When the going gets tough, the government goes after the tough

[infrogmation]

Galveston area after Ike:

Authorities vow to force holdouts off Texas coast

Seems to be the accepted operating procedure now. When things get tough, government does a forced removal of citizens, including (especially?) those who were well prepared to deal with tough times.

"The Texas attorney general's office is trying to figure out how legally to force the holdouts to leave, Yarbrough said. Local authorities are prepared to do whatever it takes to get residents to a safer place."

Hm, they're supposedly looking for some tissue covering of legality? Did anyone ever figure out what if anything was used in New Orleans? I've heard Louisianas were supposedly declared "squatters" for living in their own homes. Anyone get an actual legally plausible explanation while being hustled out? I know many were yoinked by guardsmen with the clothes on their back (some of the nicer guardsmen gave a couple minutes and let people carry a bit on their person) before being hustled out and taken to camps in distant states and refused to give information on where they were being taken until they arrived.

Comments

[petalbreeze.livejournal.com]

On one hand, I don't have much pity for the folks who stayed in their homes or at least tried to. They had been warned that this storm was very destructive. The folks who are bitching about not having a toilet should have bought a few camping toilets, which we did when we knew we were heading into "third world" conditions in Mississippi for at least a few weeks after the demon storm (I still refuse to call it that beautiful name, even 3 years later). Ultimately, you have to empty them or they get nasty fast. We emptied ours into the portolets when they were put in place in our neighborhood. We learned to use the camp toilet only in the direst emergency once the portolets arrived. The portlets were in our neighborhood for at least two months, maybe three, while our lift station was being rebuilt. It will probably take the public works people in Galveston the better part of a month or two to repair damaged lift stations, etc. If you can't stand the heat...

When we first arrived back in Mississippi and tried to go over the tracks to our very visible, very solid house, we were stopped and told the authorities were limiting access due to suspected cholera in the area. Our house didn't even lose a shingle, let alone get water in it!

Living in the house for the first month after the storm was like "urban camping," with visits to the portolets and cooking on the gas grill in the garage. We were lucky our power was restored about two weeks after the storm. However, we had no gas service, since the gas company had punctured our meter.

Ah well, Gustav and Ike have brought back a flood of memories of the demon storm, and most of the memories were unpleasant. We wish Texans and Louisianians the best of luck as their services are gradually restored.

[asienieizi.livejournal.com]

As one who did stay, I feeled compelled to say once again, not everyone who did stay asked for pity nor anything else. Not even a single MRE nor one single bottle of water was asked for.

And yes, Gus and Ike have indeed brought back a lot of unpleasant aftermath memories.
I wonder if we'll ever get over them, sometimes.

[asienieizi.livejournal.com]

See, this still confuses me. When Katrina hit and just prior to losing our am radio station, I heard the commentator say that those who opted to stay were being visited by authorities for identifying marks, etc. in case their bodies needed to be ID'd later. I never heard anything about anyone being forcibly ejected from their homes.