Journal from New Orleans Post-Hurricane Katrina (15th anniversary edition)

On the fifteenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I thought it an appropriate time to share my journal from those days, 15 years ago, when I rushed to New Orleans to do what I could in the wake of the hurricane.

 I happened to be in Portland, Oregon when Katrina hit New Orleans (followed by the breaking of the levees and the flooding). I was helping my sister with her baby at the time, and not paying too much attention to the news....the first warning I got that things were bad, really bad, in New Orleans, was when i heard a friend's voice on the radio, the Tuesday after the storm. My ears perked up when I heard his voice, then when I heard what he was saying I found myself next to the radio, clutching it with disbelief, “I'm here in Memorial Hospital in New Orleans”, he was saying. “The water is rising...There's no electricity, the people on life support are dying and we're running out of water.” His cell phone then cut off, and the radio station wasn't able to get through to him again.

I immediately began making phone calls: “Hey, did you hear Bill on the radio? Things are really bad in New Orleans!! Let's get down there!”

We began organizing a group of seven trucks and buses full of food, diapers, supplies and medicine (having worked with the Pastors for Peace in Central America, I have good experience in putting together and organizing aid, and working with no budget).

The government representatives were on the news telling people: “Don't come to New Orleans! Donate your money to the Red Cross – we have trained professionals on the ground – if you come down here, you will be part of the problem.”

But being a person who never listened to the government anyway, and never trusted the red cross (knowing they collected $80 billion for tsunami victims, and most of it never made it to the victims.....and having watched them pull out of chiapas, mexico when 50,000 people were living in an internally-displaced refugee camp and needed their help more than ever). and when i looked on new orleans indymedia, and saw the call-out from malik rahim (former black panther and activist in new orleans) for people to come to new orleans and help, that's all i needed to convince me. so i, and others, decided to ignore the government's advice and go down there ourselves.

what we found when we arrived was a chaotic scene where survivors of the hurricane were desperately trying to get basic supplies, and a government that showed its true colors during the disaster: shooting black people at will, blocking aid from getting in, setting up checkpoints and roadblocks.........and the few good people who were working within the system (for FEMA – the federal emergency management agency, or for the red cross) felt obstructed and mis-used, unable to get necessary aid to desperate people. surprising alliances were made with some of these individual humans who were able to channel supplies through us (the anarchists) to people in need.......what a strange and surreal feeling when the small clinic and supply center we (the rag-tag crew of anarchists and activists who responded to malik's call to action) set up became the main lifeline for people in the area – and when FEMA representatives and red cross representatives were sending people to US for help, because their hands were tied, and they could offer people no help from their side. $850 million dollars collected by the red cross from well-meaning people across the country for hurricane relief, and yet they ended up sending people to us, a group of broke but committed activists giving their all. their top-down model was shown to be utterly ineffective in a time of disaster, while our model (everyone giving what they can, everyone helping each other in any way they can, sharing skills, sharing resources, sharing tools, sharing food) was clearly the one that worked. people who had joined the red cross or FEMA because they really wanted to help people had their eyes opened by this, and lots of defectors came to join us in our work. the following is my journal from that time.

Saturday, September 3rd, 2005, 2:17 am

Thoughts on the Hurricane

When I used to live in New Orleans (1999), there were always rumors that when 'the big one' hit, New Orleans would be underwater, and many would die as a result. In 2001, this was confirmed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which rated a hurricane in New Orleans to be one of the three most likely, most catastrophic disasters in this country. There was plenty of warning that this was coming....like this article from the Houston Chronicle from 2001, which says, in part: " In the face of an approaching [Category 3 or above hurricane] storm, scientists say, the city's less-than-adequate evacuation routes would strand 250,000 people or more, and probably kill one of 10 left behind as the city drowned under 20 feet of water. Thousands of refugees could land in Houston. Economically, the toll would be shattering."

The warnings were there, the scenario was drawn out time and time again. But where was the money? The Bush administration had cut $20-$40 million needed to strengthen levees -- a 2004 project that was 80% complete. Al Naomi, the head of the Louisiana Army Corps of Engineers, said in early 2004, "The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink," he said. "I've got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest." He estimated it would take $20 million to complete the levee restoration, which he requested from the Federal Government, but the $20 million was denied, and the 2005 Bush Administration budget appropriated only $3.9 million to the project.

Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, said on June 8, 2004, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Meanwhile, FEMA also suffered from cutbacks under the Bush administration, a push to privatize the agency, and an absorption into the all-encompassing "Department of Homeland Security". The restructuring of the agency into a competitive structure based on the private, corporate model, resulted in poorer areas, like Louisiana, being left out of flood-control grant money altogether!

"In a sense, Louisiana is the floodplain of the nation," noted a 2002 FEMA report. As a result, flooding is a constant threat, and the state has an estimated 18,000 buildings that have been repeatedly been damaged by flood waters -- the highest number of any state. And yet, in summer 2004 FEMA denied Louisiana communities' pre-disaster mitigation funding requests. In Jefferson Parish, part of the New Orleans metropolitan area, flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue was baffled by the development. 'You would think we would get maximum consideration' for the funds, he says. 'This is what the grant program called for. We were more than qualified for it.'"

I 'm not pointing these things out to place blame, but to try to explain why the flooding happened, and why the emergency response by the government has been so inadequate and inept. The levees broke because federal money was withheld that was to be used for necessary upkeep. FEMA has shown itself incapable of a thorough or speedy evacuation. Residents had to escape the city on their own, or not at all. Left behind: the sickest, oldest, poorest, youngest. Thousands are believed to have drowned, some trapped in attics as flood waters rose for 2 days.

What really hurts are the cries for help -- the chanting outside New Orleans' Superdome: "Help! Help! Please help us!", the mayor, angry and frustrated at the failure of federal support, saying that his own efforts to save his city are being held up by bureaucratic holdups at the federal level.

M y friend Jordan writes: "In the refugee camp I just left, on the I-10 freeway near Causeway, thousands of people (at least 90% black and poor) stood and squatted in mud and trash behind metal barricades, under an unforgiving sun, with heavily armed soldiers standing guard over them. When a bus would come through, it would stop at a random spot, state police would open a gap in one of the barricades, and people would rush for the bus, with no information given about where the bus was going. Once inside (we were told) evacuees would be told where the bus was taking them - Baton Rouge, Houston, Arkansas, Dallas, or other locations. I was told that if you boarded a bus bound for Arkansas (for example), even people with family and a place to stay in Baton Rouge would not be allowed to get out of the bus as it passed through Baton Rouge."

I read the accounts of the squalor of the refugee camps, the people who haven't had water for days, and I feel sick, and angry that this all could have been avoided. I think of the New Orleans I know and love - a city bursting with energy, with flowers and moss hanging from ancient trees along brick and cobblestone streets with antique streetcars rumbling along. I was last there this past March, and the magic of the city struck me as it often had before -- I found myself stopping to talk to artists on the street, with cars covered in beads and trinkets, watching fairy-winged angels float by on their bicycles -- the city of New Orleans is mesmerizing with its beauty and culture. Is that all gone for good? Perhaps.

In March 2015, during my last visit to New Orleans, I had dinner with Debbie and Bill Quigley, a nurse and law professor, respectively, who live in the Garden District near Tulane University in New Orleans. The dinner discussion inevitably moved toward the topic of hurricanes in New Orleans, and what would happen when "The Big One" hit. Debbie recounted stories of past hurricanes, where the nurses, doctors and their families had to 'move in' to the hospitals while the water rushed by outside. So I wasn't completely surprised when I heard Bill Quigley's voice on the radio on Tuesday, reporting the conditions at Memorial Hospital, where he and Debbie had not only 'moved in', but were quite literally trapped inside the hospital with no water and no electricity, and 1200 patients in need of urgent care. I haven't heard word of them since, and the hospital switchboard has no info on them.....I just hope they are able to get out, but knowing them, they will probably make sure every single patient is safe before they even attempt to remove themselves.

I think of the out-of-the-way coffeeshops where brilliant musicians would try out their voices and rhythm for the first time in front of a crowd, the street dancing and second-line jazz parades every Sunday afternoon......the New Orleans I knew........and the sweltering h eat.......the heat where thirsty thousands are now marching to a very different beat. The beat of a military deployment that has been sent in to New Orleans by Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco with orders to "shoot to kill". Orders reiterated by a well-rested, long-vacationing George W. Bush.

I'll admit I've never been a fan of George W. Bush, but his actions this week in response to this catastrophe have been absolutely appalling. Where was he on Sunday, when the hurricane was clearly becoming "The Big One" that would hit New Orleans? At his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on vacation (ignoring, as he has for months, the peace delegation of mothers whose children were killed in the Iraq war, camped outside his doorstep). Where was he on Monday, when the hurricane hit, the levees broke and the city faced exactly the 'doomsday scenario' that had been predicted time and time again? Travelling to California and Arizona, acting as a salesman for the pharmaceutical companies, advocating new, high-priced drugs for Medicare recipients. What about Tuesday, as the waters rose and the city drowned? Still no word from Mr. Bush, who was busy playing guitar for a photo-op in San Diego and then rushing back to continue his vacation in Crawford. Only Wednesday, after flying over the region in his private jet and landing in Washington, did he make a statement at all, a statement described in a New York Times editorial as his "worst speech ever", in which he called on his dad to lead the relief effort. What kind of a 'leader' gets on television THREE DAYS AFTER the event and says he is depending on his father and former President Clinton to head up relief efforts??

Where is the LEADER who will say, "I WILL NOT REST until I know that every survivor of the hurricane is safe"? Where is a leader who will immediately admit the mistake of not giving the requested funds to levee restoration, and devote the needed federal money to rescue the survivors and mop up the mistake? That leader is simply not there. Instead, we have George W. Bush, who gave an interview to ABC on Thursday saying "no one expected the levees to be breached", when in fact such a scenario was listed by FEMA as one of the three most likely disasters in the US (as I mentioned earlier). Everyone expected the levees would be breached when a hurricane of this magnitude hit New Orleans: the Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project (authorized by Congress in 1996 after floods killed six, but cut almost completely in 2003 by Bush administration budget cuts) -- everyone predicted this scenario, expected it -- especially after the budget cuts of 2005, and the UNPRECEDENTED budget cuts for FY2006. Everyone, it seems, except George W. Bush.

And even now, although he's finally deigned to make a visit to some affected areas (but not the hardest hit spot - New Orleans itself), Bush has made no statement committing the federal government to a significant or sustained effort to aid the areas that have been devastated by the hurricane.

I am angry, yes. But the feeling is superceded by another, an overwhelming feeling of compassion for the survivors, and a desire to do whatever I can to help them live and survive this thing. The humanitarian aid organization I work with, Pastors for Peace, is organizing an ad-hoc humanitarian aid caravan to Louisiana and Mississippi, picking up aid in different spots around the country and bringing it south to the survivors. I will be helping with this effort as much as I can before I go to Palestine.

Well, this is getting long (as usual).....but I feel a need to add something about the media portrayal of survivors -- another absolutely appalling facet of this week's events....I think my friend Jordan, a survivor of the hurricane himself, says it best in his article:

"While the rich escaped New Orleans, those with nowhere to go and no way to get there were left behind. Adding salt to the wound, the local and national media have spent the last week demonizing those left behind. As someone that loves New Orleans and the people in it, this is the part of this tragedy that hurts me the most, and it hurts me deeply. No sane person should classify someone who takes food from indefinitely closed stores in a desperate, starving city as a "looter," but thats just what the media did over and over again. Sheriffs and politicians talked of having troops protect stores instead of perform rescue operations. Images of New Orleans' hurricane-ravaged population were transformed [by the media] into black, out-of-control, criminals. As if taking a stereo from a store that will clearly be insured against loss is a greater crime than the governmental neglect and incompetence that did billions of dollars of damage and destroyed a city. This media focus is a tactic, just as the eighties focus on 'welfare queens' and 'super-predators' obscured the simultaneous and much larger crimes of the Savings and Loan scams and mass layoffs, the hyper-exploited people of New Orleans are being used as a scapegoat to cover up much larger crimes."

I tried writing a letter to congress (Sep. 5):

Dear Senator:
I write you again after only a few days because not only did I not receive a satisfactory response to my letter of Sep. 2, I was mocked and rebuked by your staff when I called your office to follow up on my faxed letter challenging your lack of initiative on the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. I was told, in an extremely patronizing tone, "I'm sure the Senator is doing everything he can to help the victims." Well Senator, I certainly do not appreciate being patronized to by your staff, when in fact my reason for calling was that you are not, in fact, doing "everything you can" in this effort. I have outlined below some of the actions that I, and many other Maryland constituents, would like to see acted upon immediately.

On FEMA and the Federal response:
The President of Jefferson Parish Aaron Broussard told Meet the Press today (Sep. 5) that FEMA cut his parish's emergency communications lines and he had to have his sheriff restore the severed lines and post armed deputies to ensure that FEMA did not try to cut the communications lines again. Broussard's statement: "Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, 'No one is getting near these lines.'" He also said, "that Wal-Mart had sent three trucks full of bottled water to the area, and that the national guard told them it was not needed and sent them back", and, "that a ship was in the harbor with medical supplies, personel and food, that the national guard told them it wasn't needed and refused to allow them to help out."

FEMA has bungled every stage of this emergency, including directly sabotaging emergency aid efforts. Control should be given to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagins, the man who knows the city better than anyone. He should be directing the relief efforts, and all other agencies should report to him.

Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response, Department of Homeland Security, and William Lokey, the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area, should be fired for incompetence. FEMA has made an absolute mockery out of this rescue and relief operation. Michael Brown is unfit for the job to which he was assigned by George W. Bush. Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, Michael Brown spent 11 years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a breeders' and horse-show organization based in Colorado, a job from which he was "asked to resign" amidst allegations of supervisory failures (source: Sep. 4 Boston Herald) -- hardly a man qualified to oversee the largest disaster in US history (or any disaster at all).

State Governor Kathleen Blanco should also be held criminally responsible for ordering a mandatory evacuation, but not providing the means for people to evacuate. If Cuba can evacuate 1.5 million people from Havana, as they did just last month when Hurricane Dennis hit the island in a direct hit, then surely Louisiana can evacuate 250,000. There's simply no excuse for the outright incompetence of these public officials. They should be fired, or resign, immediately.

On Foreign aid:
Condoleeza Rice said in her press conference on Sept. 2 that "I said to [the French Foreign Minister, Mr. Douste-Blazy] what I've been saying to everyone, which is that we are working very closely with the Department of Homeland Security to match up what is available with what is needed, and that I would get back to him." According to FEMA, NO foreign aid donations have yet been accepted. Many of these donations are sitting just offshore, including 1100 Cuban doctors who are extremely well-trained in hurricane response. The Cuban doctors worked wonders in Honduras when that country was hit by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 (and 11,000 were killed). Working under severe conditions, with little to no equipment, these Cuban doctors saved literally thousands of lives. Now, in the current crisis, it is not a time for the higher-ups in the Department of Homeland Security to sift through the list of foreign aid deciding which would be politically expedient for the current administration to accept, and which to reject. Now is the time to overcome political differences and accept this foreign aid which is being so graciously offered.

According to an article entitled "US declines Swedish aid - for now" yesterday (Sep. 4) in the Swedish paper The Local, "Sweden had offered to send medical and technical aid to the hurricane-ravaged southern United States, and had been planning to send a military cargo plane filled with water sanitation equipment as well as five water sanitation experts on Sunday morning. Early Sunday however, Swedish authorities received word that the US logistically could not immediately accept the aid. 'The planned... flight to the US with aid equipment from the Rescue Services Agency will not take place on Sunday,' the agency said in a statement."

ALL of the offers of foreign aid should be IMMEDIATELY accepted, including the aid from Sweden, Cuba and Venezuela.

On Domestic aid:
In a news release entitled "Cash Sought To Help Hurricane Victims, Volunteers Should Not Self-Dispatch", Release Date: August 29, 2005, FEMA listed several domestic organizations for donations.

The Red Cross is the first organization listed. Their record for aid distribution is dismal. The Red Cross, under the Liberty Fund, collected $564 million in donations after 9/11. Months after the event, the Red Cross had distributed only $154 million. The Red Cross' explanation for keeping the majority of the money was that it would be used to help 'fight the war on terror'. Then Red Cross President Dr. Bernadine Healy arrogantly responded when questioned about the withholding of funds by stating, "The Liberty Fund is a war fund. It has evolved into a war fund." Despite the family members of victims of 9/11 complaining bitterly to a House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight panel, the issue seemed to be brushed under the carpet. Congress needs to demand complete transparency of all donations to the Red Cross, and a full accounting that ensures that every cent is going to people in need -- not into the Red Cross bank account to stay.

Why is Pat Robertson's organization, 'Operation Blessing', listed as #3 on FEMA's list? Surely this man, and his organization, have been discredited, considering that Robertson recently called for the United States to violate international law and assassinate President Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected head of state in Venezuela, saying "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability "(source: BBC News Report " Profile: Pat Robertson" Thursday, 25 August 2005, 08:38 GMT 09:38 UK). Robertson once signed a letter calling feminism a "socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft and become lesbians" (same source). This man is a disgrace to this country, and a search of his organization's records show that money donated to 'Operation Blessing' may well be going to support Robertson's for-profit company, African Development Co., which is doing exploratory mining for diamonds in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (source: IRS records). Pat Robertson, and his organization 'Operation Blessing', need to be subjected to a criminal investigation, NOT listed as a legitimate aid organization by FEMA.

Other voluntary aid organizations, hundreds of which are already stepping up to fill the gaping holes left by the Department of Homeland Security/FEMA, should be allowed to bring aid and supplies to those who need it in New Orleans and surrounding areas. Jason Robideaux, an attorney from Lafayette, reported on Sept. 2 that 500 captained boats from Lafayette, LA were denied entry to New Orleans to rescue survivors. It is now three days later, and many of those survivors still remain on their roofs or in their attics in New Orleans, with no water. How many have drowned in these three days because those boats were denied entry? This is unconscionable! I demand that all rescue missions be allowed entry into New Orleans, and that the blocking of the Lafayette rescue boats on Sept. 2 be thoroughly investigated, and prosecuted.

The mobilization of the military is unnecessary, and will hinder, rather than help, relief efforts. In a Sept. 2 article in The Army Times newspaper entitled "Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans", Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force, was quoted as saying, "This place is going to look like Little Somalia...We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control." A combat operation resembling the disaster in Somalia is absolutely not what is needed in New Orleans right now. While people are thirsting to death and drowning in flood waters, it is cruel and inhuman to declare a combat operation on these people. Most of those left in New Orleans are sick and elderly (despite the common media image that the city is full of stereotypical black male criminals, this is simply not the case). The military "combat operation" must be called off immediately, and replaced with a search and rescue effort to find survivors and give them medical attention, water and food.

The Federal Government should activate the Civilian Reserve Air Fleet, a major air support plan under a pre-existing contract with airlines that lets the government quickly put private cargo and passenger planes into service -- this is something that should have been done on the first day of the disaster. That it was not done before now further proves the incompetence and negligence of the governmental response to this disaster.

On abandoning New Orleans
Rep. Dennis Hastert's comment that "It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed," in an interview last Wednesday (Aug. 31) with the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Illinois, is an insult and an affront to the citizens of New Orleans, especially made, as it was, in the midst of the unfolding tragedy. Although he tempered his comment a few days later after criticism, I ask that you rebuke Rep. Hastert for his blunt disregard for the survivors who needed rescuing at the time, that you strongly uphold New Orleans' citizens' right to return and rebuild their city and challenge any politician who proposes the abandonment of this incredibly rich and diverse city.

I can provide source materials for any of the references listed in this letter. September 12: article by my friend Jordan Flaherty:

"Back in new orleans"

i thought it was really important to share this article by my friend jordan from new orleans.

i'm currently in a bus full of aid headed to louisiana, with six other buses in a pastors for peace emergency solidarity aid caravan to louisiana and mississippi.

now, read on for the latest from new orleans......

Back Inside New Orleans

by Jordan Flaherty

September 12, 2005

What actually happened in New Orleans these past two weeks? We need to sort through the rumors and distortions. Perhaps we need our version of South Africa’s Truth And Reconciliation Commission. Some way to sort through the many narratives and find a truth, and to find justice.

I spent yesterday inside the city of New Orleans, speaking to a few of the last holdouts in the 9th ward/bywater neighborhood. Their stories paint a very different picture from what we’ve heard in the media. Instead of stories of gangs of criminals and police and soldiers keeping order, there were stories of collective action, everyone looking out for each other, communal responses.

The first few nights there was a large, free community barbecue at a neighborhood bar called The Country Club. People brought food and cooked and cooked and drank and went swimming (yes, there's a pool in the bar).

Emily Harris and Richie Kay, from Desire Street, traveled out on their boat and brought supplies and gave rescue rides. They have been doing this almost every day since the hurricane struck. They estimate that they have rescued at least a hundred people. Emily doesn’t want to leave. She is a carpenter and builder, and says, “I want to stay and rebuild. I love New Orleans.”

Emily describes a community working together in the first days after the hurricane. She also describes a scene of abandonment and disappointment. “A lot of people came to the high ground at St. Claude Avenue. They really thought someone would come and rescue them, and they waited all day for something - a boat, a helicopter, anything. There were helicopters in the sky, but none coming down.”

So people started walking as a mass uptown to Canal Street. Along the way, youths would break into grocery stores, take the food and distribute it evenly among houses in the community.

“Then they reached Canal Street, and saw that there was still no one that wanted to rescue them. That's when people broke into the stores on Canal Street.”

I asked Okra, in his house off of Piety Street, what the biggest problem has been. He said, “It’s been the police - they’ve lost the last restraints on their behavior they had, and gotten a license to go wild. They can do anything they want. I saw one cop beat a guy so hard that he almost took his ear off. And this was someone just trying to walk home.”

W alking through the streets, I witnessed hundreds of soldiers patrolling the streets. Everyone I spoke to said that soldiers were coming to their house at least once a day, trying to convince them to leave, bringing stories of disease and quarantine and violence. I didn’t see or speak to any soldiers involved in any clean up or rebuilding.

There are surely reasons to leave - I would not be living in the city at this point. I’m too attached to electricity and phone lines. But I can attest that those holdouts I spoke to are doing fine. They have enough food and water and have been very careful to avoid exposing themselves to the many health risks in the city.

I saw more city buses rolling through poor areas of town than I ever saw pre-hurricane. Unfortunately, these buses were filled with patrols of soldiers. What if the massive effort placed into patrolling this city and chasing everyone out were placed into beginning the rebuilding process?

Some neighborhoods are underwater still, and the water has turned into a sticky sludge of sewage and death that turns the stomach and breaks my heart. However, some neighborhoods are barely damaged at all, and if a large-scale effort were put into bringing back electricity and clearing the streets of debris, people could begin to move back in now.

Certainly some people do not want to move back, but many of us do. We want to rebuild our city that we love. The People’s Hurricane Fund - a grassroots, community based group made up of New Orleans community organizers and allies from around the US - has already made one of their first demands a “right of return” for the displaced of New Orleans.

In the last week, I’ve traveled between Houston, Baton Rouge, Covington, Jackson and New Orleans and spoken to many of my former friends and neighbors. We feel shell shocked. It used to be we would see each other in a coffee shop or a bar or on the street and talk and find out what we’re doing. Those of us who were working for social justice felt a community. We could share stories, combine efforts, and we never felt alone. Now we’re alone and dispersed and we miss our homes and our communities and we still don’t know where so many of our loved ones even are.

It may be months before we start to get a clear picture of what happened in New Orleans. As people are dispersed around the US reconstructing that story becomes even harder than reconstructing the city. Certain sites, like the Convention Center and Superdome, have become legendary, but despite the thousands of people who were there, it still is hard to find out exactly what did happen.

According to a report that’s been circulated, Denise Young, one of those trapped in the convention center told family members, “yes, there were young men with guns there, but they organized the crowd. They went to Canal Street and ‘looted,’ and brought back food and water for the old people and the babies, because nobody had eaten in days. When the police rolled down windows and yelled out ‘the buses are coming,’ the young men with guns organized the crowd in order: old people in front, w omen and children next, men in the back,just so that when the buses came, there would be priorities of who got out first.” But the buses never came. “Lots of people being dropped off, nobody being picked up. Cops passing by, speeding off. We thought we were being left to die.”

Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky, paramedics from Service Employees International Union Local 790 reported on their experience downtown, after leaving a hotel they were staying at for a convention. “We walked to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and were told ...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 the City...

“We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great excitement and hope. ...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...

“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 freeway and 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 Orleanians 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 hot wired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had become.”

Media reports of armed gangs focused on black youth, but New Orleans community activist, Black Panther, and former Green Party candidate for City Council Malik Rahim reported from the West Bank of New Orleans, “There are gangs of white vigilantes near here riding around in pickup trucks, all of them armed.” I also heard similar reports from two of my neighbors - a white gay couple - who i visited on Esplanade Avenue.

The reconstruction of New Orleans starts now. We need to reconstruct the truth, we need to reconstruct families, who are still separated, we need to reconstruct the lives and community of the people of New Orleans, and, finally, we need to reconstruct the city.

Since I moved to New Orleans, I’ve been inspired and educated by the grassroots community organizing that is an integral part of the life of the city. It is this community infrastructure that is needed to step forward and fight for restructuring with justice.

In 1970, when hundreds of New Orleans police came to kick the Black Panthers out of the Desire Housing Projects, the entire community stood between the police and the Panthers, and the police were forced to retreat.

The grassroots infrastructure of New Orleans is the infrastructure of secondlines and Black Mardi Gras: true community support. The Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs organize New Orleans’ legendary secondline parades - roving street parties that happen almost every weekend. These societies were formed to provide insurance to the Black community because Black people could not buy insurance legally, and to this day the “social aid” is as important as the pleasure.

The only way that New Orleans will be reconstructed as even a shadow of its former self is if the people of New Orleans have direct control over that reconstruction. But, our community dislocation is only increasing. Every day, we are spread out further. People leave Houston for Oregon and Chicago. We are losing contact with each other, losing our community that has nurtured us.

Already, the usual forces of corporate restructuring are lining up. Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root subsidiary has begun work on a $500 million US Navy contract for emergency repairs at Gulf Coast naval and marine facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Blackwell Security - the folks that brought you Abu Ghraib - are patrolling the streets of our city.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the rich white elite is already planning their vision of New Orleans’ reconstruction, from the super-rich gated compounds of Audubon Place Uptown, where they have set up a heliport and brought in a heavily-armed Israeli security company. “The new city must be something very different,” one of these city leaders was quoted as saying, “with better services and fewer poor people. Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically.”

While the world’s attention is focused on New Orleans, in a time when its clear to most of the world that the federal government’s greed and heartlessness has caused this tragedy, we have an opportunity to make a case for a people’s restructuring, rather than a Halliburton restructuring.

The people of New Orleans have the will. Today, I met up with Andrea Garland, a community activist with Get Your Act On who is planning a bold direct action; she and several of her friends are moving back in to their homes. They have generators and supplies, and they invite anyone who is willing to fight for New Orleans to move back in with them. Malik Rahim, in New Orleans’ West Bank, is refusing to leave and is inviting others to join him. Community organizer Shana Sassoon, exiled in Houston, is planning a community mapping project to map out where our diaspora is being sent, to aid in our coming back together. Abram Himmelstein and Rachel Breulin of The Neighborhood Story Project are beginning the long task of documenting oral histories of our exile.

Please join us in this fight. This is not just about New Orleans. This is about community and collaboration versus corporate profiteering. The struggle for New Orleans lives on.

Jordan Flaherty is a union organizer and an editor of Left Turn Magazine (http://www.leftturn.org). He is not planning on moving out of New Orleans.

report from the occupied west bank of new orleans

18 sept 2005 12:54 pm

my friends, i am writing to you under military curfew, with helicopters flying overhead and armed personnel carriers patrolling the streets, from the occupied west bank. but this time it is not the occupied west bank of palestine that i write from, but the west bank of the mississippi river. a few hours ago, i watched about 30 helicopters take off from an aircraft carrier in the middle of the oil-slicked mississippi and roar through the sky low overhead. soon after, i was stopped by police who were sternly enforcing a curfew that hadn't even officially begun for the night. the police and military tear through the streets all night, taking shots at any dark-colored figure who they see out on the street.

i have only been here since yesterday, but already i have heard story after heartbreaking story of the incompetence and negligence of the US government at the local, state and federal level in response to this crisis. from the man who had to rush out of a relief center where volunteers were using the internet to help him locate his family because it was 7:30, and he had to rush across town to his half-ruined home before eight, or he would be shot for breaking curfew, to the family whose landlord took their last $400 rent money for this month even though their home had been completely destroyed, to the many stories of people wading through neck-deep water, floating their grandmothers in refrigerators to try to escape the flooded-out city of new orleans, only to be turned back at the bridge by police with shotguns.....the stories are horrendous, sad and infuriating, especially infuriating - because this disaster was preventable.

even now, a full 3 weeks after the hurricane hit, the red cross has yet to arrive in this and many other neighborhoods around new orleans. many suspect that the red cross will never arrive here with medicine and supplies, because they hope to force people to leave this area. it is absolutely unconscionable, and a violation of every human rights treaty to which the US is a signatory, for the government to use food and medicine as a weapon to try to force people out of their homes. yet that is exactly what they are doing.

everyone is aware that the water is completely contaminated, and many streets are covered in contaminated mud. but no government agency has provided drinking water -- it is as if these people are expected to simply lay down and die. but now, thanks to the efforts of many independent volunteers who came here despite the government's warnings and naysaying, many lives have been saved that would otherwise have been lost. many more lives are precariously close to being lost, but new volunteers, water, supplies and medicine keep arriving every day, staving off death another day for those folks the government 'left behind'.

contrary to the popular image promoted by the media, those who were 'left behind', unable to evacuate before the hurricane, were not looters, thugs and criminals. they are, for the most part, the elderly -- the most vulnerable members of our society, and poor families with young children who could not afford to evacuate. after being ignored by the government for the first few days of the disaster (a period in which they thought surely they were being left to die in the muck and mud), they were subjected to a massive military occupation, an operation described by the brigadier-general in charge as "turning this place into a 'little somalia'". those who didn't die in their attics waiting for help to arrive have been tormented by a massive military presence that, for the most part, would rather shoot than help them. sure, there are some notable exceptions -- national guard units who have distributed food and water on their own - but these are rogue units, not following the 'shoot-to-kill' orders from their superiors.

perhaps i sound a little bitter...... but arriving here, meeting all these elderly, sick and poor people who all tell me the same story, and realizing that story is completely different from the one being shown on television and in the news around the country -- it makes a person feel sick, literally sick, and disgusted at the lies that are being spread to try to justify the shameful inaction of the government in this crisis.

there are so many people and places that have been left out of all the news reports, left out of the red cross relief efforts......i have just seen video from the coast of Bay St. Charles, Mississippi, a town that was completely wiped out - of those who stayed in their homes, there are no survivors. The Houma Nation of Indians on the Louisiana coast has also had most of its members' homes completely destroyed. These are pictures taken just a few days ago -- the whole place is still underwater.

the official death count is unbelievably low - but most bodies have not even been recovered yet. it may take a long time before we figure out the real numbers of how many people have died in this disaster. and very little is being revealed about all the contaminants that are in the water, including massive oil spills that have been estimated to total half the size of the infamous Exxon-Valdez oil spill.

I have just watched camera footage a friend just took a few days ago of a medical research plant in mississippi that was under 30 feet of floodwater. with no testing of the level of contamination, mexican immigrant workers were cleaning the place, wearing no protective gear at all.

so when news came through this area that bush has suspended the minimum wage, it was just another blow for the weary, tired and (many now) homeless residents who have come to expect government neglect and animosity as common practice -- so none were surprised at this move, which would benefit (as usual) the most wealthy, while further impoverishing these, the most impoverished citizens of the united states.

i have been busy since i got here, using my tech skills to help with internet connectivity, phone (over internet) and other communication. any volunteers (especially doctors, nurses and trained medics) who are willing to work hard and spend more than just a few days here would be able to help a good deal in this relief effort. in fact, a number of people who originally volunteered with the red cross and have become frustrated with the inaction of that organization have been contacting the grassroots clinics and organizations that are actually feeding and providing medicine to the thousands of people 'left behind' by the disaster.

i am currently working with the common ground collective:

http://www.commongroundrelief.org

ps - here is part of a message from my friend ryan about why NOT to donate to the red cross:

I urge you to NOT send any money to the red cross, and instead to consider sending it to other groups. The Red Cross has a history of mis-using funds and not helping to people who need it most. There has been so much racism going on in New Orleans right now and the Red Cross is fitting right in with it.

There is a terrific list of local, people of color, low-income, and

grassroots groups the are doing direct relief effort, no strings attached.

Please consider them and see this list:

http://katrina.mayfirst.org

The Red Cross has been trying to evict groups like Vets for Peace from feeding groups of evacuees in Covington, LA. They also have been known for keeping most donations they get for themselves and paying their CEOs 6-digit salary.

report from new orleans

7 october 2005 11:45 pm

people keep asking me when i will be sending an update, when i will write my next journal.....i can't promise to write too much right now, but i want to at least ease everyone's fears a bit and share some info.

well.....in all the different projects and places i have worked, i don't think i have ever slept so little or worked so hard for so many hours each day. it is constant -- since the moment i got here -- just this gaping hole of need that we are all scrambling, just scrambling to fill. the emotional intensity of this disaster, combined with the gross neglect of the government, have combined themselves into a twisted look of blank anxious fear, shock and weary resignation -- this is the look shared by those who have lost everything in the storm, those who lost a child or a home or a friend.....and perhaps it is this look that weighs the experience more than any amount of heavy lifting or climbing or driving or organizing that i do each day. it is this look, the hurricane katrina look, that pierces me a dozen or more times each day as i work side by side with those who have lost everything in the storm to help rebuild their lives and the lives of their friends and neighbors.....

people who come down here to volunteer seem to sink into this 'black hole' once they arrive here -- calls are rare and the phone lines are difficult; updates sporadic and disjointed......those who are outside of this 'black hole' find themselves trying to sort through bits and pieces of informtion to get a full picture of what is going on......the mainstream media seems to have moved on to the next 'big story', and declared the disaster over.

meanwhile, the folks who evacuated and were shipped off all over the country are starting to trickle back to new orleans, seeing their homes (or what's left of them) for the first time.....showing up at our center with 'the look' on their face......and we load them up with supplies, talk and listen and give them some time to process......but the need is so great, it always feels like what we are doing is so small, so so small.....

what this whole thing has made more and more clear to me is the absolute inability of centralized authority structures to respond to crisis, and the absolute ability of humans to reach each other with compassion and solidarity, DESPITE the obstacles put in place by bureaucratic structures and organizations purporting to help. there have been some incredible coalitions -- surprising mutinies.....we've had national guard soldiers sneak supplies out of their warehouses so we could distribute them directly to people, we've had amtrak police sneak ice for our clinic from their stash, red cross volunteers who defected and joined our ranks.....so many many examples of people trying to get supplies to the people who need them -- even if they have to defy orders from above in order to do it. why do the organizations that are set up to distribute aid to people make it so difficult for the people to get it?? could it be a problem with the style of organization itself?

one of the people who founded the common ground clinic, who is also a good friend of mine, has said that she founded the clinic under the premise that the way we, as a movement, have been able to organize medical care during large convergences and protests could be applied to this emergency situation. the main focus of this style of organizing is that it is consensus-based, non-hierarchical, and that it places the patient in the position of being an empowered individual (even a hero of sorts, in this type of situation), and not a powerless victim to be tended to by an 'expert' doctor. this way of organizing the clinic has been wildly successful -- the common ground clinic has served hundreds of people a day for the last six weeks, while FEMA and red cross have just barely, over the last two weeks, begun to even offer anything in this area, let alone come close to serving the number of people, with the quality of care, as common ground clinic.

well, i suppose i will have more time to theorize about the efficacy of anarchist/decentralized models of organization during a time of crisis when and if i actually step back from this whole thing and examine it that way. as for now, i am simply doing it, living these decentralized, non-hierarchical ways of organizing relief in a crisis situation.

and today i talked to three different people who had lost their mothers -- one man's mother was buried under the rubble of their home, and he has been living down the street under a tarp, wearing the same clothes since the hurricane.....he started to cry when he started talking about his mother buried under the mud.....

the audio is at http://neworleans.indymedia.org

then i went to the FEMA base camp for the city of new orleans......it made me feel sick to my stomach....we drove in the main entrance, telling the military guards that we were looking for a FEMA representative (we were, and still are, trying to get them to bring some port-a-johns near the 'welcome home' kitchen in washington square park). we got some vague directions from the soldiers and were waved inside to park. we then walked around this absolutely surreal scene of hundreds of enormous air-conditioned tents, each one with the potential of housing 250 people -- whole city blocks of trailers with hot showers......huge banks of laundry machines, portajohns lined up 50 at a time....a big recreation tent, air-conditioned, with a big-screen tv.....all of it for contractors and FEMA workers, NONE of it for the people of new orleans.

we never did manage to find an actual FEMA representative to ask our question to, but we did talk to a couple guys who were staying there, who told us that the tents were pretty empty, not many people staying there.....and that "we don't combine with the evacuees -- we have our camp here, as workers, and they have their camps".....and when i tried to explain my experience with people who had lost their homes -- how we had to literally drive two sisters to LAKE CHARLES three hours away, because there were no shelters any closer, everything was either shut down or full. they could house thousands of people there at this FEMA base camp, thousands of new orleans citizens could live there while they rebuilt and cleaned their homes in the city. but instead, due to the arrogance of a government bureaucracy that insists they are separate from the 'evacuees', and cannot possibly see themselves mixing with them and working side by side on the cleanup, these people are left homeless.......like the poor man i talked to earlier in the day, living under a tarp with his mother buried under the mud of their house......why can't he live in their tents???? oh it makes me so sad and mad to see so much desperate need, and then just blocks away to see this huge abundance of resources not being used.

I have seen no FEMA center that is actually providing any aid for people -- I have been to this main FEMA base camp and three others in new orleans, and each of them have signs saying "No public services available at this site/Authorized personnel only".

it's so different from how we are working at the common ground collective, or at Mama D.'s in the city, or the other community places that people are starting up -- where neighbors are helping neighbors, people just helping each other.......if an elder needs their roof tarped, or a tree removed from their house, we send a team over to work on it -- but then maybe that elder helps us out, by driving one of our volunteers somewhere in their vehicle or picking up supplies for us. we help each other -- it's so different when we are all human together, instead of a militarized, razor-wired, fenced-in compound like the FEMA camp that keeps out the people in need and keeps the contractors and workers inside.

the communities we are helping do still need many things -- including volunteers for the cleanup effort, clearing out black mold and debris from flooded areas (some of which has been left untouched for the last six weeks. check http://www.commongroundrelief.org for a list of needs. we also need volunteers to help us with legal research -- if you are interested in donating a hew hours of internet time, send me an email. One other thing people can do from afar is to go to http://www.extendthedeadline.org and sending a message to FEMA to extend their deadline for hurricane survivors to apply for emergency aid (it has been near impossible for people to get through on the one phone line FEMA provided to apply for the aid, and FEMA has cut off the deadline to apply).

10/22/2005 - 4:53 am

new orleans, louisiana

are new orleanians the new palestinians?

here in the dim light of the garage we've turned into a makeshift studio and computer lab, i sit trying to collect my thoughts to launch a campaign to challenge the behavior of the new orleans police department.......but my thoughts and plans keep getting invaded by images -- images of the dried-out brown flood areas i've been driving through to bring food and water to some holdouts in east new orleans.....the brown, dried grass and mud mile after mile - abandoned homes with water lines 8 feet high, the toys-r-us with the sign broken off, the car dealerships with row after row of cars brown from floodwater......and the images of the people i've been talking to -- the old man who was arrested for trespassing just before the storm, and then found himself, along with hundreds of other prisoners, abandoned in old parish prison as the floodwaters rose around them, and those on the first floor died in their cells......he cried as he told me his story, his tears have struck me, as so many others, deep in my heart.

and the courage of charlestine jones, who came to us last week seeking our help to fight her landlord, who was illegally evicting her....and we helped her........we got together and planned and organized, we met the challenge and got together rallies and petitions, press conferences and faxes to the management -- activists in boston brought the tenants' demands to the office there, and in dc the same....in new orleans the manager had the list of demands delivered to his house.....and we won......today the owner agreed to four of the five demands, and the tenants are satisfied with that.....

but the struggle is just beginning.....

i had hoped to be in palestine by now.......but instead i am here in new orleans....i have no benefactors, no paycheck from FEMA or the government, but i am working, along with so many others in this project, out of my love for this city and her people....and for all people........i am working probably harder than i have worked in my life -- manual labor, mental labor, emotional labor....this is tiring work.....and i keep wondering, "where are all the volunteers?" we need so many more than we have.......we need the residents of this city to return and start working in the jobs that are being snatched up by outside contractors......we need people who can take care of their own needs and roll up their sleeves and work on cleanup....we need organizers and lawyers, environmentalists and engineers ..........

and the more i think about the need, and how vast it is, i find myself thinking about the residents of new orleans -- scattered and broken, in shelters and apartments across the country....and how many talented, skilled people have been pushed into diaspora, with no hope of returning. their jobs are being sold off to the lowest bidder, and the culture of new orleans has been split into ten thousand pieces in ten thousand shelters -- how will we piece this puzzle back together to bring new orleans back?? in a way, this is an american version of al-naqba (the catastrophe), that 1948 event when the state of israel was created and the palestinians were pushed out of their homes and scattered to the wind.

so, in a way i am already in palestine -- the 'occupied west bank', the white settlements on what used to be brown peoples' lands, the corporate looters coming in to get rich off the disaster while the indigenous new orleanians are thrown to the wind to make their own ways in new lands.

are new orleanians going to be the new palestinians? refugees in their own country, forced out of their destroyed and battered homes to make way for the developers and their plans and money-making schemes? or will we fight back.....and remake new orleans in the image of a sustainable economy and community....with public control of resources and a safe, sustainable environmental cleanup and rebuilding of the levees?

the plot thickens....stay tuned to this series for the next climax in this movie.....(or come down here yourself and help us clean this place up! -- see http://www.commongroundrelief.org for more info)

starhawk has written a good piece about the situation right now in new orleans, and the common ground collective that i am working with:

http://www.starhawk.org/activism/activism-writings/NewOrleans_update1.html

check the audio interviews and reports i have made at:

http://neworleans.indymedia.org/

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005 - 11:05 pm

the informal sector, the rhizome and relief

i left new orleans for a couple of days, to speak at the conference of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television about indymedia, new technology and journalism in a disaster area.....

as the plane lifted off, i looked down at new orleans....the flooded area so clearly distinct from the non-flood area: the browned branches of trees, the mud-caked walls of houses........lake ponchartrain, much bigger than the city itself, with one small line - the causeway -- crossing the lake.....and the thought of trying to escape a crowded city on that little line with 100+ mph winds whipping around became a very frightening prospect indeed.

but my thoughts soon drifted as the plane flew higher, and i began to think in more general terms about the bigger picture of what is happening down in new orleans and the gulf coast. as i watched the patchwork of farmland and city streets, it appeared that the gridwork was pushing up against the more organic forms of trees, snaking rivers and mountains......in some instances, it seemed that the vein-like spread of forests and swamps was pushing back against the grid.....and i thought about the image that some in the activist community have chosen to represent 'the movement' of people working for social justice: the rhizome.

the rhizome is a natural organism that spreads, root-like, underground -- it is self-replicating, and decentralized in its growth. tentacle-like fingers reach out from one organism to the next, reaching, curving, touching, a web-like network crossing the landscape.

watching the vein/root-like spread of nature battling the grid structure of the cities, i started to think of our way of organizing relief aid -- the rhizome-like, organic, flexible, spontaneous spread of the common ground model of relief coming head-to-head with the rigid, structured, top-down and immobile model offered by FEMA and the government. their model, based on a comamand-control structure, stood by while hundreds of people drowned in their homes after the post-katrina flood in new orleans. their model did not allow for the flexibility and creativity necessary to save the people, to evacuate and to bring them to dry ground. in fact, their structure and focus became an obstacle to helping the people in their time of desperate need. police in gretna, just across the river from new orleans, prevented new orleans residents from crossing the bridge into gretna -- the soaked, weary residents waded onto the bridge from the toxic flood water below to try to cross into gretna (where evacuation buses were lined up and waiting at the mall parking lot), but were shot at by gretna police firing live ammunition over their heads, and forced to turn back into the flood water.

why is the story being told and repeated throughout the country about the new orleans flood still the story of looting and shooting? haven't you learned by now that this story was a red herring? A media smokescreen? a story by which the news media diverted attention away from the desperate cries for help from the thousands of people abandoned in the flooded city toward a false image of a black criminal class that was to blame for all the problems? i can't believe that even now, two months later, people are still asking me about the looting -- hasn't the truth about that been exposed by now??

but then, i remember how the top-down structure of government-led relief, in combination with a state-run corporate media, shaped the picture of post-katrina new orleans, and i realize it is no wonder that people are still so misled in the news they receive about new orleans and the gulf coast.

so let me tell you a story - a story which is one small part of the emerging story of post-hurricane new orleans. this is a story i have pieced together out of dozens of personal interviews....a story verified by hundreds of independent accounts compiled by human rights watch and other groups working in the area. but it is a story that, despite all evidence to the contrary, continues to be denied by the authorities. it is the story of the prisoners in old parish prison, who were, by all accounts, left behind on the day after the hurricane hit and the flooding began.

the day before the hurricane, many of the prisoners who were on the first floor were moved up to the second floor before the guards evacuated, but no other measure was taken by the guards to ensure the survival of the prisoners. there were prisoners left on the first floor who died in their cells. no one knows how many -- the prisoners don't know, they were stuck in their own cells and couldn't tell how many were stuck below, and the authorities aren't talking - they deny that anyone died at all.

when the guards evacuated, they left some food for the prisoners, but not much. then the water started pouring in. the first floor filled with water, and the prisoners on the second floor, as they heard the drowning cries of those below, began to panic. the water was rising, dirty, oily, smelling of sewage and toxins -- they took whatever they could find and tried to bash through the windows. the water rose to chest level and stopped rising.....the men (there were women prisoners, as well, but they were not on the second floor) reached for anything they could find to hit the windows....some men, who had been put in the gymnasium by guards, managed to use a basketball hoop. others, locked in a large cell, used a door fastener they had managed to break loose......it took many hours, but at last, some of the prisoners managed to break through the windows and escape into the flooded hallways. they joined together and tried to get out of the building......bodies floated by, both inside and outside the building. and at last, a day later, a boat arrived with a couple of guards who had the decency (well, as an afterthought, anyway) to come back for the prisoners.

the men and women were brought by boat to a highway overpass (an island in the flooded city), where they were made to wait in their sewage-soaked clothing with no food and water for another full day, until they were taken off by bus to various federal facilities. with their records lost, and no one paying any attention to who was who - who was in prison for a felony, and who was just there on an overnight charge for trespassing or drunkenness - it has taken two months, and only just now are these prisoners beginning to be released.

here is the story of david luke, a man arrested the day before the hurricane on petty charges, and stuck for forty days in horrific conditions, without medication – he went into jail HIV+. now he has full-blown AIDS:

Transcribed interview with David Luke

David: My name is David Luke. I was arrested on Friday August the 26th at a grocery store. I'd rather not disclose the name of that one yet.

I do unofficial volunteer work with some of the homeless kids here in New Orleans. A lot of the kids from the quarter. A lot of the street kids

from the quarter used to come to my house and help me do renovations. They came to my house because they knew that it was a safe place to get off the street. Knew they would have food, a place to stay. That Friday afternoon I gave one of the kids a ride to the grocery store. Waited on the kid. He went inside the grocery store. And I waited maybe 20, 30 minutes and the kid didn’t come out, so I went inside to see where the kid was, what was going on. He said, told me he couldn't find what he'd been looking for. I said, “Come on

lets go, there's things I need to do.”

As we came out of the grocery store, the owner of the grocery store and a police officer followed us out of the store. Apparently the kid had shop lifted while we were inside the store, or before I got in. They started following us out of the store, and the kid threw down a $4 box of chicken salad, and two plums, and hauled butt. And I’m standing there like “ I didn't do anything, what’s going on?” And I was arrested. Didn’t find out until two days later, what my charges were, which were possession of stolen merchandise and theft of less than $10.

That afternoon I was taken to OPP [Orleans Parish Prison]. When I got to OPP, I was taken in. They took my cell phone and my wallet and put it in a brown property envelope. And then they started putting me through the identification process. The first process was where they took my picture, put the armband on me, got my name and information. The second process was medical. I went around to the medical unit, told them I was HIV positive. Went through all that, the medical thing. Then I went to what they call the ID unit. When I was at the ID unit the guy asked me for my picture ID. I told him “Well, the guy that patted me down kept my picture ID and he also kept my cell phone.” He said, “You need to walk back around there. Get your picture ID, get your wallet, get your cell phone.”

This is about 15 or 20 minutes after I'd been there. I walk back around there to get my wallet from them. The guy opened my property envelope. My cell phone was still there, but my wallet was missing. So that's the first thing. They took my wallet within 15 or 20 minutes of me being there.

I was taken from there; I was put in an orange jumpsuit. And I was taken to the MOU, which is the medical observation unit. Letting them know, like I said, that I was HIV positive. One of the nurses commented that she didn't understand why they put me in the medical observation unit because my T-cells were so high, I mean my health was so good, but that's where I was placed, in the medical observation unit. She gave me some of my medicines. More of one kind that I needed and not enough of another kind. They put me in the cell.

I had tried to make several phone calls from the holding tank down stairs, but for some reason it wouldn’t dial out to Mississippi, which is where the numbers that I could remember of friends and family. And I couldn't remember any of the numbers locally. I had all of those stored in my cell phone. When they put me in the MOU unit, I went ahead and I started trying to make phone calls out of there, but the phone was out of order.

So I was kind of depressed being in jail for a stupid reason that I was. Didn't even realize honestly that there was a hurricane on the way. I'm just not real big into watching the news or the weather. So I was there when the hurricane hit.

The last I recall getting any food or water was that Sunday at noon. They did bring us food and something to drink. Sunday night the hurricane hit or early Monday morning. Monday the water started coming in the cell. We were on obviously the bottom floor. All day Monday we watched the water rise in the cell. Sewage water, stench water.

We got up on bunks and on top of tables to try to stay out the water. Sometimes the water had gotten up to our waist. We're sitting there tripping. We don't know if we're going to live or die. We’re in the middle of all this nasty water. Total darkness. No lights, the dirty water. They took us finally around. I’m guessing it was two or three in the morning. Tuesday morning they came and got us out of the cell.

We had to wade out of the cell in waist high water. They took us up to the third floor, which was obviously a basketball gym or some kind of gym area. They gave us some mats for some of us. There was probably about 20 to 25 of us. We laid on the floor not knowing what was going on. When daylight came, they started coming to get us out.

And they took us downstairs. We went downstairs and we waded out of the building with water up to our chest. They put us on boats five at a time and took us and put us on the Broad Street Bridge. That was a nightmare, because it was, I mean, all day. Monday we had not had any water or food. We were still hungry. No access to a bathroom. People were urinating in the corners, wherever they could.

When they finally got us on the bridge, I would guess it was real early Tuesday morning, I would guess it was around 8:00 that they got us on the bridge, on the Broad Street Bridge. They kept putting people on there, kept shuffling us around. People were begging for water, begging for food, begging for a place to use the bathroom. I would guess there was probably four or five hundred of us on that bridge. We were on that bridge all day long, pretty much, until around 2 or 2:30 they started taking some of us and putting us on buses. One thing I do remember about being on that bridge. In my mind I kept thinking this is a nightmare. I felt like I was in a movie. Or like I was having a bad dream.

I do remember one kid, a younger black kid who had tried, obviously had tried to escape. They said he had tried to escape. He had gotten entangled in the razor wire. He came walking up the bridge. He was bleeding all over his left shoulder, his left hip. The kid was in shock from loss of blood. We're all sitting on the bridge. So they would not let us stand up and help this kid. The kid could barely walk, you know, up the bridge. Some of us tried to stand up to help him. And they started pointing rifles and shotguns at us, and telling us to sit down, told us not to move. We’re basically wanting to stand up and help this kid walk.

Like I said he looked like he was in shock from loss of blood and trying to get medical attention. We all got pepper sprayed just for trying to help this kid. I had pulled off my shirt to cover my head from the sun to prevent my head from getting burned. So the pepper spray got all over my back-not a very comfortable feeling. Anyway, that was one thing that really stuck out in my mind.

Finally they started taking us and lining us up two by two and put plastic straps, the straps, the zip ties and tied our arms together, two people at a time. They put us on the bus. They drove us across the broad street bridge until the exit; actually it was an entrance ramp I believe. We got off the bus there. We waded through more water.

We were out there close to the projects, I don’t know the name of the projects, but they were to our right. Waded through water there. Got on another bus, drove us less than, maybe an eighth of a mile. Put us on another bus, or van, then they put us on a van.

There were sixteen of us in the van, still strapped together. We sat there from about 2:30/ 3:00 that afternoon until probably about 7:00 until we finally started moving. Still no bathroom, no food, no water.

One thing I'll never forget is one of the deputies that was in the van. For each van there was a driver and another deputy. There was one deputy that was in this van. I hope I never see this man again. Because he was just so cold, the way he treated us. We had been without food or water for two or three days. Here's this man with an little ice chest between the two seats, with his Sprite and his little peanut butter and cracker snacks that he was eating. I asked him I said “Do you think you could spare 16 of those ice cubes?’ Because, you know, there were 16 of us on the van. I wasn’t thinking about just myself, I was thinking about all of us, that’s why I asked for 16. He's like, "No I can't."

I just decided then not to say anything else. One of the guys in the back of the van asked him why. He said, “Because that's sixteen less ices cubes that I would have.” There was no reason for that, for the cruelty.

Any way we sit there probably four or five hours before we finally started moving. I don't know how long we rode. I fell asleep. I know that around midnight/ one o’clock we arrived at Hunt's correctional facility. I still have no idea exactly where Hunt’s correctional facility is. I know we got off the vans. We went thought the gate. As we went through the gate there were deputies that took our name and our social security numbers, I believe. Every time I would identify myself, I would also identify myself as being HIV positive. We went through the gate, we were checked in. Then we went through, they took us through another line.

We got a bag. We finally got a little bit of food. We got a little brown paper bag with one pineapple ring and a baloney sandwich, I believe. They had canopy tents set up out in the yard. Basically the canopy tents were, told us just to go sit up under the canopy tents.

You know it’s in the middle of the night. I’ll never forget. We finally had trustees [prisoners in trusted positions] from that prison come out and bringing us water. Then they had the trustees, the prisoners from there in the facility itself bringing us water. You know I felt like one of these, you know, you see the video of soldiers in other countries, you know, when they're feeding giving the kids food or water I felt like one of those starving kids because we were begging for the water. They gave us a cup of water, or gave us a cup, and we couldn't quite get enough water. Prisoners were constantly begging for water.

Finally got some water and we lay down, still strapped to each other,

and tried to sleep. That was on Tuesday night when we arrived there. I'm thinking it was sometime Wednesday morning when they finally cut the straps that had had us tied together. We did get decent food there; I will say that about Hunts. There was a line to go through for medical attention and I did tell the nurse there that I was HIV positive. She’s like, "I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do about it."

I'm thinkin’ that it was Thursday morning, finally, right after breakfast. They started moving some us, its like they were hand picking us. They put us in another yard. They finally got us on a bus that Thursday around noon. Or a van. It was another van. They took us to Bossier Parish, Louisiana. That's where we were thinking, you know "We're finally gonna get some decent food, decent water, a bed to sleep in, medical attention."

I kind of think that was the worst part of the whole ordeal was getting to Bossier Parish. We got there; they gave us new clothes to wear. Assigned us to cells, and all this stuff, and started putting' us in cells. That was late Thursday night.

So we got to Bossier Parrish. Like I said, we were thinking we were in a much better, that we were gonna be in a much better situation. We got there. They assigned us to our cells and our cellmates. And you know we did get some hot food there. We were thinking, you know, better food, and everything else. But the food was child-sized portions. You know, just barely enough, to keep us alive. We were kept on lock down for the first four or 5 days we were there. We were questioning, you know, why we were on lock down, why they won’t let us out in the common areas. Why no phone calls.

We got there on a Thursday and it was finally on Sunday before I was able to make a phone call to my family in Mississippi. Let them know that I was alive. They hadn’t heard anything from me since the hurricane.

I'm pretty sure, I'm not positive; I was thinking that it was that following Sunday, after we got there, or that Saturday night, or it might have been a week after that. But they put us all in a line and gave us vaccinations. There was a nurse, a so- called nurse, that was there that had been coming in and out Apparently she was the only so-called medical person there. And you know, when you look at a person, you’re behind bars, and you’re looking at a person from your cell doors and you’re telling them, “ Ma’am, I have HIV and I need my meds, and she's gonna look at you and tell you, "Oh yeah, so does everybody else." You know, how can that person consider themselves a nurse? That was one of the worst things; you know, was knowing that I needed my meds and wasn’t getting them.

Also I had a spot on my elbow, a little small sore on my elbow. Obviously it got infected, going through the water, walking through the water. It became infected. There was a streak going up underneath my arm, a red streak going under my arm, going up, almost to my armpit. It was a Saturday night. I'm thinking it was the first Saturday night, or the second Saturday night we were there 2:00 in morning for some reason they drug us all out of our beds and lined us all up. And I had been trying to get attention to the spot and to the streak that was going up my arm. I called several deputies and said “Look there’s this spot on my arm, this streak going up my arm. I have HIV. This can't be good for me, you know, I need to see a doctor.” And the spot on my elbow was swelling. And finally, you know, they kept saying, "We'll tell medical. We'll let the medical know." But nobody ever came around. No body ever came to get me.

So, finally that Saturday night, they pulled us out of our cell. They lined us up and they were giving us vaccinations and tetanus shots. And I made them look at my arm. And obviously they realized they needed to get something done, pretty quickly, so later on that morning, 6:00 or 7:00 that morning they took me Shreveport to LSU to the hospital there. But before I left they put me in a bright orange suit like I was contaminated. Like it was a contamination suit. Made me put a mask on. Just because I had HIV.

I had to wear this all the way to Shreveport, about an hour and a half drive. I get out at the hospital, they sign me in, and I walk up to the triage nurse, and I asked her, "Can I pull this mask off my face? “ She’s like “ Why are you wearing it?” And I said “because obviously they think they can get HIV from breathing after me.” and She’s like, "Take the mask off your face." She said, "This is ridiculous." So I took the mask off, and they took the orange suit off me.

Went in to see the doctor. And when I went in and started taking to the medical staff there. I broke down mentally. I started crying because I was actually starting to see television and I was actually starting to see the news footage of New Orleans.

I'm worried sick about my house, my dogs, which were left in my yard. I broke down mainly because they were talking to me like I was a human being. It felt so weird to be talked to like a human being. Instead of like a murderer, like a hardened criminal.

But I finally got to see a doctor. This is probably two weeks, a week and a half after the storm. A week and a half, two weeks after the storm. I don't know. I have it all written down. I have records of when I was there at the hospital. I’m going to guess it was about a week and a half later. The doctor there looked at my arm. He lanced the spot on my elbow. I asked him if there was any way they could admit me there in the hospital. He's like, “No.” And he’s like “Why do you want to be admitted?” I said, “So I can get some decent medical attention, maybe I can get back on my HIV meds.” He’s like “You'll get your meds don't worry.” He treated my arm, wrote me two prescriptions. One for a mild pain reliever and one for an antibiotic, to treat my arm and to treat the infection.

I asked him,” is there anyway that you can give me this medicine, now, so I can take it back with me?” He’s like “ No. They’ll give it to you down there. You’ll get your medicine down there.” And I wish I could see this doctor now so I could let him know that I never did get my medicine that they promised me. So they did treat my arm, and I wound up getting taken back to Bossier Parrish again. Never did get the medication that he had written a prescriptions for me. I saw the deputy bring them back there to the jail. I saw him give them to the people there at the desk, but I never did get my medication.

I know that was on a Sunday. Monday or Tuesday something started going on with my ear. I tried to clean it out with a homemade q-tip. All of the sudden, its like my ear felt like it was being stopped up. Obviously I had gotten it infected, during the evacuation.

That Monday I got so sick that my equilibrium was shot. I couldn’t even stand up straight. I kept stumbling around like I was drunk. That Monday night I ate my food that they served and could barely get it down. And then Monday, you know, my cellmate’s trying to tell them out the door; you know “Hey he’s sick. He needs some attention. ….”

Monday night. I lay down trying to feel better. And All of a sudden I started throwing up all over my cell floor. He's screaming out the cell door, "Hey. Something's seriously wrong. Y'all need to come see what’s wrong with this." Nobody ever came.

Actually one of the guys did come up there. He came in with about four or five of his deputies. These were the same guys that were beating people.

Interviewer: You said beating people?

David: Beating people. Yeah. For some reason they were beating people. I never did figure out exactly why. Any little reason that they would piss them off. They would get a group of four or five guys and they would go in a cell. I kept trying to figure out who or why they were beating these people. I never did actually see it, but you heard it. Basically, I kept trying to figure out why these people were being beaten. What are they doing? I wanted to make sure I didn’t do what they were doing, because I didn’t want to be beat. Then I figured out it was because they were black, mainly I never saw anyone getting hurt or beat unless they were black.

One guy in particular told me. They came one time and they made them give them all of our shoes, because we still had on our shoes from the original evacuation. And this guy got a little upset because he had to give up his shoes. They put him in his cell, put him up against the wall, spread eagle. You know arms, and up against the wall, facing the wall, and this one deputy in particular would upper cut these guys as hard as he could, big huge stocky guy, and he would uppercut these guys and would hit them underneath their ribs, and crack their ribs, you know, break their ribs, for no reason. Basically a person who had issues in his own life, and was taking it out on some of these guys.

These were the same guys that came running into my cell when my cellmate told them, “Hey, he's sick. He needs some attention” And I think that they thought I was full of crap. I think they came in there ready to beat me. Until they saw the throw up, the puke, laying all over the floor. I think that that, plus the fact that I made it obvious I was HIV positive, and I used that in my defense at times because; they were so uneducated about it. And I think they were scared to touch me or to do anything. They were so uneducated about HIV; I guess they thought that they could catch it from striking me or hitting me. They came in and they realized that that I was really sick. They said, "we'll tell medical." That's all they would ever say, "We’ll let medical know. But nobody ever came.

So the next day, my cellmate was gay, extremely flamboyant. So they had brought in guards from Riker’s Island to help out with the situation there, because, they were so short handed in this jail. First of all I don't feel we should have ever been taken to this jail, if they weren't fully open or fully prepared to operate. This jail should never have been opened; I think they said until October 1st or November 1st. I don't understand why they ever took us to this facility in the first place. We were actually glad when we saw some of these guards from Riker’s Island. Whey they came in we actually started getting better food because of the multiracial people that were there. As far as Bossier Parish, the whole time I was there, I only saw one black employee the whole time I was there. Obviously they weren't going to be treating us the same with all of these guys from Riker’s Island there because a lot of these guys are black or Hispanic or from other racial back grounds.

But that next day after I had thrown up all over my cell floor, my cell mate, there were some black ladies, some black guards, from Riker’s Island. They were cutting up with him, because of his flamboyancy. They were talking about the Beyonce bounce and all the sillyness. That's how he got their attention to get them up there to look in the cell door to see me laying there. My throw up still on the floor from the night before. One of the guards came up there and she looked in there. She's looked in the door and she’s like “Baby are you okay?” I said, “No I’m sick” She said, "You just hold on." She did not call anyone. She came and got me. She went downstairs and called medical and told them she was bringing me. She didn’t ask them. She told them. She escorted me personally down to the medical unit, threw me in a little cell there, which was apparently for hospital beds and such. The hospital beds weren't there yet; to they just threw me in there on the floor. "They said wait right there." I threw up while I was there. A male nurse there raised hell on me for throwing up on his clean floor. And I’m so sick I can’t even make it to the toilet to throw up. I saw that doctor that day.

There was a doctor there. He looked at my arm. I told him about my ear. I told him I couldn't hear anything out of my ear. How it was hurting and how it felt like it was stopped up and everything. They had a little contraption that they use to look in your ear, but no batteries for it, so he said he couldn't look in my ear. He said there was nothing they could do about my ear. I'm still deaf today in my right ear because of this. They did give me an antibiotic, for my arm, which was not the one that the doctor had prescribed me. The doctor at LSU had told me. That was on a Sunday. He had scheduled me for a follow-up visit that Tuesday which meant they should have transported me back to LSU that Tuesday. So this was that Tuesday. And I said something to that doctor about it I said, "I'm supposed to be going back for a follow-up visit." He said, "We don't do a follow-up visit. This is your follow-up visit.” It was just the coldness and the cruelty.

They did give me medication that day for my elbow, which did clear up the infection, or start to clear up the infection. But, It was just a nightmare being there, hearing these people being beat for no reason. The medical attention. I just don't feel that this so called nurse should have even been there. Jennifer is all I know. I don't know her last name or anything.

But anyway, I was there until October the 4th. And then three or four days before I was released, For some reason they came into our pod, and they started calling people out and transferring people to other facilities I guess. This is when we lost contact with the other people I was in there with . A lot of these people I guess are still in jail. I’ve tried to call a bunch of them. Tried to get in touch with their families. A lot of these families have not ever heard from them, so they still don't if they are in jail, where they are at, where they are held. About two or three days before I got released they called everybody out except for I think 10 or 11 of us. So there were eleven of us that were held in this area that was supposed to hold 64 people. The rest of us they took and put us in the maximum-security ward or maximum-security pod, which was total lock down for some reason.

They took my cellmate and me and put us in this one little area that was just total lock down which was where the crazy criminals were, you know, the ones that were just raising hell.

We were in there for two days. Then they moved me back to an area where they were bringing in people from Lake Charles. Then they were mixing us with felons, you know, federal inmates. Right there at the very end it was a big mix of people from Orleans Parrish, Lake Charles, and a lot of federal inmates. Why they put us in there with those people, I don't know. Then October 4th, about 1:00 in the morning they came to the cell door and told me it was time to go. Finally. They didn’t tell me why. They didn’t tell me anything else other than you’re going back to Orleans. “ They took myself and three other guys and put us on a van back drove us back to Orleans Parrish to the old bus station. They didn't give me any kind of paperwork. No release paperwork, no charges. Nothin. They made us change out of our clothes, gave us some street clothes and let us go. And just released us there in the city. No explanation, no charges, no court date, or anything. Don't know why I got released. I know that at one point in my incarceration at Bossier Parrish there had been a bunch of volunteer attorneys, that had came in and sat down and recorded our charges. Said they would put us on a list of priorities. Maybe I was released because I was HIV positive.Maybe they didn't want to deal with that. I have no idea. I do know that I feel like that we should have been released a lot sooner than we were.

Within in two or three days after we were released from Bossier Parrish, someone had went back into the Orleans Parrish. And got computer records or something. They identified us within three or four days or being there, because they had a copy of our rap sheet. And they had a picture of us. They knew what our charges were. They knew I was not a felon. They knew it was a misdemeanor. I can't understand why we were being held there so long after we were identified. I don't know if it was a thing of trying to make money for the prison system. Maybe they got a little bit of money each prisoner being there each day can't comprehend why we were held there so long after we were identified. That’s my question. Why didn’t they let us go when they knew who wee were? Why hold us there? Why are some of these people still being held there? A lot of them that are in worse medical condition than I am. I never did get my HIV meds there. I was taken to Shreveport.

They drew blood. Two weeks later they came and took me back again. The first time they said they had to draw blood to confirm that I was HIV positive. The next week they came and got me to draw blood to find out what my status was. The whole time I’m telling this people, “ This is what my status is. I know where I'm at. I know what meds I take. I can't comprehend why they couldn't just give me my medications and let me start taking them.

Right before the hurricane, I had my blood work done, in New Orleans, at the Hop Clinic.

I have a copy of this paper. My T cells were over 1,000. I believe they were like 1,050. When I got released on October the 4th. I think it was Oct the 5th or 6th immediately afterwards, I went back to Mississippi, went to my old doctor there. She did blood work.

My T cells had dropped all the way down to a little bit over 300. I immediately jumped back on my medication. I’ve been taking my medication since then. I had my blood work done this past Friday at the Hop Clinic in New Orleans.

I got news the day before yesterday or yesterday that my T cells have dropped down to 136 which now means full-blown AIDS. Because of this crap that I’ve been through. Because of lack of medication. So now I’m going to have to start on a new regimen. I’m going to have to start on a new cocktail. I’m going to have to go through the side effects of dealing with a new medication that hopefully will work. Right now I'm scared. Because I don’t know what my health is. I'm doing my best just to stay healthy now. I’m doing my best to stay no risk taking. I’m trying to stay out of the cold, I’m trying to stay away from the mold I’m trying to stay healthy. Until I can get back on my meds. I’m trying to stay at a no risk situation until I can get started on my medication again. Hopefully my T Cells will rise again.

Interviewer: Did you ever get your AIDS medication? Your HIV medication?

David: I did get just a few of my HIV meds. The first two days I was in Jail in Orleans Parrish. Bossier Parrish I never received any of my HIV meds. NO.

Interviewer: So you received meds for two days before the storm, and they weren't the right amounts. Is that what you said?

David: Correct. At the time I was taking Viracept, Combivir, and Neurontin. They gave me not enough Neurontin. It’s not even an HIV med. It’s a med that I take to counteract one of the side effects of the HIV meds. I got enough HIV meds for maybe two days. For that Saturday and that Sunday. Not enough for any period longer than that.

Interviewer: So you basically went for 5 weeks without medicine?

David: I went for 40 days without my HIV meds. 40 days.

Interviewer. After having an infection. And walking through toxic floodwater, and. having an ear infection.

David: Right.

Interviewer: Do you have anything that you would like to say to anybody about this situation, about your opinion?

David: My opinion is that, what happened to New Orleans, I think everything happens for a reason. I think that what happened in Orleans Parish, umm. Do you know the name Katrina means the cleansing, it means purity, it means virginal. I think Hurricane Katrina happened over all because Orleans Parish needed a cleansing. I hope that the system. The Orleans Parish prison system will be totally different than what it was because it was totally corrupt. You know when your wallet gets stolen within 30 days of getting put in jail, something’s not right. . I hope that Bossier Parish, will get some real medical help there. This so called nurse that was there, she definitely needs the help. I know I'm going to do everything possible to get here nurses license taken from her.You know that when you watch a nurse out of your cell window. Out back smoking cigarettes and passing out pills to other guards. I think that something needs to be done about here. I don’t think she needs to be anywhere near any kind of medical facility. Maybe she worked there because she got rejected from all the other hospitals and clinics and that's the only place she could get a job. But I will do everything I can to get her nursing license yanked. I think there needs to be some kind of watch dog group that can go into a

prison facility at any time and talk to people with medical conditions and ask them, you know, "Are you being treated properly, are you getting your medications properly?” I think something definitely needs to be done about that. There needs to be a group that can do that.

Interviewer: So when you're talking about cleansing, you're talking about cleaning up the system?

David: I think the system definitely needs to be cleaned up. When they arrest people for no reason. I'm not necessarily complaining about my bogus arrest. I can understand how they made a mistake. I can half way understand that. So many of the people that were in that jail were there for public drunk. A lot of people there should have been released a long time before the hurricane struck. Bottom line we should have been evacuated long before the hurricane struck. If they had done what they were supposed to had done and had evacuated us, before the hurricane struck, none of this would have ever happened to me. Or if they had um, you know, I heard a rumor that they had left a lot of

the misdeanors go, right after the hurricane, Why was I still stuck in there? Because my case was pending? I just don't know why I was put through what I was put through. There was no reason that I should have been subjected to the things that I was. You know I think that I should have been released a long time before 40 days.

I think I should have been given my HIV meds. When I’m sitting there telling them what kind I need. I think they should have gotten people with medical conditions, not only with HIV, you know there were people there with cancer, there were people there that were diabetic. I think they should have putting all of those people in a separate unit and taken care of their medical needs a lot sooner than they did.

So that's the story of David Luke – it would be bad enough if it were just him – but thousands of people have stories just as bad.

now let me tell you another story. it is the story of charlestine jones, a mother of two daughters currently being evicted from her home with nowhere to go. it is the same story of bertha dugas, and of sonia khan, a guatemalan grandmother with her whole family of eleven crowded into her one-bedroom apartment (because her daughter's home was damaged).....also being evicted with no place to go. it is a story of blatant corruption, of greedy landlords and real estate agents trying to make money off their insurance claims by claiming hurricane damage when in fact there was none..............this is a story of intrigue and secret deals, of re-development schemes and crooked politicians....and the story goes to the mayor's office, the governor's office, the federal government......it is the story of a system corrupted from the bottom to the top.

when i first wrote to you all about new orleans, i sent along a letter that i had written to my congressman about the failure of the government to respond to the crisis, in which i advocated that control of the local situation be placed into the hands of new orleans mayor ray nagin. i still think that is the case -- that in the emergency crisis, local control needed to be given in order to safely and quickly evacuate the population. and i think that ray nagin has enough knowledge of local geography and resources that he would have been more than able to oversee the evacuation, had he been given the authority to do so.

but after the initial crisis has passed, and it is time to start the cleanup and rebuilding process, ray nagin has shown himself to be the stooge he was (s)elected to be. not long after the hurricane, he made the statement that the rebuilding of new orleans should be modelled on the way the st. thomas housing projects (in new orleans) were redeveloped several years ago. this is a sick and twisted statement - considering the way the st. thomas housing projects were redeveloped at the absolute expense of the poor folks who lived there.....the people were lied to at every stage of the process: first, they were promised that the redevelopment would be wholly to their benefit.....the first row of homes were then torn down and condos built in their place......although the people of st. thomas housing projects did not see any benefit from that (those whose homes were torn down were displaced, and high-paying tenants put into the new condos), they were told that the next row of condos would be for them. then, the next row, then the next. but at every stage of the 'redevelopment', citizens from st. thomas were displaced and replaced by high-paying renters, until, after a two-year process, the low-income tenants had ALL been replaced, the housing project had become high-priced condos and a walmart, and Pres Kabacoff the developer had fattened his pocket with quite a hefty profit.

now pres Pres Kabacoff and his pals are part of mayor nagin's "rebuilding new orleans" redevelopment commission, and are looking to make some hefty profits from this latest venture as well. it doesn't seem to matter to these greed-driven developers that many of those displaced from the st. thomas housing projects ended up in sub-standard housing in the lower ninth ward, the area that took on the most water during the flood -- who knows how many elderly, sick and handicapped people drowned because they couldn't escape from the lower 9th ward.......it doesn't seem to bother Pres Kabacoff and his real estate buddies that they are displacing the poorest of the poor, who have suffered more than any humans should ever have to suffer in their lives........it doesn't seem to affect the consciences of these businessmen at all that their 'redevelopment plan' means the literal throwing-out of thousands of these poorest people with no place to go and no resources, rendering them invisible so that the richest few can build casinos and money-making tourist traps on top of what used to be their homes. you may think i am being over-dramatic here -- i wish that i were being over-dramatic.....but after looking into the eyes of the folks who are being thrown out onto the street with no place to go, and having inside peeks at the twisted dealings of the old-boy network of developers, businessmen and politicians, i am afraid that this is in no way an over-dramaticization of these very real, and extremely disturbing, events.

i know this journal is getting long.....i am always way too long-winded....but there is something else that i feel i really need to share.....i mentioned earlier about the rhizome structure, and how much more effective it is than the hierarchy in getting things done......and i just feel i need to illustrate this by pointing out that, despite the fact that both FEMA and the red cross have tens of billions of dollars in aid money to spend, they have gotten very little real help to people in need. in new orleans, for example, there is NO FEMA relief center open to the public on the east side of the mississippi (where the vast majority of new orleans' citizens live). the only FEMA center open to the public is at Landry High School in Algiers. the place is staffed by FEMA workers and blackwater security forces - the blackwater soldiers outnumber the FEMA workers about 5 to 1. (Blackwater Security, you may remember, gained infamy early in the war against Iraq when its members were implicated in torture in Abu-Ghraib and other prisons........the mercenary soldiers grew to be so hated by the Iraqi people that four of them were killed by mobs and their bodies dragged through the streets of Fallujah -- an event which led to the US invasion/decimation of the city of Fallujah in revenge)

so anyway, Landry high school is crawling with mercenary soldiers, and people going there seeking aid are routinely turned away. if you are lucky enough to be able to convince the guard at the front that you are indeed worthy of receiving aid, you are ushered into the gymnasium where some tables are set up, and, after a considerable wait, you are brought to a FEMA worker who connects to the internet and tries to go through the FEMA application process on the FEMA website. now, if any of you have tried going through the FEMA application process on their website, you know that it crashes 3-4 times during each attempted application, and you have to start the whole application over again. so, after several hours of frustration, if you are able to finish the application process without the whole system crashing, at the end of the process you are issued a FEMA id number. having this number means that, at the end of two weeks, you may or may not be issued an emergency check for $2,000 for hurricane-related expenses. this may sound like a pretty good deal, but for those who have lost everything, it is just a tiny dent in the expenses they have incurred.

so that is what FEMA can give you. as for someone who is walking into the FEMA center with nothing, nowhere to go, home destroyed, family missing.......sorry, but you are out of luck. FEMA can issue you an ID number, but as far as emergency shelter and supplies, they do not provide anything.......well, ok, they have one flier on their flier table that says: EMERGENCY SHELTER, with a phone number. if you phone that number, you will find a church in baton rouge, two hours drive away, that is full. the red cross center is the same way......they do have a few box lunches and some bottled water you can get there, but have said that the only aid they can give people is an application for cash assistance (which may or may not be approved). they are routinely turning people away, sending them to our tiny organization, common ground, for help. let me repeat this, because i just find it so astounding: FEMA AND THE RED CROSS ARE SENDING PEOPLE TO _US_ (common ground) FOR HELP. these organizations, with their tens of billions of dollars of funding, can't seem to get it together enough to open even ONE emergency shelter in new orleans. or to provide food, or transportation, or cleaning supplies, or even phone calls, for the people who have suffered so much.

we had a call the other day from the main red cross center in new orleans, saying there were two guys there who had no place to go, but that they could not help them there at the red cross.....they sent them to common ground, where we gave them some warm tea and a place to sit down and relax a bit, and heard their story -- they were workers, one from houston and one from atlanta, who had been hired by contractors to come work in new orleans.....but when they arrived, they found the conditions horrendous: tiny shared tents on a naval base which they were not allowed to leave, cold showers and filthy port-a-johns, 12-hour days 7 days a week for low wages.....they felt they had to leave, but had no way to get back home. we ended up taking them in and sharon, one of the people who started common ground, ended up giving them money out of her own pocket to help them get home. the day after, we ended up putting up a young man who the red cross sent to us as well -- a resident of the ninth ward who survived five days on his roof with no food or water, ended up in florida, and then evacuated from there during hurricane wilma......he came to common ground and slept with the other volunteers on the floor of an old firehouse, and now has joined our relief effort to clean up and bring back the ninth ward.

there are so many aspects to this story - so many facets of human suffering -- so many poor folks ignored and terrorized by the authorities (the military every day points guns in the faces of anyone remaining in the city - relief workers and citizenry alike), abandoned and betrayed by the official relief agencies, lied to and kicked out by the landlords and developers -- how much more can any person sit back and take??

but not everyone is taking it lying down -- that's what makes me hopeful, and grateful, and glad to be doing this work -- last week charlestine jones led a campaign to pressure the landlord in her public-funded housing complex to stop the forced eviction of herself and other residents, and with the help of local supporters and a national campaign, was able to get the owner to negotiate, and agree to the tenants' demands. this is what gives me hope ....and now other tenants are coming forward, starting to fight back against these illegal and unjust evictions. and it gives me strength, to know that with the power of people working together, we can get this entrenched power structure and old-boys network to budge. now, we just need to push more. and harder. and from every possible angle. and eventually, we, who work for justice and truth, and not for money and personal interest, will win in this struggle. we must. it's not just new orleans. the earth itself is depending on us for this fight.

jan. 7 2006 - 2:49 am

washington dc

on the building up and tearing down of walls...

it's hard coming back to 'the other world' from new orleans. i'm continually amazed at the level of ignorance so many people -- even progressive, thoughtful people -- have about the situation in new orleans. how many levees broke, the fact that there is a BARGE sitting on top of a neighborhood in the lower ninth ward, the fact that people's homes in one area (the poor area) are being bulldozed, while in another area (the rich area that was flooded), the homes destroyed are being rebuilt with huge insurance payments received by the owners....

and i find myself having to answer the question, "SHOULD new orleans be rebuilt? is it worth it?" -- a question that wasn't even a question down in new orleans. there, it is simply a matter of how.....how much money, how much time, how much effort will it take to rebuild.......whereas here, in washington and elsewhere, the question, months later, is still IF new orleans is worth rebuilding. my dad gave me a book, called "why new orleans matters", which is the answer of one new orleanian to that question (his answer, by the way, is an emphatic YES, new orleans should be rebuilt). i find it incredibly insulting that the displaced new orleanians who find themselves in temporary housing situations around the country after being abandoned and left for dead by their local, state and federal government, are having to answer for that very government's neglect. to me, the very question itself points to a 'blame the victim' mentality that is all too prevalent in our society today. here is a city of people, mainly african-american, who have always been ignored (at best) and brutalized (at worst) by a government that has made it very clear for the last century and a half that it DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THEM. so now, to add insult to injury, they are being confronted with the question, "Why should we rebuild YOUR town?"

in new orleans, that is not even a question. instead, volunteering there is a frenzy of activity -- cleaning, gutting houses, churches, community centers, defending the poor from eviction and the uninsured from property seizure....building up a community base by providing the necessities and the tools needed to piece back together fragments of shattered lives and homes..... the question seems almost irrelevant (and certainly irreverant)....and reverberates with a patronizing tone that insults the very people i have been working with hand in hand every day for the past several months.

what we do need to do, however, is to demand that the levees be rebuilt stronger and the wetlands be restored so that the city can continue to survive.

the last journal i sent out was quite a while ago. a lot has happened since then -- it's been a very difficult time. first, we lost the battle to stop the evictions at louisburg square apartments, a case which was a showcase of blatant corruption, dirty dealings and unabashed greed on the part of the landlord.....the landlord a realty company owned by leonard samia of boston, a man well known to tenant-rights advocates there, a man voted 'slumlord of the year' by the angry tenants association in boston just last year. despite all our best efforts inside and outside the courts, the old boys network of jefferson parish sheriffs, judges, landlords and contractors managed to push the tenants out. well......hopefully we can win in a lawsuit against the landlord and the sheriff's department in which we expose their dirty dealings in a federal court, but still.....it is very disheartening to lose in court after we fought so hard to help these tenants keep their (undamaged) homes.

things were looking up in the ninth ward, where we started a media center and a radio station (we are broadcasting on the internet now, since the local FCC decided they didn't like the fact that we were broadcasting emergency and relief information on the FM band without a license -- even though in a time of crisis, unlicensed broadcasting for communication and relief purposes IS allowed). we also have a distribution center, mobile clinics, a community center, a gardening/bioremediation project and a fledgling childcare cooperative starting. a number of other projects are getting started in other areas of the city - st. bernard's parish, where a rainbow family kitchen has been feeding people with hot meals and a new distribution and relief center has started, in plaquemines parish and houma, where relief centers are beginning and thriving.....it was almost feeling hopeful in the midst of the mud-stained wrecked and damaged neighborhoods......

but all of our efforts will be in vain if the levees are not rebuilt, and rebuilt properly, with the (freely offered) oversight of skilled dutch engineers (the dutch, by the way, have been at the business of dyke-building and flood control since 1300, so they have a little bit of experience). so when senator stevens deliberately sabotaged the passage of the levee-rebuilding act in congress by adding on a last-minute pork-barrel amendment -- the controversial drilling for oil in the arctic national wildlife refuge -- saying cynically, "new orleans can get their money to rebuild the levees when we can drill in the arctic refuge".......it just makes all of our efforts seem so fruitless and wholly inadequate to stand up to the vast, corrupt and greedy power-empire made up of people bent on filling their pockets by any means that they can.

and on december 10th, one of our volunteers, meg perry, died in a bus accident -- a beautiful, caring, brilliant, courageous volunteer and activist that devoted herself to this relief effort with her whole heart. 

everyone who knew her realizes what a devastating loss her death is to the relief effort, to our community, to her home community in portland maine, and to the planet that she worked so hard, in so many ways, to save. she devoted herself to alternative energy, and drove a group of volunteers down from maine in a vegetable oil powered school bus.....she was working in new orleans on the bioremediation project, to bring compost, organic compounds and necessary minerals back into the soil of new orleans to help it grow again. her energy and sense of hope was inspirational to everyone who knew her, and even though i only got to know her for a short few months, she was an inspiration to me too, and gave me a burst of energy to continue this work each time i got to talk with her. death comes so unexpectedly sometimes.....it's just hard to lose a jewel like meg when she is so young, only 25. it hurts to see someone so magic and inspiring slip away like that...

....for some reason i keep thinking of rachel corrie, who died in palestine in 2002 standing in front of a doctor's home to protect it from the israeli bulldozer that ran over her and killed her. i know the circumstances are very different -- rachel was engaged in civil disobedience, while meg was involved in relief work (albeit on her way to a protest to demand the right of return and justice for new orleanians when she was killed) -- rachel's death was much more controversial, the derogatory accusations and insults toward rachel came from all over (even the left) when she was killed; whereas the media haven't been disrespecting meg in that way -- except for fox news, which called her a 'drifter' in their coverage, without even finding out who she was or what work she was doing (we're demanding a retraction from fox for that insulting drivel they dare to call 'news'). but in so many ways, these two young women who were killed 'in the line of duty' so to speak -- serving the least well off of society -- remind me of each other. there is a video of rachel when she was in the fifth grade, speaking in front of her school about the problem of world hunger and saying "40,000 children a day die of hunger -- we can change this. those children in those other countries, they are just like us....they ARE us." and in a way she proved this when she went to palestine and stood with the palestinian people in the civil and non-violent struggle for freedom from brutal occupation and the seizure of their land. she became one of 'the others' in the eyes of the american media, who either ignored or insulted her in death. but in rachel's eyes i saw, as i saw in the eyes of meg perry in the few chances i had to look into them , that there are no 'others', we are all one human family, and we better find a way to work this out. all these struggles, all this injustice, all this fear people have of each other......we need to overcome this ongoing system of fear that is dividing us and destroying us.....we need to realize that we are all in this thing together. we need to see each other, especially 'the other', as human. what makes tom hurndall (a young british volunteer who was killed in palestine walking children to school in 2002) more important than the children whose lives he was protecting? why does the death of rachel corrie create so much more media than the death of little chukri dawoud (a ten year old boy killed on his front steps in palestine around the time rachel was killed)? what makes any of us more important than anyone else?? i'm tired of all the division and destruction....

why ask dividing questions like 'is new orleans worth it?'? the entire country of the netherlands is built on a flood plain, most of it below sea level, but no one is questioning the fact that the netherlands exists! it has been devastated several times by massive storms that broke its levees, but the people rebuilt, and rebuilt stronger, safer and better. obviously the engineering and technology are available to rebuild new orleans...besides the fact that it is home to hundreds of thousands of people, most of them black, most of whom have never lived anywhere else -- it is these people's home. and slowly but surely, they are coming back home. even the massive destruction caused by the levee breaks and subsequent flooding of the city can't keep these resilient new orleanians away. but the local police, the federal government and the insurance companies are doing their best to keep the poor people from feeling welcome when they come back home. with police brutality and harassment, evictions and denials of aid money from insurance companies and FEMA for many poor people in new orleans, coming home to a destroyed home and attempting to rebuild is an impossible dream for many of the poorest new orleanians. hopefully, with some of our work, we are helping a little to make that impossible dream possible.

working in the poorest areas of new orleans, we are also subject to some of that police harassment. so many of our volunteers have been stopped, questioned, frisked, insulted, detained, handcuffed and arrested, for no other reason than for being in the poor neighborhood, or for observing police behavior as they harass someone else. just the day after meg died, we were having a memorial service in the community garden where she had been implementing the bioremediation project in the flooded seventh ward of new orleans. the memorial service was pretty much over, a few people were still there, sharing songs and stories and getting ready to leave....it was about 6:00 in the evening. suddenly a police car rolled up and a very aggressive police officer ran up to one of the mourners, who was talking on his phone near the street, grabbed him and threw him down on the hood of the car and handcuffed him. when two of us very somberly approached and asked why our friend was being detained, we were forced to put our hands on the hood and be patted down by this officer, who then shoved and kicked my friend (who happened to have been in the accident with meg the day before and had a head injury with 13 staples from the accident). the rest of the people remaining at the memorial service were then brought over and patted down with their hands on the car, and three other cars with 7 more officers arrived, with their guns drawn and laser sights pointed at people's heads (including one pointed at the head of a thirteen year old kid)....eventually we were all released with no apology, and the only explanation given for grabbing my friend originally was that he was 'walking around in an unlit area' -- a charge that is totally ridiculous because, one, the area was lit, and two, there was no curfew in effect at all.....why did they grab him? why did they detain the rest of us? there was no crime committed, nor even any semblance of an attempt on the part of the police to say that there was a crime committed. the only reason he, and the rest of us, were detained was because the police felt like detaining us. it came as a harsh reminder that, even in our time of loss, we would not be left in peace by the new orleans police. and i wonder just how many people face this situation -- discovering the bodies of loved ones in the wreckage of their homes, only to then be harassed by police for being in that area of the city. it seems that every person who has come back to the city has had at least one interaction with the police -- none of them positive. just last week the police shot a mentally ill man in broad daylight and killed him. the police tried to say that the man had a weapon and was threatening them.....but a videotape of the incident shows that the man's 'weapon' was a tiny 3 inch pocketknife, and he was 15 feet from the nearest officer, and backing away, when he was shot.

do we not have the capacity as a human community to come up with some way to assist a mentally ill individual who may be acting irrationally? is our only solution to shoot them? to kill them? oh my family, my people.....we can do better than this.

so now i go to palestine, to work to bring down the literal and figurative walls that are growing with each day higher and higher in that place. and i hope when i return to new orleans, the walls to stop the water from invading the city will be built up strong enough to protect it through a thousand more hurricane seasons. tearing down walls in one place.....building them up in another......i just hope it is enough -- of course it is not enough, i am just one person, but my latest hero, the martyr meg perry, said in september before she came down to new orleans, "get enough people together and you can move mountains". well, come on people.....we got some mountains to move.