From today's Washington Post:
Many of the residents left in New Orleans are poor, and while some people have criticized them for failing to heed mandatory evacuation orders, many residents say they were simply unable to get out for financial or medical reasons.
"People are saying that those stuck in New Orleans now are those that wanted to stay, but that's not true," said Danelle Fleming, a New Orleans-based social worker. "They wanted to leave, but they couldn't."
She said that the city's Greyhound station was closing Saturday afternoon -- even as people without cars were trying to leave.
After being rescued from her roof, Moses said she was among those unable to evacuate before the hurricane. "My mother-in-law went out of town, but I didn't have any money, so I couldn't," she said.
2 comments:
Agreed, but they were not charging for access to the Superdome and so I do think there are many people who needlessly put themselves in danger. On the flip side I am sure many that stayed were handicapped or had other extenuating circumstances that prevented them from getting to a shelter. What I think is sad is that a disaster such as this in New Orleans has been predicted due to its precarious situation of relying on levees. One would think this country would have prepared itself for such an occurrence and developed an appropriate evacuation plan.
I just heard on Democracy Now that 50,000 households in New Orleans didn't have cars, over 100,000 people. That's a larger percentage than New York City.
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