Posted on 09/09/2005 11:06:37 AM PDT by hipaatwo
Think local officials are less to blame for deaths in New Orleans than federal officials? In the most jaw-dropping story of the week, UPI has the police chief of Gretna, Louisiana, admitting that he closed off one of the major arteries out of New Orleans on Monday, before the storm hit:
"We shut down the bridge," Arthur Lawson, chief of the City of Gretna Police Department, confirmed to United Press International, adding that his jurisdiction had been "a closed and secure location" since before the storm hit.
"All our people had evacuated and we locked the city down," he said. The bridge in question -- the Crescent City Connection -- is the major artery heading west out of New Orleans across the Mississippi River.
He added that the small town, which he called "a bedroom community" for the city of New Orleans, would have been overwhelmed by the influx. "There was no food, water or shelter" in Gretna City, Lawson said. "We did not have the wherewithal to deal with these people. If we had opened the bridge, our city would have looked like New Orleans does now: looted, burned and pillaged."
They were bringing supplies INTO New Orleans as soon as Blanco decided it might be time to let the supplies come in.
How is wandering down Rt 90 to the WEST of New Orleans going to improve these people's chance at survival? Unless they can catch a gator with their bare hands and drink swamp water, there's no reason for them to be going WEST out of New Orleans, since there's even LESS OF A CHANCE for them to find food & water in the bayou's than there is in the French Quarter....
Of course the stores & homes in Gretna MIGHT have had SOME usable food & water...but I doubt the good people of New Orleans would have been content with just that....
What you think they were going to do, walk all the way to the Astrodomoe?
THINK ABOUT IT! EVEN IF THE BRIDGE WERE OPEN, WHERE WERE THEY GOING TO GO????
I'm saying it was WRONG to not let them across. That is NOT accusing them of MURDER. It is saying they put private property over human life.
Yet another despicable attempt at spin.
Nice strawman.
So because we're worried about them looting, they are left to die of thirst? Lovely.
I dunno ... maybe get a drink from someone's garden hose?
Ronzo,
I understand what you are saying. Dirtyboy is from Philly, he knows as much about NO as the man on the moon.
Oh, I'm getting QUITE an education here. It's more important to guard property than to let people in desperate straights out of NOLA. I mean, they're just trash from the slums.
And I'm saying that depending on the disposition of the crowd it may have been wrong to let them pass.
Let's find out what actually happened.
There was food and water in NO on Wednesday.
There were Red Cross personnel with supplies being prevented from entering NO that very day.
NO theoretically had a mayor and a police chief who could have marshalled resources that day.
Blaming the police chief of Gretna for protecting his citizens seems a tad hasty.
You might be right. If you read some of the comments from the article that had the bus story, it sounds like it might be the same.
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/008013.html
Amen brother. Most of these Freeper's have probably never been beyond the French Quarter, if they've been to NO at all...they have no idea just how sick and EVIL many of the welfare residents of NO really are...they'd slit their own mother's throat for another hit of crack, and not think twice about it.
Remember what that Aussie tourist said upon leaving the SuperDome and returning to OZ: 98% of the people of the world are good, but 98% of the people in the SuperDome were pricks. That statement is more accurate than most Freeper's can ever realize...
It wasn't jsut for shitz & grins that they were patting down every person who entered the SuperDome....and still drugs, guns and knives got through...
So did these "law enforcement" officers violate state law or federal law by preventing passage over an official evacuation route. I bet they'd rather end up in Leavenworth than Angola.
So even though they are in dire condition ... leave 'em there do die, just to make sure no looting happens in Gretna.
Lovely sentiment.
"Most of these Freeper's have probably never been beyond the French Quarter, if they've been to NO at all..."
And you're from Illinois? I've been to NO a number of times, and am pretty familiar with the city.
Yep. Blocking an evacuation route - when people are trapped in a flooded city and running out of provisions. This gets more serious with each passing revelation.
What part of the word "breakstep" do you not understand.
Your Right.
Lately, I've been trying to create a Christian web directory
Do you think Jesus would agree with keeping desperate people from getting out of NOLA? All because of concerns about PROPERTY CRIME?
If Dirtboy is from Philly....he doesn't need to be educated about NO....he should already have a good idea about how the welfare state turns human beings into crazed animals....unless he's living in some sort of gated community in the distant suburbs of Philly, and doesn't get a chance to see the urban blight up close & personal.
I appreciate your compassion for the dying Dirtboy, but the best thing the residents of NO could have done was get out when they told everyone to leave. The next best thing was to listen to the mayor, and go to the SuperDome and join in with the decadance and disaster there until the calvary arrived.
"It wasn't jsut for shitz & grins that they were patting down every person who entered the SuperDome....and still drugs, guns and knives got through..."
Did you see the Fox News report Sunday which showed a plane load of refugees getting off a plane in Texas.
There must have been a hundred rather large Texas State Police, Texas Rangers and local sheriffs/cops standing at parade rest in two lines from the plane's exits to the receiving area.
They were not greeting the N O ers getting off the plane. They were watching them. What we didn't see were armed detectives in the plane searching these people before they got off the plane for guns, knives and other weapons.
It may seem cruel, but blocking the bridge was the right thing to do. There was NOTHING for the evacuees on the westbank unless they could walk another 90 miles to a shelter. Many might still be wandering around aimlessly even today if they were allowed to cross the river.
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