E-mails by a volunteer relief worker detail behavior of New Orleans evacuees.
Within a few days of evacuees from New Orleans arriving in Houston to be temporarily housed at the Astrodome and the George R. Brown Convention Center, we began receiving the 'So I volunteered . . .' account quoted as the first example above. Most versions were prefaced with the claim that it came 'from a guy here in Houston that went to volunteer his time to help the hurricane victims.' It presents the evacuees as lazy, arrogant, welfare rats with an inflated sense of entitlement, thereby calling into question the rightness of assistingthem.That e-mailed report regarding the attitude and behavior of evacuees doesn't seem to jibe with the experience of Rick Barrett, a volunteer who served at the Astrodome. According to his account, he found people 'were so grateful for people taking care of them and being there for them after what they'd been through' and 'their eyes lit up when you just gave them a cold can of Coke.' Additional reports from other volunteers at the Astrodome describe kindly, supportive, and touching interactions between volunteers and evacuees.We've looked at other blog entries from volunteers working with the evacuees in Houston only to find that among the ones we located there is no mention of arrogance or a rampaging sense of entitlement among the evacuees, no description of trashed washrooms or food spurned because it wasn't what the displaced citizens from New Orleans wanted. While it is possible the author of the much-circulated account did encounter the behavior and attitudes he chronicled, one has to wonder why even outside the confines of mainstream media other mentions of similar ill-treatment of the volunteers and the facilities are so hard to come by.Instead, stories abound of what it's like to be living in one of the many centers the uprooted have been taken to, such as Kristin Finan's account of spending the night as an evacuee and an Associated Press article about a day in the lives of Kiesha and Darren Keller, two of the many temporarily housed at the Astrodome. Those stories and others paint a very different picture of the evacuees.The 'So I volunteered . . .' editorial was penned as a MySpace entry on 4 September 2005 by a blogger named Maher, who describes himself as a 24-year-old living in North Houston who immigrated to the U.S. from Syria when he was five. He insists he stands by his report.The piece has subsequently become associated with a doctor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. Richard L. Johnston came to be presumed its author after forwarding the item to his circle of friends, who in turn forwarded it to others, leaving Johnston's signature block affixed. Dr. Johnston disavows his connection:My name is Richard L. Johnston. I'm the physician who allegedly wrote the long email about my experience at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston where Katrina evacuees from New Orleans were housed. I've never been to the George R. Brown Convention Center, and I have not been to Houston in more than 10 years. During the crisis of the last two weeks, I've been here in Jackson, Mississippi, taking care of evacuees from the Gulf Coast transferred to our VA Medical Center here where I'm the chief medical resident. I did not write the email about the Brown Convention Center, but I did receive it and did forward it to several friends. The forwarded message included my signature block and that's why it was assumed that I wrote the email. However, in forwarding the message, I made a very bad error in judgment, and I deeply apologize for any hurt or discomfort I've caused others by doing so. I've learned a hard and difficult lesson and I hope those of you who read this have also. Too much of what we all mindlessly forward through cyberspace can only be termed fictious, unsubstantiated trash. The appropriate receptacle is a garbage can.Regarding the second item quoted in our Examples section above, numerous airlines began flying supplies and personnel into New Orleans and refugees out on 2 September. Some of the first planes ferried in law enforcement officers, federal air marshals, and Transportation Security Administration screeners.The various airlines are engaging in this effort on their own. Jack Evans, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, said FEMA agreed to reimburse the airlines for jet fuel used in the airlift, 'but other than that, the airlines are doing this on a volunteer basis. The crews on board are all volunteers.'Once again, we've so far found nothing to substantiate the claims made in the e-mail that refugees being flown out of New Orleans (MSY is the airport code for the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport) to Texas (DFW is the code for the Dallas/Fort Worth airport; SAT the code for San Antonio) behaved in the manner described, neither that they trashed a hotel in San Antonio nor that they threw bottled water at cabin personnel.Regarding the second e-mail's claim that there was water to be had by the evacuees in the airport before taking the flights they supposedly acted so badly on:I work at MSY (New Orleans Intl) for the New Orleans Aviation Board. Regarding comment 'There was water at the water fountains' is inaccurate. Yes, there was water, but it was not drinkable. I placed the 'do not drink' signs there over every water fountain on American Airlines concourse myself.Both e-mails tend to confirm a widely-held suspicion those evacuated from the wreckage of New Orleans are the dregs of society, content to live on handouts even as they verbally abuse those doing the handing out. Such characterization tends to fit more neatly into what people need to believe if they are to feel good about scaling back on the relief efforts underway - by convincing themselves recipients of their largesse are both unworthy and ungrateful, they will find it less painful to disassociate themselves than if the victims of Katrina remained in their minds sweet-faced little children, befuddled but lovable grandfathers, and struggling families who lost it all and now have nothing.Regarding the Katrina evacuees, there are going to be abuses of the kindness of others because that is simply human nature: among any group, there will always be rotten apples, those who behave badly no matter where they are or under what circumstances. The question remains whether among this particular group if the rotten apples are the exception or comprise the majority.Barbara 'apples weigh' Mikkelson
nan