Evacuation Halted. (Palm Beach Post video.)
Superdome evacuation halted
2,000 remaining refugees remain calm despite putrid conditions
About 2,000 people remained in the stadium and could be there until Sunday, according to the Texas Air National Guard. They had hoped to evacuate the last of the crowd before dawn Saturday.
Guard members said they were told only that the buses had stopped coming and to close down the area where the buses were loaded.
“We were rolling,” Capt. Jean Clark said. “If the buses had kept coming, we would have this whole place cleaned out already or pretty close to it.”
[…]
Hyatt guests given priority
At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses rolled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line — much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the stinking Superdome since last Sunday.
“How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?” exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage.
Kanye West was cut-off by MSNBC when he strayed from the script and made remarks critical of George Bush during a Red Cross fundraising event. Juicee News Daily called his actions “selfish and unprofessional” and the “tirade” a “disgusting display”. The Red Cross joined NBC in denouncing it.
The video.
Jefferson Parish Emergency Preparedness Director Walter Maestri, Friday night:
“We had been told we would be on our own for 48 hours,” Maestri said. “Prepare to survive and in 48 hours the cavalry would arrive.
“Well, where are they?” he said.
Maestri said the agreement was signed by officials with the Southeastern Louisiana Emergency Preparedness Officials Association, the state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of this year’s Hurricane Pam tabletop exercise. That exercise began the process of writing a series of manuals explaining how to respond to a catastrophic disaster. Financed by FEMA, it included a variety of federal, state and local officials.
A FEMA spokesman late Friday said they couldn’t confirm or deny that the agency signed the agreement Maestri referred to.
FEMA Director Michael Brown also raised Maestri’s ire when he said in a television interview Friday that he waited so long to respond because he didn’t want to interfere with local aid attempts, and that local officials hadn’t asked FEMA to come in.
“My response is very simple,” Maestri said in an interview on a cell phone after repeated attempts to reach his office. “We didn’t have any communications. We still don’t have outside communications.”
[…]
Maestri also was upset with American Red Cross officials for delaying the staffing of shelters in the parish. He said a Red Cross official said he should send a staffer to Mount Olive, La., with a request for personnel. When the staffer arrived, he was handed a note saying help would not be coming until it was safe for Red Cross workers.
“They can go to Iraq and Afghanistan and tell us it’s too dangerous to New Orleans,” he said. “I’ve got that note and will frame it with a copy of my resignation letter for the board of directors” of the southeastern Louisiana Red Cross.
Eric Garris links to this:
Homeland Security won’t let Red Cross deliver food
Saturday, September 03, 2005
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
As the National Guard delivered food to the New Orleans convention center yesterday, American Red Cross officials said that federal emergency management authorities would not allow them to do the same.
Other relief agencies say the area is so damaged and dangerous that they doubted they could conduct mass feeding there now.
“The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans,” said Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.”Right now access is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities. We have been at the table every single day [asking for access]. We cannot get into New Orleans against their orders.”
Calls to the Department of Homeland Security and its subagency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, were not returned yesterday.