Katrina Thoughts From the USA - by Osbey Sayler
Some thoughts from my dad on Katrina news in the USA:
Monday night after the hurricane had passed and Mississippi and the other coasts were totally destroyed and parts of New Orleans & suburbs were destroyed, the reporter on Bourbon street was walking around on dry pavement saying there was very little damage there while every window on the high rise Hyatt hotel was blasted out, looking like the Murragh building in Okla City. The locals were out on the street remarking that it was the first time they had every seen the stars from Bourbon Street. A few police were lounging around and not enforcing the curfew becausde they wer outnumbered.
It was eerie to see this scene, and I remarked to Mary Etta that it appeared that the Devil had protected his territory.
But the last few days have shown scenes that made me cry. People walking in chest deep water to get to the I-10 bridge where they waited to be picked up.Yes, they were mostly blacks, like 67% of the population. (Today I saw white people climbing on Army trucks to be carried out of the flooded areas as well.)
We saw kids without parents. I cried real tears when saw a man with one grandchild tell how he and his wife climbed onto their roof with as the flood waters rose . He was holding his wife's hand while she held 2 other kids until the house split in two and the 3 were swept away and drowned. DOES IT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE WHETHER THEY WERE BLACK OR WHITE ?? NO NO NO !!! THEY COULD HAVE BEEN FROM THAILAND OR SRI LANKA OR INDONESIA - THEY WERE HUMAN BEINGS AND I THINK IT IS DESPICABLE FOR POLITICIANS AND ANYONE ELSE TO MAKE THIS TRAGEDY A RACIAL THING!!! We saw Vietnamese people in Gulfport MS who had escaped Communism 30 years before, worked and saved and built new lives and homes, only to see them destroyed by the hurricane as well.
While watching the tragic needs and losses that make me cry, at the same time I am DISGUSTED with certain people ( starting with the incompetent New Orleans mayor) COMPLAINING that people were not transported immediately out of danger !! - That no one brought port-a johns to them along the interstate highway !! (Guess how high and far a port-a-john will fly in 150 mph winds.) - That no one had food and water waiting for them at the Super Bowl or New Orleans Convention Center which were isolated by flood waters !! - That 500 busses did not instantly fly over the flood waters ! That 40,000 soldiers did not parachute into the city moments after the governor wished for them!! That the Navy hospital ship did not orbit the earth and hover over Charity Hospital and beam up the patients and staff !! (It actually had to take on supplies and fuel and personnel and wait for the hurricane to pass before arriving! Meanwhile, other Navy ships from Mississippi are arriving in Jacksonville where they were sent for safety) .
The TV shows all the complainers saying they were not treated as well as the tsunami survivors, etc. Some even had to walk TWO MILES to get to an air conditioned bus ! And then they had to wait all day for the bus ! (The tsunami survivors are still waiting for their air-conditioned busses 9 months later - and for an Astrodome to replace their plastic tarpaulin makeshift tents.)
MEANWHILE, criminals have been shooting at helicopters with medical relief supplies and even at the doctors and nurses trying to load critical patients onto helicopters at Charity Hospital.
I give kudos to Houston - they are taking THOUSANDS of New Orleans refugees - as fast as 500 busses can bring them. Some say over 25,000 already there. Ordinary people all over the USA are giving money and goods and time. In the Jacksonville area, about the same population as New Orleans, people have filled dozens of 18 wheelers to send. (These, however, will need to be driven through traffic and damaged roads and somehow get around destroyed bridges and will take a few days to arrive, like the military convoys that arrived in New Orleans Friday September 2, 2005, 4 days after Katrina went through and 3 days after the delayed flooding caused the most severe problems.
ABC nightline did show a wonderful piece on Houma, Louisiana, a small rural town 75 miles southwest of New Orleans and evidently of a much different demographic (racial) mixture. With no outside help, the mostly all white residents have taken in thousands ( I think 5000 but of that I am not sure) of refugees from New Orleans (mostly black from the pictues I saw) , feeding them and clothing them and housing them for now in their civic center. The private Catholic middle and high school of 900 students is preparing to accept from 300 to 600 more students. This is, I believe, a much more true picture of America and, indeed, Louisiana, than that which certain race-baiting persons seen on TV are attempting to portray (unsuccessfully, I hope).
If you want to see how people and organizations are even now producing real-world solutions to trhis monumental disaster, please see the attached e-mail from a man who has been to the heart of the disaster area in Gulfport, Mississippi, with a truck full of supplies and returned with a PLAN and real-world commitments to help ALL the victims.
Osbey L. Sayler, M.D. -
ps - Erik - please feel free to post this and Bill's e-mail announcement on your blog (posted in the next response)
Love, Dad
Monday night after the hurricane had passed and Mississippi and the other coasts were totally destroyed and parts of New Orleans & suburbs were destroyed, the reporter on Bourbon street was walking around on dry pavement saying there was very little damage there while every window on the high rise Hyatt hotel was blasted out, looking like the Murragh building in Okla City. The locals were out on the street remarking that it was the first time they had every seen the stars from Bourbon Street. A few police were lounging around and not enforcing the curfew becausde they wer outnumbered.
It was eerie to see this scene, and I remarked to Mary Etta that it appeared that the Devil had protected his territory.
But the last few days have shown scenes that made me cry. People walking in chest deep water to get to the I-10 bridge where they waited to be picked up.Yes, they were mostly blacks, like 67% of the population. (Today I saw white people climbing on Army trucks to be carried out of the flooded areas as well.)
We saw kids without parents. I cried real tears when saw a man with one grandchild tell how he and his wife climbed onto their roof with as the flood waters rose . He was holding his wife's hand while she held 2 other kids until the house split in two and the 3 were swept away and drowned. DOES IT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE WHETHER THEY WERE BLACK OR WHITE ?? NO NO NO !!! THEY COULD HAVE BEEN FROM THAILAND OR SRI LANKA OR INDONESIA - THEY WERE HUMAN BEINGS AND I THINK IT IS DESPICABLE FOR POLITICIANS AND ANYONE ELSE TO MAKE THIS TRAGEDY A RACIAL THING!!! We saw Vietnamese people in Gulfport MS who had escaped Communism 30 years before, worked and saved and built new lives and homes, only to see them destroyed by the hurricane as well.
While watching the tragic needs and losses that make me cry, at the same time I am DISGUSTED with certain people ( starting with the incompetent New Orleans mayor) COMPLAINING that people were not transported immediately out of danger !! - That no one brought port-a johns to them along the interstate highway !! (Guess how high and far a port-a-john will fly in 150 mph winds.) - That no one had food and water waiting for them at the Super Bowl or New Orleans Convention Center which were isolated by flood waters !! - That 500 busses did not instantly fly over the flood waters ! That 40,000 soldiers did not parachute into the city moments after the governor wished for them!! That the Navy hospital ship did not orbit the earth and hover over Charity Hospital and beam up the patients and staff !! (It actually had to take on supplies and fuel and personnel and wait for the hurricane to pass before arriving! Meanwhile, other Navy ships from Mississippi are arriving in Jacksonville where they were sent for safety) .
The TV shows all the complainers saying they were not treated as well as the tsunami survivors, etc. Some even had to walk TWO MILES to get to an air conditioned bus ! And then they had to wait all day for the bus ! (The tsunami survivors are still waiting for their air-conditioned busses 9 months later - and for an Astrodome to replace their plastic tarpaulin makeshift tents.)
MEANWHILE, criminals have been shooting at helicopters with medical relief supplies and even at the doctors and nurses trying to load critical patients onto helicopters at Charity Hospital.
I give kudos to Houston - they are taking THOUSANDS of New Orleans refugees - as fast as 500 busses can bring them. Some say over 25,000 already there. Ordinary people all over the USA are giving money and goods and time. In the Jacksonville area, about the same population as New Orleans, people have filled dozens of 18 wheelers to send. (These, however, will need to be driven through traffic and damaged roads and somehow get around destroyed bridges and will take a few days to arrive, like the military convoys that arrived in New Orleans Friday September 2, 2005, 4 days after Katrina went through and 3 days after the delayed flooding caused the most severe problems.
ABC nightline did show a wonderful piece on Houma, Louisiana, a small rural town 75 miles southwest of New Orleans and evidently of a much different demographic (racial) mixture. With no outside help, the mostly all white residents have taken in thousands ( I think 5000 but of that I am not sure) of refugees from New Orleans (mostly black from the pictues I saw) , feeding them and clothing them and housing them for now in their civic center. The private Catholic middle and high school of 900 students is preparing to accept from 300 to 600 more students. This is, I believe, a much more true picture of America and, indeed, Louisiana, than that which certain race-baiting persons seen on TV are attempting to portray (unsuccessfully, I hope).
If you want to see how people and organizations are even now producing real-world solutions to trhis monumental disaster, please see the attached e-mail from a man who has been to the heart of the disaster area in Gulfport, Mississippi, with a truck full of supplies and returned with a PLAN and real-world commitments to help ALL the victims.
Osbey L. Sayler, M.D. -
ps - Erik - please feel free to post this and Bill's e-mail announcement on your blog (posted in the next response)
Love, Dad
posted by TravelingMan! at 12:09 PM
1 Comments:
I think that was beautifully written and true.
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