That Was Fast!
Department of Social Services secretary Ann Williamson has tendered her resignation to the Jindal Administration. This comes on the heels of the recent mismanagement of shelters during Hurricane Gustav. From showerless shelters to the understaffed food stamp program, the Gustav Evacuation is widely regarded as only half a success: they got the people out of harms way, but failed to provide for them at the final destinations.
Williamson is one of the few remaining Blanco era holdovers, but I don’t know if that’s truly germaine to the issue. When trying to relocate half a million people, there are bound to be problems and the unpredictable nature of storms can completely destroy even the best laid plans. I applaud the fact that Williamson is taking responsibility for what went wrong, but I think she needs to stay close to the office in order to help her successor pinpoint the parts of the system, (and the people under her command,) which broke down. Governor Jindal has appointed policy advisor Kristy Nichols as the interim DSS secretary.
One problem which is making the headlines is the deplorable conditions of the bathrooms and port-o-lets. Reports indicate that there were insufficient facilities located at shelters. There is a parade of evacuees on the news tonight literally sobbing as if their mother died because they had to step over or in urine and feces to use the bathroom. While I can understand the indignation, the sobbing I can do without. I’m assuming most of these people have never been to a French Quarter bar or Mardi Gras parade.
I may be out of line here, but you can’t blame the Jindal Administration because someone pissed on the floor. If the toilet is backed up or overflowing, move on to the next one. Put a sign on the door and tell someone in charge. Stand guard and point people to a working toilet. During Katrina, we had a dozen people in my mother’s house and her fifty-year old plumbing couldn’t handle the load. (No pun intended.) We peed in the backyard when we had to, visited neighbors if we could, but we didn’t keep overloading the system. If you’re in a situation like this, you need to show some common courtesy, decency and humanity to those you’re stuck with.
-M Styborski, Nation of Morons
September 15th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
The Shreveport evacuees were housed in an empty Sam’s store. It wasn’t that the toilets were backed up. It’s that they were port-a-lets, outside, in the parking lot in the rain. As a native Shreveporter with white privilege who deliberately moved to New Orleans over 20 years ago, I can attest to the Shreveport’s widespread racism and anti-New Orleans sentiment that goes back to the Long era (the anti- New Orleans sentiment; the racism is of course older than that). If any of those people had peed outside, as you so glibly suggest, they would have been arrested and Shreveport would have crowed with the evidence of what animals they were. Furthermore, if I go to Bourbon Street (which I, like most New Orleanians, don’t) it would be by choice, knowing the conditions. These people were corralled in a warehouse with no running water, no access to showers and toilet facilities outside. My quote when I saw the story on TV in Shreveport was: “They just moved the Superdome a little farther north–away from the national media.” The evacuees are the ones who were shown no common decency, courtesy and humanity.
Furthermore, the head of the Red Cross in Shreveport was all over the news media saying that he would never unlock the doors again for the state to shelter people in those conditions again.
I’m no Jindal fan. Far from it. But he took responsibility for the deplorable conditions. Let him. And let those evacuees sob if that’s what they need to do without your judgments against them.
September 16th, 2008 at 12:44 am
I know, I know, and I’m not trying to put all the blame on the evacuees, but some of them do share it. I wasn’t suggesting that everyone relieve themselves on the street; that was just an example of problem solving by one small group in a similar situation.
I’ve spoken to someone who tells me that part of the problem involved the crews sent out to empty the port-o-lets. In the process, filth was spilled out of the portable loos which was not cleaned up and this is clearly the fault of the company hired to service them.
Surely there were other businesses nearby that had working plumbing which the state could have gotten access to. I’m relatively certain that there was at least one working bus in Shreveport and the officials there could have shuttled people to decent facilities. There are truck stops and hotels up and down the interstate with showers and bathrooms aplenty. At worst, the store toilets could still have been used and flushed with a bucket of rainwater. Even if the plumbing is off, a gallon or so of water poured into the bowl is enough to cause a toilet to flush.
Honestly, the only one who looks good here is Ray Nagin. He’s figured out that if he can get the people out of the city, then they’re someone else’s problem and he can sit back and say, “Don’t look at me, I did my job.”
My main point here, (which I really failed to make in the original post,) was not to point fingers at the evacuees, but to point out that there are solutions. It’s an evacuation and at least two squares, fresh water and decent facilities should be de rigeur, but when the State fails, (which it inevitably will,) the people have to work together to overcome adversity.
September 16th, 2008 at 11:50 am
First and foremost we have to view situations like this thru the community we live in. While it seems perfectly obvious and simple to a lot of us to expect people to behave a certain way, many folks here are behind the curve. They simply do not think about behaving the way you have described. It’s not a criticism and I’m not trying to patronizing, even though it comes off that way. Remember that we have a mentality here that, on one end of the scale, often sees nothing wrong with throwing trash any where they want and on the other end of the scale, nothing wrong with using live creatures in fight-to-the-death blood battles. Behavior and awareness are all relative. Again, no insult intended, just objective observation. It may seem crazy, but we need to be instructive on proper behavior in these situations as infuriatingly basic as that may seem.
September 16th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
@ Mary
Go to the head of the class!