Day ONE Veterans For Peace arrival in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

Originally posted to Michael Moore .com

We hit Covington, Louisiana as the trip from Austin, Texas became Day 1 of Camp Casey Three.  The Veterans for Peace bus from Mendocino County, CA arrived with food and supplies that Camp Casey had sent in from Crawford, Texas. 

 

The initial staging is in The Reverend Peter Atkins Park, which sits as the front yard to the Red Cross agency.  Sadly, the headquarters for the Red Cross was reported to have moved from New Orleans to Covington.  Sadly, because nothing was going in or out of this building the entire afternoon, we distributed food.

We were able to assist a number of families and also served two hot meals.  As sun set, the information we gathered indicated that the armory had been attacked and the guard was bunkering down the Covington Armory. 

 

So, we ran for cover.  A Covington Officer informed us that there was no generator at the Shelter we were near.  We were told there were twelve new born’s just released, that there were newborns already at the shelter, and there was not even an air conditioner on.  So as we ran for cover, we found our new assignment. 

Fred set up a generator and a swamp cooler, and we also found we had a young man with cystic fibrosis at Pine View, which is the middle school at the end of 28^th Street in Covington.  So,

the generator also provided the power this young man needed for his treatment.

 

Later in the evening we had a Red Cross Nurse, who traveled from New York, visit our bus and tell us about the blood pressure cuff she had, it was slashed on the hose and there was no pump.  We provided a cuff and some other medical supplies such as an electronic thermometer as they only had a mercury one here for them.

 

We set up a kitchen and began providing hot food, as the young children were only being given MRE’s and Pop Tarts to get through the few meals we witnessed as we set up the sattelite and started to tell the world that the supply line was open and to get there provisions to

Send it to Veterans For Peace Chapter 116 C/O Ward Reilly, 

Our mission is to open a supply line into Southern Louisiana that cannot be broken.

We need help, as day one closed, our first hitch hiker arrived.  We sent him to meet with others who had traveled from Camp Casey.

 

We sat with the Red Cross Nurse and learned that they need Baby Formula, and other provisions. So Gordon and Dennis sat up all night tirelessly requesting the supplies from anyone who could bring them to us. 

 

We will sit tirelessly in this ditch in Covington until a reasonable amount of aid from this government comes, I imagine if we have the same luck as Cindy Sheehan we will wait in the heat while he plays golf.