LAT: Unreleased DVD Warns New Orleans Poor: Save Yourself

[DeepModem Mom]

Save Yourself
New Orleans had a plan to warn the poor, but it sat on a shelf in L.A.
By Nicholas Riccardi and James Rainey, Times Staff Writers


NEW ORLEANS — After years of warnings, community leaders this summer prepared a video guide to hurricane evacuations with a stark message: Many of this city's poor, including 134,000 without cars, could be left behind in a killer storm.

But the 30-minute DVD still has not arrived. Some 70,000 of the newly minted videos that were to be released this month remain on warehouse shelves in Los Angeles....

***

"Don't wait for the city, don't wait for the state, don't wait for the Red Cross," the Rev. Marshall Truehill warns in the public service announcement.

The program, titled "Preparing for the Big One," was one of several related but incomplete plans aimed in particular at the one-quarter of the city's population that did not own cars or have ready transportation out of town in the event of evacuation orders.

Churches had agreed to provide rides to those without cars as part of "Operation Brother's Keeper," but a pilot program had been started in only four large congregations.

The Regional Transit Authority, the city's bus system, had a plan to transport people from a dozen pre-designated evacuation points, but some residents reported waiting interminably for buses that didn't show up as the storm bore down Aug. 28....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-dvd13sep13,0,5876683.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. WHat were the poor going to watch those DVD's on?

[Eugene]

2. The churches that would distribute the DVD's could show them

to members without DVD players.

Faith based civil defense? Now, I've seen it all.

[daleo]

7. Suppose they didn't go to church?

It is a crazy and discriminatory plan.

[zbdent]

3. "Let them eat cake."

That's the mentality . . .

Of course, those who would receive the DVDs would be initially in the larger, more affluent congregations . . .

[UpInArms]

11. on those

"looted" dvd players :sarcasm:

[Peace Patriot]

4. It could have been broadcast on TV. Although the war profiteering...

...corporate news monopolies have grabbed control of most of our public airwaves, with no requirement of public service any more, there are still public stations. Imagine the difference this could have made if it had been broadcast a week before the storm, or earlier! And imagine what the war profiteering corporate news monopolies COULD HAVE DONE, to stop the war, to preserve FEMA funding for the levees and disaster relief, to keep our National Guard at home, and to warn and organize the poor for a major hurricane, and also to keep communities in tact (instead of this cruel Bushite dispersal that is going on).

And what they could do about global warming--and about a whole lot of things--if they WEREN'T war profiteering corporate news monopolies!

To me, it's Top Priority #2: Busting up the corporate news monopolies, and getting back control of our public airwaves.

Top Priority #1: Election reform--throwing Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' (or a Louisiana levee), NOW!

[Lisa]

5. If something like that showed on my local TV station ...

.... I would like to believe that there'd be a public outcry, about abandoning people in the face of a disaster. I'd like to believe that the city would rally to protect its entire population -- and that the broadcast would save lives.

However, it would also be tantamount to admitting that the authorities couldn't or wouldn't help ... so as you say, a lot of people would prefer the material to be distributed quietly in recorded from, rather than tell it to everybody.

[blindpig]

6. might have worked

I have to disagree with some of the posters above, damn near everybody owns a dvd player today. They're cheap, can be purchased for as little as $30 and are essential to the universal addiction of watching pictures on boxes. And they can be played on the ps2 & xbox game consoles, seemingly standard equipment for young males these days. The only demographic that might get missed are old folks who can be slow to take up new fangled things.

The only question is whether people would watch them once in hand, sort of like those AOL disks forever befouling the mailbox.

What poor people can't afford is pay TV service, cable or sat. Five years ago I was going to quit selling homely old rabbit ears antennas, today they are back in vogue and selling well.Good old bu$h. :mad:

[daleo]

8. Those are big assumptions

Some people just aren't that interested in tv and the related technology. Some don't have the money. Some don't have homes.

I don't have a DVD player, although my son does. Beats me how you work the thing.

[rocktivity]

9. Were the poor going to be provided with DVD players, too?

:crazy:
rocknation

[420inTN]

10. Well, they could have printed pamphlets...

But what about the poor that can't read?