muckefuck | Looterville

Looterville

If you're looking for a little schadenfreude this morning in the wake of disaster, the crazy woman who decided to remain in New Orleans because her cats weren't worried has been forced to evacuate.

I have to confess some frustration with people who defy a mandatory evacuation order and then turn around and scream for rescue when things get worse than they expected. On the one hand, a state's power to force people from their homes should certainly be limited. Moreover, people should be allowed to make bad decisions without being required to pay the ultimate price for them. But demanding to be left alone and then suddenly changing your mind just makes matters worse for everybody.

For instance, if all citizens had evacuated their homes in the beginning, then law enforcement could basically assume that anyone on the streets who wasn't a rescue worker was a looter and take appropriate action. Of course, a lot of people who stayed behind did so to protect their property since they expected that the police wouldn't do much to prevent widespread theft--and they're being proven right. The first-hand accounts of conditions in the city today are nothing less than harrowing. What I want to know is: What the hell are the looters doing with all this crap? After all, 80% of the city is flooded and passage in and out is drastically curtailed. Are they taking it all back to their flooded homes where it will simply be destroyed? The idiocy of it all pisses me off.

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What the hell are the looters doing with all this crap? After all, 80% of the city is flooded and passage in and out is drastically curtailed. Are they taking it all back to their flooded homes where it will simply be destroyed? The idiocy of it all pisses me off.

THANK YOU! I'm glad I'm not the only one who was wondering this! Seriously, it's not like you can plug in that TV you just swiped anywhere, and it's simply transformed into prolonged vandalism. Why the police just let this happen in a number of cases is beyond me ...

They're too busy trying to keep people from dying. Just a guess.

The mayor of New Orleans recently blasted emergency crews for using helicopters to rescue people rather than plug up the breached levees. I'll admit, it's a tough choice, but if they could stop the water flowing in, they could begin pumping and fewer people would need rescuing. Plus the cleanup would go faster--the mayor claimed the delay would add at least four weeks to the time needed to drain the city.

Some of those people couldn't have gotten out earlier (I read one account of a man on a respirator who died when he ran out of oxygen) but if all the ones who could've had, imagine what a difference it would've made.

Right now might not be the best time to make this point.

Maybe not, but when is? Plenty of people made this point again and again before the storm hit and thousands ignored them. They're suffering for it now and I see no reason to rub it in. (At the same time, they're incredibly unlikely to read any of this, having better things to do right now than LJ.)

But hundreds of millions of people are watching the situation unfold. Somebody should be pointing out to them "See what happens when one ignores the experts? It's not just your own life that you put at risk." That way, when a disaster strikes their hometown, hopefully they'll react with a little more humility and foresight.

Your argument is based on logic, so it might be better to wait until people are reacting less emotionally.

When people are reacting less emotionally will be when the crisis is past--and they go back to not paying any attention any more.

I'm really just venting. I feel pretty confident that nobody's behaviour will alter one iota because of anything I say here.

While we tread on sensitive sodden ground, when will it be appropriate to begin questioning the wisdom of encouraging people to live below sea level when they are virtually on the sea shore?

You're right: Someone needs to head to the Netherlands now and tell those retards they're fucking nuts.

Well, we know what they've been smoking anyway.

Touché -- when I wrote that I was thinking only of the cases I've read of people doing this right in front of police (as opposed to any other instance -- there are obviously larger priorities than policing specifically against vandalism and looting!). But you're right -- it WOULD be far worse to occupy an officer with something like that when, at that moment, someone's life could be at risk.

Reportedly, at least one officer has been shot trying to prevent it and is in critical condition. They've called in SWAT teams to secure the downtown area.

Egad -- and I had just read an article about people stealing a bunch of guns from a WalMart there ...

It gets even worse: There are reliable reports of police joining the looting. (It's not on this page, but the print article has an accompanying photo of a police officer in full uniform carrying out a stack of DVDs.)

The idiocy of it all pisses me off.

Me too. I cannot imagine the sort of mind that would think, "The city's being destroyed! Wahoo! Flat-screen TV!"

I read today that they can't declare martial law down there because the Louisiana state constitution has no provision for it. (!)

I also heard, back on Monday morning, that the people who really got the hell OUT of town were the ones who (a) could afford plane tickets, or (b) owned a car and could afford gas money. I imagine being one of the people who has neither of those options, but doesn't want to abandon the little property I had, which is little enough but worth a lot to me. People who have very little are not so economically resilient as to just abandon "stuff"...even stuff they have no immediate use for. (...)

In other news, of course you heard about the Glencoe family who took their son down to start at Tulane, but then turned right around on Saturday to get out of town. The rented a LIMOUSINE to bring them back here, with son and luggage and all. It was available, the limousine, you see. Must be nice to be able to seize one's options. (!)/(...)

There are certainly people in the city like the cat lady who could afford to leave but decided not to. What I don't know is whether they are to measured in the dozens, hundreds, or thousands. I can understand not wanting to lose your stuff, but if it's going to be destroyed in any case, then I don't see what percentage there is in being there to watch it happen.

The authorities are well aware that there are tens of thousands of residents who couldn't afford to flee, which is why they set up shelters in places like the Superdome. Sure, evacuating 20,000 people from there is a logistical nightmare, but it's still far easier than evacuating 20,000 people from 10,000 rooftops scattered across dozens of square miles (especially when you consider that many of those who had to be rescued from their homes were taken to refugee centres and now will have to be rescued again).

I'm with you on the cat lady.

I'm also with you on the Superdome thing to shelter the indigent. (Though they will be evacuating the Superdome also shortly now.)

It's just a thing. If my least trustworthy ghetto neighbors decided to stay, and there was a chance the storm wouldn't be so bad, and more than a chance they'd loot my ghetto house, I might try to stay on my porch with a shotgun too.

Why loot your secondhand crap when there's brand-new top-of-the-line booty to be had from the local Wal-Mart?

I think you're not getting the raw lack of trust that goes along with grinding poverty.

Probably not. There's a lot I don't grok about that mindset.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/wicked_wish/582898.html

Thanks, Bill. That's an excellent essay with valuable links and pretty good comments, too.

Erp. I just linked to that too. Nevermind.

For instance, if all citizens had evacuated their homes in the beginning, then law enforcement could basically assume that anyone on the streets who wasn't a rescue worker was a looter and take appropriate action.

What would the appropriate action be in that case?

Why, stop them and ask to see their receipts, of course.

I don't feel like getting into a flame war over on

wicked_wish's livejournal, but I find it hard to believe that if money hadn't been spent on Iraq, New Orleans would have been fine and dandy. Flood control is such a long-term project that three years of insufficient funds doesn't cause the whole thing to fail. No, that takes decades of erosion, mismanagement and removal of marshland. It also helps to have a system (levees) which is fundamentally flawed.

I sometimes speculate on what good can come out of this, and I hope a radical rethink on flood policy is one of them. The levee system is a bad system, particularly in an area like Louisiana where they are constantly sinking. On CNN the other night Aaron Brown asked the mayor of New Orleans if he had anything he wanted to say. The mayor made a plea for the federal government to do something about erosion and the removal of marshland.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/wicked_wish/582898.html

Just her thoughts.

I have to confess some frustration with people who defy a mandatory evacuation order and then turn around and scream for rescue when things get worse than they expected.

Trying to be charitable here... have you looked, at all, into why people might not have left? Things like not having any goddamned car? Or no place to go? Or no money to stay somewhere for the next three months? Or an elderly relative to take care of?

These sort of explanations have been in the top stories on CNN for a week, so I absolutely don't understand why you want to attribute the harrowing predicament of these dirt-poor people to willful defiance.

Obviously you haven't read today's entry.

My older brother, who's on public aid, doesn't have a goddamn car. I guess that means he never leaves St. Louis?

I understand there being no place for people to go. I do find it a mite hard to believe that 20% of the population of the city of New Orleans does not have any relatives or friends who would put them up for a few days--which, you'll recall, is all the longer most people thought the evacuation would last before the levee broke.

Obviously you haven't read today's entry.

So far as I can recall, it wasn't there when I loaded this page. I'm glad to hear that you've reconsidered, though I still don't understand why your first impulse was to blame the victims rather than do some research.

I don't get the point about your brother. Does he always have enough ready cash that he can get out of town on a few days' notice? Are any small children or elderly relatives he's responsible for equally mobile? What would he do if he didn't happen to have relatives in Chicago?

I have no idea how well-connected the poorest residents of New Orleans are. I don't find it hard to believe that everyone they know might be in New Orleans (or, equivalently, too far to get to-- e.g. up north). My family is all over the country, but we're middle class-- I wouldn't assume that all families are like that.

I'd only been skimming CNN and I hadn't seen many of the reports you mentioned. But I had come across many first-hand accounts of reasonably well-off NOLA residents who were staying. As I told

niemandsrose, I wasn't sure what percentage they formed of those left in the city, but it clearly seemed non-trivial, and it was at those people that I directed my remarks.

Also, it seems you may have interpreted my remarks more broadly than I intended. As I clarified in comments, I was questioning why more people hadn't left their homes, not necessarily why they hadn't left the city. I acknowledged that there were thousands who couldn't realistically have been expected to go elsewhere but who could've made it to a shelter, yet chose not to.

Of course, that was back when I thought the shelters were reasonably well-supplied and well-run instead of, well, however you describe what the hell they actually are. Many who did eventually leave their homes to go to them might've been better off staying put. It's pointless now to question whether the residents had reason to expect they would turn out to be so godawful or not. The vital issue is that the highest priority for the authorities should be their responsibility to succour those people and they are not coming close to meeting it.

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