New Orleans: The Worst is Not Over : (

Sniper fire halts hospital evacuation
Gunmen fire at medical workers and patients at Charity Hospital

Thursday, September 1, 2005; Posted: 5:36 p.m. EDT (21:36 GMT)

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- The evacuation of patients from Charity Hospital was halted Thursday after the facility came under sniper fire twice.
A physician at the hospital said that despite the incidents staff members and patients were eager to get out after three days with no water and electricity and sparse food rations.

"A single sniper or two snipers shouldn't have to shut down a hospital evacuation for two hours now," Dr. Ruth Berggren told CNN. "I look outside, I'm not seeing any military." (See a video report on the sniper's attack -- 1:06 )
Berggren's husband, Dr. Tyler Curiel, witnessed both incidents.

"We were coming in from a parking deck at Tulane Medical Center, and a guy in a white shirt started firing at us," Curiel said. "The National Guard [troops], wearing flak jackets, tried to get a bead on this guy. "

The first incident happened around 11:30 a.m. (12:30 p.m. ET) as Curiel and his National Guard escorts headed back to the hospital after dropping off several patients at nearby Tulane Medical Center to be evacuated by helicopter.
Charity shares a helipad with Tulane Medical Center, which is across the street.

They were traveling in a convoy of amphibious vehicles, and Curiel said the vehicle behind him was targeted.

____________________
That was an exerpt from the sniper article I linked above. Is this good enough for you?

Yep!

Lash:

I understand there was sniper fire, as you might have gleaned from my first post on this thread.

You are the genius who said that it means everyone in the city of New Orleans would rather die of exhaustion than receive aid. So don't get mad at me.

Lash
If the government had enough military personel ready in advance to go in there right after Katrina passed, this wouldn't even be an issue.

Excuse me. I don't know who you are, or why you are under the misapprehension that I am addressing you.

I am not. I am addressing sat.

Incidentally, it is a lie that I said "everyone in the city of New Orleans would rather die of exhaustion than receive aid." If you have confidence in your opinion, you wouldn't feel the need to apply such slimey mendacity to it.

As for my statement:



I have spent hundreds of hours in the course of my lifetime trying to convince elementary school kids, and middle school students and high school adolescents (as well as unwed mothers and veterans of juvie and the lovers of dopers) that there is a way out of the culture of poverty.

The poor are trapped because they hug the security of their own limitations.

(Incidently, I don't watch television. My "news" comes from print and the internet. When I hear about looters or rioters, I picture them as white because by and large the poor I've encountered are white.)

(Also, I admit I'm a intellectual snob. I prefer bright, courageous people and try to develop both intelligence and courage whenever I encounter it.)

These Non-Evacuees elected to stay put. They didn't trust Whitey to tell the truth. They had no place to go and no money to get there. They thought they were signing up for three hours of straight adventure--with snacks and potty breaks.

Now they have no electricity. No television. No microwave. Plumbing doesn't work. They either have or do not have portable radios--which do or do not have batteries. Even if they can hear the "news" it has no particular relevance for the group of weary Non-Evacuees on "X" street, "Y" building.

They hear that conditions are bad at the Astrodome--and they are aggrieved that no one seems to know that the inhabitants of the rest of the city are also in the pits--without publicity.

They feel stupid. They feel abandoned. They feel angry. Katrina isn't an Adventure any more--Katrina is real and no one has given them a script--except the borrowed, shoot-it-out plot lines of tv dramas.

These Non-Evacuees don't have the mental flexibility to figure out what to do next. They aren't used to taking charge of their lives--and they resent this. They blame the Establishment.

Lash:

I am just a name and an avatar, but A2K is kind of limiting that way.

So the article was for Set. My bad. And it seems I was addressing a couple of different posts in my initial response, with an actual reference to yours. You responded, so it may be I lumped together ideas that weren't entirely yours. Also my bad.

Then again, you decided to turn it into a political squabble, reacting defensively on the presumption that I am a liberal out to tag you as a racist.

Goodnight.

Noddy
A lot of people had no means of getting out of there, such as the sick and very poor. There were also many tourists who were stranded there after flights were canceled prematurely the day before the storm hit. They couldn't get rental cars because they were all taken, so they were stranded there.
There were far too many people who could have evacuated, but decided to ride it out and I am ticked off about that myself, but I think the majority of people simply had no way of leaving and no place to go.

Exactly, Montana.

And many of them STILL don't have any place to go, and no transportation out. It's easy to order everyone to evacuate...but not so easy to figure out where to send hundreds of thousands of people at once. That's what we're dealing with now.

Montana--

I could see myself by force of circumstances and/or family feeling being trapped in New Orleans.

I cannot see myself looting stores or shooting at medivac helicopters or hijacking nursing home buses.

So true, Eva. That's the saddest part of all. Most of these people had what they had and that's all they had. They have no family or friends elsewhere who can help them get back on their feet and that must be a horrifying feeling for them.
From what I'm seeing from all the footage on CNN, it looks like a lot of these folks are young single moms with children. Like being in that situation isn't bad enough, now they have no clue as to how they're going to care for those kids.

I also noticed a lot of elderly folks who were more than likely living on next to nothing as it was.

My heart is bleeding for those people :-(

I am upset to lraen that nothing has changed since last night.

article for SAT, not Set....and the only other error was your assumption that I thought you were trying to' tag me' as a racist. I never thought that. I don't think you read carefully, hence my irritation with this whole exchange.

Armed lootery, gun riots and open fire towards rescue workers. Is this the right time to criticize the self-destructive lack of proper weapon regulations?

Ohhh... I'm telling cjhsa on you.

I thought CJ had gun control advocacy radar . . . won't he just pick this out of the ether?

I am afraid, cj is at his local Labor Day riffle association meeting already, but I'm sure he'll pick up later. At least,
Cicero came prepared with a helmet.

Well, since cj is out... I'll get started for him.

Does anybody think that gun regulation laws would have actually kept guns out of the hands of who ever holds them now?

Yes JP. It works in other countries, so why not in the US
too?

They LOOTED the stores. They steeled the gunsies!