Maxine Waters, Jesse Jackson and Louisiana Black Caucus Ride to the Rescue

excerpts from a story in salon by Stephen Elliot
with some interpolations from a diary at dkos (salon requires subscription)

I arrive at the [New Orleans] airport Saturday afternoon with a convoy of three air-conditioned buses, two SUVs, and a state police escort. I'm with U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, her husband Ambassador Sydney Williams, chair of the Louisiana Black Caucus Cedric Richmond, Reverend Jesse Jackson, and State Senator Cleo Fields. Cleo Fields has a plan to bring people to England Air Force Base, a decommissioned base in Alexandria, Louisiana four hours northwest of New Orleans. The idea is to show up with hundreds of relief victims and force the federal government to open the empty buildings. They did not receive permission from anyone to take the evacuees there. On Saturday a U.S. Army spokesman said bases, including England, were being considering as shelters.

[After being turned away at a shelter by an angry administrator who accused them of being a bus load of "looters and rapists":]

Finally, at a calming moment, they are informed that there is another shelter five minutes away that could accommodate them with 150 beds. They go on to a facility that seems like heaven to many who sat in feces and urine for days. There are big-screen TVs, sanitary bathrooms with showers, food, cots. What is more, they are openly welcomed, especially by Leanne Murphy, CEO of the Central Louisiana chapter of the Red Cross.

"We've been waiting for folks for two days," [Police Chief Jay] Barber tells me. "We've been expecting people. I've been taking walk-ins."

I can't believe what he's saying. These people were lying in shit two days ago. We passed hundreds of empty buses on the way to the airport. How could a well-staffed, clean, secure, working shelter with 150 open beds in Louisiana sit half full for two days while people are being turned away at the Astrodome in Houston and bussed to Utah?

So these people won't have the wherewithal to return. A dispersed, displaced, demoralized population that is being dumped on other states.

Elliott, along with Jesse Jackson, finally makes it to England Air Force Base and gets a tour hosted by Bridgette Brown, vice chair of the Airport Board.

She tells us, "Today the board voted unanimously to accept people from New Orleans." She thinks it will cost $1.6 million to the community. I wonder where the federal government is in all of this. I also wonder whether the board would have moved to open the facility if it had not been for the Black Caucus's intervention.