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Firsthand (But Not Mine) Account of the Katrina Aftermath — Brooklynian

Firsthand (But Not Mine) Account of the Katrina Aftermath

jack
jack
edited November -1 in Prospect Heights
I know there are tons of blog entries and other acconts of what's happening in Louisiana, but a friend of a friend forwarded this personal account of what it's like to be down there. I'll say the standard 'it's quite intense' but it's compelling and there are some observations about the situation and the concept of aid for the area that are quite interesting.

http://www.nickg.com/new_orleans/

Most vivid quote IMHO is this one:
So many of you have asked what you can do, and I am sorry to sound pessimistic, but I just don’t know. I wish I could say “donate money to the Red Cross,” but I didn’t see the Red Cross doing anything. The entire time I was there, I only saw Jesse Jackson and his buses, a huge congregation of busses from Baltimore (for some reason) bringing food and water, and private companies like Dysani, Evian, and K-Mart bringing supplies. The more you look around, the more you realize it is the private sector that is the only group that is doing anything. I genuinely believe private companies are going to do more for us than our own government, but I’m ignorant to the entire picture, I only know what I saw, so I don’t want to judge anyone.

Comments

  • dailyheights
    dailyheights
    There's just something really "off" about this account... parts of it do not ring true.
  • jack
    jack
    dailyheights wrote: There's just something really "off" about this account... parts of it do not ring true.
    Specifically?
  • dailyheights
    dailyheights
    I don't know... I really don't want to deconstruct what this guy did, call the accuracy of his story into question, or demean his efforts.

    But...

    ...He talks about the approach to the city, "swimming" for a half mile to get to Metairie, out in Jefferson Parish, which I believe was largely unaffected by any post-hurricane flooding at all. If he's talking about Old Metairie, then it's more plausible, as it's near the Orleans Parish line, and there's a section of town that's served by pumping station #6, that was still inoperational as of Wednesday and there was flooding there.

    ...He seems to have had unfettered access to nearly the entire breadth of the city, from Jefferson Parish to Mid-City to the 9th Ward, in a single day in the middle of the flooding crisis, and the only means of transportation he cites is a "kid's dirt bike." Once he gets to the 9th Ward, the water is so deep that he would have had to "dive down underwater just to get to the roof." It would have been nice to know how he got to see all that, because I don't think a kid's dirt bike would be appropriate transportation. And then he backtracks across the entire city, apparently, and the very next day he's back in Houma, 60 miles away.

    ..."Snakes and alligators everywhere" isn't implausible, but doesn't match up with anything I've read, seen on TV, or heard from other firsthand accounts of the aftermath.

    ...The most unreal thing for me is that the human element is so far in the background. There are graphic and vivid descriptions of dead bodies, but the rescue (?) of unidentified people in the submerged 9th ward is just an afterthought. Here's the entire text: "I found three people I knew in all, and they set off for Houma that afternoon." What??? How did he find 3 people he knew in a part of the city that's completely underwater? And assuming they weren't trapped on a roof why were they not getting out of their own accord? He found them and then they just set off? Were they just waiting for him to show up and verbally tell them to head to Houma?

    Maybe it's just that the whole situation is so unbelievable that anything he would write will sound farfetched... I did speak to a displaced Uptown resident on the phone tonight who spent time after the flooding, and he's saying entire neighborhoods are going to have to be bulldozed.
  • dailyheights
    dailyheights
    OK, to counter his "firsthand" account of "snakes and alligators everywhere," this is pretty damning:

    Are snakes in water threatening people?

    The water that surged into the city came from the ''nearly snakeless" Lake Pontchartrain, according to Jeff Boundy, a biologist for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

    Reports that the reptiles were gliding, sliding and wriggling into New Orleans aren't supported by emergency workers.

    ''Water snakes and alligators are common around New Orleans and enter the city basin via canals. However, those canals occupy a very small percentage of the total city area,'' Boundy said. ''When the water surface area expands [by] many magnitudes, the snakes and alligators spread over a vast region, becoming relatively scarce.''

    Of the six venomous snake species in the state, only the cottonmouth is aquatic. Flooding should kill the other species.

    ###

    SOURCE: http://www.suntimes.com/output/hurricane/cst-nws-hfaq09.html
  • jack
    jack
    Points taken. I'm a city kid, so most of the discrepancies you're pointing out have no baseline in my experience. Now that you explain it, it makes sense.

    What's going to be interesting about all of this is whether anyone outside of the immediate area will ever get a balanced perspective on what's happened there.

    I'm quite sure Michael Moore is going to do something. But part of me also wonders whether Spike Lee and '40 Acres and Mule' might jump into the fray of documenting this.
  • oiseau
    oiseau
    This person's story is particularly disturbing.

    http://www.wafb.com/Global/SearchResults.asp?qu=charmaine+neville&x=13&y=10
  • dailyheights
    dailyheights
    That's Charmaine Neville. She's not nearly as well known as her brothers, but in New Orleans she's pretty much a local celebrity.

    Alligators eating people... babies floating in the water... stepping over hundreds of bodies... they started raping and they started killing... words I never thought I would hear coming from her.
  • alex
    alex
    Here is some info on whats going on at the astrodome from a friend:

    http://curtnyc.blogspot.com/
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