Ok, I'm so stunned at this one that I need other interpretations of this. Here are two articles, one printed at NOLA/The Times Picayune, right before
the hurricane hit, Sunday, August 28, 2005 , and one from The Guardian, which seems as trustworthy as any paper that I know of, on 9-4-05 .
Ok, here goes. Just copying tidbits, but here are links too. The bold is just me, freaking out.
From NOLA
"Levee board officials around the area closed or prepared to close floodgates to protect low-lying areas.
The Orleans Parish Levee District said
it would close floodgates and sever Louisiana 11 and U.S. 90 at today at 6 p.m., cutting that route to or from the city. Most other floodgates
already were closed. "
NOLA article
actually, that whole article is really interesting in retrospect. So, they shut off evac routes, before the storm even hit.
And here's what I don't understand.
This is from The Guardian, and it's written about like it is common knowledge.
"Williams only left his apartment after the authorities took the decision to flood his district in an apparent attempt to sluice out some of the
water that had submerged a neighbouring district.
Like hundreds of others he had heard the news of the decision to flood his district on the radio.
The authorities had given people in the district until 5pm on Tuesday to get out - after that they would open the floodgates.
'We thought we could live without electricity for a few weeks because we had food. But then they told us they were opening the floodgates,' said
Arineatta Walker, who fled the area with her daughter and two grandchildren.
'So about two o'clock we went on to the streets and we asked the
army, "Where can we go?". And they said, "Just take off because there's
no one going to come back for you." They kicked my family out of there. If I knew how to hotwire a car I would have,' Walker said."
observer.guardian.co.uk...
Has anyone known that the flooding of the desperately poor 9th ward area was purposeful? Can this be true? Or am I reading this wrong? Was the army
there already on Tuesday? So confused.