Surviving Katrina: Barred from the Superdome, struggling to survive

[Bravo411]

Surviving Katrina: Barred from the Superdome, struggling to survive
Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky


Larry Bradshaw is a rescue paramedic for the San Francisco Fire Department. Lorrie Beth Slonsky, who also worked for the San Francisco Fire Department, retired in July 2004. This article has been reprinted with permission of the authors.

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen’s store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside Walgreen’s windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry.

The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters.

Full Article Here: http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Surviving_Katrina_Barred_fromSuperdome_without_aid_struggling_t_0911.html

Posted by Bravo411
http://bravo411.blogspot.com

[Laelth]

1. Excellent story.

Must read 1st-hand account!

Recommended.

-Laelth

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. Editor of Raw Story says...

Yeah -- we checked out the source, and with the original authors. I have no idea what the deal is with rense.com. The article also ran on CounterPunch.
Editor | 09.11.05 - 11:27 pm | #

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[evworldeditor]

4. Clarification on Article Attribution

I heard from Lyn Lofland at U.C. Davis, to whom Rense.Com wrongly attributed the story. Here's his response to my inquiry:



Thank you for inquiring. What happened is that in the later transmittal of my original forwarding, all context was lost. I am not the author of the account, nor do I personally know the authors. The two emails I sent to my sociology department colleagues on Friday morning should explain the situation. The piece has certainly resonated (as it should, it is very moving) and the story has now been picked up by (in addition to the SF Chronicle) the New York Times, the Spokane, Washington paper, NPR, and many, many web sites. If you google the names of the actual authors (given below), you will see how widely this has been distributed. I must admit that in future I will have reservations about forwarding anything to anyone because in addition to the many very kind and concerned messages I've received, I've also had some amazing and rather hair-raising hate mail. By the way, I have just learned that what happened to me (being misidentified as the author of the account) has happened to alot of other people. The lesson is that we all need to be careful not to cut too rashly when we forward materials. LL.

FIRST EMAIL TO SOCIOLOGY COLLEAGUES, SEPTEMBER 9, ABOUT 11 A.M.
I thought I would bring you all up to date on the posting I forwarded to you regarding a first hand account from New Orleans.

As you may remember, I picked up the account from the Community and Urban Sociology list serve. It had been posted by a professor whom I know personally from the U. of Missouri, Kansas City who was forwarding something that had been forwarded to him by a friend. What is not clear is how his friend came by the story--that is, whether the friend had received it directly from the paramedics involved. I sent it on to you and it has really moved! In the course of this movement, the original context has been lost and I've been getting emails and phone calls from people who think either that I got the story directly from paramedic friends or that I am one of the persons who had these experiences.

I must admit, I was beginning to wonder if I had passed on a "fiction," but a column in this morning's San Francisco Chronicle (by Chip Johnson, first page of the Bay Area section) identifies the two paramedics (Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky--from SF) and retells the story. Interestingly enough, the column version, while recounting many of the same events, just doesn't have the raw power of the original email.


SECOND EMAIL TO SOCIOLOGY COLLEAGUES, SAME DAY, ABOUT 11:30 A.M.
Thought I'd share one more piece of information with you. I just received another email from a man who asked if I could verify that the "following account is in fact true." And in this email, he appended what he had received: the stand-alone account followed by my signature, address, phone number, etc. It occurred to me that, depending on what forwarders "cut" before sending along, one or more of you may be having the same experience I am. Is this happening to anyone else? Lyn






Lyn... I found a story attributed to you on Rense.com (http://www.rense.com/general67/people.htm) and the identical story on RawStory.Com (http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Surviving_Katrina_Barred_fromSuperdome_without_aid_struggling_t_0911.html ) attributed to two other authors. Can you shed some light on this confusion?

Bill Moore
Publisher
EV WORLD
http://www.evworld.com




--

Lyn H. Lofland
Research Professor
Department of Sociology
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis. California 95616
USA

Telephone: [phone]-1585
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