Evacuees not told where they're going

[rainbow4321]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8CE1J8O0.html

It wasn't confusion that prevented Hurricane Katrina evacuees from learning they were headed to Utah — it was intentional.

National Guard officials asked a reporter and photographer aboard two separate military planes not to identify their news organizations or tell the refugees where the planes were going.

They said some refugees on earlier flights complained or refused evacuation when told where they were going.

Hurst said one young evacuee on Saturday told a family member in Texas that she was en route to Houston only to wind up in Utah."Now the Red Cross has to send her to Houston. That's where her family is. There's no family here. It's been quite a culture shock for her," she said.


:banghead: :banghead: :grr: :grr:

[goclark]

1. Huum, Hitler used trains and GW uses buses!

[serryjw]

3. It's time to go to bed......

We both thought the same thing!

[saigon68]

20. arbeit macht frei

They will become members of the new amerikan underclass.

contract cleaners at Walmart for $5.50 an hour, and hotel maids and laundry workers

[rucky]

37. they're going to have to work off their debt, first though

disaster welfare ain't free, ya know.

[serryjw]

2. Strange....When I saw your headline, I was thinking about

The nazi concentration camps. A chill came over me.I wouldn't be happy if I WASN'T told either

[longship]

4. It's called banishment.

The Neocons want NOLA for themselves. Chimpy even said that they were gonna build NOLA all new. Watch what happens. There will be no African-Americans welcome in the new gentrified neighborhoods of New Orleans.

We need to demand that the NOLA evacuees have the first squatter's rights on their own property. Many of these families have lived in NOLA for generations. The evacuees have to be given the right to reclaim their homes after NOLA is drained.

[rainbow4321]

9. Oil execs will have luxury homes next to the new oil companies

Or massive beachfront resorts for chimpasses fellow neocons..kinda like Castro has those huge tourist areas and outside those are the dirt poor areas of Cuba.

[PinkTiger]

5. These poor people are being evacuated, not sent on a pleasure cruise.

Unfortunately, that means they are not being taken to predestined locations; this is to be expected.
Please, people, be reasonable and realize that it was the only way to do it. None of them would have been happy to know they were taken a certain place, really. All of them wanted to be only one place: home.

[longship]

7. That would be all well and good

Unfortunately they are not being evacuated. They are being relocated. They should have a say in where they are going. Many will want to stay with family members until they return.

[SoCalDem]

13. Why not get a bullhorn and just say..

Families and friends group together so you are not separated when we load the buses?

what would have been so difficult about that?

or better yet, how about stopping that bus as soon as they got to where phones were working so the people could call their FAMILY in LOUISIANA, and have them come and get them??

[Iowa]

16. Bull...

Refusing to tell people where they are going is incredibly condescending and demeaning. It's an assault on the dignity and the freedom of our fellow citizens, and reflects utter contempt toward the people being relocated. It is indefensible. These are people - not cattle.

[Lugnut]

33. Thank you

Thank you for posting exactly what I would have had I been here earlier. These people have been demeaned and demoralized quite enough. This is not a temporary situation and it's insulting to dehumanize them further.

[IndyOp]

31. It was the only way to do it - I disagree.

Letting people who have just lived through a horrific trauma know exactly what is happening and why - is absolutely necessary. If someone refuses to go because they would be separated from family then someone else can take their place and they can wait for the next transport. Giving people some little bit of control over their lives is critical. The conditions at Armstrong Airport are hellish - most people told the plane will go to Utah will be on it if they are told that they will be reunited with their family within a few days.

Randi Rhodes was on this issue this afternoon - she was LOUD - people should be given vouchers and they should determine where they will live, and what schools their children should attend.

[stickdog]

35. But U-fucking-tah! U-fucking-tah!

Guess "good help" is getting hard to find out there. Right?

[Book Lover]

36. I bet they were even more unhappy being lied to (nm)

[Lars39]

6. There is an AP photo caption stating that all the women and children

are put on the buses, but the men have to stay behind and wait for more buses.
Absolutely chilling.

[shanti]

8. divide and conquer

n/t necessary

[SoCalDem]

12. "can't have them breeding, now can we"

that's what popped into MY head just now:(

[B3Nut]

19. What do you expect from "PRO-FAMILY" Rethugs?

Why, breaking up families, of course! Especially ones that are the wrong color. What despicable inhuman thugs.

Todd in Beerbratistan

[ananda]

32. slave days redux..

Doesn't all this remind you of ante-bellum stuff?

Herding people together in unliveable conditions like cattle..

Separating men from their families..

Asking people to live on cruise ships..

Not telling people where they are going or what's going to happen to them..

Treating them in a patronizing or condescending manner covered over with southern christian niceness so as not to appear racist..

Calling citizens "refugees" or "insurgents"..

Reporting on violence and murder in the Superdome and Convention Center as an excuse for such a strong, armed military presence..

Uggghhh.

Sue

[wli]

10. Bushler gets more Hitlerian on a daily basis.

Hell, he already ran death camps in the Superdome and Convention Center.

[countmyvote4real]

11. I'm kicking.

Words fail me.

[ninkasi]

14. Lots of people in New Orleans

have relatives or friends in Houston. I imagine those people would rather have their relatives from New Orleans staying with them, instead of at the Astrodome, or some other evacuation center. Nobody should be forced to go someplace they don't want to go. These victims have been through enough.

[OneBlueSky]

15. speaking of culture shock . . . to many of these people, New Orleans .. .

IS their world . . . they were born there, their families have lived there for generations, many have never even traveled outside the city (other than on short excursions to neighboring communities, perhaps) . . . they don't KNOW anything about anywhere else --how to act, how to survive, etc. . . removing them from NO is, if not a physical death sentence, certainly a psychological death sentence . . .

[Judi Lynn]

17. It's hard to believe ANYONE could see this as justifiable.

They are being treated exactly like objects, not like human beings.

Very common for the kind of people who are MEpublican by nature. Not a trace of concern for doing the truly RIGHT thing.

[rainbow4321]

21. They ARE dying elsewhere

One woman died up in a Tulsa suburb hospital this weekend...if they die elsewhere are they included in the the genocide death toll, or are they being dispersed in hopes of "out of site, out of the media spotlight"

[Mnemosyne]

18. .

:grr: :nuke: :kick:

[shavedape]

22. that's no peace train!

:kick:

[BrightKnight]

23. There is no central database identifying where people are.

There is no Central database of where people are. There are many privately maintained databases. Most of them are poorly designed and difficult to search. Even a very computer savvy person would have trouble locating someone. Not all of the information is in a computer.

Further, people are forced to post personal information in a public forum.

There was a backlog of more than 15K missing person requests on Sunday afternoon.

[spinbaby]

27. It's disgraceful

I've been searching lists for days looking for a woman I know who lived in New Orleans and I think was at the convention center. There is no master list--every damn news organization and aid organization has its own list. No way of knowing for sure. Her family hasn't heard from her.

[BrightKnight]

29. 15K backlog of missing persons requests on Sunday

The Salvation Army had a backlog of about 15k missing persons requests on Sunday.

They were ramping up a volunteer call center and it was a holiday weekend. That is very, very sad. I hope that they have been able to improve on this. The government should spend the money to get this done properly.

-------------

The government of Louisiana should call these organizations and collect the information. They need to know where their citizens went.

[Javaman]

24. My question is: were they even given a ticket back to N.O.???

I think they are emptying N.O. for other reasons yet to be told to us. Beware of urban renewal according to repukes and emanate domain...

[Igel]

25. Certainly heavy handed.

"Michael Widomski, spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said keeping destinations a secret wasn't an official policy decision, but more likely a last-minute response to trying circumstances."

Harsh. But I'm not sure what the circumstances were. I can imagine myself doing this in the right circumstance.

If I don't want to ask 800 people for 150 to go to Utah: then I might have to deal with 650 angry people. And I might have insufficient security, or those that should be evacuated first being elbowed out of the way. Oh, joy, newspapers report rioting and chaos on my watch.

If I have 150 people, need to clear the area and supply 150 people, and have learned that asking "Who wants to go to X" results in people saying, "No, I want to go to Y." I have to coerce them, they get angry, don't want to go; or I leave them, still have to feed them, and haven't cleared the room. Then I get angry. And the story looks about the same.

Just saying: there are possible circumstances in which I would do the exact same thing. So I'm loathe to judge too harshly.

[B3Nut]

26. True, but...

...breaking apart couples is unconscionable. People that are together should stay together, else you add more psychological injury on top of the pile. It's simply inhumane.

Todd in Beerbratistan

[bribri16]

28. These people can't think their way out of a paper bag. Insult to injury

Why are they treating so many of the evacuees like they are idiots? Why not involve them in their own situation by asking them where they have family in various locations and put people who want to go to the same general locations together and transport them there. How difficult is it to use a loud speaker and ask people who have relatives willing to pick them up in Baltimore, Philadelphia, DC, Detroit, Newark, NYC, etc? AT least let the people know where they will be going. These are people with families, they are not all children like the people running our government. The adults are not in charge. We don't know who the hell is in charge!

[gate of the sun]

30. the outrage.

I'm grateful I have family so no matter where I ended up I could be rescued.. What kind of shit is this? let's not tell the folks there going into the biggest police state in the country and they ain't all that fond of blacks either.. My outrage holds no bounds... I hope I never come under this sort of need. I hold these people in my heart.

[Miss Chybil]

34. There were three guys on MSNBC that found themselves in a DC

armory. They were not told where they were going. One guy was a pharmacist. Theys said they felt like they were in prison because of all the military personell walking around with guns. One guy said he had a job in NO and he wanted to go home. Another guy seemed a little slow, but he didn't know what he was going to do. He didn't want to go back. The pharmacist didn't say one way, or the other. What an absolute tragedy to be put on a plane and not be told where you're going. How much more do these people have to bear? They should have a list of all possible destinations. Let people choose where they want to go and if they don't want to go anywhere, they don't have to. This is a travesty on top of travesty. What if these guys had family in California and the found themselves in DC? Who is doing this. Why are these people being treated like animals?

[lostnfound]

38. This is so disrespectful, uncompassionate, and unproductive.

The long-term consequences for an individual may be the difference between a lifetime of homelessness in a city where they know no one, and getting back on their feet.

[gauguin57]

39. PLUS, FEMA and Red Cross have totally different databases

If you go to a Red Cross shelter, you register all your information there, and go into the Red Cross database. If you need FEMA help, you have to register there separately, and you go into a separate database. These two databases are not cross-referenced, so people trying to find family members are gonna have to do twice the work to try to locate their loved ones. Saw this on ABC News last night.

Companies that want to sell us stuff have every sophisticated digital way of keeping close track of everything about us. And yet, the victims of Katrina haven't known where their kids are for a week and counting.

I heard evacuees in shelters didn't want to go on the three cruise ships Carnival wanted to provide because they were afraid to move again, and not have their loved ones be able to find them, or their mail catch up to them.

[NorthernSpy]

40. why are these people being treated like prisoners of war?

Stuffed into various conveyances and not even told where they're going?

[Laughing Mirror]

41. Official policy? FEMA pulls same trick again. Hundreds land in DC.

Although District officials initially had planned to receive a group of hurricane survivors being housed in Arkansas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Monday night instead arranged the airlift from the New Orleans airport.

City Administrator Robert C. Bobb, who met the first plane at Dulles, said that although many people were relieved to reach a well-equipped shelter, others were astonished and dismayed to find themselves in the nation's capital, "thousands of miles from home."

"People were real irritated. 'Why am I in Washington when I wanted to go to Texas?' I heard that on two or three occasions," Bobb said. "No one told them where they were going until they got on the plane."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/06/AR2005090600919_pf.html