This American Life w/ Ira Glass on the Gretna Bridge Incident is online..

[Junkdrawer]

Since NPR's main news shows seem determined to whitewash the incidents, I thought I'd post this...

Surprising stories from survivors in New Orleans. We give people who were in the storm more time than daily news coverage can to tell their stories and talk about what they're thinking. This leads to a number of ideas that haven't made it into the regular news coverage.

Prologue. Ira talks about something he read that seemed to put an end to all debate over one of the key issues swirling around right now. He checks with William Nichelson, author of the books Emergency Response and Emergency Management Law and Homeland Security Law and Policy, to see if he's correctly undertanding the issue. (5 minutes)

Act One. Middle of Somewhere. In the days following Hurricane Katrina, Denise Moore was trapped in the New Orleans Convention Center, with her mom, her niece and her niece's two-year-old daughter. There she witnessed acts of surprising humanity by armed thugs, taking charge and doing good. (15 minutes)

Act Two. Forgotten, But Not Lost. To find out more about the bridge Denise talked about in Act One, and the armed police who prevented pedestrians from crossing, This American Life producer Alex Blumberg talks with Lorrie Beth Slonsky and her husband Larry Bradshaw. They're paramedics from San Francisco who were visiting New Orleans for a convention when Hurricane Katrina hit. After the storm, they tried to escape the city in a number of ways. When they tried to leave the city on foot, they were told, at gunpoint, by police, that they must turn back. We also hear from Debbie Zelinsky, who was with them. (17 minutes)

....more

Real Audio Link:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/ra/296.ram

[Junkdrawer]

1. .

[melissinha]

2. thank you

This audio gave a real insight into what it was like. You could really understand that there were Americans going through the most horrendous ordeal. How people were lied to repeatedly and herded like cattle. How armed thugs actually kept the order and looted for food and juice. What was really interesting and heartbraking with the account of a white woman who had been banded with regular african american citizens, witnessed racism as her group and only her group was allowed to leave the highway. How she felt she had betrayed them.... ti bothered me cause we are hearing so much spin about how it wasn't racism.... how people are turning a blind eye from the righteous CBC which is only showing the truth. how displaced people are just thrown into trailer parks and given no options...

[melissinha]

3. duplicate

duplicate

[yurbud]

4. I heard this and was riveted for the whole hour--this is the best

average joe coverage of Katrina, right up there with the best of Amy Goodman's work.

This is a must, must listen. Send this to all your friends, even righties.

Two stand out elements: people being turned back from WALKING out of town because the sheriff of a white burb wouldn't let them cross a bridge--so they had to go back to starve and dehydrate.

And some of the self-help organizing that went on inside the Superdome, where supposedly everyone acted like animals.