September 2 Update on Katrina

My Friends:

September 2, 2005, another terrible day in New Orleans and Louisiana.  Baton Rouge is now the largest city in Louisiana, having swelled on the tide of miserable, homeless, refugees fleeing from that hell hole that once was the Big Easy. You who have seen the news are probably mesmerized by the ongoing horror of twenty thousand trapped in the Superdome in the dark without water, food or sanitary conditions, while the criminal element there is raping, murdering in the horrendous stink of the place.  Up until yesterday, rescuers raced over the water filled streets with boats pushing aside floating bodies while trying to find the living until the Mayor ordered them to stop the rescue effort to stop the looters who had taken over and were in total anarchy.  Orders from the Governor and Mayor are to shoot to kill. I am sure that many of the bodies later found will have bullet holes that were made by those rescuers who were more than happy to save the gene pool from more pollution from that wing of humanity's devolution. Media didn't report that end of things. Helicopters hover over the huge polluted pond of New Orleans trying rescue people from rooftops while looters, having stripped the stores, shoot at them with automatic weapons. Some police and rescuers are quitting for fear of their own lives. The National Guard is finally coming after days of delay. What the hell has taken so long?

Thousands have left the Superdome and have stood on the elevated Interstate for days without food, water or toilet.

Finally, at midnight last night, busses from all over the state arrived and are trying to take on passengers to carry them out of there, yet there still aren't enough busses, and many will be left. I see by the paper this morning that several died last night, some old and infirm and one just simply ill.  The Charity Hospital has been in the dark for four days, surrounded by a moat of water ten feet deep, without power, water or food, with 1,500 patients in that huge stack of ugly concrete and morter built in the thirties. This is unimaginable. This is only one hospital so stranded. Water is needed to flush the toilets.

The first refugees who left the City before the hurricane hit couldn't return when the levee broke, flooding the big "cereal bowl" called New Orleans.  The city is eight feet below sea level, and the levees should have been kept in high maintenance, but we are informed that they were held to a standard of a category 3 storm, which is ridiculous considering the eternal possibility of a Katrina happening at any time and the dire consequences of a breech.  The old saying "if it can happen it will happen" has happened here. So after the storm passed, doing considerable damage, but not enough to keep people from returning to clean up their properties and return to their lives, the levee broke and they were not permitted to go home.  Many never left after being ordered to leave by the Mayor and now literally tens of thousands have died and will be found when the water finally recedes, in their attics from which they could not escape. The temperature in New Orleans in August hovers around 100 degrees, and attics are like ovens.

Those hundreds of thousands who have moved out of the City have filled the hotels to capacity.  Homes everywhere have cars parked everywhere with friends and relatives as guests who may be there for a long time, perhaps six months.  All business in New Orleans is down.  People are putting their children in local schools, trying to find local jobs. An Optomitrist friend, who is a Volunteer Minister from "Lake Pontchatrain", as he calls his old home, is looking for work as his office and home are destroyed. Multiply this by several hundred thousand, and you have the picture of those people who are good, hard working people, who are productive and want to continue their lives, as their mortgage payments and bills are continuing.

Then there are those who have no friends or relatives to turn to, and those are the ones in the shelters. They don't have money for a hotel.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers from all over the planet are converging on Baton Rouge to help in anyway they can.  This group have been to Sri Lanka for the Tsunami, they were the only group welcomed at Ground Zero other than the Red Cross. They have been to every disaster over the past ten years and are organized and trained to help. Usually the Red Cross and other groups welcome us with open arms because we know what we are doing.  You can know us by the yellow shirts and yellow tents that will spring up everywhere in Baton Rouge and the outlying areas where there are shelters, and later in New Orleans as the water recedes.  These people are people just like everyone else with full time jobs and are here to help, giving of their time, energy and resources, and they have no place to stay either.

There could be five hundred VM's here in the next few days looking for a place to stay.  The center of operations at this time is the Baton Rouge Mission on 9432 Common Street.  I am sure as things grow a larger facility will be required, as the VM's report in early and get assignments and then return to make reports at ten in the evening.  It is well organized and set up to handle this number of VM's.

Last night, a group of ten of us went to Lamar Dixon, which has 1,800 refugees. They were generally the first to evacuate the City as the storm approached. It is supremely organized there by the Red Cross, and that branch of the RC is run a bit like a military installation and the people are well supplied with bedding, water, food, etc., and children run around and play as if it is a play ground. There is barely room to walk between the beddings on the floor.  This group, as the initial group of evacuees, has suffered no more trauma than losing everything they have and perhaps now having lost word about relatives who are still lost.  These are enough problems, and they need people to come in and talk to them, give assists, etc. There is to be no prosetilization or religious solicitation, etc., but those who know how to talk to them are good grief counsellers. I met some delightful people who are productive, proud, hard working folks, who are trying to keep their tones up.

We would be assigned one of the sections.  There were sixteen sections in the building. I was given a pin for Section No 1, and spent the evening talking to those in that area, going to get water, towels and soap.  They had run out of towels.  This was very organized and run by a guy named Grant, who was the perfect In Charge, so grateful for our coming and helping.  He is an investment counseller by profession and gives of his time.

For example, there was Manuel and Paula Smith, a couple who hold down two jobs each. He is a skilled welder and she works for the Orleans Parish School Board.  They are fifty, their children are all grown.They have a house they are proud of, all of their appliances are less thasn six months old, and paid for, and they are working hard and happy in their productivity.  They have insurance, etc., but they are worried, and having experience inthis I sat with them an hour and helped them through with their thinking and they felt lots better for I am a professional and know about these things.  It was a help.  Now they don't have to worry, and they will, but not as much.  These people will all worry more and more for they are productive and production is the basis of morale and they will sink in despair unless we help them and get them something to do.

Night before last, a Vanguard of a dozen of us set up a yellow tent inside the River Center, where there are around 1,500 evacuees who were rescued from high water, etc., and had real physical and emotional trauma of losing people and nearly dying.  This place was quite different from Lamar Dixon which is a luxury hotel compared to the River Center. Perhaps it is the difference in management. The Red Cross is just supplying stuff for them and they are treated like cattle. Many of this group had to swim out of the high waters to reach a roof and left others behind who couldn't swim.  And they didn't have cots, or even blankets.  Some were trying to sleep on the hard cold bare floor with nothing but the clothes ont heir backs, and there were no blankets available to lie on or cover with.  I understand conditions last night were not much different.  So instead of going to Lamar Dixon tonight, I am going there where we are needed.

My wife Amelia does terrific assists, and she did assists at the River Center, and one woman went from crying to laughing and smiling all the rest of the evening.  I found some people who needed medical help, and Dr. Rohit Adi (with the Lady Of The Lake ER) and Dr. John Ragusa surgeon, are VM's, and were available for me to bring to these suffering people and help them.  Most simply needed pillows and blankets, something to cover themselves so they could be a little comfortable.  They need towels, toothpaste, sox, sanitary supplies, diapers, diaper wipes, reading material, magazines, hand lotion, soap.  All the things you take for granted at home they need there.

There has been a vast outpouring of help and donations from Baton Rouge, so much that there is no way to carry it from the Channel nine (WAFT) collection point on Goverment Street, to the River Center. Most of this consists of clothing, but these other vital necessities are needed.

One simple thing to do is, when they are traumatized, is have them tell you where they were, and then ask hem where they are now.  They are stuck in that trauma and need to get into present time.  It is like doing the assist for an injured child. There are many other things to do to help them, but the first is to give them the basics so they can at least be physically comfortable.  Sometimes they need simply to be put into present time and out of their trauma which sticks them and they may be in terrible shape.  We know how to do that and do it effectively.

I am frankly worried about how this is going to fare as the days and weeks and even months wear on.  We are only into this thing now for four or five days. What will happen as these people, jammed together in these shelters even in the best of circumstances, become restless or angry?  That is our job to assist them.  They will need to become productive for we know what happens when people are not allowed to work or produce.  I am not sure if any other group knows about this.  There is always an element in any group that is counter productive and will do anything they can to keep things stirred up, and we inevitably will find this poisonous group of individuals who will stir trouble.  We may not be able to spot them all at once, but there are real criminals in this bunch, dredged from the sewers of New Orleans, which will afflict these wonderful people who are the vast majority.  We must be on the lookout. The real bad ones make themselves invisible, but cause the worst trouble.

Last night I talked to Paul, a very cool little guy around fifty, who is very street-wise. He said there are some really bad guys in there (Lamar Dixon).  I asked how could you tell who they are and he said the trademark are the pants hanging off and down around their butts with white T shirts. They were there.  At least this group is holding up a red flag announcing they are part of the criminal element.

The initial "camping" feeling will wear off soon, and that is when we must be there to give help. This may take a long time, perhaps months.  Baton Rouge will absorb many of these people, the good and the bad, and many will return home.  New Orleans people can live nowhere but New Orleans.  "Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans," takes on a new meaning here, as New Orleans as we have known it may never be the same.  But ini the meantime we have to take responsibility for our fellow man and give of ourselves.  I believe we are all linked in some way, and are all responsible for one another. Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, the bells toll for thee.

L.D. Sledge
L. D. and Amelia Sledge
Equity Leadership  Mortgage Group, Inc.
8325 Jefferson Highway
Baton Rouge, Louisiana  70809
Office (225) 926-8888
Fax (225) 926-8884
L D's Cell (225) 252-5986
Amelia's Cell (225) 938-7117

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