There is something strange about being in one disaster area and hearing about someplace else instantly becoming one. The situation here is human made, but even in a natural disaster — sometimes referred to as “act of god” — it’s frightening to see how quickly things can degenerate. This bit comes from a doctor working in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It makes things happening here right now seem a little tame, but some of it reminds me of the living conditions (minus some of the rampant crime) that you can find at at various times in the refugee camps in Ballata, in the Jordan Valley and in Rafah down in Gaza:
Tags: Israel, New Orleans, occupation, PalestineTV news reports look like Disneyland compared to how it really is at “ground zero.” They couldn’t get any doctors to go because people were shooting at the helicopters and it wasn’t a safe place. Unfortunately, all of the people who didn’t evacuate and had to go to the dome were the poorest of the population and also the sickest with the most medical problems. We saved a lot of them but we had to be evacuated around 2am this morning because a couple of medics were shot by civilian snipers. There are about 20,000 people still stranded in the dome and no way to get them out because of the flooding. The toilets don’t work, the lights don’t work, the air conditioning doesn’t work, they can’t smoke or drink and people are just feeling like caged animals led to slaughter.
Dead people are floating in the streets everywhere. They are expecting the death toll to be more than 50,000. There were three rapes in the dome yeasterday, one was a seven year old girl. Child molesters, convicts and very desperate people who can no longer smoke, drink, or watch Dr. Phil and Oprah. It is truly the wild wild west.
One of the civilians grabbed the M-16 of one of the MPs and shot someone. There are people being stabbed every so often. Babies being born in front of everyone. People having seizures, hypertensive strokes, heart attacks, etc. because we are out of supplies, IVs, medicine, breathing treatments, etc.
No semblance of order whatsoever. A very desperate situation. There were only three of us (doctors) there all day yesterday with about 10 medics but we were forced to evacuate early this morning because the conditions had deteriorated so severely that it was not safe to be anywhere around there.
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