permaculture

[Keith Johnson <keithdj@mindspring.com>]

At IPC7 I brought up the subject of Permaculture for refugees, and folks 
thought it a topic worthy of consideration. Here's a report to help us 
understand some of the particular challenges of refugees.

>     Subject: FW: Katrina, firsthand report
>
>     This message is available on the Internet at
>     http://www.emsnetwork.org/artman/publish/article_18337.shtml
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>     Hurricane Katrina - Our Experiences
>
>     Note: Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics from California that
>     were attending the EMS conference in New Orleans. Larry Bradshaw
>     is the chief shop steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790; and
>     Lorrie Beth Slonsky  is steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local
>     790.[California]
>
>     Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the
>     Walgreen's store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets
>     remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible
>     through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity,
>     running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were
>     beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and managers
>     had locked up the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled
>     the City. Outside Walgreen's windows, residents and tourists grew
>     increasingly thirsty and hungry.
>
>     The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized
>     and the windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was
>     an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and
>     distributed the nuts, fruit juices, and bottle water in an
>     organized and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead they
>     spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the
>     looters.
>
>     We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and
>     arrived home yesterday (Saturday). We have yet to see any of the
>     TV coverage or look at a newspaper. We are willing to guess that
>     there were no video images or front-page pictures of European or
>     affluent white tourists looting the Walgreen's in the French Quarter.
>
>     We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero"
>     images of the National Guard, the troops and the police struggling
>     to help the "victims" of the Hurricane. What you will not see, but
>     what we witnessed, were the real heroes and sheroes of the
>     hurricane relief effort: the working class of New Orleans.
>
>     The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and
>     disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the
>     generators running. The electricians who improvised thick
>     extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little
>     electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking
>     lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent
>     many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of
>     unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks
>     stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards,
>     "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs
>     in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could
>     be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service
>     workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal
>     meals for hundreds of those stranded.
>
>     Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from
>     members of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only
>     infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water.
>
>     On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in
>     the French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference
>     attendees like ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels
>     for safety and shelter from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone
>     contact with family and friends outside of New Orleans. We were
>     repeatedly told that all sorts of resources including the National
>     Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the City. The buses
>     and the other resources must have been invisible because none of
>     us had seen them.
>
>     We decided we had to save ourselves. 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 waited for
>     48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing
>     outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had. We
>     created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new
>     born babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent"
>     arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned
>     that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were
>     commandeered by the military.
>
>     By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was
>     dangerously abysmal. As the desperation and despair increased,
>     street crime as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels
>     turned us out and locked their doors, telling us that the
>     "officials" told us to report to the convention center to wait for
>     more buses. As we entered the center of the City, we finally
>     encountered the National Guard. The Guards told us we would not be
>     allowed into the Superdome as the City's primary shelter had
>     descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole. The guards
>     further told us that the City's only other shelter, the Convention
>     Center, was also descending into chaos and squalor and that the
>     police were not allowing anyone else in. Quite naturally, we
>     asked, "If we can't go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what
>     was our alternative?" The guards told us that that was our
>     problem, and no they did not have extra water to give to us. This
>     would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and
>     hostile "law enforcement".
>
>     We walked to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street
>     and were told the same thing, that we were on our own, and no they
>     did not have water to give us. We now numbered several hundred. We
>     held a mass meeting to decide a course of action. We agreed to
>     camp outside the police command post. We would be plainly visible
>     to the media and would constitute a highly visible embarrassment
>     to the City officials. The police told us that we could not stay.
>     Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short order,
>     the police commander came across the street to address our group.
>     He told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain
>     Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge where the
>     police had buses lined up to take us out of the City. The crowed
>     cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and explained
>     to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation and
>     wrong information and was he sure that there were buses waiting
>     for us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically,
>     "I swear to you that the buses are there."
>
>     We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge
>     with great excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the
>     convention center, many locals saw our determined and optimistic
>     group and asked where we were headed. We told them about the great
>     news. Families immediately grabbed their few belongings and
>     quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in
>     strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping
>     walkers and others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles
>     to the freeway and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now
>     began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our enthusiasm.
>
>     As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line
>     across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to
>     speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent
>     the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered
>     and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage
>     some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our
>     conversation with the police commander and of the commander's
>     assurances. 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. These were code words for if
>     you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River
>     and you were not getting out of New Orleans.
>
>     Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter
>     from the rain under an overpass. We debated our options and in the
>     end decided to build an encampment in the middle of the
>     Ponchartrain Expressway on the center divide, between the O'Keefe
>     and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would be visible to
>     everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated freeway
>     and we could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen
>     buses.
>
>     All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make
>     the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge,
>     only to be turned away. Some chased away with gunfire, others
>     simply told no, others to be verbally berated and humiliated.
>     Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from
>     self-evacuating the City on foot. Meanwhile, the only two City
>     shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair. The only way
>     across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks,
>     buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be
>     hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery
>     New Orleans had become.
>
>     Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water
>     delivery truck and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting!
>     A mile or so down the freeway, an army truck lost a couple of
>     pallets of C-rations on a tight turn. We ferried the food back to
>     our camp in shopping carts. Now secure with the two necessities,
>     food and water; cooperation, community, and creativity flowered.
>     We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar
>     poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated
>     a storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate
>     enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas, and other
>     scraps. We even organized a food recycling system where
>     individuals could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for
>     babies and candies for kids!).
>
>     This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. 
>     When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant
>     looking out for yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to
>     find water for your kids or food for your parents. When these
>     basic needs were met, people began to look out for each other,
>     working together and constructing a community.
>
>     If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and
>     water in the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration
>     and the ugliness would not have set in.
>
>     Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing
>     families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our
>     encampment grew to 80 or 90 people.
>
>     From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the
>     media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every
>     relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City.
>     Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all
>     those families living up on the freeway? The officials responded
>     they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking
>     feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.
>
>     Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City)
>     was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up,
>     jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces,
>     screaming, "Get off the ------- freeway". A helicopter arrived and
>     used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures.
>     As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and
>     water.
>
>     Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the
>     law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated
>     or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of
>     "victims" they saw "mob" or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our
>     "we must stay together" was impossible because the agencies would
>     force us into small atomized groups.
>
>     In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we
>     scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the
>     dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the
>     freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal
>     elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the
>     police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and
>     shoot-to-kill policies.
>
>     The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact
>     with New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out
>     by an urban search and rescue team. We were dropped off near the
>     airport and managed to catch a ride with the National Guard. The
>     two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the
>     Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of their
>     unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were
>     unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.
>
>     We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun.
>     The airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a
>     press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while
>     George Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. After
>     being evacuated on a coast guard cargo plane, we arrived in San
>     Antonio, Texas.
>
>     There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief
>     effort continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large
>     field where we were forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the
>     buses did not have air-conditioners. In the dark, hundreds if us
>     were forced to share two filthy overflowing porta-potties. 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.
>
>     Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been
>     confiscated at the airport because the rations set off the metal
>     detectors. Yet, no food had been provided to the men, women,
>     children, elderly, disabled as they sat for hours waiting to be
>     "medically screened" to make sure we were not carrying any
>     communicable diseases.
>
>     This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm,
>     heart-felt reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw
>     one airline worker give her shoes to someone who was barefoot.
>     Strangers on the street offered us money and toiletries with words
>     of welcome. Throughout, the official relief effort was callous,
>     inept, and racist.
>
>     There was more suffering than need be.
>
>     Lives were lost that did not need to be lost.

--
Keith Johnson
Permaculture Activist Magazine
PO Box 1209
Black Mountain, NC 28711
(828)669-6336

also Patterns for Abundance Design & Consulting
Culture's Edge at Earthaven Ecovillage
http://www.permacultureactivist.net
http://www.earthaven.org
http://www.bioregionalcongress.org


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