Friends of New Atlantis

La Nueva Orleans
Latino immigrants, many of them here illegally, will rebuild the Gulf Coast -- and stay there.

By Gregory Rodriguez, Gregory Rodriguez is a contributing editor to The Times and Irvine Senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

NO MATTER WHAT ALL the politicians and activists want, African Americans and impoverished white Cajuns will not be first in line to rebuild the Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast and New Orleans. Latino immigrants, many of them undocumented, will. And when they're done, they're going to stay, making New Orleans look like Los Angeles. It's the federal government that will have made thetransformation possible, further exposing the hollowness of the immigration debate.

President Bush has promised that Washington will pick up the greater part of the cost for "one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen." To that end, he suspended provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act that would have required government contractors to pay prevailing wages in Louisiana and devastated parts of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. And the Department of Homeland Security has temporarily suspended sanctioning employers who hire workers who cannot document their citizenship. The idea is to benefit Americans who may have lost everything in the hurricane, but the main effect will be to let contractors hire illegal immigrants.

Mexican and Central American laborers are already arriving in southeastern Louisiana. One construction firm based in Metairie, La., sent a foreman to Houston to round up 150 workers willing to do cleanup work for $15 an hour, more than twice their wages in Texas. The men — most of whom are undocumented, according to news accounts — live outside New Orleans in mobile homes without running water and electricity. The foreman expects them to stay "until there's no more work" but "there's going to be a lot of construction jobs for a really long time."

Because they are young and lack roots in the United States, many recent migrants are ideal for the explosion of construction jobs to come. Those living in the U.S. will relocate to the Gulf Coast, while others will come from south of the border. Most will not intend to stay where their new jobs are, but the longer the jobs last, the more likely they will settle permanently. One recent poll of New Orleans evacuees living in Houston emergency shelters found that fewer than half intend to return home. In part, their places will be taken by the migrant workers. Former President Clinton recently hinted as much on NBC's "Meet the Press" when he said New Orleans will be resettled with a different population.

It is not the first time that hurricanes and other natural disasters have triggered population movements. In 1998, Hurricane Mitch slammed into Central America, sending waves of migrants northward. The 2001 earthquakes in El Salvador produced similar shifts. The effects of Hurricane Andrew may better foretell New Orleans' future. The 1992 storm displaced 250,000 residents in southeastern Florida. The construction boom that followed attracted large numbers of Latin American immigrants, who rebuilt towns such as Homestead, whose Latino population has increased by 50% since then.

At the same time, U.S. construction firms have become increasingly reliant on Latino immigrant labor. In 1990, only 3.3% of construction workers were Mexican immigrants. Ten years later, the number was 8.5%. In 2004, 17% of Latino immigrants worked in the business, a higher percentage than in any other industry. Nor is this an exclusively Southwest phenomenon. Even before Katrina, more and more Latin American immigrant workers were locating in the South, with North Carolina and Arkansas incurring the greatest percentage gains between 1990 and 2000. This helps explain why 40% of the workers who rebuilt the Pentagon after the 9/11 attack were Latino.

Reliance on immigrant labor to complete huge projects is part of U.S. history. In the early 19th century, mostly Irish immigrant laborers, who worked for as little as 37 1/2 cents an hour, built the Erie Canal, one of the greatest engineering feats of its day. Later that century, Italian immigrants, sometimes making just $1.50 a day, were the backbone of the workforce that constructed the New York subway system. In 1890, 90% of New York City's public works employees, and 99% of Chicago's street workers, were Italian.

After Congress authorized construction of the transcontinental railroad in 1862, one of the most ambitious projects in U.S. history, Charles Crocker, head of construction for Central Pacific railroad, recognized that the Civil War was creating a labor shortage. So he turned to Chinese immigrants to do the job. By 1867, 12,000 of Central Pacific's 13,500 workers were Chinese immigrants, who were paid between $26 and $35 for a six-day workweek of 12 hours a day. At the turn of the 20th century, Mexican immigrant laborers did most of the railroad construction in Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada.

Mexican workers were also essential in turning the Southwest into a fertile region, which by 1929 produced 40% of the United States' fruits and vegetables. They cleared the mesquite brush of south Texas to make room for the expansion of agriculture, then played a primary role in the success of cotton farming in the state. A generation earlier, German immigrants from Russia and Norwegianshad busted the prairie sod to turn the grasslands of North Dakota into arable fields.

The major difference between then and now is that neither the American public nor the government will admit their dependence on a labor force that is heavily undocumented. When Mexican President Vicente Fox offered to provide Mexican labor to help rebuild New Orleans — "If there is anything Mexicans are good at, it is construction," he said — the federal government ignored him. At the same time, some of the undocumented Mexicans who have cleaned up and begun to rebuild Biloxi, Miss., are wondering whether they deserve at least a temporary visa so they can live in the U.S.legally.

Last week, the White House said it will push its plan to allow illegal immigrants already in the U.S. to become legal guest workers. Good. Hurricane Katrina exposed the nation's black-white divide. Post-Katrina reconstruction will soon spotlight the hypocrisy of refusing to grant legalstatus to those who will rebuild the Gulf Coast and New Orleans.

My good friend/tango dancer agreed to accompany me in my attempt to get into Orleans parish to check on my house and possibly pick up a few things yesterday. Awake at 3:30 AM, off by 4 AM I pick up Steve and off we go to N.O.--we go to Hamond, take a left on I-55 and go to the split with 310. Of course we have no pass, only a good heart and a sad face, and lots of chutzpah. Being turned down, we take the 310 split to Boutte and sit one hour in line crawling the speed of contra-flow, only to be turned down again-- "strict lockdown for Orleans-no entry without a pass."

Now the number for passes must have been bogus because I must have tried every 15 minutes for 6 hours to no avail and even on line was out. It is now 1 PM and I am not going back. I start my prayers to the Blessed Mother and then it comes to me to call my hot shot lawyer cousin in Houma--after an hour of back and forth frenzy I find out that even he and 2 judges he knows well who live in Orleans can not even get in the city.

I am starting to get frazzled but not down yet. My prayers increase. Then out of the blue Steve remembers his uncle, a good but shady character, and after much to do, he faxes us a blank pass. At this point, the nice folks at R&K Printing, a whole in the wall in the stix, are cheering us on and comp the fax. Empowered, we cross back over the bridge and enter through Jefferson Hwy. It is now 3 PM and the curfew is 6 PM. We drive slowly toward the parish line, my heart is pounding, my prayers are in triplicat and I tell Steve not to stop but to roll by slowly. The armed guard is busy talking and waves us through. We look at each other stunned and I thank the Blessed Mother.

I must give credit to (Jefferson Parish Sheriff) Harry Lee because Jefferson is damaged but so much better than Orleans. I realize it is smaller and did not sustain the same damage, but he still took the ball and ran with it.

As I approach Broadway and Claiborne we were stoppped by 2 army guards to check ID.
Up until now things looked terrible--buildings badly damaged, signs down, roofs compromised, businesses off their foundation, absolutely nothing really in place in what appeared to be a ghost town. Except for the National Guard at key points, there was NOBODY, no living thing, nothing, no lights down Jefferson Hwy.,--just Steve and me.

We took the route of Broadway to--Freret, Freret to Nashville, Nashville to 1619 Nashville.
The movie "On the Beach" came to mind. There was nothing. The streets were empty, filled with sludge, debris, downed limbs, strewn objects--totally LIFELESS. I looked down the side streets --nothing.
I looked down Palmer, State, Newcomb Blvd, Oak, etc.--nothing. It was disturbing.
Everything was bone dry to a fault. No evidence of water except for water line marks on the houses. It needed a good rain to wash this mess away. I arrived home to find everything intact, except for 3 rotting mangoes, and a 3 week old pastry that had turned black. My son Chris had fortunately emptied my fridge and freezer, but there was a smell that I can not describe that permeated the air. It was like that smell of cancer that lingers in the air. It could have been the beginnings of mildew--who knows.

Like Becky Allen said in "The Ball And All"', if the mold don't get you, the Mill-do!!!!!!! I felt as though I was on a secret mission--stealing precious time before the guards would catch me. My list, which I had carefully prepared the night before, went out the window. I felt hurried, frantic, and incredibly out of time, with the curfew looming, almost 4:30 and 5 more stops before 6 PM. Only getting half my list, we left quickly. Before I locked the door, I checked the freezer in the shed--almost vomited and left--another day Scarlet--.

We then went to Tulane's garage to check on my daughter-in-law's car left on the 5th floor--all was fine except for debris and a boat blocking the entrance---like everything else, it was bone dry. Then we went to 7600 Nelson off Claiborne--that house took in 6 inches--only water marks remained. Then we made our way to 222 West Oakridge--the sludge and smell was worse with a 3 feet watermark.

Steve wanted to check on his and his dad's property in Kenner--we went in those homes and it was worse. The mold was 3 feet up the walls, the floors buckled, and the smell was gagging. I realized his situation was so much worse and really unlivable--it made me incredibly sad. People work all their lives for their things and while it is only material things, it is all they have. It is a history of where they have been and what they like and who they are underneath this concealed exterior. Yes people can rebuild, but a part of them dies in the process. Maybe it is supposed to be this way--maybe it is supposed to make us focus on the important, possitive aspects of our lives, learning to let go. Learning to let go of all the things that tie us down.

I think about all of my friends who have lost their homes. Ultimately, maybe they are the really lucky ones losing the photographs sucks in the end. They have a chance to come out of the chaos and put their lives in order. Actually we all have that chance.

Eating at the Waffle House twice in one day is more than a soul should endure, but when you are hungry, even bad eggs taste good. The ride back to Destin seemed longer than usual, more pensive, less anxious, more reassuring that we are all going to make it just fine. I, being an artist, have to touch and see for myself. In that sense the trip was satisfying. It was hard seeing my beautiful city in shambles, withered and weak.
A necessary purging.

This morning I unloaded my car and that bad smell was still there. A trip to the Winn Dixie, and I sprayed everything with Febreeze and aired out the car.

The odor left and all is well. And so it will be with our city. We will come back stronger--better--and people will remember what it means to miss New Orleans.


With much love,

MYRA
mmenville@cox.net

by Robert Perry, tango dancer

I was one of the many who remained in New Orleans through Katrina.

Rule 1. When told to evacuate, evacuate.
Rule 2. Follow rule #1

Quite early on the morning after Katrina passed I went downstairs to observe the
damage. A few trees in my backyard were uprooted. One in particular, the teardrop
tree which I had planned to remove was uprooted. The fruit trees seemed to have
survived. Inside the house everything was as I left it the night before.
The electricity had gone off at about 4:00 am as I watched Katrina on T.V. so I
could not fix breakfast. I looked out front and noticed all seemed well. It was
about 7:00 am. Through my patio sliding glass doors I saw a brown-yellowish liquid
rising slowly, about 2 inches at first then a foot. Water was then coming under the
front door. I ran to the front to try to hold the door (not very smart). It flew off
the hinges throwing me across the floor as a waist-high water flooded the lower floor.

In less than twenty minutes the lower floor of my house was under about eight feet
of water. The Steinway baby grand that took three large guys to move in my place
was turned over and pushed aside as if it were a feather. Bookcase after bookcase of
books, music manuscripts, pictures, everything was floating or underwater.

I was trapped in my place for five days. Then rescued by flatboat and flown out to
San Antonio. I stood in lines for twenty hours. Got a chance to talk to as many storm
victims who, for some reason, did not or were unable to leave before the storm.
Their stories are horrific, unbelievable. I'm sure you've been watching it on the tube.

I took pictures for the five days I was trapped, surviving on chocolate, water,
and trail mix that happened to be in the bedroom upstairs. My only company was
a neighbors cat who was floating on the dining table and subsequently took up
residence in the front room I use as an office. It was truly an experience. I
have written about fifty pages of my Katrina experiences and first-hand stories
as told to me by victims. Maybe I'll put it out.

I'm using the computer at the Texas Unemployment office in Houston to access my
e-mail. On my cell phone I can only retrieve messages.

Flood victim who's glad to be alive.

Yours truly,

Bob Perry
"drrobertperry@juno.com"

This report was posted today on the http://www.nola.com/forums/uptown/ by somebody with the username of EJlives, on 9/11/05 at 2:02 ET

It says...

Drove into uptown at 6:30am. Went via River Road, where there was a checkpoint near Live Bait. Incidentally joined a convoy and were waved thru as part of it. Checkpoints are more scruntinouslater in the day.

Our destination was Versailles and Walmsley; Delachaise and Chestnut, and the French Quarter. From checkpoint, we drove via Oak St. to Carrollton St. We turned left towards Claiborne. Within 2 blocks of Claiborne, the water begins. At this point it is putrid puddles less than a foot on the northbound lane of Carrollton. The first 3 side streets south of Carrollton-Claiborne intersectionremain deeper with significant tree damage.

To turn right onto Claiborne we drove around the pools by driving north up the southbound lane. The lake side of Claiborne remains dry up the intersection of Calhoun so drove up that lane (nooncoming traffic to worry about ).

From there, Audubon St., the whole length of Broadway, and Fountainbleu from Broadway to Calhoun is dry and passable, except for occasional pools and trees.

Versailles remains under 1-2 feet of water from Earhart to Claiborne. As does Calhoun for its entire length from Claiborne. All other streets within 6 blocks of this area have similar flooding beginning at Fountainbleu extending north.

Claiborne is not negotiable toward downtown after Calhoun.

At its peak, this area seems to have had 5-6 feet of water.

All points south from here in Uptown are now passable care of tree clearing by the Nat. Guard (thanks). Very few homes severely damaged or destroyed in the whole of uptown. More trees up than down. No residential looting seen. Some commercial looting, but far outnumbered by intact businesses.

Some Uptown notables:

Le Madeline (lower end of St. Charles): looted; All other businesses in area, including nice Mexican restaurant nearby are OK; Delachaise Bar: Three front windows smashed;Vincents’: window damage;Magazine St.: Clean, moderate storm damage but little to no evidence of looting; New Orleans Tourist Center: damaged;Large live oaks felled on Robert St. and St. Charles

CBD was being cleaned up. All office buildings have windows with the exception of one or two panels out in most. Looting damage sporadic and limited mostly to convenient stores and small restaurants.

The French Quarter was in good shape. Cleaner than you’ll ever see it on a normal Saturday early morning.

Mid City, 9th Ward, Lakeview, New Orleans East remain the worst and most tragic.

But today there was more to be optimistic about than not. Our city is wounded but intact.

Today was the first time I felt confident that the city will be back – a little wiser and better when its all done.

Hang in there everyone.

by Sabina Lewis, tango dancer

We are in Las Cruces on our way to Los Angeles and having a good trip. My animals are champion travellers. I hate to admit I'm having a wonderful time. I almost feel as if I'm fiddling while Rome burns, and then I think about my favorite lamp floating in murky water and the refrigerator full of rotting food and maybe my clothes are exposed and ruined... I wish I could go back and see for myself. Clean it up and close the door.

When will they let us back into Orleans parish? Will we still have the same wonderful culture to go back to? What about the Mardi Gras Indians, you know water and feathers don't mix. When I think about what might be lost I feel so sad. Yes, I do know what it means to miss New Orleans, I would cry when I heard that song long before I ever got to move there.
And now I'm afraid to be gone too long. But sometimes change means opportunity and we all have to make the best of it. Let's keep writing to each other and dancing together when we see each other. I miss everybody and Tango too.

XO-Sabina

Tonight we dined outdoors with friends of David and Hilda, who lost their homes in Bay St. Louis. Tomorrow they are driving there to get some closure since their home is not longer where it used to be. Actually, their house is nowhere, Katrina took it away.

Up in the southern sky the crescent moon was peeking through the foliage of tall trees towering the back garden. I got to thinking. Why did I pick up Tim Laughlin's CDs before we left, I'll never know because I've never done it before, but I have a nagging feeling, because up until know, when the tune was playing in the middle of the night, I really didn't know what it means to miss New Orleans. God, I miss her each night and day since we left two weeks and a day ago. I know I'm not wrong because the feeling's getting stronger the longer we stay away.

Never thought I'd miss the moss-covered vines, the tall sugar pines where mockingbirds used to sing. My heart aches longing to see that old lazy Mississippi running in the spring.

How many of you miss those nights when the moonlight lays on the bayous?
And what about them Creole tunes filling the air? Why am I dreaming about
magnolias in June? I know, and it hurts, because I'm wishin I was there.

If you know what it means to miss New Orleans is because that's where we left
our hearts. And there's one more thing, we miss each and everyone of you we care for, more
than we miss New Orleans.

Don't forget to come back to New Orleans.

Alberto and Valorie

By Chris Rose - Times-Picayune:

I suppose we should introduce ourselves: We’re South Louisiana.

We have arrived on your doorstep on short notice and we apologize for
that, but we never were much for waiting around for invitations. We’re
not much on formalities like that.

And we might be staying around your town for a while, enrolling in
your schools and looking for jobs, so we wanted to tell you a few
things about us. We know you didn’t ask for this and neither did we,
so we’re just going to have to make the best of it.

First of all, we thank you. For your money, your water, your food,
your prayers, your boats and buses and the men and women of your
National Guards, fire departments, hospitals and everyone else who
has come to our rescue.

We’re a fiercely proud and independent people, and we don’t cotton
much to outside interference, but we’re not ashamed to accept help
when we need it. And right now, we need it.

Just don’t get carried away. For instance, once we get around to
fishing again, don’t try to tell us what kind of lures work best in
your waters. We’re not going to listen. We’re stubborn that way.

You probably already know that we talk funny and listen to strange
music and eat things you’d probably hire an exterminator to get out
of your yard.

We dance even if there’s no radio. We drink at funerals. We talk too
much and laugh too loud and live too large and, frankly, we’re
suspicious of others who don’t. But we’ll try not to judge you while
we’re in your town. Everybody loves their home, we know that. But we
love South Louisiana with a ferocity that borders on the
pathological.

Sometimes we bury our dead in LSU sweatshirts.

Often we don’t make sense. You may wonder why, for instance - if we
could only carry one small bag of belongings with us on our journey
to your state why in God’s name did we bring a pair of shrimp boots?
We can’t really explain that. It is what it is.

You’ve probably heard that many of us stayed behind. As bad as it is,
many of us cannot fathom a life outside of our border, out in that
place we call Elsewhere.

The only way you could understand that is if you have been there, and
so many of you have. So you realize that when you strip away all the
craziness and bars and parades and music and architecture and all
that hooey, really, the best thing about where we come from is us.

We are what made this place a national treasure. We’re good people.
And don’t be afraid to ask us how to pronounce our names. It happens
all the time.

When you meet us now and you look into our eyes, you will see the
saddest story ever told. Our hearts are broken into a thousand
pieces.

But don’t pity us. We’re gonna make it. We’re resilient. After all,
we’ve been rooting for the Saints for 35 years. That’s got to count
for something.

OK, maybe something else you should know is that we make jokes at
inappropriate times. But what the hell.

And one more thing: In our part of the country, we’re used to having
visitors. It’s our way of life. So when all this is over and we move
back home, we will repay to you the hospitality and generosity of
spirit you offer to us in this season of our despair. That is our
promise. That is our faith.

04:11 PM CDT on Sunday, September 4, 2005

By SUDEEP REDDY / The Dallas Morning News


NEW ORLEANS -- They awoke Tuesday morning relieved. Hurricane Katrina had passed, and life for everyone inside Memorial Medical Center would soon return to normal.

Then the water started rising.

Dr. Bill Armington noticed an oily black puddle bubbling up from the sewer into the street. It pushed away leaves and debris as it grew.

"It was going the wrong way," he said. "Then it came faster and faster."

The hospital in uptown New Orleans would soon be submerged in 12 feet of water, contaminated with sewage and chemicals.

Over the next 72 hours, the people inside Memorial banded together as best they could -- first to keep their patients alive, then to improvise evacuation plans with the few resources at their disposal.

Over three days, gunshots pierced the air in the flooded residential neighborhoods around Memorial. The stench of sweat and human waste filled hospital hallways. Patients died as they lay splayed in sweltering heat on a parking garage floor, waiting desperately for helicopters.

The facility quickly ran out of body bags -- and eventually room in the chapel, which had become the morgue.

The roughly 2,000 patients, employees and family members inside knew little about the chaos unfolding in other corners of New Orleans. They were living their own hell, furiously trying to respond as events outside thwarted their plans inside at almost every turn.

"I've seen desperation," said nurse Darrel Sullivan, who had been in war zones for the Army, resting in a wheelchair and sipping juice in the parking garage after lifting patients. "But I've never seen this before in my life."

Hurricanes were nothing new for Memorial. They'd become a seasonal certainty in its 80 years on Napoleon Avenue. Patients who could leave would leave. Backup generators would stock up on fuel in case the power grid went down. Staffing levels, food and supplies would be prepped.

As Hurricane Katrina approached last Sunday, the long-rehearsed plans went into effect.

Employees brought their husbands, wives, parents and pets to sit out the storm. Several brought teenage kids. Four-year-old Zachary Perry tagged along with his father, hospital chef Scott Perry. Zachary's mother -- a nurse at another area hospital -- took his 6-year-old sister with her.

Those permitted to be there Sunday received wristbands, helping security block outsiders looking for shelter.

By Sunday night, the hospital had about 2,000 people, including 260 patients. The electricity flashed out early Monday morning. Clocks froze at 4:55 a.m. Air conditioning shut down. But ventilators, hallway lighting and other key equipment ran off backup generators.

Doctors began making plans to return to regular schedules. Some went home to shower, others simply took a walk along the dry neighborhood streets to view Katrina's damage.

'From bad to desperate'
But early Tuesday, the levees protecting New Orleans failed.

Hospital team leaders held emergency meetings that morning to evaluate the situation. "It went from bad to desperate," said Ann Seal, a director of nurses.

The staff still had to prepare three meals a day for 2,000 people, with special dietary provisions for patients.

Fifteen workers slapped turkey, ham and chicken salad between slices of bread. Breakfast consisted of grits, an egg and sausage crammed into a coffee cup, with a plastic cover on top. They were the last hot meals served. By day's end, the kitchen was underwater.

Hospital officials sent an S.O.S. to area hospitals, trying to see where Memorial's patients could go. The first evacuees were 25 premature infants from the neonatal intensive care unit.

Lacking enough equipment, a doctor ventilated a palm-sized baby by hand for the helicopter trip to Woman's Hospital in Baton Rouge.

That was the last time the Memorial staff would know where its patients had gone. Others went wherever the helicopters could land -- to New Orleans International Airport, other hospitals, on the ground somewhere.

Through Tuesday, hospital administrators were still communicating regularly with executives at Dallas' Tenet Healthcare, which owns Memorial. But once e-mail went down, so did links with the headquarters.

Guards tried to keep everyone out. Officials feared looting -- of food, hospital equipment, drugs in the pharmacy. Gunfire erupted during the day and night in the area.

Hospital officials took their own measures to protect those inside. The hospital CEO carried a sidearm, visible on his belt. So did the chief operating officer, a few engineers and members of the security team.

Still, people tried to climb in through windows, the parking garage or any of two dozen entry points to the hospital. Some simply wanted shelter, but the hospital couldn't take anyone else.

Two patients with stab wounds -- a mother stabbed in the chest by her daughter, and a drunk man who had been hit in the abdomen -- were taken in and lifted away.

As evacuations continued Tuesday night, pilots said they wouldn't land without lights. Until that day, Memorial's helipad hadn't been used for years. But now they had little choice.

So engineers taped down flashlights around the helipad, allowing some choppers to land. The electricians found construction lights on cords and tied them down to the helipad with medical gauze. They built extension cords to stretch down nine floors.

Late Tuesday night, the backup electricity started cutting out. Fuel for the generators was secure in underground tanks, but the electrical system was being flooded. As the water level rose, breakers clipped out.

Unthinkable conditions
By 5 a.m. Wednesday, the building no longer had power. Memorial Medical Center was no longer a hospital.

Batteries on ventilators on the acute care floor went dead. The patients would survive as long as nurses could manage to manually compress the bags attached to ventilation masks. Eventually, the patients could only receive comfort measures in their final moments.

A man swam toward the hospital with his dehydrated 3-year-old son. The hospital offered to take the baby, but not the father. But he wouldn't leave without his son, so he took the boy back and left.

"People think of a hospital as a refuge," said Dr. Timothy Allen, an anesthesiologist. "This was no longer a refuge. This was a place where people would die if they weren't evacuated."

The building had no running water, no communication, no power. Blood, urine and feces filled toilets that couldn't flush. Patients who had been in stable condition turned critical. Guests started getting ill as well.

Some rooms were already considered too hot or unsafe because of gunfire outside, and patients were moved into hallways where pods of fans had been rigged together.

Employees and guests were cut back to two meals a day, trying to preserve food after much had been lost in the flooding. They had to prepare to stay as long as possible.

A few family members of patients complained about the conditions. But almost everyone else jumped in to help. Employees' titles effectively disappeared.

Evacuation plans became more creative. The goal: Speed up the process to move people out.

Some pets were thrown alive over the edge of buildings, into the fetid waters around the hospital. A doctor decided to euthanize pets that their owners couldn't take.

The elevators were dead. So the 187 remaining patients had to be carried from the seventh floor in one building to the helipad on the 11th floor of the neighboring parking garage.

The teams first used six handheld radios to communicate between the floors. Then the batteries died.

Workers created a human chain, relaying messages through people stationed at every level of the stairwell and across the parking garage.

Chains also formed to carry patients out to departure points. They tried to build a slide ramp using padded mats to move patients between floors instead of lifting them. It wasn't safe enough, and they ditched the plan.

Choppers were arriving slowly for evacuations, but boats became an easier means of transportation. The emergency room ramp had been flooded, so they knocked out the windows and moved people into arriving boats.

Airboats, fishing boats, flatboats, rafts. Nobody knew where they were coming from. People floated up with their own boats. Some grabbed boats that were adrift without owners, hot-wiring the motors.

Eric Yancovich, the head of maintenance, used rope to attach a rowboat to a motorboat, doubling the number of people who could leave.

The boaters received simple directions: Go down the street, turn right at Napoleon, then 12 blocks to St. Charles.

There, the water met road. Buses, cars and ambulances could take patients away -- somewhere.

"We weren't exactly sure what we were sending the patients to," Dr. Armington said. "But we felt it was better than what we had here."

The workers created a second boat exit from the parking garage. But getting people there proved difficult.

Engineers realized that patients could move through a 4-by-4 hole in the boiler room.

Like a rescue out of a coalmine, the workers used their human chain to carry patients down flights of stairs into the cramped space lit up with flashlights.

They went through the hole onto the second floor of the parking garage, into the back of a Ford F-150 pickup. The truck took them to the ninth floor, where they were carried up two flights of old, rusty stairs to the helipad.

The last patient out was "Mr. Rodney." He was 450 pounds, hospitalized for lung disease and a gall bladder removal.

Teamwork
Early Thursday evening, 24 people joined in the effort. Eighteen stood around the stretcher inside the boiler room, sweat pouring off them. Six more people were on the other side of the hole.

"One, two, three!"

Mr. Rodney slid through the square, where he was grabbed and pushed onto the truck.

"The last patients are out."

The boiler room erupted in cheers, followed by a group hug. On the other side, they still had to continue treating their patient.

"How much O2 was he on?" one nurse cried out.

"He was on 4," another said.

"Shouldn't he be on 2?" one more voice said.

"3. Put him on 3."

Mr. Rodney was driven to the top of the garage and carried up the stairs

One by one, dozens had been moved the same way. Urine and feces rolled off the beds and onto the workers, forcing them all to wipe down with sanitizing liquid every time.

Patients who could walk up stairs were marked with an X on their foreheads. Others were segregated based on which choppers could take them.

Some helicopters didn't show, forcing the staff to move patients from the parking garage back inside the same way they came in -- through the boiler room.

Those who waited in the garage lay in parking spaces, on the mattresses from their hospital beds. They sat quietly, sweating and gasping for air as employees fanned them and held their hands.

Some died as they waited.

"We had him sitting in the garage for five hours," Roberta Stewart, a hospital administrator, said of one patient. "Nobody came."

Bodies were wrapped in sheets and left in the chapel. Others were placed along hospital hallways. Employees took patient wristbands to try to notify families later.

As two workers walked through the parking garage Thursday evening, they tried to locate which vehicle had a body inside. They couldn't remember where the body had been placed, and were forced to leave it.

Nobody could remember the death toll. A few estimated it at perhaps 20 patients in the last two days there. Normally, 20 patients die with 1,000 monthly admissions.

Even as they lost patients they had carried through the hospital, most people tried to focus instead on how many more they could save if they acted faster.

"I know a lot of people in the hospital didn't make it out," said Dave Matherne, who stayed to help even after his stepfather, a patient, had been evacuated. "That's not the point. The people we got out is."

Risky operation
By Thursday afternoon, Memorial was down to 37 patients and 120 employees and family members.

State police eventually wouldn't guard any more boats, employees said. It was too dangerous. But people were sent out anyway, police protection or not. Eventually, workers said, government responders had commandeered some of the boats that had been used, shutting down the operation.

Tenet executives had already realized that the government rescues were taking too long and hired private helicopters to help get everyone out of its hospitals.

Choppers arrived from across the region. A Puma helicopter rushed in from Montana. It was better suited for hauling cargo and supplies, but 20 people could pile in -- five or six times more than most others would take.

It arrived Thursday afternoon, but could only do one trip. Tom Uglialoro, hired late Wednesday night to oversee Tenet's private rescue effort, said the military had commandeered all the fuel in the area. The Puma pilots were running low.

Everyone had left the parking garage by nightfall Thursday, waiting on a ramp leading up to the helipad and on a gravel rooftop one level down.

The garage was covered with trash and medical equipment. Used gloves, shoes, pillows, stretchers, blankets and cups were littered everywhere. Pet cages lined the walls. Two seven-pound cans of opened ravioli, spoons sticking out from the top, sat along the edge of walls with other leftovers.

One young nurse who had been lifting heavy patients all day collapsed on the ramp, his legs shaking as nurses and doctors crowded around. They guessed that he broke a rib while lifting a wheelchair patient into a chopper. Doctors concluded he might have a bruised lung. He was loaded onto a Coast Guard helicopter and taken away.

By dark, most military choppers had been grounded because of concerns about gunfire in the region. Later, even with a small portable generator feeding the rigged landing lights, the private helicopters were grounded because of fog.

For the remaining 75 employees and their families, some of the only time to reflect came Thursday night after patients were gone.

"This has been the most horrifying thing I've ever experienced in my life," said hospital catering manager Sal Armato, wearing women's tennis shoes four sizes too small because his had been soaked.

He had to be there this time, he said, "but I don't think I'd do it again."

Employees would be gone by morning, but few knew what was next.

"Almost all of us lost our homes," said Rene Goux, Memorial's CEO. "But no one has had time to focus on that."

Sleep at last
That night, most slept along the side of a walkway leading to the ramp, below windows that had been shattered. About 20 sprawled out on the helipad, with the rocky asphalt surface poking against their heads and backs. But with all the patients finally gone, it was the first time some employees had slept in days.

The area was mostly silent that night, except for occasional rumbling as people seemed to enter nearby buildings. New Orleans was pitch black, except for the stars and a few distant lights.

Every few minutes a Coast Guard chopper could be seen flying somewhere over the city, at times hovering over a site to perform a rescue operation.

At 4:34 a.m. Friday, a flash of bright light from behind downtown broke the darkness. What first seemed like lightning grew intense, pulsated, then turned red and ballooned. Smoke rose into the air.

Mr. Uglialoro picked up the satellite phone to call his operations center in Dallas. They warned the FAA that a quicker rescue might be needed, in case it was a chemical explosion with winds coming toward Memorial.

Just after dawn, workers threw trash from the helipad over the edge of the building to keep it from flying at them when helicopters landed. The entire city had already become a giant trashcan.

After sunrise, dozens of choppers began flying over the city. The first flight lifted off at 7:46 a.m. with about 20 people.

It was the first of six flights -- with Tenet's hired helicopters, Navy Seahawks and Army Black Hawks -- that would quickly take everyone else away.

Other military choppers queued up over Memorial, ready to come down like a choreographed ballet. They wouldn't be needed.

Memorial's last survivors climbed onto the Puma at 8:21 a.m.

Four minutes later, they were gone.

by Ed Cherrie, tango dancer

This is how I would describe my last night at the Convention Center:

I was planning to document my experience. Whether anyone would be interested in publishing it remains questionable.

It was like bad dream that was really happening.

Besides the violence I witnessed, the most memorable incident was my last night in front of the Convention Center. In the darkness the people put on an impromptu play of all things. It started with a sort of satanic ritual. Later it depicted the great flood, and an eerie performance involving police heavy-handedness (which was ubiquitous) against those who just wanted to leave. The play was interrupted several times by the real patrols. I was expecting gunfire from the cops every time they came. All this while my mother was freaking-out with the whole thing.

It was HELL, Plain HELL.

I considered myself a moderate before this, but now I see the point of view of the hunted. If it weren't for the looters, we would not have eaten at all. Most of the people there were honest hard-working citizens of all ethnic origins. They were forgotten by everyone from the Mayor to the President. For three days it just didn't seem like I was in the America .

This horrible experience will remain with me for the rest of my life.

Ed

by Larry Bradshaw, Lorrie Beth Slonsky

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible through the windows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside Walgreen's windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry.

The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters.

We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived home yesterday (Saturday). We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look at a newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or front-page pictures of European or affluent white tourists looting the Walgreen's in the French Quarter.

We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of the National Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the "victims" of the Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed, were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: themworking class of New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the City.
And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.

Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from members of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water.

On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees like ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends outside of New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources including the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the City. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible because none of us had seen them.

We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute they arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.

By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously abysmal. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their doors, telling us that the "officials" told us to report to the convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the City, we finally encountered the National Guard. The Guards told us we would not be allowed into the Superdome as the City's primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole. The guards further told us that the City's only other shelter, the Convention Center, was also descending into chaos and squalor and that the police were not allowing anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what was our alternative?" The guards told us that that was our problem, and no they did not have extra water to give to us. This would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile "law enforcement".

We walked to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and were told the same thing, that we were on our own, and no they did not have water to give us. We now numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to decide a course of action. We agreed to camp outside the police command post. We would be plainly visible to the media and would constitute a highly visible embarrassment to the City officials. The police told us that we could not stay.
Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short order, the police commander came across the street to address our group. He told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up to take us out of theCity.

The crowed cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and explained to the commander thatthere had been lots of misinformation and wrong information and was he sure that there were buseswaiting for us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear to you thatthe buses are there."

We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great excitement and hope. As we marched past the convention center, many locals saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our enthusiasm.

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge.
Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffsinformed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.

Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the rain under an overpass. We debated our options and in the end decided to build an encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center divide, between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would be visible to everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated freewayand we could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen buses.

All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot.

Meanwhile, the only two City shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair.
The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had become.

Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery truck and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! A mile or so down the freeway, an army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts.

Now secure with the two necessities, food and water; cooperation, community, and creativity flowered. We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even organized a food recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!).

This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began tolook out for each other, working together and constructing a community.

If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water in the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness would not have set in.

Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 90 people.

From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City.
Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on thefreeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us.
Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew andshoot-to-kill policies.

The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.

We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a coast guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.

There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we were forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses did not have air-conditioners. In the dark, hundreds of us were forced to share two filthy overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with any
possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) we were subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches.

Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been confiscated at the airport because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet, no food had been provided to the men, women, children, elderly, disabled as they sat for hours waiting to be "medically screened" to make sure we were not carrying any communicable diseases.

This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker give her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us money and toiletries with words of welcome.
Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept, and racist. There was more suffering than need be. Lives were lost that did not need to be lost.

September 5, 2005 | 8:58 p.m. ET

by Keith Olbermann


SECAUCUS — Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater..."

Well there's your problem right there.

If ever a slip-of-the-tongue defined a government's response to a crisis, this was it.

The seeming definition of our time and our leaders had been their insistence on slashing federal budgets for projects that might’ve saved New Orleans. The seeming characterization of our government that it was on vacation when the city was lost, and could barely tear itself away from commemorating V.J. Day and watching Monty Python's Flying Circus, to at least pretend to get back to work. The seeming identification of these hapless bureaucrats: their pathetic use of the future tense in terms of relief they could’ve brought last Monday and Tuesday — like the President, whose statements have looked like they’re being transmitted to us by some kind of four-day tape-delay.

But no. The incompetence and the ludicrous prioritization will forever be symbolized by one gaffe by of the head of what is ironically called “The Department of Homeland Security”: “Louisiana is a city…”

Politician after politician — Republican and Democrat alike — has paraded before us, unwilling or unable to shut off the "I-Me" switch in their heads, condescendingly telling us about how moved they were or how devastated they were — congenitally incapable of telling the difference between the destruction of a city and the opening of a supermarket.

And as that sorry recital of self-absorption dragged on, I have resisted editorial comment. The focus needed to be on the efforts to save the stranded — even the internet's meager powers were correctly devoted to telling the stories of the twin disasters, natural... and government-made.

But now, at least, it is has stopped getting exponentially worse in Mississippi and Alabama and New Orleans and Louisiana (the state, not the city). And, having given our leaders what we know now is the week or so they need to get their act together, that period of editorial silence I mentioned, should come to an end.

No one is suggesting that mayors or governors in the afflicted areas, nor the federal government, should be able to stop hurricanes. Lord knows, no one is suggesting that we should ever prioritize levee improvement for a below-sea-level city, ahead of $454 million worth of trophy bridges for the politicians of Alaska.

But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe. These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media in this country to report the reopening of a school or a power station in Iraq, and defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they couldn't even keep one school or power station from being devastated by infrastructure collapse in New Orleans — even though the government had heard all the "chatter" from the scientists and city planners and hurricane centers and some group whose purposes the government couldn't quite discern... a group called The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.

It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.

Mr. Bush has now twice insisted that, "we are not satisfied," with the response to the manifold tragedies along the Gulf Coast. I wonder which "we" he thinks he's speaking for on this point. Perhaps it's the administration, although we still don't know where some of them are. Anybody seen the Vice President lately? The man whose message this time last year was, 'I'll Protect You, The Other Guy Will Let You Die'?

I don't know which 'we' Mr. Bush meant.

For many of this country's citizens, the mantra has been — as we were taught in Social Studies it should always be — whether or not I voted for this President — he is still my President. I suspect anybody who had to give him that benefit of the doubt stopped doing so last week. I suspect a lot of his supporters, looking ahead to '08, are wondering how they can distance themselves from the two words which will define his government — our government — "New Orleans."

For him, it is a shame — in all senses of the word. A few changes of pronouns in there, and he might not have looked so much like a 21st Century Marie Antoinette. All that was needed was just a quick "I'm not satisfied with my government's response." Instead of hiding behind phrases like "no one could have foreseen," had he only remembered Winston Churchill's quote from the 1930's. "The responsibility," of government, Churchill told the British Parliament "for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence."

In forgetting that, the current administration did not merely damage itself — it damaged our confidence in our ability to rely on whoever is in the White House.

As we emphasized to you here all last week, the realities of the region are such that New Orleans is going to be largely uninhabitable for a lot longer than anybody is yet willing to recognize. Lord knows when the last body will be found, or the last artifact of the levee break, dug up. Could be next March. Could be 2100. By then, in the muck and toxic mire of New Orleans, they may even find our government's credibility.

Somewhere, in the City of Louisiana.

E-mail: KOlbermann@msnbc.com

By Jana Napoli, tango dancer

Tuesday morning, car packed with documents and some clothes and a mattress with Ana on top, we fled with ¼ of a tank (after I failed to be able to suck gas up a tube from another vehicles tank).

We also had with us the 87 year old man from down the hall and his dog (next to Ana on the mattress) and his loaded 38 (next to us on the front seat) and Peggy (Ana ‘s care giver from Trinidad who came like mother mercy the day after the hurricane to help get us out). Taking Airline Highway and River Ridge (to avoid the fallen power lines…where trees had already been chopped out of the path) to a calm I-10, a gas tank with an orange alert for empty, to Baton Rouge and my cousin Carl waiting for us in a parking lot.

We weathered the hurricane in Ana’s apartment in Metairie…only the plate glass windows vibrations to give me any fear, no ground water. I didn’t have cause to inflate the little 2 seated boat I had gotten Saturday (Ron, who stayed at the studio on Gravier downtown got to use his).

The problem came later as water poured in from the roof damage on our section of the complex. I bailed water for 18 hrs, bucket after bucket. I thought I would die before it abated. Every cabinet in the kitchen was pouring water. I could not keep all the carpets dry. In the apartment above the ceiling fell in. I knew the next rain we would lose ours, too. It was 95’ inside... mother and I and Peggy were walking slat cakes.

Tuesday night after I secured the now dysfunctional electric doors with 2/4’s, I took some steaks and the gracious cone head lady down the hall and her new husband brought their thawing pompano and lamb chops and in the quiet under the bright of the milky way we turned on the magic gas tanks in the barbeque pit in the patio and made our last dinner. Helen and her husband added pate campagne , from the chef at the now defunct Yacht Club. We jumped in the swimming pool that smelled of tarpaper to wash off the salt of an interminably long day and ate to the sound of crickets our last dinner.

Then back to the pitch black hallways to mother apartment with Peggy there waiting for the phone to ring from someone in Baton Rouge, to say they would be waiting for us. I watched the new moon breach the tree’s around 3:30 AM...
Adline (the woman who raised me always said to plant on a new moon if you wanted things to grow)

With a kerosene lamps and a candle I sorted through closets for what might be really important . What I could manage to carry down the steps and to the car. I got all the documents... Took all the family pictures out of the frames and made boxes and tried to keep things dry. I would never see anything I left behind again. We were all on the verge of a new life.

So where to go with Ana? How? When? Please send on for me, I don’t’ have my complete list with me.

Rondell is in Donaldsonville with his family. Annie is in NY. Ron is in Maryland. All the Ya/Ya’s are accounted for and safe. Much of New Orleans is setting up shop in Baton Rouge… which has doubled its population in 4 days.
There is a great need for Ya/Ya to work with disposed children from New Orleans here.

Please let me know you are all right...

We are in Baton Rouge at the home of Carl Napoli. We are safe. Tel 225-756-9659

Someday soon someone from New Orleans may show up in your city, your country, your home town.
Before hurricane Katrina, we all had lives like yours. Homes, jobs, banks, cars, clothes - all the happily taken for granted creature comforts that human beings produce.
Most of those people we know, and most are tango people, have been "phoning home", which is one another, via the godsend of the internet.
Most are finding a place to be, a new city, or town to live in. Some are with family, going back to where they came from before New Orleans, or going to family who may have left New Orleans, or going to far flung relatives who have never been to New Orleans. You can substitute friends, for those who do not have extended family. Some don't even have that much in way of human support to go to, so they are on their own.
Each person we have been in touch with is doing this:
- find a place to live (cheap hotel, trailer, family home, friend's couch).
- find a way to communicate that you are okay.
- find a way to make money to survive.
- find a new job in the new location.
Some say they won't or can't come back to New Orleans, so these people will now become a part of a new place, a new community, and some may become a part of your tango communities.
Please don't judge their decisions, or the place they have come from.
Some of you are very angry with Alberto and myself for daring to try to go back to work.
Maybe you do not fully realize that teaching tango is our everyday 9-5 job that feeds and clothes us and like any job allows us to live. Maybe because tango doesn't seem as weighty as being a truck driver or file clerk or teacher or any other job or profession, you get confused. True, tango is fun. AND more true, tango is our work, our job and our joy.
Many or you are offering homes and jobs to the displaced people of New Orleans. Some of them may even be tangueros.
For us, many gracious and good tango people in many locations are sending us offers (or keeping and honoring the dates of jobs we had before katrina) to do a class or workshop in their cities, while offering us a place to lay our weary heads.
We need to work, to survive. Life does not stop because of any tragedy small or big. Food needs to bought. The rented car needs gas. The mortgage still needs to paid - and not only by us, but by thousands.
Comparing and judging degrees of pain and suffering is very mean and very small minded and very un-tango. Don't you think we want to rip open the tv screen and go in there and embrace those people and tell them they are valued?
So please do not be angry, galled or upset that we need to and want to work, and that good and decent tango people are offering us work, and hence promoting those workshops. You don't have to like us, or agree with us, or even respect us. But please let us live.
We do not have a home. We do not have our city. We do not have our job in our city.
We do carry our job of teaching tango with us. And it is hard to concentrate on our job now. It is hard to teach a class when you feel so awful, but by the end of the class, we feel a little better, a little stronger, a little more connected to living life.
We are simply trying to have some dignity and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.
We know tango people (and really all people) are good and decent.
Thank you.
Valorie
More than ever,
La mariposa del tango

September 4, 2005

Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?
By ANNE RICE
La Jolla, Calif.

WHAT do people really know about New Orleans?
Do they take away with them an awareness that it has always been not only a great white metropolis but also a great black city, a city where African-Americans have come together again and again to form the strongest African-American culture in the land?
The first literary magazine ever published in Louisiana was the work of black men, French-speaking poets and writers who brought together their work in three issues of a little book called L'Album Littéraire. That was in the 1840's, and by that time the city had a prosperous class of free black artisans, sculptors, businessmen, property owners, skilled laborers in all fields. Thousands of slaves lived on their own in the city, too, making a living at various jobs, and sending home a few dollars to their owners in the country at the end of the month.
This is not to diminish the horror of the slave market in the middle of the famous St. Louis Hotel, or the injustice of the slave labor on plantations from one end of the state to the other.
It is merely to say that it was never all "have or have not" in this strange and beautiful city.
Later in the 19th century, as the Irish immigrants poured in by the thousands, filling the holds of ships that had emptied their cargoes of cotton in Liverpool, and as the German and Italian immigrants soon followed, a vital and complex culture emerged. Huge churches went up to serve the great faith of the city's European-born Catholics; convents and schools and orphanages were built for the newly arrived and the struggling; the city expanded in all directions with new neighborhoods of large, graceful houses, or areas of more humble cottages, even the smallest of which, with their floor-length shutters and deep-pitched roofs, possessed an undeniable Caribbean charm.
Through this all, black culture never declined in Louisiana. In fact, New Orleans became home to blacks in a way, perhaps, that few other American cities have ever been. Dillard University and Xavier University became two of the most outstanding black colleges in America; and once the battles of desegregation had been won, black New Orleanians entered all levels of life, building a visible middle class that is absent in far too many Western and Northern American cities to this day.
The influence of blacks on the music of the city and the nation is too immense and too well known to be described. It was black musicians coming down to New Orleans for work who nicknamed the city "the Big Easy" because it was a place where they could always find a job. But it's not fair to the nature of New Orleans to think of jazz and the blues as the poor man's music, or the music of the oppressed.
Something else was going on in New Orleans. The living was good there. The clock ticked more slowly; people laughed more easily; people kissed; people loved; there was joy.
Which is why so many New Orleanians, black and white, never went north. They didn't want to leave a place where they felt at home in neighborhoods that dated back centuries; they didn't want to leave families whose rounds of weddings, births and funerals had become the fabric of their lives.
They didn't want to leave a city where tolerance had always been able to outweigh prejudice, where patience had always been able to outweigh rage. They didn't want to leave a place that was theirs.
And so New Orleans prospered, slowly, unevenly, but surely - home to Protestants and Catholics, including the Irish parading through the old neighborhood on St. Patrick's Day as they hand out cabbages and potatoes and onions to the eager crowds; including the Italians, with their lavish St. Joseph's altars spread out with cakes and cookies in homes and restaurants and churches every March; including the uptown traditionalists who seek to preserve the peace and beauty of the Garden District; including the Germans with their clubs and traditions; including the black population playing an ever increasing role in the city's civic affairs.
Now nature has done what the Civil War couldn't do. Nature has done what the labor riots of the 1920's couldn't do. Nature had done what "modern life" with its relentless pursuit of efficiency couldn't do. It has done what racism couldn't do, and what segregation couldn't do either. Nature has laid the city waste - with a scope that brings to mind the end of Pompeii.

I share this history for a reason - and to answer questions that have arisen these last few days.
Almost as soon as the cameras began panning over the rooftops, and the helicopters began chopping free those trapped in their attics, a chorus of voices rose. "Why didn't they leave?" people asked both on and off camera. "Why did they stay there when they knew a storm was coming?" One reporter even asked me, "Why do people live in such a place?"
Then as conditions became unbearable, the looters took to the streets. Windows were smashed, jewelry snatched, stores broken open, water and food and televisions carried out by fierce and uninhibited crowds.
Now the voices grew even louder. How could these thieves loot and pillage in a time of such crisis? How could people shoot one another? Because the faces of those drowning and the faces of those looting were largely black faces, race came into the picture. What kind of people are these, the people of New Orleans, who stay in a city about to be flooded, and then turn on one another?
Well, here's an answer. Thousands didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. They didn't have the money. They didn't have the vehicles. They didn't have any place to go. They are the poor, black and white, who dwell in any city in great numbers; and they did what they felt they could do - they huddled together in the strongest houses they could find. There was no way to up and leave and check into the nearest Ramada Inn.
What's more, thousands more who could have left stayed behind to help others. They went out in the helicopters and pulled the survivors off rooftops; they went through the flooded streets in their boats trying to gather those they could find. Meanwhile, city officials tried desperately to alleviate the worsening conditions in the Superdome, while makeshift shelters and hotels and hospitals struggled.
And where was everyone else during all this? Oh, help is coming, New Orleans was told. We are a rich country. Congress is acting. Someone will come to stop the looting and care for the refugees.
And it's true: eventually, help did come. But how many times did Gov. Kathleen Blanco have to say that the situation was desperate? How many times did Mayor Ray Nagin have to call for aid? Why did America ask a city cherished by millions and excoriated by some, but ignored by no one, to fight for its own life for so long? That's my question.
I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love, about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans. It is perhaps their very gentleness that gives them their endurance.
They will rebuild as they have after storms of the past; and they will stay in New Orleans because it is where they have always lived, where their mothers and their fathers lived, where their churches were built by their ancestors, where their family graves carry names that go back 200 years. They will stay in New Orleans where they can enjoy a sweetness of family life that othercommunities lost long ago.
But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.
Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you.

Anne Rice is the author of the forthcoming novel "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt."

• Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

New Orleans-Baton Rouge Tango Friends Locator
As of 1:50 PM ET September 3, 2005

A. ECTOR is in New Jersey with his sisters.
B. MARY ANNE is in Baton Rouge with her daughter
C. GUILLERMO is in Baton Rouge
D. JULIO and DENISE are in Baton Rouge with Denise's cousins since Sunday. Julio may be going to
Luling to join his children and grandchildren. Denise will stay in B.R. for awhile because
Catholic Charities-New Orleans is setting up shop here for a while and will be involved in relief
efforts.
E. PAT and BETSY DOWLING are fine and visiting their family in St. Louis, MO
F. JOHN LUTZ and family, PATRICK FARRELL and DAVID MOONEY are OK. John is am in Tallahassee and
will soon be in Miami.
G. WARREN drove to Hammond, LA where he spent the night, so he would be closer to Mary Anne's
eventual destination. He may travel to Baton Rouge today because she is there and Hammond is just
comming back to life after the storm.
H. GEORGE and SARAH EILEEN are in Houston with family and will be moving on to Faytetteville,
Arkansas soon
I. GISELA moving around from place to place in Germany but finally ensconced in Heidi'a
wonderland near Salzburg.
J. SRINI is in Memphis
K. KING LAM is in Memphis
L. EVA del CID is in Dallas, TX - Cell, 214.417.5737
M. AARON DASTE in Atlanta, GA - Moving Saturday to Lafayette to start preparations for the Tango,
Cajun and Zydeco TrailerFest
N. MYRA MENVILLE in Destin, FL
O. KERRY is in Alexandria and will head to Atlanta on Tuesday
P. STEVE GURLEY is in Albany, GA with his elderly dad and uncle and equally elderly dog.
Q. SABINA and JOE are now in San Antonio and will probably go to Baton Rouge next to stay at
Charlie Whinham's house. He is the guy who did that wonderful segment on Planet Tango at the Loft.

R. GARY and PHYLLIS BREAUX in Houston, TX (New cell, altough number is being checked for possible
error) - Zak Breaux has been found and reunited with Tad and Lanie also in Houston.
S. ANIE and ALFONSO moving to Bedford, TX - Wedding postponed but it will happen, and they will
dance their tango - Anie's dad Joe has now joined the family in Texas.
T. BRENDA CHERRY is in Miami, FL with family.
U. JESSICA is in Natchez, MS - Plan to move to Shreveprot Sunday and get new cell number
V. ALBERTO and VALORIE are Tallahassee, FL - Joined 21st century and got cell number,
772.323.6666
W. JANA NAPOLI is safe in Baton Rouge at the home of Carl Napoli. Tel 225-756-9659

Great aerial view of the city. Darker areas represent water,

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/new-orleans_050830_image-oi04b.htm

Another look at the city from the sky...

http://alexhessler.com/general/new-orleans-flood-damage-map.htm

Visit us,
http://www.planet-tango.blogspot.com/
http://www.planet-tango.com

____________________________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

2 September 2005

PARIS - The world’s press reacted with disbelief on Friday to mayhem overrunning the hurricane disaster zone in the United States, describing the chaos as reminiscent of a Third World crisis and as a humiliating episode for the superpower.

“Here is a superpower that can crush at will a tinpot dictatorship but then becomes so bogged down in the grisly aftermath of war that it finds itself unable to respond to anything like adequately to the plight of tens of thousands of its own citizens engulfed by a natural calamity,” said Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper.

“President Bush, his ratings already in free-fall, could pay a high price indeed for his military folly,” it said.

Gun-toting looters pillaging stores in the streets, bodies floating in the waters, levees unable to hold back the water, and tales of rape and squalor in the main emergency refuge, the New Orleans Superdome, left foreign commentators stunned.

“Young men have not only been looting with impunity but firing on National Guardsmen. And the authorities still have no idea how many people may have died,” London’s conservative Daily Telegraph said.

“In Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama over the past four days, the United States has been struggling to provide the basic necessities of life - food, water and medicine - to the victims of Hurricane Katrina,” London’s Daily Telegraph said. “Take New Orleans alone. The breached levees remain unrepaired. About 20,000 refugees have been living in appalling squalor in the Superdome sports stadium.”

France’s Figaro newspaper headlined: “America overwhelmed by catastrophe.”

The left-wing Liberation recalled how the Kobe earthquake had humbled a major power.

“But the lesson of New Orleans is even darker,” it said.

“A modern city that sinks under the waters and into anarchy is a cruel spectacle for an absolute champion of security like (US President George W.) Bush, who incidentally seems out of his depth,” it said.

An apparent lack of preparation for the crisis staggered many papers.

“What really stands out is the clear insufficient investment and contingency measures to protect the population of the Mississippi Delta from a forecast disaster,” the paper said.

In Portugal the right-leaning daily Diario de Noticias likened the images of the crisis to a disaster movie or “Liberia or some another Third World nation in trouble.”

“It is surprising that the mechanisms of civil protection, especially in such a high-risk zone, are non-existant and so flagrantly inefficient,” it wrote in an editorial.

In the United States, newspapers asked the same questions.

“How could the government have been so unready for a crisis that was so widely predicted?” asked The Washington Post, adding that experts had “issued repeated warnings for years about the city’s unique topography and vulnerability.”

“The sluggish, inicial response ... has embittered and inflamed tens of thousands of people awaiting relief, most of them poor and black and many of them old and sick,” said the Post editorial.

Papers highlighted the gap between rich and poor unmasked by the looting and the fact that the most impoverished took the brunt of the disaster.

“If there existed any doubt that in the world’s richest country there exist as much social injustice, inequality and poverty as in the Third World these doubts ... have been swept away by the dark and oily waters of the Gulf of Mexico,” said the Barcelona-based El Periodico.

Needless to say the last few days have been very emotional ones...and to most of us outside of the stricken areas of the hurricane, we see on the news the stories unfold.. ...My prayers and heart goes out to all of those affected. In some way shape or form we can reach out, there are plenty of avenues to do so (see info below)....please do what you can.

I wanted to reach out to this very special Tango couple that frequently visits the Hudson Valley area to share their love of dance...Alberto Paz & Valorie Hart of Planet Tango from New Orleans....thanks to their close friend Walter Kane, I was able to get a hold of them.

Alberto & Valorie are not only Tango Partners, but as of a few days ago....Hurricane survivors!! They, along with other friends from New Orleans, have escaped Katrina. In a very emotional conversation, Albertospoke of the Hurricane aftermath in a telephone interview with Latin Jubilee - You can listen on Saturday, 9/3 starting at 5:PM.

TUNE IN: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, STARTING AT 5:PM ON THE LATIN JUBILEE RADIO SHOW - am1110, WTBQ; heard on the world wide web: http://www.wtbq.com

Sincerely,

Judy Battista www.jubileepresents.com

AMERICAN RED CROSS: 1800-HELP NOW (435-7669)
1-800-257-7575 (Spanish)
www.redcross.org

From The Times-Picayune

Even as people from New Orleans desperately search for their family
members and rescue workers patrol the region in boats, hack through roofs and try to pluck survivors out, some people in other parts of the country have begun to blame us, the victims. Our crime? Choosing to live in New Orleans.

Especially heartless were U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and the writers of an editorial that appeared Wednesday in the Republican-American, a newspaper in Waterbury, Conn. Mr. Hastert was quoted by the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill., saying it makes no sense to rebuild New Orleans where it is. "It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed," he said.

The Republican-American's headline asks, "Is New Orleans worth
reclaiming?" The editorial depicts our city and our people as a drain on federal coffers, and if you read it you might get the impression that New Orleans has never contributed to the economic vitality of this country. It maligns the city and our people as if we're nothing more than outstretched palms waiting for FEMA grants that only they fund.

How dare they?

After Mr. Hastert made his insensitive comments, his press secretary
tried to spin them. The speaker didn't mean that there shouldn't be a New Orleans, the spokesperson said. He was just suggesting that as they rebuild, officials give serious thought to how future destruction could be prevented. That goes without saying. We're much more sophisticated now than we were when the city was founded in the 18th century. Of course our officials are going to rebuild in such a way that reduces the threat of future devastation.

At least President Bush realizes how valuable we are. He flew over the storm-ravaged areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on Wednesday afternoon and seems sincerely sorrowful for all the people whose lives have been irreversibly changed by this storm. His promise to send aid, and lots of it, was encouraging. It's going to take a huge amount of money to rebuild New Orleans and a similarly large amount of assistance to sustain the hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced.

Joe Riley knows it, too. As the mayor of Charleston, S.C., a coastal city that was torn apart by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, Mr. Riley not only is sympathetic to our plight, he defends our right, our need, to exist. When an interviewer for National Public Radio asked him, "Should there be a city where New Orleans is?" he said, "Of course, of course. Venice should always be Venice.
And New Orleans always New Orleans. They'll make the levees bigger, and they'll make them stronger so this never happens again. But this city, so important to our country, of course it should always be there."

Surely the folks in Waterbury would want their city rebuilt if a natural disaster destroyed it, just as Rep. Hastert would demand that Chicago be given the same consideration. They ought to show compassion and respect for those of us down here who will be struggling for quite some time to piece together our lives.

President Bush is promising aid. The sooner we get it, the better. One thing is certain: We will rebuild. New Orleans is worth it. So are the people who call it home.

05:02 PM EDT on Friday, September 2, 2005
By ALLEN G. BREED / Associated Press
EDITOR'S NOTE – Allen G. Breed, Southeast regional reporter for The Associated Press, arrived in New Orleans two days before Hurricane Katrina, and watched as New Orleans descended into havoc. This is what he has seen.
NEW ORLEANS – Above the din, a woman is screaming the Lord's Prayer as if heaven can no longer hear silent pleas.
"And lead us not into temptation," she bellows hoarsely to the unhearing throng, "but deliver us from evil ..."
But temptation is everywhere in this crippled city. And so, it seems, is evil.
Five days after Hurricane Katrina came and went, necessity has forced police officers to become looters. Gangs hijack the boats of volunteers who have come to rescue them. Naked babies wail for food as men get drunk on stolen liquor.

A walk through New Orleans is a walk through hell – punctuated, it must be said, by moments of grace.
Along the debris-choked Mississippi River, pharmacist Jason Dove watches as people scramble in the parking lot of the downtown convention center for cases of airlifted water and shakes his head. "We created this Frankenstein," he says. "It's showing how fragile this society is."
In the world-renowned French Quarter, armed residents hide behind ornate iron gates like prisoners in a frilly jail. Historic markers on Napoleonic-era houses share billing with signs that warn: "You loot, we shoot!"
When water began rising in predominantly black neighborhoods, many jumped to the conclusion that the levee had been purposely breached to preserve the old city and its hotels.
"F... the Quarter!" a black man shouts as he walks beneath a balcony where a resident lounges with a cold beer as generator roars away in the otherwise deathly night silence. "They always protect the Quarter."
Katrina's winds have left behind an information vacuum. And that vacuum has been filled by rumor. There is nothing to correct wild reports that armed gangs have taken over the convention center. That two babies had their throats slit in the night. That a 7-year-old girl was raped and killed at the Superdome.
One officer calls these human cattle yards "lawless countries unto themselves."
After several days in the street with little water and less food, people around the convention center began imagining that the storm was somehow a vehicle for ethnic cleansing. One black man insists that authorities want everyone corralled into the convention center – not to facilitate an orderly evacuation, but so police can ignite the gas and blow them up.
"They want us all crazy so they can shoot us down like dogs!" a woman shouts.
Police point their guns at the crowds and tell them to back off. The people take it as aggression. But when you look into these officers' eyes, there is real fear.
Officer Kirk LeBranche cowered on the roof of his flooded hotel in New Orleans East for three days as the nighttime hours became a shooting gallery.
"Anarchy and chaos," he says. "People are desperate."
Officers deserted their posts. Many of them lost everything but their lives to the storm, and they refuse to gamble those on a seemingly lost city.
Katrina has not just robbed people of their homes. It has taken their dignity.
On a sidewalk crowded with children and the elderly, a woman pulls down her pants and squats behind a potted plant. A passing man averts his eyes.
"Thank you," she says. "I'm just doing what I've got to do."
At the convention center, where thousands have camped in the streets since Monday awaiting buses out of the city, the despair feeds on itself like a voracious beast.
When National Guard helicopters attempt to land supplies in the parking lot, waiter Bob Vineyard joins a self-appointed ground crew attempting to set up a safe perimeter. The crowd surges past them with an almost feral intensity, and the chopper crew is forced to take off.
The soldiers drop cases of water and self-heating meals from 10 feet in the air. Many of the bottles burst on impact, the precious water left to evaporate in the hot sun.
"We would have had a whole helicopter full of food if you had stayed back!" Vineyard shouts at the crowd, with disgust. "Hey, y'all. I did my best."
Carl Davis wonders why someone can't just truck the food in and hand it out in an orderly fashion. Rather than taking comfort in the food drops, he finds the process insulting, demeaning.
"They're giving it to us like we're in the Third World," he spits. "This should never have happened. It didn't happen in Iraq, and it didn't happen in the tsunami."
Down the street, anxious tourists idle on a bandstand across from Harrah's casino, which has become a National Guard and police staging area. Jill Johnson of Saskatchewan says police don't want them there, but she and others worry they would be easy prey at the convention center.
"We're appalled," says Johnson, who tried to buy a car to get out of town. "This city is built on tourists, and we're their last priority."
Nearby, Cassandra Robinson huddles in the loading area of a local store where a small community has formed. Her niece, Heavenly, who turned 1 year old the day before the storm, dozes in Robinson's arms, weakened by a diet of water and mashed-up potato chips.
Robinson says people are behaving like animals because they are being treated as animals.
"We're not born thieves," she says, as neighbors heat food over a trash-can fire. "We were born Christians."
Thursday night, a prayer session begins at one end of Convention Center Boulevard and spreads to the other. Please, they implore, let there be no more rioting.
The next morning, someone – Robinson does not know who – appears with fresh, cold milk. And instead of fighting over it, able-bodied adults step back and allow the children and the elderly to be nourished first.
Across the city, people have banded together, creating pockets of civility amid the chaos.
The management of the French Quarter's Hotel Le Richelieu fled two days after the storm. Those left behind – cooks, maids and security officers – organized to ration supplies, establish foraging teams and set up a schedule for guard duty.
Days after the storm, the kitchen somehow manages to keep serving hot food. Guests have taken to calling the place the Hotel Rwanda.
"It's a jungle and it's dog-eat-dog," hotel security guard Glenn King says as he rests his hand on the butt of a revolver at his side. "When you see the police doing the same thing the looters are doing, it tells me you're going to have to fend for yourself."
Some find ways to flee. New Orleans resident Robert Jordan and eight family members are on their way to Birmingham, Ala., but he delays his departure more than two hours to help plug a fellow refugee's punctured tires. He uses goods he "borrowed" from a nearby auto parts store.
"Bye-bye, French Quarter!" he shouts as his three-vehicle caravan leaves the protective walls of the Richelieu parking lot. "Be safe."
But Jordan's sentiments seem wishful thinking.
Before dawn Friday, the French Quarter is rocked by explosions. A few miles down river, railroad tanker cars erupt in a tornado of flame, showering a flooded neighborhood with soot and casting a pall of black over the city – as if New Orleans isn't already under one.
A police officer says snipers fired on workers sent in to fight the fire. They stood down and watched it burn.
Randall Davis walks from his home in the French Quarter and sits on a bench, staring at the inferno through reddened eyes, his head swimming with apocalyptic thoughts.
"It's becoming less numbing each day," he says, as the fire rages. "It's unfortunate that I'm getting used to anarchy and chaos when this was once a vital, vibrant community of people who looked out for one another. And it's degraded to this."
Davis laughed when he heard a congressman suggest that the city should be abandoned to the swamp waters from which it was born. But he isn't smiling as he stares into the smoke-shrouded sunrise.
"If this is what it's like when we even have a semblance of society," he says with a sigh, "maybe we shouldn't build it back."


Give, get help:
• FEMA, 1-800-621-FEMA
• Red Cross, 1-800-HELP-NOW; 1-866-438-4636 to get help
• Salvation Army, 1-800-SAL-ARMY