[Oe List ...] another forward from Gen Morrill

[Del Morrill]

New Orleans – The Real Story



It’s my 4th day in New Orleans, and unfortunately – no one is getting it
right, not the Feds, the State, the Local folks or the media.  I’m sure that
many people are trying, but for whatever reason- it is a rotting,
deteriorating mess.  I’m only writing this because of what I watched on TV
last night.  It was the first chance I’ve had to see some of the coverage
and what I watched was pathetic.  I sensed it yesterday when, amongst the
chaos of the unfolding disaster, you realized some of the differences
between what is happening here compared to major calamities we’ve endured
recently.  There are almost no news crews in the field trying to cover the
story.  Hundreds, if not thousands of media people are in the region – but I
have driven back and forth through some of the worst neighborhoods in the
city and you don’t see them.  You don’t see the National Guard
..you don’t
see ANYONE, except for the poor unfortunate souls wandering the streets
looking for food or water.  Many of them are on their last legs, they are
literally not long for this world.  It is surreal, it’s like a zombie scene
from Dawn of the Dead.  It’s disgraceful that in our times, we are seeing
the complete disintegration of our ability to care for our own.  This is a
racist issue, there’s no other way to look at it.  These are the poorest of
the poor.  The people left behind in New Orleans are there for one reason
only, they had no means to remove themselves from the city.  Everyone who
could get out, got out.  What’s missing from the rescue is apparent to
anyone.  A simple plan.  It’s like no one ever gave it a real thought.
Simple things like storage of emergency rations, clothing, tents, etc. in
strategic locations
.communications that allow different entities to talk to
one another, emergency plans and routing for moving large numbers of people
(easily done with the hundreds of public and school transit buses available
locally), and the list goes on.  Everyone on the street that I have met is
so grateful for anything that you can give them.  You have to be careful or
you could start a riot just giving away a bottle of water.  Driving or
walking through the flood area, you see people in the shadows on EVERY
block.  As you walk around – they come out and they are so dehydrated,
carrying babies, or leading you to their father or their mother or a friend
who needs help.  They all say that they want to get out, they just don’t
have a way.   And they uniformly complain about the police not stopping to
help.  Over and over you hear the same thing....”They just drawin’ down on
people”, meaning they are pulling their guns.  I can only judge from what I
saw, but in walking through the worst areas, EVERY looter I saw was taking
FOOD and WATER.  They could be shot for entering supermarkets, which by the
way are mostly fully stocked with food, water, juices and soda.  It’s
disgraceful, it’s been almost a week and yet there seems as though no one in
Washington, or Baton Rouge who gets the enormity of what is unfolding.
There are dead bodies on the street.  Yesterday, I watched as a man tried to
flag down a cop.  There was a middle aged woman who had been dead for days,
and yet no authority seems concerned.  We can see that there was no plan for
the living, but you would think that there would be some respect for the
dead.  When he was finally able to get a cop to stop – not an easy thing to
do since they drive through at such high speed
. the cop said that they didn
’t care about removing bodies.  Someone’s mother, or child, she was still
there late last night as I drove out.  I have driven from one end of New
Orleans to the other – a drive of over 7 miles, and repeatedly not seen one
cop, guardsman, trooper
. And where is the Red Cross?  Not ONE.  Everyone on
the street says, “Where’s the Red Cross?  I gave them so much money after
9/11 and the tsunami – where’s the Red Cross”  They are not here because
they are afraid.  I’ve heard it over and over and from people who know,
people in uniforms.  People are dying, I’ve seen it personally, and the
organizations that we have come to trust like FEMA and the Red Cross are no
where to be seen.  That’s not to say that they are not here, but they are
not in the “zone” – the place they need to be.  Just like the media who sit
on a safe block, or hang around the Superdome or the convention center
because it is safe, they are shunning the poor because they are scared.
What is particularly sad to me is that I’m no hero.  I’m basically a coward,
but I don’t find anyone I’ve met on the street to be threatening.  They are
suffering and desperate and no one has uttered a word other then “help me”
or “thank you”.  I watched one of these news robots on the air last night
standing at Camp and Canal Street – where it is safe – doing a national live
shot saying that “everything is in place now” and  “food is being
distributed”, and “the National Guard is deployed in force
.on the street” –
it was PURE FICTION.  This guy hasn’t left the safety of his air conditioned
trailer complete with Subway sandwiches (from Baton Rouge) and Gatorade.  It
’s pathetic.



One can only hope that our Federal officials will get a handle on the
Herculean task ahead and that the citizenry will hold them responsible for
the unnecessary loss of life.   As for the media
 do a little fact checking,
read more than one paper. Stay away from CNN, MSNBC and Fox.   NPR does a
good job of looking beyond the headlines.  I’m working for Nightline, and we
’re trying to look deeper as well.  By the way, The Salvation Army is here
and they have been able to help in some places.  This is a
racist/socioeconomic situation.  We all know that if it were somewhere else,
like an affluent resort town or a Bush county in Florida, things would be
different.  Yes, there was looting and gunfire, and there are criminals out
there, but they were a small minority of the population.  There were tens of
thousands of poor, black folk who stayed out of it, and they are still
waiting today for any kind of help.