Monday, September 12, 2005

fragments

ps -- readers should go to the NOLA site and read about the Superdome, which was opened up to visitors for the first time since the National Guard evacuated it. Here's a snippet:

The floor and Momentum Turf playing field have been transformed into a mushy lake of inch-deep black water. The fetid soup coated a sea of trash and spoiled food. The bathrooms on the 200 level overflow with human feces and urine. In one men’s room, the human waste spilled out of the entrance and into the concourse. Blood stains several walls. Stagnant for days in the still air, the water, spoiled food and human excrement will require decontamination and will be removed by professionals.

“You could put a petri dish in here and just see what grows,” one technician said. “The flies are telling you there’s a biohazard.”

The leftovers run the gamut – from mundane items such as clothes and blankets to the more personal, car keys, wallets, photo albums. One collection includes an organ donor card, a personal identification card, and another card with worn edges showing the picture of the Virgin Mary on one side and text on the other that reads, “I Am A Catholic. In case of accident please notify a priest.”

On the desk in the Dome’s office, ransacked by the people seeking shelter in the building, lay a neatly handwritten note on a small piece of folder notebook paper:




“Search and Rescue Team


Please Get


Old woman and legless old man


@ 2432 Ursalines Ave. (N.O.)”




‘The ultimate test’

Officials said at least 10 to 12 people died in the Dome, including a man who jumped or was pushed 50 feet to his death from one of the pedestrian walkways. A military police officer also was shot in the leg during an assault."

1 comment:

Roger Gathmann said...

I received this in the mail. I think I'm going to have to revoke that letter thing to keep my comments from being spammed, since I'd rather be spammed than block legit comments. If somebody knows how I can open my comments and still keep the purveyors of male pattern baldness products and nurse porno off my site, I'd ge grateful.
R

"Hi Roger—Sorry to bother you here, but I couldn’t get anything to go into the comments box. I tried under the Superdome post about the filth remaining in there, and one other place,wrote in many ‘type these letters as they appear’ several times, but it would neither preview nor publish. Answer if you have time—can place in comments box if you want, I’m just really interested to know what you think about this vital issue.





Roger--I may be putting this in the wrong place, but you'll know as much about it as anyone following every nook and cranny of all this. I've read a few things about the possibility that the levees were dynamited, the first being the 'rumour' of it in the NYTimes about Thursday or Friday , sep. 1 or 2, that Mayor Nagin ordered this dynamiting to flood the 9th Ward and spare the French Quarter. Have you a strong opinion on this? I think it is the most important aspect of anything that has not yet been proven, since the forms of negligence we've long known. I saw a few remarks by residents in the area, survivors, but still there is not much about this all-important matter. Obviously, Nagin would have probably been given orders to give the order if this is what happened. It's the one single thing I'm most bothered by, and I don't know if there's anything yet to answer it; and so thought you might know better.



Patrick J. Mullins

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