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FEMA workers must be arrested!They did not ’Fail’, they intentionally withheld lifesaving supplies!

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 15 September 2005
12 comments

Edito Catastrophes USA

"To me, it was like being in hell," said Carl Warner, the chief engineer for Methodist Hospital in the hard-hit eastern part of New Orleans. "There were bodies floating in the water outside the building, and our staffers had to swim through that water to get fuel for the generator."

The patients and staff at Methodist could have been evacuated before Hurricane Katrina hit. But instead they were condemned to several days of fear and agony by bad decision-making in Louisiana and the chaotic ineptitude of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Some of the patients died.

Incredibly, when the out-of-state corporate owners of the hospital responded to the flooding by sending emergency relief supplies, they were confiscated at the airport by FEMA and sent elsewhere.

The time to evacuate the hospital was when it became clear that New Orleans was in the path of a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. "We had about 137 patients," said Dr. Jeffrey Coco, the hospital’s chief of staff, "and we had a company called Lifeguard that was going to take them out."

But apparently there was a reluctance to evacuate without some sort of governmental guidance. When the mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, issued a mandatory evacuation order, hospitals were exempted. Dr. Fred Cerise, secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals, said Methodist officials could have decided on their own to evacuate, but that never happened.

Some of the patients were extremely ill, requiring ventilators or dialysis treatment or major surgery. When the hurricane hit, part of the roof blew off, windows were blown out, the atrium was badly damaged and the hospital was drenched with rain. On Monday night the power went out, and on Tuesday, after the levees broke, the first floor became hopelessly flooded.

By midweek you had a bizarre situation in which hundreds of people (patients, doctors, nurses, administrative staffers, relatives and people seeking emergency shelter) were stranded, cut off from the rest of the world, in a badly damaged hospital in a major American city.

Staffers with flashlights worked heroically in a sodden, stench-filled environment in which temperatures reached 110 degrees. Elevators did not work, and some patients weighing more than 400 pounds had to be carried up dark, reeking staircases. When ventilators shut down with the loss of power, volunteers worked in shifts to do the difficult hand-pumping necessary to keep patients alive.

Nevertheless, according to Dr. Albert Barrocas, the chief medical officer, the decline in the well-being of the patients was both palpable and widespread. "All of them were deteriorating in the sense of becoming weak," he said. "You could see in their faces the fact that they were scared."

By Tuesday evening four patients had died, and a dozen were dead by the time the hospital was finally evacuated Friday. Doctors believe half of the deaths were caused by the dreadful conditions in the hospital.

Everybody’s suffering would have been eased if the emergency relief effort mounted by the hospital’s owner, Universal Health Services in King of Prussia, Pa., had not been interfered with by FEMA. Company officials sent desperately needed water, food, diesel fuel to power the hospital’s generators and helicopters to ferry in the supplies and evacuate the most vulnerable individuals.

Bruce Gilbert, Universal’s general counsel, told me yesterday, "Those supplies were in fact taken from us by FEMA, and we were unable to get them to the hospital. We then determined that it would be better to send our supplies, food and water to Lafayette [130 miles from New Orleans] and have our helicopters fly them from Lafayette to the hospital."

Significant relief began to reach the hospital on Thursday, and by Friday evening everyone had been removed from the ruined premises. They had endured the agonies of the damned, and for all practical purposes had been abandoned by government at all levels.

When you consider that the Methodist Hospital experience was just one small part of the New Orleans catastrophe, you get a sense of the size of the societal failure that we allowed to happen.

Welcome to the United States in 2005.

FEMA has committed crimes against humanity-they must be held accountable!
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Forum posts

  • LOL back again on the commie trail of Re4se and company..

    lol :)

    • George ADHD Bush is back on the bottle again. And the Tin Man Dick "the peangean" Chaney is always losing heart pressure.
      You American sheep always vote in idiots to run this declining to third world county. Keep watching your hebrew wood fast car movies and pay $5.00 at the pump. And don’t forget to leave the south border open so Padro can steal your kids future job "senor.Bueno nachos chumps.

  • My son was with a team from Vancouver,Canada that showed up at St.Bernards Parrish to rescue the people. From day 1, F.E.M.A terrorized the team,even injuring one of the rescuers. They did not want Vancouver Urban Serch And Rescue to be there helping as it put them in a bad light seeing a team from so far away beat them to the scene. They would buzz their comand post with their Blackhawk Helicopters and even lifted a tent 50 ft into the air with a USARS member inside. The USARS member fell 50 ft to the ground.The FEMA group would buzz the boats that USARS were using to rescue the people and swamping the boats.Hindering rescue. Not once did FEMA help or bring supplies. Vancouver Urban Serch And Rescue Service is a team that is totally self supporting for 10 days yet were chased out by FEMA on their 5th day on the ground. The team was rescuing people as they were leaving.Shame on FEMA!

    Christine Nagy

    • —Following is a reply from USAR to a fact-check email that I sent them in which I quoted this post.

      "I’m not sure where this information came from, but it is pretty far form the truth."

      "We had practically no contact with FEMA whatsoever during our 6 days in Louisiana, and the limited contact we did have was all above board. The incident with the ’flying tent’ was the result of an Army Chinook leaving the landing zone a little too quickly, which resulted in our tent being blown about 30’ sideways. The crew chief & captain apologized to me upon their next drop-off and altered their lift off pattern accordingly."

      "I realize there has been an incredible amount of bad press toward FEMA however, I would like clarify our relations with them were all professional."

      Brian Inglis
      General Manager/Task Force Leader
      CAN-TF1
      Vancouver
      604-654-0616

  • FEMA - what a joke - I am a Katrina survivor - Slidell is my home town, New Orleans the city I love dearly. My job is gone - my household income lowered by 2/3rd. And FEMA still has my emergency financial aid request pending. What a joke.... My new motto is "Trust God not the Government".
    Do I believe Bush failed us YES
    Do I believe Bush cares NO
    Do I think things will get better for the poor working class NO

    The America I have loved and supported for my 60 years no longer exists.

    God Help all of us! Judy Ferra

  • Lost my first mesage, hope this is not a repeat. We all need to face reality, FEMA is NOT for us, but against us. I do not believe that any of this was confusion or a mistake. They ALL knew exactly what they were doing.They had a plan. As far as the poor souls that suffered in this disaster, their lives were nothing to them. I feel that FEMA and all of the higher ups are sorry that the death toll was not higher, I believe that that was their goal. Yes, this sound terrible, even paranoid, but look at the facts. We also need to realize that this is just the begining of our problems. We do need to prepare ourselves and yes, we have to pray and trust in God, He will always be for us, but the government is not. When someone is drowning and we have a rope to throw to them and we do not, well, it is because we do not want to save them.
    RA

  • FEMA is NOT about rescuing/rehabilitating/or recovering people or property during or after a disaster. It IS about easing access to private business to reap profits from the government coffers before, during and after a disaster. It IS about political patronage. It IS about testing the limits of the future US police state. It IS about diversion. It IS about heartless scumbags making their third boat payments off the misery and tragedy of others.
    Wake up.
    FEMA IS about watching you die so your property can be transferred in a no-bid contract to a GOP supporter.

  • When you see how those close to you often treat others that they donot like or disagree with and can put on a fake smile at a family reunion when only an hour before they beat the crap out of their child the same is for any government. especially One that will not hesitate to lie to it’s own people no matter what the cons. What did you expect from a government that is becoming the very things it once taught to hate and fear. Where it’s leader’s used to cry against the Communist system and how Commi’s denied God and if you cannot see that you are indeed on the very same path driven by the very same thinking people that sucked the life out of Russia who’s mind set is now hell bent on destroying America with a total fool at the helm of the ship. "Uh captain I think that’s a giant ice..." "SHUT UP! FULL STEAM AHEAD ME MATEY’S" God cannot protect us from the constant bombardment of evil if we push God away, we’ll look what happened in the old U.S.S.R. 66 million dead, you can thank who ever invented communism and it wasn’t the Greeks.

    • Posted by disruptor

      Maimonides, Mishnah Torah, (Moznaim Publishing Corporation, Brooklyn, New York, 1990, Chapter 10, English Translation), p. 184:

      "Accordingly, if we see an idolater (gentile) being swept away or drowning in the river, we should not help him. If we see that his life is in danger, we should not save him." The Hebrew text of the Feldheim 1981 edition of Mishnah Torah states this as well.

      The essential quote from the Jewish Scriptures, defining current US Government policy.

      http://www.revisionisthistory.org/talmudtruth.html

  • I’m in total agreement that the FEMA "organization" in total should be arrested and while we’re
    at it, let’s go ahead and arrest the filthy bush crime family as well! Because as far as I’m concerned they (bush crime family) is the reason and purpose that FEMA blantantly and purposely
    denied rescue efforts and medical help to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

    My name is Brenda ’Luna’ Jones and my e-mail address is: bjones0160@comcast.net in case
    anyone is interested in knowing who wrote this comment.

    Thank You.

  • I am an EX FEMA employee. I was fired for whistleblowing. I still can not believe what FEMA is allowing to go on and the power that is given to "little people" with no brains.

    The supervisors I worked with are praying for more hurricanes so they can milk the government out of more money to line their pockets with.

    It’s not about helping people, it’s about helping themselves.

    And the ones who really want to make a difference better "watch out". This is exactly what I was told. Well, if I had not reported their abuse of funds I would be as guilty as they are.

    FEMA employees dragging their feet to prevent people from getting housing "too soon".

    Slow Down, I was constantly told. Don’t get in such a hurry to help. You are going to work yourself out of a job. The longer it takes, the longer your job will last.

    These are all the things I heard in my office, from those who sat around watching porn and shopping online.

    Get rid of FEMA.