"Hurricane Katrina, Our Experiences"

Here is a first person account of Katrina, featuring both apalling law enforcement ineptitude and heart warming spontaneous mutual aid among ordinary people. What follows are some fragments:

So we pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have extra money. ...We later learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military....The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.....We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City....Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery truck and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! ... We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar poles....In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again.... All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more....Those who managed to make it out with any possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) we were subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches....Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept, and racist.

via dr b.

Update: "Ooh, but those people are so obviously politically motivated, their story can't be true." Yes, they are left wingers, but the story checks out. See Health Care Blog, and the comments at Making Light