The first bus of Superdome “residents” has arrived at the Astrodome, according to CNN. There are now live aerial pictures of reporters interviewing the refugees, presumably asking them what the hellish conditions inside the Superdome will really like. “The first stories will be exactly that, the first stories,” says a babbling Aaron Brown.
In other news, perhaps this is a trite comment, but does anyone else find it utterly bizarre to have to keep referring to thousands upon thousands of American citizens as “refugees”? Aren’t “refugees” something they have over in places like Bosnia and Rwanda and countries whose names end in “-stan”? To say nothing of the armed bandits taking over and so forth. It’s mind-blowing to see an American city essentially become the equivalent of a devastated Third World war zone.
Another note, and I forget if I’ve mentioned this on the blog already, but one of the most amazing aspects (to me, at least) of the way things have developed in New Orleans is that we literally have less information about what’s going on in that city than we did about what was happening in, say, the deserts of Iraq during the invasion. This was especially true in the first 24 hours or so after the storm, but it remains true to some extent even now. In a country where instant information is the norm, having a levee breach on Monday morning and not finding out about it until the wee hours of Tuesday, and not really realizing how bad things are until late Tuesday, is… well, I already used the word “bizarre,” but once again that’s exactly what it is.
My dad said yesterday that he and my mom both noted that this is something totally unique, unlike any disaster they’ve ever witnessed before in their lives. That’s certainly true.
UPDATE: From the comments:
Sean Callebs on CNN is reporting that the first yellow Orleans bus that showed up tonight in Houston was driven by a 20-year old and was a “renegade” bus.In other words, it was a car-jacked bus of refugees from New Orleans who may or may have not been from the Super Dome.
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Categories: Hurricane Katrina
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August 31st, 2005 at 11:52:46 pm
It took me 35 minutes of looking through perhaps 75 news stories, local NOLA, regional, national and blogs, this AM to try to find out if the water was still rising in NO. Wouldn’t you think that would be a headline ?
September 1st, 2005 at 12:12:51 am
That lack of media access and information also explains why this story, for the real-life size and impact of it, is still flying under the radar compared to the attention it should be commanding–especially out here in the West.
September 1st, 2005 at 12:28:27 am
Nothing ever happens fast in New Orleans, not even the city’s destruction.
I dunno, I think the media here in the Bay Area have covered it pretty extensively but I don’t get the sense that the *population* gives a sh*t. Perhaps, here in such a nuanced blue state, those exotic brown south Asians killed in the Tsunami were more deserving of pity than a pack of unwashed, uncouth Red Staters.
September 1st, 2005 at 12:36:16 am
simple, http://wwl.com
September 1st, 2005 at 12:36:23 am
Cool. I spent all today trying to coordinate volunteer efforts here at the University of Texas Houston. We’re about 2 miles from the dome. We’re going to get alot of medical evacuees, and of course non-medicals. Everything is so chaotic I could only get through to the Red Cross twice today, and they had very little info to offer. I got more info from the media. The fact that they are ready to take evacuees at the dome currently is shocking. The relief agencies need to get there asses together, realize there is a whole city that wants to help, and start getting volunteers to the emergency shelters. Anyway, Brandon, keep up the good work.
September 1st, 2005 at 12:37:53 am
Don’t get me wrong, the cable and the news shows are all over the Katrina story, but at work, out and about… life goes on and not many are talking about it. I’m not quite sure what to make of it. Are we just numb? Don’t know how to react?
September 1st, 2005 at 12:44:22 am
I think part of the problem is that it doesn’t seem to most people to really have happened in the US.
It hits home in MY area because we’ve all been to New Orleans, most of us have family there and, especially, because many evacuees and New Orleans-area elected officials have moved their base of operations here to BR.
Part of the lack of identification may be that a hurricane is such a foreign thing to them. People from Texas all the way up the Atlantic coast would understand but not people in the Southwest who get roughly 5 inches of rain a year.
Hell, mudslides and wildfires in the far West get that kind of treatment here, but I haven’t heard yet of a mudslide or wildfire that destroyed a major US city.
September 1st, 2005 at 12:44:46 am
One pedantic point…while I’ve been using the term “refugee” loosely myself, technically these folks are “displaced persons” as they did not cross an international frontier.
September 1st, 2005 at 1:13:31 am
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory2/3332869
This is a good article on the transfer of victims from the Super Dome to the Astro Dome.
September 1st, 2005 at 1:18:06 am
Ahh. I know things have started to return to normal here when we get to have a dispute over a word’s technical meaning. :) As is my wont, I give you the definition from Merriam-Webster:
“Main Entry: ref∑u∑gee
Pronunciation: “re-fyu-’jE, ‘re-fyu-”
Function: noun
Etymology: French rÈfugiÈ, past participle of (se) rÈfugier to take refuge, from Latin refugium
: one that flees; especially : a person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution”
That would indicate that these people may be referred to as refugees while being technically correct–just because it would be “especially” true if they had crossed an international border doesn’t mean that it’s untrue because they haven’t.
September 1st, 2005 at 1:25:24 am
I just now (minutes ago) saw a report on CNN that said Houston authorities believe that first bus was NOT from the Superdome. The bus was driven by a 20-year old. It arrived much earlier than the Superdome buses are expected to.
September 1st, 2005 at 1:31:36 am
What is shocking to me about the buses from the Superdome is that passengers on the bus said that there was NO PRIORITIZATION of the passengers. Sick people, old people, children, mothers… all jumbled in with everyone else on a first come-first served basis with the buses. WTF? And WTF is running this thing???
Brendan, I’m starting to think your comments about the incompetence of the local government there were understated.
September 1st, 2005 at 1:36:40 am
Another note, and I forget if I’ve mentioned this on the blog already, but one of the most amazing aspects (to me, at least) of the way things have developed in New Orleans is that we literally have less information about what’s going on in that city than we did about what was happening in, say, the deserts of Iraq during the invasion. This was especially true in the first 24 hours or so after the storm, but it remains true to some extent even now. In a country where instant information is the norm, having a levee breach on Monday morning and not finding out about it until the wee hours of Tuesday, and not really realizing how bad things are until late Tuesday, is… well, I already used the word “bizarre,” but once again that’s exactly what it is.
I’ve been noticing this too, and it’s driving me crazy. Blogs and other Internet resources have definitely been ahead of the mainstream media on this story. When I’m at work, I usually go out to my car during smoke breaks and listen to talk radio. I’m a big fan of talk radio, but the last couple of days I’m hearing them STILL talking about Cindy Sheehan, Judge Roberts, and the usual political BS. Yesterday I turned on Michael Medved and he was talking about pedophiles!!! It made me want to put my head through the wall.
September 1st, 2005 at 1:47:30 am
Another note, and I forget if I’ve mentioned this on the blog already, but one of the most amazing aspects (to me, at least) of the way things have developed in New Orleans is that we literally have less information about what’s going on in that city than we did about what was happening in, say, the deserts of Iraq during the invasion. This was especially true in the first 24 hours or so after the storm, but it remains true to some extent even now. In a country where instant information is the norm, having a levee breach on Monday morning and not finding out about it until the wee hours of Tuesday, and not really realizing how bad things are until late Tuesday, is… well, I already used the word “bizarre,” but once again that’s exactly what it is.
Another thought about this: could this be because the mainstream media is waiting around for official statements instead of using their own eyes and ears? Laziness, in other words?
September 1st, 2005 at 8:52:57 am
The governors of TX & LA think that the Astrodome is for the people at the superdome, but I’ve seen several small accounts of people leaving the city, like the people on the first bus, who are headed to the Astrodome. Basically, I think everyone is making their way there. Even people who got out before the storm and have run out of money. I predict they have 50,000+ people there by Friday night.
September 1st, 2005 at 9:24:49 am
Pete, for what it’s worth, either the Houston Chronicle or my local hometown paper 100 miles away had a front-page photo today of a family that was turned away at the Astrodome because they weren’t part of the official cohort.
September 1st, 2005 at 10:51:48 am
People in my office, near New York, are absolutely horrified by what’s going on and have TVs and radios going on all the time. But I think the media is underplaying this mainly because the official death toll is still under 500, and news organizations don’t want to be accused of sensationalizing the story by emphasizing that there could be thousands of people dead.
Another problem is the lack of information about how badly evacuation efforts were run. My impression is that, basically, Gulf Coast communities made no efforts to, for example, evacuate low-income children, low-income elderly people, etc. or any other low-income people or people without cars. If people outside the Gulf Coast understood how trapped people were, maybe there would be more sympathy. As it is now, people have a lot less sympathy for people who stayed despite hearing evacuation warnings than they would for, say, tsunami victims, who simply walked on the beach, obeyed every known rule as well as they good, and got washed away. That’s not fair, but it’s how people’s minds worked.
Also, there’s the problem of right-wing talk radio hosts using the looting (and, it seems, reasonable efforts by starving storm survivors to get food and water from closed stores) as an excuse to promote racism. There are tons of black people obeyed the law and participating in rescue efforts. If you go on the “live Web rebroadcast of New Orleans police scanner broadcasts,” you hear plenty of black emergency workers.
So, sure, some criminals in New Orleans who happen to be black are acting like animals and truly (I’m talking here about the guys committing rapes and committing random attacks on hospitals) deserve to be shot on sight. I’m not thrilled about the death penalty, but if you gave me a gun and I saw those guys, I would do my best to kill them.
But the vast, vast majority of black people remaining on the Gulf Coast are simply dead, or trying to survive.
And, no, I’m not black. I guess I’m as capable of being racist as the next person. But the idea of trying to downplay the horror of New Orleans’ situation because some rotten vicious thugs there have gone wild is revolting.