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ianalex10
02 Sep 2005, 10:03 AM
This is from a friend!



First off I wanted to post what REALLY is going on in this city. The news stations are only showing a minuscule of reality. This post may offend some people but I will post what he saw, like it or not it is REALITY.
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Well last night I was watching the 6pm news when they announced the 17th street canal pumps failed as well as another break in the levee. My house is right off St. Charles Ave. and up to 6pm yesterday is was the only part of the city that was dry. Since the pumps failed and the new break St. Charles Ave. would be under 9ft of water in the next 12-15hrs. My brother and I felt if we wanted to save anything we had to leave NOW. We loaded up flashlights, rope, our medical ID's, both our .45 Glocks, 2 shotguns and rode out. En-route we listened to the radio which broad casted all the news about the looters and what not, in hindsight it was a mistake. My mother didn't want us to go by dad who is a Vietnam vet told to be safe and "shoot to kill" if it ever comes to that.

One the way we had to pass 5-6 checkpoints to allow entry into the city. We stated we were medical personnel who were activated, showed our ID and off we went. On the radio reports were coming in about the officer who was shot in the head, the 2 gunman who opened fired on the NOPD station, and how looters were carjacking cars to get out of the city. This started making my brother nervous and giving seconds thoughts.

Anyway we get to the city and it looks like a freaking war zone. The best visual I can give is the movie "Blackhawk Down" when all the Somalians are rushing the city. They are people EVERYWHERE, they are pissed off, and all have weapons, 2X4's, Axes, and guns. If this wasn't bad enough we are 2 white boys in a truck in a sea several hundred armed pissed off blacks. There wasn't a white person to be found. I couldn't get over the little 8-10yr old kids with weapons, I ever saw one carry a claw hammer!

These people were absolutely nuts rammed trucks(stolen I'm sure) in to jewelry stores stealing items, they were tearing apart Wal-Mart carrying out TV's, Playstations, DVD players, etc. One lady was wheeling out an entire rack of merchandise, not sure what it was but sure wasn't clothes for food. They were all laughing and carrying on like it's freaking Christmas.

We got stuck in traffic when we see the group of guys walking down the street w/ AK-47's, at that point the "pucker factor" kicked in, a couple Glocks and shotguns were no match for that. We haul azz trying to get to Uptown when we see these people chopping down the front door w/ an axe of this $4-5 million dollar mansion on ST. Charles Ave. I was just in total awe because it was so surreal. Making matters worse it's 11pm at night there is no electricity and you really can see anything or anyone until they are right up on you.

Our plan was to be in and out in 30min, this included putting his Harley on the trailer. It would have taken me 5-10min tops to get my stuff, all I wanted was my pictures from college, my clothes/shoes, and my computer tower. Well he got scared saying we are going to get jumped while putting the bike on the trailer. Keep in mind this is the only area in the city that is dry. So just like rats who move to higher ground these people were doing the same. Word must have gotten out that Uptown was dry so there started to be a large influx of people.

Needless to say he wanted to go home rather than take our chances. While it was the smart thing to do I was beyond infuriated w/ him because we made it this far. He just kept saying our lives aren't worth it. So we turned around, our next challenge was getting out of the city while not getting jacked. Reports came out that people were jumping in the back of truck holding the drivers at gunpoint. Traffic started to slow so I just nailed it got out as fast as I could.

Even though he was the voice of reason I'm still pissed. All I have is my life and the clothes on my back. I lost my house(which is now 9ft underwater) ALL my clothes, TV, computer, furniture, and photo albums and videos from childhood and college. What makes this worse is my brother owned the house and I was a tenant and I didn't have renters insurance, hindsight is 20/20.

I also hope everyone of the [******] looters get Tetanus, E-Coli and F*(KING drown. I'm serious I really hope the all die for what they were doing to the city, killing people, and destroying homes. Never in my life have I ever seen people act live savages, it was truly sicking.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Here is the *update*

Well I attempted fate again and went back to the city. This time we went in broad daylight and initially there was to be five but ended up three. We were armed w/ two pistols each(plus 2 back up) and each having 12-gague shot guns (Police/Military spec Remington 870). Once again we were force through 5 checkpoints had to show ID. At the last checkpoint the State Trooper asked "Are you carrying" to which we said yes and he then replied "Good, you may have to use them."

Overall the Westbank of the city is pretty dry, surprisingly. We exited at Tchoupitoulas and it is right near the Superdome w/people everywhere. The road was clear and we didn't stop. First we went to my buddy's house on Magazine which was dry as a bone, no water what so ever. My bro and I set up a perimeter while Lance went inside to get his stuff. Heilo's were everywhere, Coast Guard, local oil company, Huey's and even Blackhawks. I'm outside and these two people pass pushing a shopping car and the women is staring at the gun. She said "Damn dat's a big 'ole gun, I just smiled and shook my head "yes". A truck full of National Guards pass by and when they saw us they cheered "Who Hoo" I'm assuming b/c the guns. What was frightening was they they didn't have any guns! We finished there and went on to my house. I was pretty pumped because Lance's house was dry and only a couple blocks down from mmine on the other side of St. Charles. Well my joy shortly faided when every street was covered with water and 200yr old oak branches. We turn the corner and see one of the famous historic New Orleans homes, I mean MANSION to be inhabited by a family who OBVIOUSLY did not live there. I mean this is easily a $5-6 million dollar home and these people are sitting on the porch, kids playing football in the yard, clothes strung out on the lawn. I just couldn't believe it.

The closest I could get to the house without submerging the truck was 5 blocks,great. Water was up to my waist and I'm 5'10. At one point we had o "tightrope walk" across a cemetery wall because the water was so deep it was easily over our heads. As we are walking we are passing families sitting on the porch just watching us, I felt sorry for them. We finally make it to the house and there is about 4ft of water in front which is good because the house is 6ft off the ground. I was happy the house was dry and not looted. We check the house and it's safe and we grab the bare essential, clothes, pictures, documents. I had to leave my new TV, computer, stereo, etc. Well I had about 50lbs in each hand which I soon learned was too much. I'm not weak by any means but carrying 80-100lbs that many blocksabove water was WORK!. Sadly we couldn't get the Harley, but for now it is safe and dry. We gave the family on the porch a couple gallons of water from the truck on the way back.

Next we go to Lance's GF's house and while I'm outside making sure everything is cool a neighbor walks up w/ a sidearm and asked if the Military has arrived yet. I tell him about the troops that rode by earlier and he stated he's shot at several people trying to loot neighbor's houses and cars. He was out of 12 gauge buckshot so I gave him a box.

So we are loaded up and heading toward the bridge when we pass the Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas and see two soldiers guarding the store. We pull up to talk to him and I guess he saw the shotguns and he IMMEDIATELY drew his weapon. I'm still now certain what type of fully automatic rifle it was (no M16 or anything like that). Anyway we all put our hands up and ask him if it was safe to exit up ahead and if he needed anything like water, ammo, etc. He said "I'll take all the ammo you can spare". I asked if they are low already and he stated that in anticipation of the storm they sent all the weapons and ammo to Jackson,Ms and it flooded before they could get to them. So THAT is why none of the Guardsmen are carrying. We gave him all the ammo we had minus what was in our clips. So they ended up w/ around 5-6 boxes of buckshot and 150-200 rounds of hollow point .45

He then said 'Be careful up ahead they are rioting at the Superdome. Whatever you do DO NOT STOP. We leave and take the on ramp and infront of us is 200-300 people blocking the on ramp trying to get out of the city. We put out guns to the windows(they have been carjacking every car leaving the city) held the horn and never dropped below 15mph. People were moving away then rushing the truck but after seeing the guns they backed off. I really felt bad for some of those people because they looked tired and have a looong walk ahead of them but we weren't taking any chances

tobedawg
02 Sep 2005, 10:10 AM
Which friend was this? The one in the White Hood?

I Agree.. The Rioting is inexcuseable and disgusting, but this article makes it sound like EVERYBODY is looting... It has the "Fuck 'em, Let 'em ALL kill each other" vibe to it.. Which is equally as disgusting!

RedRigmaJacket
02 Sep 2005, 10:43 AM
no, man. good fucking post.

Wondertastic
02 Sep 2005, 10:47 AM
unfortunately, it's all heresay and can't verify any of it. we don't really know what is going on there. it may be true, it may be made up, it may be both.

Zane
02 Sep 2005, 11:08 AM
no, man. good fucking post.

Yep. I believe it. People do some f'ed up things in situations like this.
Sad, sad. sad.

tobedawg
02 Sep 2005, 11:09 AM
Yeah, it seems that everytime there is a tragic people have these "I Was There..." stories to tell that mysteriously seem to pop up on the internet.. :mad:

crank-e
02 Sep 2005, 11:09 AM
"...Never in my life have I ever seen people act live savages, it was truly sicking."

What rock has he been living under?

tobedawg
02 Sep 2005, 11:10 AM
true.. I guess he's never been to Wal-Mart on the Day After Thanksgiving!

I still think the story is made up by some lame opportunist who wants to have "something to say"

Zane
02 Sep 2005, 11:11 AM
Yeah, it seems that everytime there is a tragic people have these "I Was There..." stories to tell that mysteriously seem to pop up on the internet.. :mad:

That may be but from what I've seen on the news is sickening...don't you agree??

tobedawg
02 Sep 2005, 11:11 AM
Yes, I agree that the scene is sickening, but I think the story is a crock of shit..

phaselady
02 Sep 2005, 11:19 AM
Crock of shit or not, the overwhelming notion is here is that the rest of society is virtually isolated from this disaster. Craigslist doesn't count as being tied in to the desperation that people are experiencing. We have no idea what is going down there. We can sit in our offices and drink our skim lattes, hop on our cyclocross trainers or in our Hummers or walk down the street. And we have no idea.

Even with the advent of this great technological revolution, people down there are helpless and dying. And we are merely left to speculate on some sort of electronic post. Makes me sad.

Spoon4613
02 Sep 2005, 11:27 AM
"...Never in my life have I ever seen people act live savages, it was truly sicking."

What rock has he been living under?
Are you kidding? Just a little bit ago, people were stampeding for $50 laptops. People will do anything they can to survive. I can only imagine what it's like when there's no electricity, safe water to drink, or any sense of order.

ianalex10
02 Sep 2005, 11:55 AM
Maybe you "non-Believers" could turn on your t.v.???

I'm sure the news reporters are making up the stories of people shooting at rescue helicopters too? Fucking idiots!

Emperor Wog
02 Sep 2005, 11:57 AM
Maybe you "non-Believers" could turn on your t.v.???

I'm sure the news reporters are making up the stories of people shooting at rescue helicopters too? Fucking idiots!

Wait a second. You've spent the last year on here telling us that the news is always making shit up.

You have a history and a reputation of copying and pasting rhetoric and crap from other people's blogs, I can't blame anybody for questioning your motives.

You made your own bed..


Ian, ian, ian,

your story from your so called friend is popping up on blogs and message boards everywhere....

here are just a couple:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread.php?t=1174992&forum_id=26

http://www.ejacqui.com/

Shlep
02 Sep 2005, 11:58 AM
Interesting story, though I think a couple more references to guns would have really made the story come alive.

I think first-hand accounts of such things can tell a story the way that the media can't or won't, but I dunno if I fully trust the recollections of a self-dramatizing individual whose prose would get him rejected by Soldier of Fortune magazine for being too over-the-top.

I particularly liked this telling detail he included:

If this wasn't bad enough we are 2 white boys in a truck in a sea several hundred armed pissed off blacks. There wasn't a white person to be found.

Never mind it's self-contradictory (he says there were no white people to be found, and he was looking at two of them). Am I supposed to believe that being white and stuck in a swarm of angry, pissed-off and armed white people would be preferable? That the reassuring presence of a few more white guys would have been better? Or that they'd have been safe from the mob if they themselves were they black (which is not, it seems, tha case)?

crank-e
02 Sep 2005, 12:06 PM
Are you kidding? Just a little bit ago, people were stampeding for $50 laptops. People will do anything they can to survive. I can only imagine what it's like when there's no electricity, safe water to drink, or any sense of order.

"Hard times make hard people. I've seen the meanness in people till I don't know why God ain't put out the sun and gone away."
-Cormac McCarthy / Outer Dark

MoosyMan
02 Sep 2005, 12:19 PM
Some of the things that the author of that piece describes are actually going on, but that doesn't mean it is a racist piece of shit. It is subtle, but there are many details in the story that reveal the true motives of the author. Also from the details, you can tell that it is probably totally made up. Why would the checkpoints let in armed men with no medical supplies, even if they both coincidentaly had "medical IDs"? Why the hell did they go in again after they realized how dangerous it was? This is a sick piece of propaganda, meant to incite preperations for race war.

Emperor Wog
02 Sep 2005, 12:21 PM
Some of the things that the author of that piece describes are actually going on, but that doesn't mean it is a racist piece of shit. It is subtle, but there are many details in the story that reveal the true motives of the author. Also from the details, you can tell that it is probably totally made up. Why would the checkpoints let in armed men with no medical supplies, even if they both coincidentaly had "medical IDs"? Why the hell did they go in again after they realized how dangerous it was? This is a sick piece of propaganda, meant to incite preperations for race war.

....and it's on message boards and blogs everywhere. But, this is Ian's friend remember. He knows him personally.

ianalex10
02 Sep 2005, 12:28 PM
Ian, ian, ian,

your story from your so called friend is popping up on blogs and message boards everywhere....

here are just a couple:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread.php?t=1174992&forum_id=26

http://www.ejacqui.com/


Yes you will also find it here:

http://vca2.viperclub.org/forums/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB17&Number=584666&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

and here

http://www.viperalley.com/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/559371/page/0/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1

OMG, it is all over the car forums, Imagine that considering he has more cars than you have fingers and toes.

There is just no way I could have a friend who is a car collector and posts on several car forums???

NEXT!!

Slar
02 Sep 2005, 12:29 PM
Sure, let's essentially abandon these people for 5 days after a severe natural disaster and see what happens?

Where the fucking response?

It's sad that the initial reaction is to blame the victim. You're so damn good at that.

Ian, if you won't go to Iraq, perhaps you could at least go in your own backyard and see if you could lend a hand.

Asshole.

Shlep
02 Sep 2005, 01:30 PM
Good post, Shlep.

Thank you, sir.

shivvy
02 Sep 2005, 01:39 PM
Here is a posting that was made on the journal of a man who has been updating from the heart of New Orleans. You can find his journal here:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/

This posting was made last night. I think that this is sort of thing that helps to explain the reality of being trapped there right now. There is no excuse for the violence and ugliness that we're seeing, but it is certainly easy to begin to understand the motivation behind people feeling as though they have to do whatever they can to survive. This is only going to get worse...



The following is the result of an interview I just conducted via cell phone with a New Orleans citizen stranded at the Convention Center. I don't know what you're hearing in the mainstream media or in the press conferences from the city and state officials, but here is the truth:

"Bigfoot" is a bar manager and DJ on Bourbon Street, and is a local personality and icon in the city. He is a lifelong resident of the city, born and raised. He rode out the storm itself in the Iberville Projects because he knew he would be above any flood waters. Here is his story as told to me moments ago. I took notes while he talked and then I asked some questions:

Three days ago, police and national guard troops told citizens to head toward the Crescent City Connection Bridge to await transportation out of the area. The citizens trekked over to the Convention Center and waited for the buses which they were told would take them to Houston or Alabama or somewhere else, out of this area.

It's been 3 days, and the buses have yet to appear.

Although obviously he has no exact count, he estimates more than 10,000 people are packed into and around and outside the convention center still waiting for the buses. They had no food, no water, and no medicine for the last three days, until today, when the National Guard drove over the bridge above them, and tossed out supplies over the side crashing down to the ground below. Much of the supplies were destroyed from the drop. Many people tried to catch the supplies to protect them before they hit the ground. Some offered to walk all the way around up the bridge and bring the supplies down, but any attempt to approach the police or national guard resulted in weapons being aimed at them.

There are many infants and elderly people among them, as well as many people who were injured jumping out of windows to escape flood water and the like -- all of them in dire straights.

Any attempt to flag down police results in being told to get away at gunpoint. Hour after hour they watch buses pass by filled with people from other areas. Tensions are very high, and there has been at least one murder and several fights. 8 or 9 dead people have been stored in a freezer in the area, and 2 of these dead people are kids.

The people are so desperate that they're doing anything they can think of to impress the authorities enough to bring some buses. These things include standing in single file lines with the eldery in front, women and children next; sweeping up the area and cleaning the windows and anything else that would show the people are not barbarians.

The buses never stop.

Before the supplies were pitched off the bridge today, people had to break into buildings in the area to try to find food and water for their families. There was not enough. This spurred many families to break into cars to try to escape the city. There was no police response to the auto thefts until the mob reached the rich area -- Saulet Condos -- once they tried to get cars from there... well then the whole swat teams began showing up with rifles pointed. Snipers got on the roof and told people to get back.

He reports that the conditions are horrendous. Heat, mosquitoes and utter misery. The smell, he says, is "horrific."

He says it's the slowest mandatory evacuation ever, and he wants to know why they were told to go to the Convention Center area in the first place; furthermore, he reports that many of them with cell phones have contacts willing to come rescue them, but people are not being allowed through to pick them up.


I have "Bigfoot"'s phone number and will gladly give it to any city or state official who would like to tell him how everything is under control.

Addendum: Bigfoot just called to report that "they" (the authorities) are cleaning up the dead bodies at the Convention Center right now.