Alliedassault - New Orleans

[quote:d6c04]
Geraldo Rivera and Shepard Smith are reporting that the authorities have just locked everyone in the Convention Center with no escape, and a checkpoint is stopping people from leaving New Orleans. They set up a check point at the bottom of the bridge out of New Orleans, it's the only way out, per Shep Smith, and if you go the checkpoint they turn you around and send you back to New Orleans. Jesus.

Geraldo started crying in the convention center on camera. Shep Smith is going nuts. And then Hannity tries to defend Bush and the government and Shep and Geraldo will have nothing of it. My God, every FOX News viewer just watched this this evening. FOX's own anchors saying the entire federal relief effort is a fiasco. Geraldo is holding a ten month old baby in his arms, who's also trapped in the convention center, he then started chanting "let them go, let them out of here."

OMG. This is an absolute disaster.

Bush needs to finally start acting like the president and accept that the buck stops at his desk. It's time for Bush to step aside and let someone competent handle this crisis before anyone else dies. [/quote:d6c04]

http://www.globalnewsmatrix.com/modules ... e&sid=2401

[quote:d6c04]National Guard not allowing aid into the city
by SB Friday, Sep. 02, 2005 at 1:11 AM

National guard not allowing aid into the city

From http://getyouracton.com.
I am copying the information from the site about this. Just posted at 9:00PM

Get Your Act On! (Jeffrey and Andrea) are currently in Waco, TX. We are organizing a relief effort to bring much needed supplies directly into the City of New Orleans as almost NOTHING is getting in via 'official' channels (we have spoken to people still in the city).

Our house is still standing and should be relatively free of flood waters by now, so it will be used as a base for relief efforts as we are just 6 blocks from the lower 9th ward, one of the hardest hit neighborhoods. We will be purchasing a van or getting a large UHaul, filling it with supplies and driving it back to New Orleans.

If you can donate to our relief effort, please do so via this paypal link. If you do not wish to donate money directly, if you would like to purchase supplies that we can pick up (ie, from Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart), that would be great. A lot more info about our effort will be posted here by tonight as we get more details together. We can be reached via call at 254.640.8441 (Andrea) or 254.640.8442 (Jeffrey)

7:15PM Thurs Sept. 1 Update: It looks like the most economical thing to do is purchase a large van - we should be able to do this for $1000-$2000. If anyone has connections to people in the position to make a good sized donation, please ask them if they can help with this. Thanks!

9:30PM Thurs Sept 1. Update: Please help spread this message:

There are supplies sitting in Baton Rouge for the folks in New Orleans, but the National Guard has the city surrounded and is not letting anyone in or out. They are turning away people with supplies, claiming it is too dangerous. If we have planes that can drop bombs on people in Iraq, certianly we can air drop supplies into the city. Our goverment is KILLING the people of New Orleans. This is the message I am now sending to all major media sources, national and worldwide, as well as posting to email lists, blogs, etc. The story is getting out that the people there are not getting supplies, but the truth of WHY is not. Please help spread the word, we must get this story out. Please so not let any more of my friends die.

I can be reached at 254.640.8441 - feel free to call me or give my number to any media that needs a contact person to talk to.

Here is my message:

I am a resident of the Bywater in New Orleans (9th Ward). I am one of the lucky ones that was able to evacuate before the storm.

I have recently managed to speak to some friends stranded in New Orleans. They are starving and dehydrating and there is no news of when they will be receiving food and water. I have spoken to relief efforts and understand that there are plenty of supplies waiting for these people, BUT THEY ARE NOT BEING ALLOWED INTO THE CITY.

The National Guard has the city surrounded and is not letting anyone in or out, except the buses being evacuated. The excuse that they can not bring supplies into New Orleans because of the looting and gun fire is not a valid excuse - if they are too afraid to enter the streets of New Orleans, they need to be air dropping supplies into the city. If the United States is capable of sending planes that can withstand enemy fire to drop bombs in Iraq, certainly they are capable of air dropping supplies into a city where the worst of the gunfire they could encouter would be from semi-automatics.

Our government is killing the people of New Orleans. By witholding supplies, they are ensuring more deaths, and I hold them complicit.

Please bring this matter to the attention of the people of the United States. They need to know that New Orleans is deliberatly being denied food and water. Perhaps if the people there had food and water, they might not be shooting off guns.

Please feel free to call me for further information or with any questions. I appreciate your attention to this most serious matter.

I fear for my friends.

Sincerely,

Andrea Garland
Get Your Act On! (getyouracton.com)

On another note, Jeffrey and I are in the process of getting a large vehicle and loading it up with donated supplies needed for longer term cleanup efforts (generators, chain saws, solar cooking equipment, etc.). Some basic info and a paypal link is at Get Your Act On!(getyouracton.com) and more detailed info will be posted later. Please help spread the word about this, as well. We live 6 blocks from one of the hardest hit areas in New Orleans, so we intend to bring these necessary tools to our neighbors.

Also heard that part of the reason our house flooded is they dynamited part of the levee after the first section broke - they did this to prevent Uptown (the rich part of town) from being flooded. Apparently they used too much dynamite, thus flooding part of the Bywater. So now I know who is responsible for flooding my house - not Katrina, but our government.[/quote:d6c04]

[quote:d6c04]Homeland Security won't let Red Cross deliver food
Posted on Saturday, September 03 @ 09:29:40 EDT by Lisa

National

Saturday, September 03, 2005

By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

As the National Guard delivered food to the New Orleans convention center yesterday, American Red Cross officials said that federal emergency management authorities would not allow them to do the same.

Other relief agencies say the area is so damaged and dangerous that they doubted they could conduct mass feeding there now.

"The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans," said Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.

"Right now access is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities. We have been at the table every single day [asking for access]. We cannot get into New Orleans against their orders."

Calls to the Department of Homeland Security and its subagency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, were not returned yesterday.

Though frustrated, Hosler understood the reasons. The goal is to move people out of an uninhabitable city, and relief operations might keep them there. Security is so bad that she fears feeding stations might get ransacked.

"It's not about fault and blame right now. The situation is like an hourglass, and we are in the smallest part right now. Everything is trying to get through it," she said. "They're trying to help people get out."

Obstacles in downtown New Orleans have stymied rescuers who got there. The Salvation Army has two of its officers trapped with more than 200 people -- three requiring dialysis -- in its own downtown building. They were alerted by a 30-second plea for food and water before the phone went dead.

On Wednesday, The Salvation Army rented three boats for a rescue operation. They knew the situation was desperate, and that their own people were inside, said Maj. Donna Hood, associate director of development for the Army.

"The boats couldn't get through," she said. Although she doesn't know the details, she believes huge debris and electrical wires made passage impossible.

"We have 51 emergency canteens on the ground in the other affected areas. But where the need is greatest, in downtown New Orleans, there just is no access. That is the problem every relief group is facing," she said.

"America is obviously going to have to rethink disaster relief," said Jim Burton, director of volunteer mobilization for the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Southern Baptists, who work under the Red Cross logo, are one of the largest, best-equipped providers of volunteer disaster relief in the United States. Most hot meals for disaster victims are cooked by Southern Baptist mobile kitchen units. Burton is a veteran of many hurricanes.

"Right now everybody is looking at FEMA and pointing fingers. Frankly, I have to tell you, I'm sympathetic. When in your lifetime have we experienced this? Even though we all do disaster scenario planning, we have to accept the reality that this is an extraordinary event. This is America's tsunami, that struck and ravaged America's most disaster-vulnerable city," he said.

Because New Orleans remains under water, it is different from other cities where Katrina struck harder, but where relief efforts are proceeding normally. Agencies place workers and supplies outside disaster areas before storms, to move in quickly. But there are always delays, Burton said, because nothing is deployed until experts survey the damage and decide where to most effectively put relief services.

The Southern Baptists operate more than 30 mobile kitchens that can each produce 5,000 to 25,000 meals daily, as well as mobile showers and communications trucks equipped with ham radios and cell phones. They are supporting refugee centers in Texas and Tennessee, and doing relief in Mississippi and Alabama. They have placed mobile kitchens around New Orleans to feed people as they come out.

Initially they tried to drive a tractor-trailer kitchen into New Orleans from Tennessee. It was stopped by the Mississippi Highway Patrol because the causeway it would have to cross had been destroyed, Burton said.

His agency has planned for missing bridges. The Southern Baptists' worst-case planning is for reaching Memphis after an earthquake on the New Madrid fault, which in 1812 whiplashed at a stone-crushing 8.1 on the Richter scale. Burton envisions the Mississippi without bridges.

So when state and local Southern Baptists raise money to build a mobile kitchen, he tells them to design it to be hoisted in by helicopter.

After Katrina, he thought he would have to airlift a feeding unit to one isolated town, but a road was cleared, he said. He doubts that dropping a kitchen into the New Orleans' poisoned waters, filled with raw sewage, dead bodies and possible industrial contaminants, would do any good. It made sense to prepare meals outside the area and truck them in or bring people out.

"The most important thing is to get the people out of that environment," he said.

He expects unusual problems to continue, because victims of Katrina flooding will need emergency food for far longer than the usual week or so. He's planning on at least two months.

Like the military, relief work requires a supply chain. Because business management favors just-in-time inventory, rather than stockpiling goods in warehouses, there isn't a huge stock of food to draw on, he said.

"When you go into a local area, it doesn't take long to wipe out the local food inventories," he said.

The Red Cross serves pre-packaged food, including self-heating "HeaterMeals" and snacks, that require no preparation. Yesterday the Red Cross was running evacuation shelters in 16 states, and on Thursday, the last day for which totals were available, served 170,000 meals and snacks in 24 hours.

While emergency shelters typically empty out days after a hurricane or other natural disaster, in Katrina's case they are becoming more crowded, Hosler said. People who had evacuated to the homes of relatives or hotels are moving in because they're out of money or want to be closer to what is left of their homes. [/quote:d6c04]
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm

[quote:d6c04]Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans

By Joseph R. Chenelly
Times staff writer

NEW ORLEANS — Combat operations are underway on the streets “to take this city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. “We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.”

Jones said the military first needs to establish security throughout the city. Military and police officials have said there are several large areas of the city are in a full state of anarchy.

Dozens of military trucks and up-armored Humvees left the staging area just after 11 a.m. Friday, while hundreds more troops arrived at the same staging area in the city via Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters.

“We’re here to do whatever they need us to do,” Sgt. 1st Class Ron Dixon, of the Oklahoma National Guard’s 1345th Transportation Company. “We packed to stay as long as it takes.”

While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations. Helicopters are still pulling hundreds of stranded people from rooftops of flooded homes.

Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and police helicopters filled the city sky Friday morning. Most had armed soldiers manning the doors. According to Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeremy Grishamn, a spokesman for the amphibious assault ship Bataan, the vessel kept its helicopters at sea Thursday night after several military helicopters reported being shot at from the ground.

Numerous soldiers also told Army Times that they have been shot at by armed civilians in New Orleans. Spokesmen for the Joint Task Force Headquarters at the Superdome were unaware of any servicemen being wounded in the streets, although one soldier is recovering from a gunshot wound sustained during a struggle with a civilian in the dome Wednesday night.

“I never thought that at a National Guardsman I would be shot at by other Americans,” said Spc. Philip Baccus of the 527th Engineer Battalion. “And I never thought I’d have to carry a rifle when on a hurricane relief mission. This is a disgrace.”

Spc. Cliff Ferguson of the 527th Engineer Battalion pointed out that he knows there are plenty of decent people in New Orleans, but he said it is hard to stay motivated considering the circumstances.

“This is making a lot of us think about not reenlisting.” Ferguson said. “You have to think about whether it is worth risking your neck for someone who will turn around and shoot at you. We didn’t come here to fight a war. We came here to help.”[/quote:d6c04]
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1- ... 077495.php

It's a good thing Cheney conjured up that martial law plan!

Well, according to the LA Times:

[quote:5ab38]Their mission, simply, is to turn New Orleans into a police state — to "regain the city,"

LA Times | September 3 2005

Forty-four troops pressed together in their truck, swaying as one at every bump and turn like reeds in a river.

As they plunged into the dark water engulfing the business district of New Orleans, their wake pushed the body of a woman onto the steps of the Superdome. The floodwater had ripped her pants down to her knees. She was facedown in the muck, a red ribbon still tied neatly around her graying hair.

The troops, members of an elite Special Response Team from the Louisiana Army National Guard, were the first convoy out of what was rapidly becoming a massive military staging ground.

Their mission, simply, is to turn New Orleans into a police state — to "regain the city," 1st Sgt. John Jewell said.

The truck lurched through the streets, past buildings burning unabated and MPs in gun turrets. When they stopped to gear up for their arrival at the New Orleans Convention Center, where more than 15,000 people had been living in squalor since Katrina, these words echoed — for the first time, one would imagine — through the intersection of Poydras Avenue and Carondelet Street: "Lock and load!"

"Sixteen in the clip!" one Guardsman shouted, a common refrain used to indicate that rifles are fully loaded.

But when they arrived, they did not find marauding mobs. They did not come under fire. They found people who had lost everything in the storm and, since then, their dignity.

The troops were part of the Superdome team that came to town before the hurricane. For days, they had been cut off from news reports, sleeping and working among the refugees and the vicious rumor mill at the Superdome.

Their Superdome duties left them with a terrible image of the city. They knew that out on the streets, a police officer had been shot in the head, that looting was widespread, that snipers were taking shots even at boaters trying to rescue victims from rooftops and attics.

Now assigned to patrol the streets, they headed for the New Orleans Convention Center, in the city's central business district. Many had wads of tobacco in their bottom lip and emitted long, dense streams of spittle into the streets below.

Their mission was to establish a command post at the center, which officials have increasingly turned their attention to, particularly as the evacuation of the Superdome nears its end. They would then build a staging area to bring in food and water. Finally, they would send in teams to seize control of a massive and lawless facility.

The troops braced for the worst.

"Is this the calm before the storm?" one asked as they rolled through the streets.

"There are a lot of gangs out here in the water," said Sgt. 1st Class Maris Pichon, a 26-year veteran of the National Guard who served in Afghanistan last year. "This is not going to be a cakewalk."

Two trucks pulled beside them, one carrying water and one a massive pile of ready-to-eat military meals in boxes.

"Tell me they're not letting the food go in before the troops," one Guardsman said.

"That's called bait," another said.

They pulled into a parking lot next to the convention center in full battle mode. They spilled over the sides of the truck, formed a tight circle and began walking outward, stepping over the detritus of the refugees. Dirty underwear. A CD that included the song "Thank God I'm a Country Boy."

A troop carrier rolled over an empty water bottle, popping it like a balloon. The troops yanked their weapons to a firing position before realizing what it was.

"No civilians in this parking lot!" a sergeant shouted. "Hold your perimeter!"

No one came at them but a nurse. She was wearing a T-shirt that read "I love New Orleans." She ran down a broken escalator, then held her hands in the air when she saw the guns.

"We have sick kids up here!" she shouted. "We have dehydrated kids! One kid with sickle cell!"
Another storm victim, Cory Williams, 50, a respiratory therapist spending his third day at the convention center, greeted the troops as they came up the stairs.

He had ridden out the storm at his 9th Ward house. On Tuesday morning, when the flooding began in earnest, 6 feet of water came inside in five minutes, he said. He tried to stay on top of a car in the garage but the water continued to rise, so he made a run for it, dragging several neighbors out behind him on an inflatable raft as he swam, then waded, through the water.

He made it several miles west, toward downtown and higher ground, then watched police stop at gunpoint a Ryder van that had been hot-wired by thieves. The officers told the men inside that they had to stop looting and must try to get people out of the neighborhoods, that people were dying.

"Believe it or not, those dudes got the message," Williams said.

The thieves began ferrying people out of the devastated neighborhoods to the east. The police had deputized looters.

"They had to," Williams said. "There was no other way to get people out."

The thieves dropped him off at the convention center, where he stayed until the troops arrived.

Though there have been reports of shootings and several rapes, the crowd at the convention center does not appear to have degenerated into the kind of chaos and violence seen at the Superdome.

Physically, however, the masses at the center might have been in worse condition than those at the stadium, which was at least prepped as a storm shelter.

People at the convention center had received a single deposit of food and water, dropped from a helicopter, since Katrina's strike. The drop caused a riot; Williams, an Army veteran, said he feared the people clambering onto the pallet of food as it neared the ground were going to pull the helicopter into the parking lot. The craft never returned.

Children slept on laps and on the ground. There was an elderly emphysema patient. A diabetic. The boy suffering from sickle cell anemia, his eyes puffy and his skin yellowish-brown.

The troops arrived Friday, ready for anything.

"You've got to do something," said the nurse in the New Orleans T-shirt.

"We'll get you some help as soon as some people get here," Lt. James Magee said as the troops arrived. "OK?"

Inside, human waste covered the floor. An elderly woman tumbled out of her wheelchair and landed on the ground. Her housedress was soiled. A man had poured fruit punch into an industrial-size bottle of floor cleaner and was drinking it with a straw.

"If you kept a dog in an environment like this, they would arrest you for animal cruelty," said Cindy Davis, 39, the nurse, who had been separated from her group while caring for a patient and stranded at the convention center three days ago. "It's like a cesspool."

Frankie Estes, 80, said she was glad to finally see the troops. It was a glimmer of hope. Friday night marked her fifth night sleeping on the sidewalk in front of the center.

"I haven't had food or water for three days," she said. "I didn't know if I was going to make it."

By Friday night, dinner had been served to a seemingly endless line of refugees. Helicopters had begun descending on the convention center, airlifting the most critically ill. The troops had found their mission. It just wasn't what they thought it was going to be. [/quote:5ab38]
http://prisonplanet.com/Pages/Sept05/030905mission.htm

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Request for help on the 28th:

http://gov.louisiana.gov/Disaster%20Rel ... equest.pdf