NationStates Jolt Archive


Disgrace in New Orleans

Khudros
06-09-2005, 04:30
3 Duke students tell of 'disgraceful' scene (http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-643298.html)


By Ray Gronberg : The Herald-Sun
gronberg@heraldsun.com
Sep 4, 2005 : 9:36 pm ET

DURHAM -- A trio of Duke University sophomores say they drove to New Orleans late last week, posed as journalists to slip inside the hurricane-soaked city twice, and evacuated seven people who weren't receiving help from authorities.

The group, led by South Carolina native Sonny Byrd, say they also managed to drive all the way to the New Orleans Convention Center, where they encountered scenes early Saturday evening that they say were disgraceful.

"We found it absolutely incredible that the authorities had no way to get there for four or five days, that they didn't go in and help these people, and we made it in a two-wheel-drive Hyundai," said Hans Buder, who made the trip with his roommate Byrd and another student, David Hankla.

Buder's account -- told by cell phone Sunday evening as the trio neared Montgomery, Ala., on their way home -- chronicled a three-day odyssey that began when the students, angered by the news reports they were seeing on CNN, loaded up their car with bottled water and headed for the Gulf coast to see if they could lend a hand.

The trio say they left Durham about 6 p.m. Thursday and reached Montgomery about 12 hours later. After catching 1½ hours of sleep, they reached the coast at Mobile. From there, they traveled through the Mississippi cities of Biloxi and Gulfport.

They say they elected to keep going because it seemed like Mississippi authorities had things well in hand.

Pushing on, they passed through Slidell, La., and tried to get into New Orleans by a couple of routes. Each time, police and National Guard troops turned them away. By 2 p.m. they'd wound up in Baton Rouge.

Stopping first at a Red Cross shelter and then at offices of a Baton Rouge TV station, WAFB, they eventually made their way to the campus of Louisiana State University. By 8 p.m. Friday they were working as volunteers in an emergency assistance area set up inside LSU's indoor track arena.

The students worked until about 2 a.m. Saturday, then slept on the floor of a dorm room. When they awoke, they went back to the TV station, which was hosting what Buder termed "a distribution center" for supplies.

At 2 p.m., the trio decided to head for New Orleans, Buder said. After looking around, they swiped an Associated Press identification and one of the TV station's crew shirts, and found a Kinko's where they could make copies of the ID.

They were stopped again by authorities at the edge of New Orleans, but this time were able to make it through.

"We waved the press pass, and they looked at each other, the two guards, and waved us on in," Buder said.

Inside the city, they found a surreal environment.

"It was wild," Buder said. "It really felt like it was 'Independence Day,' the movie."

The trio dodged downed trees and power lines until they happened upon Magazine Street, which runs in a semi-circle around the city parallel to and about four blocks north of the Mississippi River.

They stopped to give water to a 15-year-old boy sitting beside the road holding a sign that said "Need Water/Food," then went to the convention center.

The evacuation was basically complete by the time they arrived, at about 6:30 or 6:45 p.m. What the trio saw there horrified them.

"The only way I can describe this, it was the epicenter," Buder said. "Inside there were National Guard running around, there was feces, people had urinated, soiled the carpet. There were dead bodies. The smell will never leave me."

Buder said the students saw four or five bodies. National Guard troopers seemed to be checking the second and third floors of the building to try to secure the site.

"Anyone who knows that area, if you had a bus, it would take you no more than 20 minutes to drive in with a bus and get these people out," Buder said. "They sat there for four or five days with no food, no water, babies getting raped in the bathrooms, there were murders, nobody was doing anything for these people. And we just drove right in, really disgraceful. I don't want to get too fired up with the rhetoric, but some blame needs to be placed somewhere."

By about 7 p.m., the students made their way back to the boy on Magazine Street. He directed them to some people "who really needed to get out." The resulting evacuation began at a house at the corner of Magazine and Peniston streets.

The first group included three women and a man. The students climbed into the front seats of the four-door Hyundai, and the evacuees filled the back seat. They left the city and headed back to Baton Rouge. There they deposited the man at the LSU medical center and took the women to dinner. The women later found shelter with relatives, and the students got about four hours' sleep inside the LSU chapel.

At 6:30 a.m. Sunday, they made their second run into New Orleans, returning to the house at Magazine and Peniston streets. This time they picked up three men and headed back to Baton Rouge. Two of the men were the husbands of two of the women evacuated the night before. The students reunited them with their wives and put the two families on a bus for Texas.

Buder is from Martha's Vineyard, Mass.; Byrd is from Rock Hill, S.C.; and Hankla is from Washington, D.C.


That's just pitiful. These kids managed to drive halfway across the US and evacuate seven people in a 2-wheel-drive Hyundai. FEMA took about a week to even get on the scene. Something is seriously wrong here.
Achtung 45
06-09-2005, 04:35
There's a lot of stuff that's seriously wrong that could've been fixed quite easily early on in this messed up world we live in.
BackwoodsSquatches
06-09-2005, 04:37
I dont care what anyone says, this is disgraceful, and the blame lies with the city, state, and federal officals, for poor planning, lack of preparation, and dismal governmental response.

All should be tried, and hung.
Coranthia
06-09-2005, 04:46
The mayor should have bussed out anyone who wanted to be bussed. I blame the local and state. And maybe a little fedral.
Ravenshrike
06-09-2005, 04:47
3 Duke students tell of 'disgraceful' scene (http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-643298.html)




That's just pitiful. These kids managed to drive halfway across the US and evacuate seven people in a 2-wheel-drive Hyundai. FEMA took about a week to even get on the scene. Something is seriously wrong here.
FEMA? FEMA? Where the fuck was the New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority that had over 350 buses at it's disposal, and then not 2 days after the hurricane's over you have the mayor whining for buses from the feds. That's not even counting the several hundred public school buses that nobody would have cared if he commandeered. You've got different people reporting to different bosses, the Mayor, Governor, and Feds respectively(unlike lower levels Bush isn't signing off on every little thing his people do) No wonder it's a massive cock-up. There's no clear objective, some want to help the people in the city itself, others want to evacuate them all and set up help outside the damned floodplain. The Governor won't release control of the Nat. Guard there to the president so they can't coordinate, and the president is having to bring in outside units rather than properly using the ones that are there.
SimNewtonia
06-09-2005, 04:47
All should be tried, and hung.

HANGED. The word is HANGED. Don't ask me why, though...
Greater Googlia
06-09-2005, 06:49
Uhm. Stop for a second and think.

Now, I'm not saying that FEMA did their job perfectly. Not even close to that...however, you've got to keep in mind that the situation at the end of the week (when this kids went in) was much more controlled and safer than it was in the earlier part of the week.

In fact, it was probably because FEMA was sorta doing their job that the kids were even able to do what they were doing with such effeciency.

Not to mention, the only goal the kids had in mind was to go in and grab and save the first people they saw to say how easy it is to save people.

FEMA is dealing with having to evacuate the entire city, and when they started, the ONLY way was by helicopter in most parts of the city. With limited space, the rescue crews had to access what people were in the most need and rescue them first.

Additionally, FEMA and other groups in charge of the aftermath of Katrina are also tasked with draining the city and beginning the cleanup.

All these kids wanted to do was drive into some part of NOLA and rescue the first people they saw to say how terrible our national government is, but in the grand scheme of things, even though FEMA isn't doing a perfect job, it's not near as bad as you guys think it is based off this article.