Looters of N.O.

this is really the net result of the looting and ensuing lack of order.

Or this one:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_go_ot/katrina_brown_profile_2

I don't think it had anything to do with a breakdown in government. Public order works as well as it does due to personal, internal order and self-discipline--or force. When force is removed, what you see is what you are.

There is no way in hell some of us would loot. There are some of us who would take food and necessities and feel guilty, or leave our names (ridiculous, but true), some who would break into someone's home looking for food-- Who here would break into a jewelry store? Rape someone because you could? Break into a hospital or carjack an ambulance for drugs?

In any situation?

During a hurricane here a few years back, grocery stores were opened and food, water, batteries, etc were allowed to be taken. No electricity, so couldn't ring anyone up, take credit cards, or anything like that.

It was reported that several people later went back to the store and paid what they expected the food to have cost.

I thought it said a lot about the character of the customers and the stores who are major corporations, not Mom and Pops, who had no expectation of being paid back outside of insurance.

We could use some good stories out of the current mess.

The hurricane doesn't provide any opportunity for making bravado filled, imitation John Wayne posts on an internet message board, does it? But the looting .... that's something you guys can really sink your teeth into.

You voted Republican in the last election, didn't you?

Squinney - I am sure there will be many, many good stories.

I suspect they are quieter and more personal than the scary and awful ones.

Many may never be told - but I hope many are.


The medical folk I have seen in tears and clearly terrified and exhausted - but still caring, as best they can, for their patients are some of these.

I do wonder if these things are harder for the great and mighty west to handle, sometimes? That it is such a shock when infrastructure and such disappears that many are utterly overwhelmed, that those used to doing without what even the poor in the US are used to cope better?

I don't know - I do not recall (except for the goddamn paedophiles who organised to prey on kids very fast) much violence and crime after the tsunami.

I guess I am kind of assuming that areas of N.O. were high crime/gang areas prior to the hurricane? This seems to be behind some of the comments here...

From the mountaintop, it appears that the situation in New Orleans is comprised primarily of two issues - one societal, one practical. First, I do not believe that looting, rape, murder, and assault are examples of "human nature". All of you who think that way should, as far as I'm concerned, stay buttoned up in your apartments with the triple deadbolts, and please don't even think about moving to the rural areas where people in communities still try to come to each other's aid instead of trying to take advantage of your neighbors' misfortunes. Central Idaho has gone through a major flood and a 7.4 earthquake during the past fifteen years, and the resulting deaths, injuries, and property losses didn't merit a five-second announcement on any national news programs. I firmly believe that was because the story became uninteresting when it was learned that scores of volunteers ran shovels, sandbags, and heavy equipment with no intent of profiting from their labors. We came to each other's aid, and we will do it again when the situation warrants. By the way, we do occasionally have serious crime, but it gets handled as it needs to be. I know there has not been a murder trial in my county in the past thirty years, and it's probably closer to a hundred. Ammunition is a lot less expensive than trial lawyers.
Anyway, back to the social issue. I'm appalled that everyone in the country is screaming that the federal government has not been able to feed, house, and clothe everyone in New Orleans in less than a week. When did our citizens shed the basic duty of self-reliance? Granted, many residents of New Orleans are poor, but that it also true of a large number of other areas of the country, including my own. Somewhere along the line, local citizens and their government need to take the reins and do all they can, rather than sitting on their hands and criticizing the feds for their problems. I personally believe that we have propagated the welfare state to the point that an entire generation now believes that, it the world doesn't owe them a living, then the government does.
Now, for the practical issue. New Orleans may be a strategic city, but that importance will become moot when the diversion structure above Baton Rouge fails, as it will eventually do. At that point, the Mississippi will leave its current course and flow to the Gulf down the channel of the Atchafalaya River, leaving New Orleans utterly unusable as a port city. When I was in southern Louisiana last fall, we were looking over the potential of preserving the Gulf Coast wetlands (and its oil pipelines) as well as the New Orleans area itself. It was mentioned at that time that, someday, there would be a catastrophic event that would be so bad that everyone would simple leave New Orleans and never return. It might be wise to at least consider whether that time has now arrived.
I would make one last social comment. In my opinion, the residents of New Orleans have, in the last week, done very little to make me believe that such a community (and I use the term loosely) holds justification to be rebuilt.

I think you may be right about the expectations engendered by living in the industrialized world, and the bewilderment which likely accompanies the sudden loss of so much one takes for granted. When i was a child, if there were a power failure due to a storm, we had kerosene lanterns, and we used them on a regular basis at a "vacation cabin" we had in the woods. We had a wood-fired stove in the basement, which once served when the gas got cut off due to some emergency (i don't recall what it was). We had a well from which we pumped our drinking water.

But the poor in the industrialized world likley don't have the resources or the experience to cope. Kerosene lanterns aren't readily available, they wouldn't know how to trim and set the wick, nor where to get the fuel. They have been replaced by ornate and trendy "oil lamps," which are priced at five or six times their actual value, and the oil costs more for a pint than a gallon of kerosene. They couldn't afford those. Candles don't make it--the cheapy ones won't burn for much more than an hour, and once again, they couldn't afford the tall, fat ones which would burn all day. Hamburger pointed out in another thread that you can get "wind-up" radios, which come with a hand crank that creates a charge from friction, and stores it in a battery to run the radio. He said they're only $40. But Hell, when you can barely make ends meet as it is, where are you going to come up with $40 for something you would only use in an emergency.

When all of that is coupled with the shameless economic exploitation of the poor--everything costs more in poor neighborhoods, believe me, i know this from long personal experience--it is small wonder that their world seems to have collapsed around them.

I think about the nurses who ambu-bagged people for days and days... Even in revolving shifts, how their hands must still hurt.

Dlowan's right. There were likely many quiet victories of spirit, and humankindness. Because people who are capable of self-sacrifice are not the kind to tell it, we probably won't hear of many of them.

I'm glad to be piqued to think of these people, who I'll never hear about. I do hope we hear about some of them.

IZL--

I know you're working overtime to muster up some fake indignation, but you'll have to look elsewhere. If you'll read, you'll see that I don't have much problem with looting. Try again.

My local newspapers were quite cheerful this morning, filled with news of relief workers headed south to help.

Sentana wrote:



In the inner city poverty may well be accompanied by street smarts, but basic survival strategy without the urban infrastructure are lacking.

Pure water comes out of pipes.

Toilets flush.

Stoves work by pushing buttons and twirling dials. The inner city party circuit is not big on barbecues.

Refrigerators don't need buttons and dials.

Lights come on with a switch.

The corner store is open 7/11.

Doors lock.

According to the NYT's this morning 28% of the population of New Orleans lives below the poverty level--subsistance living.

I have no idea how many generations of how many families have been raised in a culture of subsistance living--body, soul and mind.

I'm angry that thousands of people in the affluent, educated, good ol' USA were less equipped to survive than South Sea Islanders.

This article shows a different perspective than we've been getting, or at least that I've been getting -

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1562415,00.html

osso--

Thanks for the link.

I've been embarrassed for the country I love this week, but at least we're not gagging reporters.

"Mistakes were made.."--such a useful phrase.

"Mistakes were made, observed, reported and discussed." That's my country.

The Ole Cow Doctor has made a nice observation. Perhaps it's time to let the Mississippi free to follow its natural course. By diverting the river into its natural channel from Baton Rouge to the Gulf, the existing river channel would dry up making recovery of old New Orleans less expensive and at lower risk from future flooding. To avoid problems the Mississippi would have to be allowed to return to its natural channel over a period of time. Baton Rouge might then become the "port of entry" to the Mississippi. Not being engineers we may, of course, overlooked a thousand reasons why such a scheme would not work.

Its likely that sentimentality and political huckerism will pour an unconscionable amount of national treasure into a foolish attempt to restore what is already lost, and that in a few years another mighty storm will return us to a situation not dissimilar to today. It appears that humans have a real problem learning from the mistakes of the past. Oh well ..........

I've read, almost twenty years ago now, that the heavy undercurrent of the Mississippi constantly undercuts the main damn of the Old River Control Structure (which is actually an array of structures). It is situated about fifty miles northwest of Baton Rouge. The Atchafalaya has already absorbed the outflow of the Red River, and grows greater in volume--it does not seem to me that it would be that difficult to ease out the ORCS and allow the Mississippi to make its own choice.

However, the corridor from Baton Rouge to New Orleans is lined with refineries and chemical plants. I suspect that corporate influence, conditioned by custom and a resistance to change, will trump all other considerations, and that we will see at least the attempt to return to the status quo ante. Even with the river returning to its ancient bed, however, the city would still be threatened by Lake Pontchartrain, and the first and most serious failure of the levees occurred there, at the 17th Street canal.

Asherman and Setanta
Ash and Set, how about reposting your two excellent posts on the new thread I started about the levee system? Or do you want me to just copy them there? Ash also has another post on another thread that would provide good historical information there as well.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=58821&highlight=

BBB

Noddy, that Observer link gave me more background for some of the resentment that surfaced at the N.O. Convention Center, and a deeper sense of the separation people feel.

Also, someone posting on one of these threads had remarked about a rumor that people thought authorities flooded their sector in order to save the French Quarter. This article seems to corroborate that rumor, although of course I don't know.

I much prefer seeing looters to floaters.

It's heartbreaking for Americans to be forced to see that the emperor has no clothes. That while we are nation building, here at home racism and poverty continue unabated. That the disparity between the haves and have nots is steadily increasing. That the new face of our middle class features rotting teeth. That the lack of medical insurance is swiftly decimating those too poor to maintain it.

One can argue that it's not our governments responsibility to maintain our citizens well being. But I think the message the world is getting is that the U.S. is in for some serious soul searching.