One of the other things that just bites about this is the inhumanity of the authorities. People at the Superdome discovered that there was a supply of food and water there, and broke in to prepare it and distribute it. The National Guard showed up and they were ordered out of the kitchens, at gunpoint, with the stated threat that they would be shot if they didn't go.
I heard a guy showed up with 500 hot dogs at the Superdome to give them, and he was turned away, because police said they had no way of knowing whether the hot dogs were safe to consume.
Or there's the kid who was being evacuated, and they made him leave behind his dog because there was a no-animals policy. The kid begged, pleaded and cried so hard he started to throw up, and they wouldn't budge. Gee, do you think the kid might have lost everything else he had and was clinging to the one shred of his own life that was left? Would it have been so unthinkable to have some basic human compassion? Had the kid suffered so little that they had to take even this from him?
Disasters always bring out the best in humanity, but they also bring out the worst.
I hope to God that these and the other bureaucrat-from-hell stories I've heard are false, because they're making me furious. I know we shouldn't resent petty people for their pettiness, just as we shouldn't resent the bee for stinging us -- each acts according to its nature -- but that's just awful.
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