Looterville

[muckefuck]

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.

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

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).

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

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.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

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

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

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

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

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