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New Orleans 2?

September 22nd, 2005 8 Comments

Poor people are being stranded in the path of Rita in Houston. Two Americas, indeed.

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8 Responses to “New Orleans 2?”

  1. neoconsrloopy says:
    September 22, 2005 at 2:09 pm

    Ever heard of a city bus? They carry poor people all over town, you know. Do you think there’s a chance that the city bus took her to the bus station?

    So you really think that Ms. Davis had a ride out of town, but said, Nah, just drop me off at the bus station?

    Are you really that stupid? And when you’re that stupid, do you know that you’re that stupid? I mean do you sit around and think (ha) “God am I stupid” or are you so stupid you don’t know you’re stupid?

  2. frameone says:
    September 22, 2005 at 2:09 pm

    Save –

    You are truly a marvel of the information age. Goggle gives some mileage relating to two people that may or may not be the woman in question. From this scant and vague information we can surmise that one Hortense Davis had the ability to get out of town because she had the ability to get to the Greyhound station. Uh?

    Maybe she did walk. Maybe she took a cab. Maybe she used a local dial-a-ride service. Maybe she took a local city bus. Maybe a neighbor or friend drove here there but couldn’t take her any further, who knows why. You certinaly don’t and your Google sleuthing aside, have no basis for making any claims as to how she got there, at all. Period. At present, the only thing we can say for sure is that she is there but has no way of leaving it, that is, getting out of town.

  3. SaveFarris says:
    September 22, 2005 at 2:09 pm

    Try again. Read the lady’s story again:

    The 73-year-old woman called the Red Cross today to find out what she should do about the storm. She said she was told to go to the bus station and tell them she had no money and needs to get out of the city. “But when I got here, they said they couldn’t help me,” she said. “So now I’m just sitting here.”

    How did she get from her home to the bus station?!?

    According to Google, there are 2 Hortence Davises living in Houston. That means Ms. Davis had to travel either 18.5 or 9.3 miles in order to get to the Greyhound station. That’s too far to walk for a 73-year old which means she ALREADY HAD A RIDE.

    By all means, let’s open a Congressional Investigation into FEMA because Ms. Davis “can’t” get out of town.

  4. frameone says:
    September 22, 2005 at 3:09 pm

    Neo raises all the relevant questions.

  5. SaveFarris says:
    September 22, 2005 at 3:09 pm

    Yes, relevant questions all. Let’s speculate!

    If the city busses are running, who’s to say Houston’s evacuation plan isn’t to load up all the “leftovers” and leave town? New Orleans’s plan said so: they just didn’t implement it. It’s also likely that should this be the case, other public transport services (such as taxis, dial-a-ride, & the like) would be used in the same capacity.

    It would help if the reporter on the scene had asked those questions or others (what about carpooling? what about in-city shelters that AREN’T as crowded as the Superdome?) instead of just flashing a picture of Ms. Davis and tossing off an article that can be boiled down to “They’re doing it again!”

  6. neoconsrloopy says:
    September 22, 2005 at 3:09 pm

    Frame, it’s even possible that she drove to the bus station, but didn’t have any money for gas to drive out of town, and had no money to stay in a hotel.

    I guess some people find it easier to blame the poor.

  7. scotts says:
    September 22, 2005 at 4:09 pm

    i’m in san antonio, and i had some friends coming to my house to stay the weekend utill rita passed. well they just called to inform me, they couldn’t even get out of town if they wanted to. so they are staying in their house and going to wait it out. this is a massive failure on so many levels. different scenario than NOLA. These people are making a concerted effort to leave town, however, the backup caused by the population that size has led to cars overheating, heat stroke, cars running out of gas. and since the freeway is all backed up, fuel trucks and ambulance can’t get to them! they were talking about opening up the major interstates in one direction (out of town) but i don’t know what the status of that is. I know that I10 from houston is around 225 miles and its 2 lanes most of the way. Lots of people are going to get hurt, because they couldn’t get out. I’m not blaming anyone for that failure, but what are we as Americans going to do if something were to precipitate the evacuation of a major city. FEMA and Homeland Security has shown they don’t care and cannot be left to the task of evacuation.

  8. frameone says:
    September 22, 2005 at 5:09 pm

    Save –

    The woman herself says she has no way to get out of town. Is this the case? Well, she seems to think so. If Greyhound can’t help her, who can? Who’s there at the station helping this woman? The point is that local or federal officials should be on the scene looking to help people like Mrs. Davis. We’ll see how the story and situation develops but her’s is indeed an early troubling indicator. God forbid, that early next week we hear Chertoff say something like, “We didn’t know about the people at the Greyhound station until Monday when we saw it on CNN.”