Why didn't the victims "just leave"? This is why...

[Left Is Write]

This is what you tell those who wonder why the stranded victims didn't "just leave" when New Orleans was evacuated. Ask them to think long and hard about it.

I did not write this. It was written by a friend of mine:

Ok say you are poor and living in NO. You don't own a car. You make $10,000 a year. You have a wife who is seven months pregnant, and a toddler daughter. It's four days until payday, and you have $20 left to your name.

Say you want to evacuate NO. Your options are:

1. Rent a car. NO! Not with your income, and not without a major credit card, so nix this. Besides, how are you going to pay to fill up the tank with gas to get the 80 miles to Baton Rouge?

2. Buy Greyhound bus tickets for the two of you (child can ride in a lap). From Lafayette to Baton Rouge is $32, one way, I just checked. No service from NO. I don't think they did have service from there, so you'll have to find a way to get to Lafayette first, no way. Besides you have about $20 until payday. So not enough for the bus tickets AND eating.

3. Get a ride with someone, help pay for gas. How are you going to do that AND eat on $20? And get a ride with whom, exactly? Everyone you know and work with is as poor as you are, and they all walk or ride the city bus to work, too.

4. Walk. Yeah. It's EIGHTY MILES. How far are you going to get with your pregnant wife and toddler? And you've got to eat on that $20.

5. Stick out your thumb and hitch. You are poor and black. Best of luck to ya. That's also quite dangerous.

6. Let's say you WERE to somehow magically, miraculously get to Baton Rouge. The Poverty Fairy took you on her back and flew you there with her gossamer wings. How are you going to pay for a hotel room? You can't. So you find a homeless shelter? Sleep on the street? So now the only difference between here and NO is the water, basically. Oh and there's no flying Poverty Fairy, so nix this, too.

7. OR you could stay in NO and hope for the best. Maybe you could climb up on your roof if the water got too high. You could make sure you had a few bottles of water Sunday night, just in case, maybe buy an extra pack of diapers. I mean, surely if things WERE that bad, help would be there right away, right?

Right?

Am I missing anything? Please note this family is healthy and young. I didn't even mention older people or people with health/medical problems who wouldn't even be able to consider anything but option seven. And even the healthy young family is, in the end, stuck with option seven.

Feel free to pass this on to whomever you know who doesn't seem to understand how people in poverty just can't get up and leave.

[Lars39]

1. Bus service was cut early from what I remember.

So even if they had been able to scrape up bus fare they would have still been out of luck. :(

[xmas74]

2. Someone needs to give this one last vote.

It deserves it.

[jpgray]

3. Yep, that pretty well sums things up.

Part of the problem is the -incredibly- low visibility maintained in the media about the degree of poverty that exists in the US. Too many people can't conceive of not being able to hop in a car, get some Wendy's and stay at a hotel for the duration of the storm.

[hippywife]

4. Recommended.

Good points and absolutely a vivid picture of the choices people were faced with.

[daninthemoon]

5. Something I've been wondering through this. How many poverty

stricken Americans are dying daily from this same neglect. We've seen very starkly that no provisions were made for the poor during a disaster. What else have we been overlooking?

[Twist_U_Up]

6. The riech wings spin is.....

that the state failed on a local level .

The school buses sat and could have been utilized by the Governor or Mayor to clear the city of these people.

[bettyellen]

9. FEMA assumed responsibity....

and sat on it's hands.

[Bouncy Ball]

11. Doesn't the state and local government depend

on the federal government?

Where was the money to come from for fuel for all those school buses? The school district budget? Hardly!

[LisaLynne]

7. Beautiful post-- thank you.

In fact, you could up that $20 to $100 and basically the same things apply. Some people really live in a world disconnected from the reality that others live in. It's easy to sit there, with your high-speed internet, cable TV turned to FOX, and SUV in the drive way (complaining about how it took you $50 -- FIFTY -- to fill it up the last time) and then wonder why they didn't "just leave". That's easy to say.

In fact, that same person with the SUV might find it a little more difficult to flee their home than they thought. And on top of it all, hindsight is 20/20. People don't say that for no reason.

[Bouncy Ball]

10. Yep.,

We're middle class---we'd be able to drive 80 miles away and eat, no problem, but a few nights at a La Quinta would come close to breaking us until the next payday.

[JimmyJazz]

8. I've said this before and I'll repeat myself one more time:

It is an absolute disgrace to issue an MANDATORY evacuation and then not offer all the people a way to evacuate. Every person who wanted to leave the city should have been afforded the opportunity to do so, not just the ones who could afford to leave. These people should not have been shuttled into the Superdome. I'm not an engineer, I'm not an expert and yet I was able to see what a horrible idea this was.

There is no excuse for this. Period.

[Bouncy Ball]

13. Hear, hear.

Exactly. But that only makes sense. Take it down to a smaller level, so lurkers can understand this better: you've just discovered a small fire on a hospital floor. You run up to the patients on the floor above it and scream "EVERYONE OUT!! EVERYONE OUT!"

SOME of the patients can manage, despite their illness, to get up on their feet and shuffle along pretty slowly, pushing their IV poles.

But not all of them. Many of them are simply not able--too sick, unconscious, just had surgery, undergoing chemo, etc. How the hell are they supposed to get out?

You GET them out. You don't just LEAVE them there and then say, after they burned in the fire, "well, we WARNED them, they just didn't leave."

It is a parallel analogy because someone with no car and no money for a bus or private jet, LOL, is pretty much stuck like Chuck like those patients in the hospital on fire.

It's immoral to say "DANGER" then leave them there when they can't leave of their own accord.

[fluffernutter]

19. completely agree.

[Bouncy Ball]

21. I just read your post to my husband.

It seemed to really spark something in him, he agreed very enthusiastically and said he hadn't even thought of it that way before. His mother is a big reich winger and I think he's off to email her now! :evilgrin:

[u4ic]

12. EXCELLENT analysis!!

and recommended.

[pitohui]

14. also you can't do this every time there's a storm in the gulf

ppl also forget that there are multiple tropical storm events in the gulf ea. yr

nobody can afford to evacuate every time there's a big storm in the gulf

this storm was a fooler

the nat'l weather service told us it was going to hit to the east, at the florida/alabama line

you can't be packed, racked, and ready to roll every time a storm is going to hit somewhere on the coast, you just can't

& every time you do evacuate, you're out 3 days' work

i evacuated for ivan, ended up in path of the storm which never came close to my house

i evacuated for this one & still ended up in the path & had to evacuate again

how can a person without cash $$$ and a reliable car do this?

[Bouncy Ball]

17. Now that's a VERY good point.

You are right. No way you can do that every time.

I get sick when I think hurricane season isn't even over until November 30.

[wildflower]

15. Another story, from the niece of the Neville brothers, who couldn't leave

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=2062224#2062851

[friesianrider]

16. Way to steal my post from yesterday.

LOL, just kidding. :) It seriously sounds word-for-word like my post from yesterday though. People don't understand it takes money and a good deal of it to evacuate.

[niallmac]

18. This is a perfect well thought out post and I hope you don't mind

if after explaining your points to my rock stupid repug friends I shove it up their ass the next time they say "It was their own fault."

[Left Is Write]

20. The person who wrote it would like it passed along to anyone

who just doesn't seem to "get it."

[mom cat]

22. I saw someone who did not evacuate...afraid of losing his job if he

evacuated! He would have been fired if he evacuated and the city had been spared!

[sundog]

23. thanks liw

this was needed :hug: