Anarchy

One of the first things they teach you when you're a political science student is that the opposite of law and order is anarchy. People, on the whole, don't like anarchy, so they are prepared to give up a bit of their own autonomy for the safety that comes in numbers. If government cannot provide law and order, people will turn to whomever can. This is why the mafia still rules the roost in Sicily. This is why gangs flourish all over the world. People will ally themselves with whomever can lead them to the solution to their problems.

New Orleans is in anarchy right now. No one can honestly argue the opposite. There's no law. There's no order. And all is chaos. Who is going to lead the people of New Orleans now that their government has failed them? The better question is where are they going to be led?

It just breaks my heart to read this.

NEW ORLEANS - New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out, cops turned in their badges and the governor declared war on looters who have made the city a menacing landscape of disorder and fear.

"They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said of 300 National Guard troops who landed in New Orleans fresh from duty in
Iraq. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will."

Four days after Hurricane Katrina roared in with a devastating blow that inflicted potentially thousands of deaths, the fear, anger and violence mounted Thursday.

"I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here alive," said Canadian tourist Larry Mitzel, who handed a reporter his business card in case he goes missing. "I'm scared of riots. I'm scared of the locals. We might get caught in the crossfire."

The chaos deepened despite the promise of 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop the looting, plans for a $10 billion recovery bill in Congress and a government relief effort President Bush called the biggest in U.S. history.

New Orleans' top emergency management official called that effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly lawless city.

About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at New Orleans convention center grew ever more hostile after waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead. Police Chief Eddie Compass said there was such a crush around a squad of 88 officers that they retreated when they went in to check out reports of assaults.

"We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten," Compass said. "Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon."

Col. Henry Whitehorn, chief of the Louisiana State Police, said he heard of numerous instances of New Orleans police officers — many of whom from flooded areas — turning in their badges.

"They indicated that they had lost everything and didn't feel that it was worth them going back to take fire from looters and losing their lives," Whitehorn said.

A military helicopter tried to land at the convention center several times to drop off food and water. But the rushing crowd forced the choppers to back off. Troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10 feet off the ground and flew away.

In hopes of defusing the situation at the convention center, Mayor Ray Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they could find. But the bedlam made that difficult.

"This is a desperate SOS," Nagin said in a statement. "Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses."

At least seven bodies were scattered outside the convention center, a makeshift staging area for those rescued from rooftops, attics and highways. The sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement.

An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.{...}

New Orleans is in absolute and complete anarchy. There is no law and order. Women and children are being raped. The elderly and infants are dying. People are acting like jackasses and shooting off weapons for, what it seems, is the hell of it because no one is there to tell them not to. And, of course, you have the looting. Who are the people, the victims, to turn to when their own government lets them down? Because you know they won't trust the government now, after all the delays. And, honestly, I can't blame them. All would have been fine had the levees not broken. But they did and the situation that was tolerable turned intolerable quite quickly.

I mentioned in this post that my brother, Steve, is co-owner of a Chrysler-Jeep dealership on Canal Street. Initially we were worried about flooding. To see what the dealership looks like, go here. They, conveniently, have a showroom on the second floor of the building. They put all the used cars up on the second floor because, for some reason that I don't know about, those cars are uninsured. The new cars were on the first level, because they were insured. Steve said that if the water goes higher than the dashboard on any of them, they're done for. Last I heard the water was six feet deep at the dealership.

Now, given the anarchy, I have to wonder if the dealership even exists anymore.

This just saddens and worries me so much. I adore New Orleans. The trip my mom, dad and I took when I was a senior in high school was amazing. I was really hot on the place because I'd just read Interview With the Vampire and was completely in love with Louis. I made my sister in law go and visit the French Quarter's graveyard and I had to hide my smile because she was freaking out. I remember trolling down Bourbon Street and wanting to gag because it smelled like booze and puke. But the architecture is wonderful and the place just drips with history and charm. I had a great Nikon 35mm camera at the time because I was on the yearbook staff and I had swiped a load of film from the stash in the journalism lab to take loads of pictures with while I was in New Orleans. I didn't take hardly any shots, though, because it was so gorgeous there that I couldn't decide what I wanted to photograph and I didn't think I had enough talent at that stage of my photography career, as it were, to get it right. Does that make any sense? I hope it does. I just didn't feel I could do the city justice with my limited photography skills and I didn't want crap pictures of New Orleans, so I didn't bother. And, until now, I didn't regret it. But I have to wonder if I will. With everything that's going on, it's hard to believe New Orleans will ever get back to normal. I know it probably will, and yes, it will probably be a tourist haven once again, but still...it's kind of hard to imagine right now.

This is one of the few pictures I have of my trip to New Orleans. My mom took it. That's my Dad and I outside of St. Louis Cathedral, where we'd just gone to Palm Sunday Mass. I'd never been to a Palm Sunday Mass before where they could have gone outside to get the palm branches.

I sincerely hope that one day, sometime in the future, I can take another picture in front of the Cathedral on a sunny Palm Sunday.

Posted by Kathy at September 2, 2005 12:39 AM | TrackBack