By ALLEN G. BREED
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS -- With much of the city flooded by Hurricane Katrina, looters floated garbage cans filled with clothing and jewelry down the street in a dash to grab what they could. In some cases, looting on Tuesday took place in full view of police and National Guard troops.
At a Walgreen's drug store in the French Quarter, people were running out with grocery baskets and coolers full of soft drinks, chips and diapers.
When police finally showed up, a young boy stood in the door screaming, "86! 86!" _ the radio code for police _ and the crowd scattered.
Denise Bollinger, a tourist from Philadelphia, stood outside and snapped pictures in amazement.
"It's downtown Baghdad," the housewife said. "It's insane. I've wanted to come here for 10 years. I thought this was a sophisticated city. I guess not."
Around the corner on Canal Street, the main thoroughfare in the central business district, people sloshed headlong through hip-deep water as looters ripped open the steel gates on the front of several clothing and jewelry stores.
One man, who had about 10 pairs of jeans draped over his left arm, was asked if he was salvaging things from his store.
"No," the man shouted, "that's EVERYBODY'S store."
Looters filled industrial-sized garbage cans with clothing and jewelry and floated them down the street on bits of plywood and insulation as National Guard lumbered by.
Mike Franklin stood on the trolley tracks and watched the spectacle unfold.
"To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society," he said.
A man walked down Canal Street with a pallet of food on his head. His wife, who refused to give her name, insisted they weren't stealing from the nearby Winn-Dixie supermarket. "It's about survival right now," she said as she held a plastic bag full of purloined items. "We got to feed our children. I've got eight grandchildren to feed."
At a drug store on Canal Street just outside the French Quarter, two police officers with pump shotguns stood guard as workers from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel across the street loaded large laundry bins full of medications, snack foods and bottled water.
"This is for the sick," Officer Jeff Jacob said. "We can commandeer whatever we see fit, whatever is necessary to maintain law."
Another office, D.J. Butler, told the crowd standing around that they would be out of the way as soon as they got the necessities.
"I'm not saying you're welcome to it," the officer said. "This is the situation we're in. We have to make the best of it."
The looting was taking place in full view of passing National Guard trucks and police cruisers.
One man with an armload of clothes even asked a policeman, "can I borrow your car?"
Some in the crowd splashed into the waist-deep water like giddy children at the beach.
What do you DO when you're a jewelry store owner and everyone's told to evacuate town and expect to return to a war zone?
ReplyDeleteI didn't know until yesterday that such a large sector of New Orleans was terribly poor. ...typical yankee who reads about Mardi Gras once a year and thinks the city must be a thriving metropolis if it has such a huge tourist trade....
Do you think those diapers held up to all that floodwater? ("They were much smaller when we got 'em!") What about all the Bounty? Could it have quicker-picker-up'd all the lakes and rivers of water, rendering emergency services obsolete?
Okay, I'm done. I guess appalling behavior engenders tasteless humor...
p.s. I was under the impression that Mississippi has incurred a much higher death toll, due to an unanticipated wavering in the storm's 'flight path.' Didn't you kind of anticipate this as a possibility? Surrounding Mississippi is even poorer than Lousiana and, I'm thinking, receiving short-shrift in the media as a result of hurricane predictions. I mean, look how many Florida storms took sudden turns last year. Were surrounding Mississippi towns not given the same directive to evacuate, and with the same urgency?
I guess maybe crisis doesn't always bring out the best in human nature after all.
ReplyDeleteIt really doesn't take much for the darker side of human nature to be exposed...I am reminded of your previous post about the anarchy that ensued when a school district was selling used laptops for $50.
ReplyDeleteI have to wonder, though, whether the poor people who are looting in New Orleans right now and those who looted in L.A. in 1965 and 1992 are somewhat justified in their actions. Those people are surrounded by images of wealth and affluence that they'll never obtain. Looting may indeed be a way to take "an opportunity to get back at society," as Mike Franklin said.
Heather: New Orleans seems like one of those cities where the middle class doesn't live in the city limits. What's left is the very rich, the very poor and tourists who see mostly the good parts.
ReplyDeleteI've never been, but my brother drives there often from his job in the Florida panhandle and that's what he surmises about the city.
Some of those people have lost so much that they've momentarily lost their damn minds. I can see stealing food if you have no food, and even diapers and Bounty, but loading up on jeans, electronics and jewelry in a time of crisis seems a little vengeful.
It's pretty simple why they're focusing on New Orleans rather than Mississippi: New Orleans is a bigger town that people know a little better. The damage in Biloxi was just as bad, if not worse than New Orleans, but unless you're from there or gamble at casinos, the typical news viewer would connect to it less.
Juno: It just shows that people will sink to their lowest level when there's a crisis.
That said, I think the news unfairly focused on the stupider looters because it makes a better lead story, which is pretty sad in itself. The great majority of New Orleans residents, I'm sure, aren't resorting to straight-up theft of luxury items.
Mitch: The looting is "an opportunity to get back at society" in a way because I'm sure that the upper class members of the New Orleans community have made it hard to be poor and black in the city in numerous ways.
That said, it's totally wrong to be caught stealing like that and a little stupid right now. I can totally see stealing food, even clothes or furniture. These people have lost so much it's excusable
But say you steal a TV. Where the hell do you plug it in? The town's flooded, the houses and businesses are ruined, there's barely a way out of the city and thre's no power. I guess you could imagine what's on or something. It's unneeded and the news media is playing up the people's greed, which isn't helping efforts to assist these people.