mean meanwhile

On Overpass, Thousands Wait All Day for 5 Buses

Anna Badkhen, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, September 3, 2005

Metairie, La. -- It looked like a refugee camp in some desperately poor country on the other side of the world.

Under a blistering sun on the western outskirts of the American city of New Orleans, about 5,000 people have been stranded for days in a soggy, garbage-strewn wasteland surrounded by metal barriers, sharing 12 portable toilets and one garbage can.

They were deposited here, at the intersection of Interstate 10 and Causeway Boulevard, in 95-degree heat after rescuers plucked them from rooftops and bridges in their flooded city -- women with infants, men in wheelchairs, families who had to swim for hours, children who had spent days without food or water.

The lucky ones slept on military cots, the others on sodden cardboard boxes amid a putrid pulp of discarded socks, empty water bottles, rotting raw meat and beans in tomato sauce spilled from military meal packages. Each time a U.S. helicopter landed to deliver new refugees, it would churn up dust and garbage, sending plastic bags afloat in the air above. The only protection from the blistering sun were fallen tree branches, a piece of someone's wooden fence or an American flag.

Why didn't they get out of New Orleans, as they were told, before Hurricane Katrina hit? Because, many of them said, they didn't have the money or the means. Most of them were black.

As they waited to be taken somewhere, anywhere, they felt deceived and discarded by the rest of the country.

"It's because we're not important enough," said Tanya Miller, 37, who along with her family had spent days floating on an air mattress and a powerless boat before being picked up.

Around the perimeter of Miller's temporary new home stood several dozen police officers, mostly white, holding their rifles at the ready.

"We just don't want anybody to get out of hand in this heat," said Louisiana state trooper Chance Thomas, who stood on the bridge pointing the muzzle of his M-16 at the crowd below. "I'm just doing crowd control."

But Steven Mullcur, 36, a construction worker, said that when he and his wife wanted to visit his father, who lives not far from the camp, to use his shower, "two cops pulled up and said that if we didn't go back they'd put a bullet in me or worse."

"The statement that ticked me off the most was, 'You should've left before -- now stay here,' " Mullcur said.

One police officer, who declined to be identified, confirmed that the residents were not allowed to leave their garbage-strewn wasteland except on helicopters, which took only the severely ill, or on buses, which were not there.

"They're treating us like criminals here," said Miller's son, Danard, 13. "They're not letting us leave."

Cynthia Walton, 47, a diabetic with high blood pressure, wondered whether race played a role in their fate.

"We've been very patient and polite," said Walton, who has walked on crutches since her spinal surgeries four years ago. "I'm not doing anything wrong. Is it because we're black?"

But there was a more pressing concern.

"Have you heard about buses?" one man called out.

The last bus came shortly after midnight the night before. Although hundreds of empty buses were lined up along the interstate between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, they were not picking up these people from the overpass because they had no place to take them, authorities said. All the shelters in the state were full, they said.

To help him cool off, Angel Sky, 17, gave her 2-week-old son, Thomas, water from a bottle as she held him on her lap. He wore nothing except diapers. An Apache helicopter roared overhead. Thomas grimaced and cried. Sky patted him gently on his bare back. He was, Sky said, "not good. Too hot."

"I need wipes and Pampers, but they don't have it," she said softly.

Food at the camp consisted of MREs -- military Meals Ready to Eat -- and whatever else state officials and humanitarian groups bring: water without ice, frozen sandwiches.

"They give us hot water and cold hot dogs!" said Tommy McElveen, 25, who arrived here Wednesday night. "We were on Airline Bridge for four days," he said, referring to a viaduct from which boaters rescued many fleeing the flood.

"Should have stayed there."

"Lady! Can you get the water?" a child called, pointing at an unopened water bottle under a broken cardboard box on the other side of the police- manned barrier. The bottle was covered in what appeared to be refried red beans, but the child took it, opened it, poured a little water out and then drank thirstily.

Police officer Ricky Thibodeaux surveyed the scene from a patch of highway where Marine and Navy helicopters landed to drop off new refugees and pick up those who needed to be taken to a triage center.

"What a terrible situation we have," Thibodeaux said. "It's like a horror movie. It's like a war zone."

Under the bridge, an old man with bloodied soles lay on a green stretcher. Another man covered the eyes of his wife and toddler son as a helicopter lifted off. A man in a wheelchair marked "same day surgery" stared, glassy- eyed, into the sky. An elderly man stood nearby, then collapsed on the concrete. His body was rigid, and his skin felt clammy and cool. Soldiers put him on a stretcher and rushed him to a helicopter.

Shortly before 3 p.m., five buses arrived. The crowd surged toward them, leaving behind the stench of rotting food, sweat and urine. Few would be able to get on.

"This is not nearly enough," said Jacob Dickinson, a police officer, shaking his head.

As the crowd pushed forward, a man yelled out: "Excuse me! I been here three days!" He had a toddler in his arms, bags on his shoulders.

Dickinson responded, warily: "More buses will come." He didn't entirely believe it himself, he said quietly to a reporter. He shrugged. "If it was up to me, I'd have y'all outta here."

"We can deploy troops to Afghanistan and Iraq, we can help with the tsunami, but it takes six days to get people out of New Orleans!" said Vince MacAfee, 38, a waiter who arrived earlier in the day along with about 300 people from a Salvation Army shelter in the city.

He looked at the thousands of people pushing each other toward the five buses built to hold up to 50 people each, fathers and mothers with babies in their arms trying desperately to secure a way out.

"Because we were getting here so late, because the government is handling it so slow, people will die tonight."

E-mail Anna Badkhen at abadkhen@sfchronicle.com.