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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Safely in Houston, Louisiana evacuees tell nightmarish tales of the Superdome and blast the relief effort.
Sep 2, 2005 | As they drove into Houston on Interstate 10 Thursday morning, evacuees from the New Orleans Superdome saw a "Welcome" sign. Local residents had hung bedsheets over the edge of overpasses and erected signs on trucks with messages like, "Welcome New Orleans, Our House Is Your House."
"They were playing Lil' Wayne [a popular New Orleans hip-hop artist] on the radio when we drove into town," says Augustus Warren Williams, 45. "They are treating us better than our own people."
For the desperate, dirty, overwhelmed people arriving at Houston's Astrodome, which took in 11,000 evacuees until authorities closed the door Thursday night, the contrast with the situation at the Superdome is stunning. They describe a nightmarish scene: tens of thousands of people packed into a stadium surrounded by overflowing sewage, piles of rotting garbage and corpses, in delirium-inducing heat, without adequate food or water. Hostilities rose and violence erupted. Law enforcement was grossly inadequate. Evacuees told stories, some of which have been confirmed by authorities, of rapes, fighting and a suicide. Their relief at having arrived at a place with food, water, sanitary facilities and proper security was palpable.
After initially planning to shelter 23,000 evacuees, authorities decided Thursday night that the Astrodome could only accommodate 11,000. Buses were rerouted to surrounding towns like Huntsville, with San Antonio and Dallas each preparing to receive 25,000 people. So far, families that were split up before evacuation have no way of contacting each other.
None of the volunteers available for comment could provide any idea of how long the refugees will be housed in the Astrodome or in Houston at large. Although the Houston school system has taken on thousands of displaced kids, they have no idea how long this situation will last. No officials would comment on the subject of resettlement, leaving the long-term fate of Hurricane Katrina's refugees uncertain.
As we approach the designated volunteer and press entranceway to the Astrodome, the blast of cool air conditioning is a relief from the scorching Texas sun. Inside the dome, cots are organized in rows according to occupants' last names, so that family members can better find one another if they have been separated in transit. At the Superdome, evacuees were forbidden to leave because of flooding. At the Astrodome, everyone is given a pink wristband upon arrival so that they can come and go as they please.
A bewildering array of volunteers move among the cots, including medical technicians, psychologists and local volunteers registering names and handing out donated food and water.
The contrast between this scene and the one at the Superdome is not lost on evacuees. "It was inhuman and disgusting in the Superdome," says Nathaniel Brooks, 71. "They had us cooped up in there and some of the younger boys were going crazy. Fighting, hurting each other, arguing. I couldn't wait to leave."
The evacuees, most of them poor and black, blast officials for the failed relief effort. "The mayor couldn't stop the rain, but I know he could have done a lot more to help his people," says Brooks.
Laverda Suber, 50, evacuated New Orleans, but her brother and nieces decided to stay, and ended up trapped in the Superdome's catacombs. "My family was calling me from the Superdome, and they couldn't find where the rations were being distributed," says Suber. "They went hungry and were dehydrated."
Hurricane Katrina stripped the Superdome of its Teflon cover, caused leaking, and left the shelter without power.
Evacuees say New Orleans and federal officials failed to provide them with adequate services. They say they were grossly understaffed. "Five or six buses showed up at the Superdome and there was no one to tell anyone what to do -- I got crushed," says James Matthews, 61, who is handicapped and suffered a sprained wrist in the stampede. "This is 99 percent better."
