Friday, September 23, 2005

From my friend Bobi, core organizing volunteer at NOLA.COM. I'm not spamming, I just want to pass it along in the remembrance of the young man.

Young man in Humble, dead in evacuation of HoustonToday at 19:55 »
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"Hi all. I am still completely inundated with Katrina and now Rita relief efforts. A friend of mine just wrote up this story and I wanted to share with all of you. YES, I am the one who called 911 earlier today and all I can say is its been a very traumatic experience to say the least. Please copy and paste the story and then email to everyone you know. This is a total injustice and if we keep talking loud enough, someone out there will hopefully listen. (Nancy - please tell me you see this story)"
Love to you all - Bobi 310-922-8229
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A Story That Must Be Told NOW!
Team NOLA is a group of volunteers who are trying their hardest to help as many hurricane victims as possible. If only everyone would try to do the same!
Today, our friend Dana was creeping through Humble, TX at a speed of no more than 4 miles per hour. She is in a caravan transporting 19 KATRINA evacuees that have also become RITA evacuees, to Nacogdoches, TX, from Houston, TX.
Dana and her crew left Houston at around 4 a.m. and at around 3:30 p.m. they were only in Humble.
On Hwy 59 in Humble, near the Kingwood exit, two white vans full of disabled children were stopped in the middle of the road. Cars were driving around them as if they were piles of roadkill. The vans had stopped suddenly because one of the disabled children (a 16 year old boy, we believe) had stopped breathing. The caretakers were performing CPR, but received no help from the other drivers. After 30 minutes, Dana finally reached the scene, and pulled over to help. She took down the license plate and called our friend, Bobi, in California. Bobi took the information and called her 911 in California, who patched her through to one in Humble. The operator told Bobi that they had just received a call and were going to dispatch help. The incident began 45 minutes before the first 911 call was received. Who knows how long it took help to arrive. Who knows if anyone even cares about this young person's death. Who knows if anyone out there reading this email will do a d**n thing to be sure the child's death doesn't go unnoticed.
This death was a result of the inability of our people to get organized in times of crises. No one should have to sit in traffic for TWELVE hours to evacuate a city. Who can afford to run an air conditioner for that long? With gas as scarce as it is now on the highways of Texas, running the air conditioning in a vehicle is as dangerous as not running it at all. We all know A/C's use gas, so sitting in traffic for 12 hours would require using up all of the gas on air conditioning, or saving gas for driving the hell out of Dodge.
I do not know if this child died of heatstroke or other causes. I do know that his death could very well have been prevented had our emergency plans been reasonable or well-thought out. Where is the organization? Where is the money for prevention of mass panic and chaos? Where are the reinforcements to help all of these travelers with their evacuation?
Please do not let this issue die with the young disabled man.

Lisa Stanford
VOLUNTEER
Atlanta, GA. 404-840-7482
Lisa Stanford, volunteer with nolahousing.com
Blessed be to the kind-hearted!

1 comment:

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