Must Read - A "floatilla of aid" TURNED BACK from New Orleans...Explain!

[cthrumatrix]

My name is Jason Robideaux, I am an attorney from Lafayette Louisiana and have dealt with all of the various law enforcement agencies in Louisiana during the past 18 years. Although I have had a positive relationship with law enforcement personnel throughout the State for many years, I regretfully have a story to share that will shake your head in disbelief about the La. Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries.

A group of approximately 1,000 citizens pulling 500 boats left the Acadiana Mall in Lafayette this morning (Weds.) and headed to New Orleans with a police escort from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Department. The "flotillia" of trucks pulling boats stretched over five miles. This citizen rescue group was organized by La. State Senator, Gautreaux from Vermilion Parish. The group was comprised of experienced boaters, licensed fishermen and hunters, people who have spent their entire adult life and teenage years on the waterways of Louisiana.

The State Police waved the flotillia of trucks/boats through the barricades in LaPlace and we sped into New Orleans via I-10 until past the airport and near the Clearview exit. At that time we were stopped by agents of the La. Dept. of Wildlife & Fisheries. A young DWF agent strolled through the boats and told approximately half of the citizens that their boats were "too large" because the water had "dropped during the night" and that they should turn around and go home.

We were pulling a large (24ft) shallow draft aluminum boat that can safely carry 12 passengers and had ramp access which would allow the elderly and infirm to have easier access to the boat. We politely informed the DWF agent that the local and national media had consistently reported that the water level had "risen" during the night which contradicted his statement to us that the water "was dropping" and no boat over 16ft. in length would be allowed to participate in rescue operations.

We then specifically asked the DWF agent that we (and other citizens in the flotillia) be allowed to go to the hospitals and help evacuate the sick and the doctors and nurses stranded there. We offered to bring these people back to Lafayette, in our own vehicles, in order to ensure that they received proper and prompt medical care.

The DWF agent did not want to hear this and ordered us home. We complied with the DWF agent's orders, turned around and headed back to Lafayette along with half of the flotillia. However, two of my friends were pulling my other boat, a smaller 15ft alumaweld with a 25 hp. The DWF agents let them through to proceed to the rescue operation launch site.

My two friends were allowed to drive to the launch site where the La. Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries were launching their rescue operations (via boat). They reported to me that there were over 200 DWF agents just standing around and doing nothing. My friends were kept there for approximately 3 hours. During that time they observed a large number of DWF agents doing nothing. After three hours had passed they were told that they were not needed and should go home. They complied with the DWF's orders and turned around and went home to Lafayette.

Watching CNN tonight, there was a telephone interview with a Nurse trapped in Charity Hospital in New Orleans. She said that there were over 1,000 people trapped inside of the hospital and that the doctors and nurses had zero medical supplies, no diesel to run the generators and that only three people had been rescued from the hospital since the Hurricane hit!

I can't come up with one logical reason why the DWF sent this large group of 500 boats/1000 men home when we surely could have rescued most, if not all, of the people trapped in Charity Hospital. Further, we had the means to immediately transport these people to hospitals in Southwest Louisiana.

On Tuesday afternoon, August 30, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee asked for all citizens with boats to come to the aid of Jefferson Parish. A short time later Dwight Landreneau, the head of the La. Depart. of Wildlife and Fisheries, got on television and remarked that his agency had things under control and citizen help was not needed. Apparently, Sheriff Lee did not agree with that assessment and had one of his deputies provide the Lafayette flotillia with an escort into Jefferson Parish.

Sheriff Lee and Senator Gautreaux - 1000 of Louisiana's citizens responded to your pleas for help. We were prevented from helping by Dwight Landreneau's agency, the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. When I learned that Charity Hospital has not been evacuated and that no one has been there to attempt a rescue, I became angry.

The "turf-marking" by some minor state agency should never take priority over the lives of citizens!

Signed,

Bewildered and Frustrated,

Jason Robideaux

Attorney At Law

1005 Lafayette Street

Lafayette, La. 70501

[phone] office

http://www.thedeadpelican.com/lawyer.htm

there seems to be a theme.... govt refusing aid and people dying

[meganmonkey]

1. This is all mind-boggling

I can't understand why this help was turned away - I have heard all the theories, but my brain refuses to believe them.

I don't get it.

:(

[tk2kewl]

2. Sorry... you need a ship with a cargo hold.

:wtf:

[tavalon]

3. Nominated

[opihimoimoi]

4. Peterism run amok.....The Peters are in control foisted by the Pub machine

Stupid decisions are the results...

Common Sense for the Common Good is not in Vogue by the Pubs standards....

[kdpeters]

47. Who are The Peters? n/t

[Andrea]

48. The Peter Principle

I believe the reference is to The Peter Principle, a theory that posits that people are promoted to the level of their incompetence and then remain at that level. For example, an assistant junior accountant does a good job and is promoted to junior accountant. She does a good job in that position and is promoted to senior accountant. This continues until she reaches a position where she doesn't do a good job - maybe CFO. This occurs widely and thus many organizations are headed by people incompetent to perform their jobs.

[hobbit709]

5. They obviously didn't want

private citizens showing them up for the incompetent asses they are.

[cthrumatrix]

7. Police and doctors were turned away at the stateline as well

[tocqueville]

16. not trying to be a smartass but a Frenchy like me had drove

over them

when the boats hade been in the water, they could always had called the police

you wonderful Americans are sometimes TOO nice....

[Pooka Fey]

41. Tocqueville's assessment is exactly right.

Pourquoi est-ce qu'on a besoin de la permission d'un con pour sauver des vies? Les Francais comprennent qu'un homme qui porte l'uniforme n'est pas toujours un homme qui travaille dans l'interet general. Nous Americains apprennons le lecon maintenant. Je prefere ne pas blesser le posteur originale, alors je ne traduis pas mon poste.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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

[starmaker]

8. unbelievable

[mzmolly]

9. Recommended.

Lots of questions - sigh

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

10. If Bush wants to be considered another Roosevelt or Churchhill

why doesn't he send out the call to every American citizen in the region to drive to Louisiana and Mississippi to take in just one family apiece? Winston Churchhill, you will recall, sent an urgent request to the civilian British people to sail across the English Channel in any water craft they had and help pick up the 250,000 British and 60,000 French troops stranded on the beaches at Dunkirk during World War II.

[On the Road]

23. If Bush Had Been in Charge of the Dunkirk Evacuation

he'd be sending back all the private vessels saying "Everything is under control. A military evacuation is underway." Then when the British army inevitably got massacred, he would say "But nobody expected the blitzkrieg."

This kind of CYA turf-protecting attitude is deadly.

[justabob]

49. Disgusting isn't it

I've been thinking quite a lot about Dunkirk in all of this.

[Larissa238]

11. Kicked and Nominated

[SmokingJacket]

12. All this about rescuers being turned back is making me paranoid.

Was leaving the people to die absolutely deliberate, and not just raging incompetence????

This is so hard to comprehend.

If this is true.... 9-11 MIHOP is nothing.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

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

[FighttheFuture]

32. It does look like neo-cons "culling the heard", so to speak.

The real question is, will this gross incompetence AND criminal actions stick to these criminals of BushCo?

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. Oh good lord!

-----------------------------------------------------
Save New Orleans, then save this country!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/electionreform.htm

[AnnInLa]

14. I am in Abbeville and passed out a flyer at work

that, in one part, asked boat owners to join your flotilla. I am speechless. The Mayor called for anyone, anyone to come help. You answered his and Sheriff Lee's call. Other than being concerned for your personal safety, I can't think of a single reason you would be turned away. I would call Channels 3, 10 and 8 and all of the local radio stations.

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. God bless you Jason.

[VolcanoJen]

17. Thank you for the truth, cthrumatrix!!!

Thank you for your excellent posts on this developing issue!!!

[despairing optimist]

18. Recommended, with a possible explanation for you

There are a lot of armed and desperate people roaming the streets, and law enforcement couldn't guarantee your safety. At least in part, it's CYA: no one in government wants to take responsibility in case something happens to anyone in the rescue flotilla.

The DWF people are probably unarmed and waiting for National Guard and police escort. And of course all those needy people in New Orleans keep on suffering despite the best of intentions.

The people in charge (and by this I mean the people at the highest levels of US government) aren't interested in moral authority. You're correct in asserting that turf wars shouldn't take priority over rescuing people, but the word "should" is a quaint and inoperative word to the powerful. The powerful just "do" or "do not," without concern for "should."

It's an awful way to get an education, but the good that will come of this is that you and all the other decent people behind the flotilla now know much more about the nature of the beast they are dealing with, and it's not a hurricane.

[stickdog]

31. That's fucking BULLSHIT. This was simply a case of jerks

who didn't want to be upstaged by a group of volunteers.

How far did this mentality go? All the way up to Karl Rove, of course.

[qanda]

19. Because that would have been two days too soon

For Bush's grand entrance.

[cthrumatrix]

24. ding ding ding.... we have a winner

[EFerrari]

34. Yep. Once you know what to look for, it's inescapable.

:puke:

[MinneapolisMatt]

20. Good God.

I hope the survivors find out how hard ORDINARY CITIZENS were trying to help them, but being turned away!

FUCK THE GOVERNMENT. We are own our own. GODDAMMIT.

[Just Me]

21. You have GOT to be shittin' me!!!!

Why? On what rational basis were volunteer rescuers turned away? This makes no sense whatsoever. Was the Dept of Wildlife/Fisheries receiving orders elsewhere?

:wtf: I just can NOT wrap my brain around this shit!!!

[cthrumatrix]

22. there were other stories like this .... the documentation is coming in

[Im with Rosey]

45. This is the catch

Who is DWF taking orders from? Somehow I don't think they would make that call themselves.

[spuddonna]

25. I don't have CNN, but saw on the boards last night...

...that CNN was reporting that people were being kept from LEAVING NO. Now, was that true? And if it was, WHY?!

What the hell is going on??

[kcass1954]

26. Well now, we can't have y'all doing it for free when...

:puke: alert

See the following -

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1747674&mesg_id=1747674

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4570927&mesg_id=4570927


Gotta make sure junior and uncadick's peeps are taken care of.

:puke: :puke: :puke:

[Catherine Vincent]

27. Damn!

I hope this is on the front page.

[HereSince1628]

29. I hope you got every DFW assholes name, there will be criminal trials

And I hope those assholes have _years_ to think over how their decisions contributed to mayhem and death.

[mopinko]

30. un-fucking-believable nt

[Longhorn]

33. kick

[redacted]

35. . .

[Usrename]

36. This must be a capital crime. Heads on pikes.

[HR_Pufnstuf]

37. Does the USA have power...

...to tell the people of Jefferson Parish (ie. Metairie) what they can and cant do? Metairie is unincorporated.


"Local Government

Metairie is not a city and has no mayor or local government of its own. As part of Jefferson Parish, Metairie is governed by the Jefferson Parish Council."

http://www.metairie.com/history/metairie.htm

--

"In the context of the United States insular areas, the word "unincorporated" means that the territory has not been formally and irrevocably incorporated into the United States. (See: incorporated territory.) Unincorporated insular areas are therefore potentially subject to being sold or otherwise transferred to another power, or, conversely, being granted independence. However, neither fate seems likely to occur in the foreseeable future to the five remaining major unincorporated U.S. insular areas, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, or the Northern Mariana Islands."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unincorporated
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metairie,_Louisiana

[SlavesandBulldozers]

38. kick

kick

[Jokinomx]

39. With the Mayor of Chicago getting snubbed by Fema... now this...

How many people will die because of this incompetence.

Thanks for sharing....

[Tigress DEM]

40. In Human --- my God

[Nothing Without Hope]

42. Red Cross still not allowed into New Orleans

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4599047

Whether this murderously cruel policy of blocking aid and rescue is a DELIBERATE "passive genocide" or "economic cleansing" or only LOOKS deliberate has become moot.

[lala_rawraw]

43. On this /nt

[sunshinekathy]

44. Flood the Whitehouse and Cheney with emails

Tell them to send the buses to evacuate New Orleans and act like the Christians they claim to be. Lines of buses are sitting outside New Orleans while people die!! Take the people to anywhere where there is running water and dirt to dig an outhouse and let other people bring them tents and food!! ( or drop them off at truck stops )

Whitehouse emails are:

[e-mail]

and

[e-mail]

Why we would not immediately drop in water and evacuate the stranded in New Orleans, is more than I can comprehend! Nor did I understand why buses were not sent in to evacuate the vehicle-less indigent BEFORE the hurricane hit when everyone knew that New Orleans would be flooded.

Now we hear that people who drive to New Orleans themselves to pick up those people are turned back! When is the President going to order the buses in to pick them up?

Real Christians and spiritually mature folks in America would drive there ourselves to rescue people from death if allowed to if we had known that Bush, Leavitt, and others would stop the buses from evacuating people!!

I am outraged! When are we going to evacuate New Orleans?

Do they not understand that bringing more people into a city without water or sanitation is illogical, unintelligent, and will only cause more deaths? New Orleans needs to be evacuated for many months - or perhaps for good - at least until it is habitable!

Why are they keeping people in New Orleans who want to leave? This is America. We are not supposed to enslave Black people to let them die on slave ships any more. These people want to leave New Orleans. Get them OUT of New Orleans now before more of them die!

To keep these victims in New Orleans any longer is the height of moral bankruptcy!

Yet I hear Mike Leavitt, former Utah Governor and Director of Health and Human Services now, talking as though he plans to keep those people in New Orleans indefinately - even though they want to leave. That is called slavery! And it is even worse because it is obvious that they will die if left in the unsanitary conditions in New Orleans now.

Am I wrong? If so, please explain it to me?

Any open pasture or forest land with a clean stream running through it, or a well, would be more survivable than New Orleans is now. Let those people go!

Kathy Dopp
http://electionarchive.org

[earth mom]

46. I bet there will be a TON of lawsuits over this wait and see!

And richly deserved I might add! :grr: