Post by Shadow on Dec 8, 2005 19:23:37 GMT -5
Reuters
By Donna Smith
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Survivors from New Orleans told a congressional panel on Tuesday they felt abandoned by government at all levels after Hurricane Katrina hit the city and had been subjected to racial slurs and menaced by guns when they sought food and water.
"We were abandoned. City officials did nothing to protect us," Patricia Thompson, a New Orleans evacuee now living in Texas, told a House of Representatives panel investigating the response to the storm.
"We saw buses, helicopters and FEMA trucks but no one stopped to help us. We never felt so cut off in all our lives," Thompson said.
She described "demoralizing and inhumane" treatment by police telling the panel: "We were cursed when we asked for help for our elderly. We had guns aimed at us by the police who were suppose to be there to protect us."
Thompson said her 5-year-old granddaughter cried in terror when a policeman pointed a gun at her and she worried about whether she had put up her hands correctly.
By Donna Smith
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Survivors from New Orleans told a congressional panel on Tuesday they felt abandoned by government at all levels after Hurricane Katrina hit the city and had been subjected to racial slurs and menaced by guns when they sought food and water.
"We were abandoned. City officials did nothing to protect us," Patricia Thompson, a New Orleans evacuee now living in Texas, told a House of Representatives panel investigating the response to the storm.
"We saw buses, helicopters and FEMA trucks but no one stopped to help us. We never felt so cut off in all our lives," Thompson said.
She described "demoralizing and inhumane" treatment by police telling the panel: "We were cursed when we asked for help for our elderly. We had guns aimed at us by the police who were suppose to be there to protect us."
Thompson said her 5-year-old granddaughter cried in terror when a policeman pointed a gun at her and she worried about whether she had put up her hands correctly.