Hurricane Katrina Has Killed Thousands
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Breaking News, Hurricane KatrinaThis IS our tsunami people.
The mayor of New Orleans fears that thousands are dead as a result.
NEW ORLEANS – With thousands feared drowned in what could be America’s deadliest natural disaster in a century, New Orleans’ leaders all but surrendered the streets to floodwaters Wednesday and began turning out the lights on the ruined city â€â€? perhaps for months.Looting spiraled so out of control that Mayor Ray Nagin ordered virtually the entire police force to abandon search-and-rescue efforts and focus on the brazen packs of thieves who have turned increasingly hostile.
Late Wednesday, Tenet Healthcare Corp. asked Louisiana State Police and the
U.S. Coast Guard to help evacuate one of its hospitals in Gretna after a supply truck carrying food, water, medical supplies and pharmaceuticals was held up by gunmen.“We have to close it down because we can no longer ensure the safety of our patients or our staff in that hospital,” Tenet spokesman Steven Campanini said of the 203-bed Meadowcrest Hospital.
He said there were about 350 employees and between 125 to 150 patients inside the hospital, which is not flooded and is functioning.
Earlier, Nagin called for an all-out evacuation of the city’s remaining residents. Asked how many people died, he said: “Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands.”
Please…pray, pray, pray.
There is little else you can do besides that right now. All the private donations in the world can’t keep people from dying.
And by the way, screw looting. Don’t worry about petty thefts right now. Focus on saving lives. The looting will continue, but if you save one life beceause you ignored a looter, the world is better as a result.
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 1st, 2005 and is filed under Breaking News, Hurricane Katrina. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 1st, 2005 at 8:49 am
Justin, looting is not mere petty theft, it is a breakdown of civil order. Some of the first stores looted sold firearms. Now the evacuation has been halted because of shots being fired at helicopters. I heard that another hospital (Children’s Hospital?) was underseige from looters trying to get in. There is a connection. The various government entities have completely lost control of New Orleans.
However many died in NO in the flood, I fear a greater number will die from the health crisis. They HAVE to get everyone out as fast as possible. And to do that, there has to be a semblance of order. They may well need to issue an order to shoot looters on the spot, but given that I’ve read several reports of police looting, even that may not be enough.
September 1st, 2005 at 9:02 am
I wrote this post before I heard about the New Orleans shooting. However, that doesn’t mean those people were looters.
All your points are well taken and appreciated. I’m not sure that I agree quite yet, as people are still dying everyday. It seems that turning a blind eye to people stealing jewelry might be a good strategy so the police can save lives. I believe the two things can coexist for a while without serious reprecussions.
September 1st, 2005 at 9:12 am
Justin wrote:
Fair enough.
It doesn’t. However, violence usually goes with looting. It is the breakdown of civil order that is the main worry here. Allowing looting means the government has no authority in those areas. If they have no authority, they can’t do anything to help others. I heard or read a report last night of two police officers getting car jacked. How are they going to help the helpless if they can’t even keep their squad car from getting stolen with them in it?
September 1st, 2005 at 10:25 am
Icepick wrote:
“They may well need to issue an order to shoot looters on the spot, but given that I’ve read several reports of police looting, even that may not be enough.”
I do not have a problem so much with people looting, as I do with anyone who is using force of any kind to do it. Things certainly have gotten more out of hand than when we first heard that people were stealing diapers and TV’s. However, shooting looters on the spot is more than a little extreme. Civil order has broken down in these areas, and we’re just going to have to get over that. Certainly people who are committing violent crimes need to be stopped, but immediate execution for stealing?
I am assuming you did not literally mean anyone who is looting, no matter what they are taking and whether or not they are enagaging in violent behavior, should be immediately killed. I really thought you made some good points, but I found that comment to be disturbing.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:25 am
People who are hijacking ambulances to get medicine (heard about this on NPR) should be dealt with accordingly, but declaring that anybody who loots should be subject to immediate execution is completely out of bounds.
The law needs to resume the way it left off. Anything else would be playing into the hands of chaos and I think we can all agree that order needs to prevail in this situation.
September 1st, 2005 at 12:00 pm
The person pulling the trigger always has discretion. But yes, I am saying shoot looters on the spot unless there is a reason to do otherwise. Talking about those who are taking rations (water, food, toilettries) as though what they are doing is completely justifiable is missing a huge point. At that point, only the strong will get supplies.
As it is, by letting the situation descend into chaos, hundreds of people are not going to be rescued fom their immediate danger (as I write, boat rescues have been suspended because of violence committed against the rescuers), and thousands more may well die from privation and squalor.
Saying that shooting looters is uncivilized completely ignores the consequences of NOT shooting looters.
And Justin, the law cannot resume where it left off. It left off in a time of normalcy, in a fully populated city. That is gone. In its place is a ruin populated by the poor, the sick, the elderly. And those that don’t give a damn. Order has broken down. How do you propose to restore it?
September 1st, 2005 at 5:11 pm
They can’t have armed escorts? I heard about this too, and it’s frightening, but firefighters go into burning buildings to rescue people. I think they should be able to handle this better.
I’ve explained how you restore it. You take the laws and you follow them. If somebody is trying to rob somebody else, you arrest them. If somebody is looting, you arrest them. If somebody is firing a gun at you, you kill them. That’s how it works. Some innocent people will die and some guilty people will get away. But you can’t go around and kill people on imperfect suspicions.
We’re simply not going to agree on this. Icepick, your methods would be effective, but against the law. Remember, we have to save as many innocent people as possible, and somebody who is looting a television or jewelry deserves to go to prison, but doesn’t deserve to die. However, if they choose to resist, the powers that be have every right to respond with appropriate force to subdue them, as in any normal situation.
Alright, agree to disagree?
September 1st, 2005 at 11:31 pm
Alright, agree to disagree?
I have any choice?
Seriously, declaring martial law would make a lot of what I’m suggesting legal.
Also, I don’t understand how it is that you don’t understand what a breakdown in order looting represents. Have you never lived in a bad neighborhood? Looting is violent. It is an act that says, “What’s yours is mine, including your life.”
If government doesn’t have a monopoly on violence (and really, that’s what government ultimately is about: violence, and its uses), then there is no government. And no government leads directly to a Hobbesian existance. THAT’S what we’re seening in New Orleans.
Finally, what good would letting the rescuers have armed escorts do if the armed escorts aren’t permitted to use their arms? Everytime they shoot back they would have to stop, fill out reams of paperwork for an incidence report, be removed from active duty until their cases have been investigated by several local and state authorities, and the cases are reviewed and adjudicated according to the laws of Louisianna? (Which wouldn’t happen here because the court system has been destroyed.) That would be following the letter of the law. Rather than do that, why not just send the rescue crews home, assuming they still have homes?
You seem to think civilization is agreeable and orderly and dictated by law, while I think civilization is the surpression of violence by threat, and use, of greater violence. How and to what ends that threat is used represents the art of governance.
However, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree.