or DEAD who wouldn't have been if the Red Cross supplies had come.
Fine but what about the WRD's?
bttt
bttt
Still, it was obvious that this was going to be a horror show. These stadiums are built for people to stay in them maybe 3-4 hours max. When I go to a stadium for a game or event, I am usually more than ready to leave after about 3 hours. The seats are uncomfortable, the floor is getting sticky and the bathrooms are smelling nasty. Can't imagine people living there for days.
When the news was relayed about the Super Dome being opened up as a shelter of last resort, the citizens were told to bring food and water to last at least 3 days; however, some reports I've read said 5 days. Either way, they were NOT sent there expecting a luxury hotel experience -- more like a camping trip. I think the MREs were there just as a backup.
Water Resources Division? Are you suggesting they ate all the MREs, and drank all the water?
There was plenty of food and water. They just didn't have hollandaise sauce and champagne.
Water Ready to Drink. A pun on MRE.
If survival conditions were better in the Dome than the Red Cross would imply (the worst thing being the stinky, overflowed toilets) then it sounds more like news agencies trolling for sensation.
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