Gretna: Tragedy meets callousness

[Chairboy]

Has anyone been following the role of Gretna, LA in the saga of Katrina?  Gretna is a predominantly white suburb located immediately across the river (south) from New Orleans.  Following the flooding, Gretna still had electricity and utilities.

The chief of police of this small town then ordered the bridge from New Orleans sealed against evacuees, and his police fired guns over the heads of anyone trying to leave the chaos of downtown NO, forcing them back.  Of those forced back, it's unknown how many died of dehydration or any of the other things killing people in the flood ravaged city.

When pressed for why they would do this, the police chief (and his officers) said that they didn't want Gretna to become "another New Orleans", and then implied that they wanted to keep the black refugees out.

It's incredible to compare the open armed, kind hearted response of Texas to this callous disregard for human life.  Babies and old people were dying in squallor within view of a town that had everything needed to keep them alive, and that may be one of the biggest tragedies yet.

References:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article311784.ece
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20050909-21423100-bc-us-katrina-bridge-crn.xml
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/national/nationalspecial/10emt.html
http://about.upi.com/products/perspectives/UPI-20050908-112433-4907R

If there's something to this story that's missing, please let me know.  If what happens is really like the above, I'm heartbroken.  I want to hear that it was not what it sounds like.

[Gunslinger]

Why don't you just blame Bush.  If he'd cut his vacation shorter he would have prevented this.

Honestly I read about this and didn't quite understand this.  But, if you go back in time to last week with all the sensational news reports about lootings, shootings and such, I would have been inclined to keep them (evacuees) out of my town as well.

[midnight Target]

Racism? Shocking!

[Jackal1]

I`m sure raider will be in any minute to set all this straight.

  On a side note.......A guy one of my daughter`s works with went to N.O. to get his Dad out.
  His comment to her was that what we are seeing in the news coverage doesn`t reflect what was actualy going on there.
  He said it was much, much worse.

[Chairboy]

Originally posted by Gunslinger
Why don't you just blame Bush.  If he'd cut his vacation shorter he would have prevented this.

Respectfully, I disagree.  What, exactly, do you think he could have done differently?  It's not like the job of the president is to go and start working a handpump or anything, seems to me like he did fine.  He assigned the group responsible to do the work they were supposed to, and when it became clear that they were falling down on the job, he replaced the management with someone else who might do better.  I'm no Bush fan, but I think his specific response has been pretty good so far.

In response to your other point, I guess the difference is that when I see someone who needs help, I try and help even if I know that they're imperfect humans.  For every thug that comes over, there's probably a hundred or more good people.  I'd think it was worth it to help all those people, wouldn't you?

[Chairboy]

From the NYTimes:

A suburban police officer angrily ordered about 200 people to abandon an encampment between the highways near the bridge. The officer then confiscated their food and water, the four witnesses said. The incidents took place in the first days after the storm last week, they said.

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by Chairboy
Respectfully, I disagree.  What, exactly, do you think he could have done differently?  It's not like the job of the president is to go and start working a handpump or anything, seems to me like he did fine.  He assigned the group responsible to do the work they were supposed to, and when it became clear that they were falling down on the job, he replaced the management with someone else who might do better.  I'm no Bush fan, but I think his specific response has been pretty good so far.

In response to your other point, I guess the difference is that when I see someone who needs help, I try and help even if I know that they're imperfect humans.  For every thug that comes over, there's probably a hundred or more good people.  I'd think it was worth it to help all those people, wouldn't you?

Chair the first comment was sarcasm.

I understand what you are trying to say in your second post but I have to offer this.  In situations like this I think of lifguarding.  One of the first rules of being a life guard is really that the life guard comes first.  If the victom in advertantly tries to drown the guard during the rescue the guard is now useless to save other potential victoms.

I wasn't there and don't know what's going on there but all I can say is the town might ahve been thinking they could have saved some people but it would kill the city at a cost they were not willing to bare.  

I can't fault situations like this and of some of the looting.  When humans go into survival mode it is no different than a herd of wild animals.

[Chairboy]

Originally posted by Gunslinger
I wasn't there and don't know what's going on there but all I can say is the town might ahve been thinking they could have saved some people but it would kill the city at a cost they were not willing to bare.  

I can't fault situations like this and of some of the looting.  When humans go into survival mode it is no different than a herd of wild animals.

I guess I should play devils advocate here.  Are you arguing that the town has decided that some intact buildings are more important than human life?  Could you itemize how many broken windows it takes to exceed the worthiness of the survival of an infant?  How many stolen iPods from the local Best Buy does it take before the cost-equation favors letting someone die of dehydration?

I think life could be a lot simpler if we just had some monetary figures on how much human life is worth, that way we could be much more efficient about decided when it's just not worth helping anymore.

Don't get me wrong, if the world ended and the survival of my family meant that I had to protect my isolated community from desperate people trying to get at my supplies, I'd shoot first and ask forgiveness later.  But...  the world has not ended, and the folks in Grenta could have saved many lives WHILE they survived too and waited until replacement supplies came in from the rest of the unaffected country.

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by Chairboy
I guess I should play devils advocate here.  Are you arguing that the town has decided that some intact buildings are more important than human life?  Could you itemize how many broken windows it takes to exceed the worthiness of the survival of an infant?  How many stolen iPods from the local Best Buy does it take before the cost-equation favors letting someone die of dehydration?

I think life could be a lot simpler if we just had some monetary figures on how much human life is worth, that way we could be much more efficient about decided when it's just not worth helping anymore.

Don't get me wrong, if the world ended and the survival of my family meant that I had to protect my isolated community from desperate people trying to get at my supplies, I'd shoot first and ask forgiveness later.  But...  the world has not ended, and the folks in Grenta could have saved many lives WHILE they survived too and waited until replacement supplies came in from the rest of the unaffected country.

I was thinking more on the lines of they may not have the supplies needed to care for as many evacuees

[Chairboy]

Originally posted by Gunslinger
I was thinking more on the lines of they may not have the supplies needed to care for as many evacuees

I guess this argument reminds of me a conversation I had once with someone regarding the lottery.  "I would rather not win this $10 million prize", this person stated knowingly, "because the government would take about half of it away in taxes."

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by Chairboy
I guess this argument reminds of me a conversation I had once with someone regarding the lottery.  "I would rather not win this $10 million prize", this person stated knowingly, "because the government would take about half of it away in taxes."

So True,

All I can say is I'm glad it's not me that's making those kinds of decisions.  All I can GUESS is that the mayor or community leader was just thinking of his people first.  I can't imagine that just because they had power and some utilities the place was "pleasantville usa"

[Chairboy]

I can't fault the logic even as I decry the morality.  You make some good points, and I understand their motivations, but I remain frustrated.

[Simaril]

I'm more than frustrated. These guys weren't defending their homes, they were blocking others' escape from a disaster. The choice wasnt between the town helping victims vs. the town lsoing everything - it was fear, not reality that closed the bridge.


Gunslinger's thoughts reflect the best things these guys could have been thinking, but I wonder if their actions were that jsutifiable -- and I suspect that stereotypes of "those folk across the bridge" played a bigger role than a man's right to defend his home. Nobody had supplies to care for those people, but the guardians of the bridge didnt want to even share an electical outlet...and some peopel in NO died from lack of power (oxygen concentrators, insulin preservation require power).

I mean, even IF there were some dangerous people wanting to get across the bridge the majority were jsut poor people, looking for safety.

[Toad]

Originally posted by Simaril
These guys weren't defending their homes, they were blocking others' escape from a disaster.  

It that is true, there needs to be an investigation and, if possible, some sort of accountability.

I don't know the laws about deliberately blocking a public thouroughfare during an evacuation but surely there must be something.

[lasersailor184]

I wasn't there, nor am I really defending what happened, but...


It's possible that they were keeping a "Type" of people from entering their neighborhoods.  Or at least they thought as much.

The people being black is an erroneous fact.