Hey, CNN isn't bashing Bush, I'm stunned. Finally good news
SIGNS OF PROGRESS
Levee patched, streets secure
Repair crews patch ruptured 17th Street levee
Pumps restart, but full drainage three months away
Troops help bring order back to streets
Some insist on staying in squalid city
SIGNS OF PROGRESS
Levee patched, streets secure
Repair crews patch ruptured 17th Street levee
Pumps restart, but full drainage three months away
Troops help bring order back to streets
Some insist on staying in squalid city
posted by Ben at 3:08 AM
1 Comments:
Lynette Mary Boutte
D.O.B. 4-9-48
ADDRESS: Residence: 1832 Kerlerec Street
New Orleans, Louisiana 70116
*(504-949-1454)
*(property owner)
BUSINESS
ADDRESS: 1442 N. Prieur
New Orleans, Louisiana 70116
IMAGEMAKERS BEAUTY STATIONS
*(504-944-0522)
*(property and salon owner of 5 employees)
ADDRESS:
TEMPORARY: 9629 Bay Harbor Circle #103
Ft. Myers, Florida 33919
C/O Judith K. Cisco
(239) 489 – 0302
MY TESTIMONIAL
All of the following is a true accurate recollection of the events that happened after hurricane KATRINA on the bridge. All else who were there are listed in this group as follows; Lolet Boutte my sister, Kimberly Jenkins my close friend along with her three children ages three, ten, and fourteen.
THE BRIDGE
On the Wednesday two days after the storm, I knew it was imperative that the six people in my household should finally seek EVACUATION. It already flooded, rained, and most of the city was destroyed. At last the flood waters had already became a toxic murky cesspool.
DAY I – Tuesday,
We tried to reach the I-10 bridge at Esplanade and Claiborne the previous day, however by nightfall of that day an uneasy sense of danger became overwhelming so we, the 6 (three adults and three children) wades back to the house to plan another safer evacuation plan. We had access to battery operated television and radio at my house by which we thought we were getting accurate information on evacuation procedures.
DAY II Wednesday,
At dawn Wednesday we were told by rescue boats manned with uniformed personnel who were armed with weapons that if we got to the shelter MC 42 on North Tonti we would be evacuated. We gathered our few meager necessities and waded through the murky water. Many of the streets that we were familiar with that would get us directly to the shelter were streets on which large fallen oak trees, downed electrical wires, floating debris and pieces of homes that had been destroyed by the storm. Also along this route we came upon spots where the water was too deep to enter. These conditions required us to use the knowledge of the streets that we grew up on to lead us to MC 42.
THE SHELTER - MC 42,
Upon arrival at the shelter, 45 minutes or so later, we were told that rescue boats had just left for Elysian Fields and Claiborne with evacuees taking them to buses where they would be transported to safety. We were also told that they would be returning every hour to rescue those remaining at the shelter. One hour passed; two hours passed; NO one came, except the rain. THEY LIED. The twenty of so people that were at the shelter when we arrived were housed in putrid unsanitary conditions, and telling us that they had been given the same instructions for evacuation. We all came to a disheartening realization that NO ONE was going to come for us! So we did what anyone would do to survive. We formed an alliance amongst ourselves and formulated a plan to evacuate OURSELVES!
Some of the younger males in our group found a boat, unmanned and adrift; secured it for the sole purpose of transporting us to higher ground. The boat was only capable of holding six or seven people, so the elderly, infirmed and children got in. The more able bodies held onto the sides of the boat and we managed to make it through the neck high water to St. Bernard and Claiborne then on to Claiborne and Elysian Fields. THIS is where we anticipated we would have been picked up. THEY LIED!
After we made sure that the elderly and the children were on high ground, we, the six in my household, elected to walk on the I-10 to seek out the buses. We tried to seek out persons of any authority to direct us. This is when we discovered that many of the stranded already on the bridge had been there for two days with absolutely no food or water, and least of all no medical assistance
Then came the ROBIN HOODS! The men who took it upon themselves to go down under the interstate to retrieve water trucks from the Kentwood Water Company that had been abandoned, brought them up onto the bridge for all of the forgotten to take as much as needed. As nightfall approached, a nagging sense of fear became prevalent amongst our group. The fear of not knowing any of the people that we would be spending the night with on the bridge. We had no shelter, no sustenance and no way to defend ourselves. No lights and night was approaching rapidly. So we continued to walk only talking to those persons who we felt had the same goals as ours; to help keep each other safe, secure and to survive. We were still being told that the closer to the Superdome the better our chances to get out would be. AGAIN, THEY LIED! We stopped walking directly in front of the Dome and it looked like the tattered symbol of hope! Then they came. Hundreds of cars, trucks boats, and yes helicopters; flying overhead, so close that it seemed as though we could just reach up and touch them. Yet they dropped no food, no water, no assistance and no comfort! Instead, in the place of the food and water that we all so desperately needed, weapons were being aimed at us. The fumes from the helicopters filled our lungs. They continued to pass us! Even tour buses had the air conditiong so high, we could see the frost on the bus windows. Yes, they were empty, as empty as the souls of the government that was leaving babies, mothers, fathers and the frail and elderly there to DIE! YES, THEY LIED!
DAY III - 5:00 AM CAME THE EXPLOSION!
After a long evening of trying to sleep on the hard concrete surface of the bridge, each of us taking turns to watch, I asked my sister what time do you think it is? My sister had been listening to our battery operated radio. Just as she replied about 5:00am; a large plume of light erupted behind the Superdome, illuminating the entire sky, followed immediately be a huge mushroom cloud. At that same moment the radio broadcaster announced that railroad cars along the by water containing chemicals had exploded, and that the possibility of those fumes could be toxic! I said Damn It! First they tried to drown us, now they are trying to Gas us!!
All this, while those helicopters continuously hovered over us pushing the fumes directly down upon those of us on the bridge. As the morning progressed, photojournalists and the media began to appear again taking pictures of the desperate who were now even more desperate choosing only individuals who were extremely destitute and irrational or from the select few non-African Americans who they eventually evacuated from the bridge, one by one, seemingly in a manner that was unnoticeable by the rest of us SHAME ON YOU!! As the day progressed we kept encountering those who had attempted to reach the West Bank and were turned around by armed guards! Again the Robin Hoods brought us food and water. LATE AFTERNOON
Soon several ambulances arrived and parked near to us on the bridge. AT LAST! We thought we were saved! NOT! They proceeded to load us into the ambulances with what few belongings we still had. As crowded as we were we pleaded with them to allow Mrs. Clark, her three adult children and three grandchildren, whom comprised our alliance and had a calm nature to get in with us. They complied! We were relieved!
They told us that we were being taken to Louis Armstrong International Airport where we would be placed on military aircraft where we would be flown to unspecified destinations. Again, ------ THEY LIED. En route to where we thought we were going we were stopped in Gretna then put on yellow school buses, where we were seated three deep as well as with our belongings. The conditions inside the bus were not unlike what the hull of a Slave Ship would probably been like. Filth!!! Urination, feces and a wreaking stench pervaded the air inside. No one was permitted to use the restroom at any time during our journey; consequently, people relieved themselves in the aisles of the bus. While riding from Gretna to Harrihan we were told that no flights would be allowed to depart that night. By now it was the evening of the third day. We began to notice empty air conditioned tour buses riding parallel to us, so close that we could see that frost again! As well as two empty tour buses alongside us there were armed guards at every stop. The bus drivers were military personnel and made periodical stops and at each stop they were directed to continue on to whatever the next stop was. Each stop, we hoped, was our stop! These detours prevented us from arriving at our destination more expeditiously to safe harbor. Evening - DAY III Finally, We had arrived! Where? Somewhere, we thought, where we would finally be treated with dignity and compassion after all the horror we had endured these three days on the Bridge. By taking chances, and making choices. Choices like not going to the Superdome or Convention Center, where they had no provisions, and where we would not have been permitted to leave from once we arrived there. We stuck with our alliance of kinder neighbors. Through it all, we had endured! We had made it! Through all we had been through; all we had seen; the bodies, the violence, the gunshots, people crying out to anyone for help somewhere in the dark of night, the heat of the days on the hard concrete slabs of the I - 10 bridge, the fear of unseen danger surrounding us to downright dehydration and the degradation of having to relieve oneself as if we were on stage! YES. We had made it, because they had told us at this point we were safe. And we had endured with logic, common sense, the will to live, the dependence upon one another and above all with Prayer. The school buses had finally stopped! They said, we were rescued. EVEN NOW -------- THEY LIED!!! To be continued ----
Post a Comment
<< Home