"Anderson Cooper was visibly upset today by the fact that "person after person" came up to him asking why the federal government hasn't shown up to help out yet. He reiterated over and over again. 'Where is the help?'"
Presumably the help was inside the Superdome where thousands of people too poor to flee from Hurricane Katrina were told they could find a safe refuge. As ususal the conservative ideology of every man, woman, child and dog for himself is itself a catastrophic disaster waiting to happen.
The story of a 'safe refuge' overflowing with excrement and urine, in today's Washington Post, reveals that there is more evidence for the contention that our government has a plan for the Iraqi disaster than there is for the contention that it has a plan for any disaster here at home.
There are four levels of hell inside the refugee city of the Superdome, home to about 15,000 people since Sunday.
The bathrooms, clogged and overflowing since Monday, announced the second level of hell, the walkway ringing the entrance level. In the men's, the urinal troughs were overflowing. In the women's, the bowls were to the brim. A slime of excrement and urine made the walkway slick. "You don't even go there anymore," said Dee Ford, 37, who was pushed in a wading pool from her flooded house to the shelter. "You just go somewhere in a corner where you can. In the dark, you are going to step in poo anyway."
"With no hand-washing, and all the excrement," said Sgt. Debra Williams, who was staffing the infirmary in the adjacent sports arena, "you have about four days until dysentery sets in. And it's been four days today."
Bottled water was too precious to use for washing; adults get two bottles a day. Food, mostly Meals Ready-to-Eat, is dispensed in a different line. Many refugees told of waiting in line for hours only to be told no food was available.
"This is mass chaos," said Sgt. Jason Defess, 27, a National Guard military policeman who had been stationed on a ramp outside the Superdome since Monday. "To tell you the truth, I'd rather be in Iraq," where he was deployed for 14 months, until January. "You got your constant danger, but I had something to protect myself. [And] three meals a day. Communications. A plan. Here, they had no plan."
Katrina Bush dubya worst president ever
