Guys and girls, I just got word that a transport truck hauling medical supplies to a hospital in Gretna, LA (very near New Orleans) was stopped and hijacked at gunpoint by looters.

Things are starting to get bad down here too. Several of the state offices downtown are being closed due to carjacking and violence and all sorts of other mess. I will keep everyone informed as things develop.

I'm honestly amazed that it wasnt given some sort of armed guard in the first place, but my best wishes go out to those affected

oh crap, here we go...

I heard reports yesterday that looters had attacked a hospital and the police were unable to get there. Also, a rep for one of the insurance companies said on NPR to shoot looters. Fun

Insurance Wars!

~J

Just so people don't think I'm rumor-trolling, I work for Innovative Emergency Management, and we have contracts with FEMA, the ODP, and DHS. My company holds the contract for the New Orleans Hurrican Evacuation planning, and we also have teams down there now helping with the emergency planning and coordination.

If anyone wants more details, you can e-mail me at chris.louviere@ieminc.com.

I'd say I'm surprised, but a friend I talk to on regular basis lives down there. I've been getting reports of similar events ever since the rescue efforts moved in. One of them includes a police officer shot because he didn't get to a guy fast enough to rescue him.

More of the same:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/01/katr...pact/index.html

hmm, true. there was the attack on the nuke plant thats the shiawase...

This thread reminds me so much of the shadowtalk in Bug City...

Edit: Even down to using the domes as havens. There's even a competing faction in the convention center--fighting for evac and food/supplies.

Our group is in Bug City right now.

We knocked over a restaurant earlier (turned out to be a good call, it was uncontested since all the other citizens were going for obvious things, like Stuffer Shacks - even if the fact it was a soy steakhouse franchise led to a certain lack of variety of the spoils) and we ended last session in the middle of a fight with some people who got to the local Home Despot before we did, in order to get our hands on generators, water purifiers, insecticide, power tools, building materials, etc.

Home Despot?

Either a funny typo, or the best management decision ever.

Escuse me while I steal that, all ninja-like.

Seriously, this looting going on... not good.

Home Despot courtesy of the Way Back Machine.

Cross your fingers that the Wayback Machine doesn't find itself hobbled by the current copyright suits. (Too many attorneys have found some otherwise gone-forever evidence there.)

hmm, that would make the us fuel more expensive then whats sold here in norway. and i dont know when it was like that before...

Yeah, and the Insurance guys will be working overtime to get out of as many claims as possible. "You have Flood insurance, but not <I>Hurricane</i> coverage. Sorry, your house/business was destroyed by the hurricane, not the flood". Or vice versa.

Those insurance companies have boat loads of guys just standing around whose job it is to get out of paying on a claim. And in this particular situation, they will drag their feet, and get out of as many claims as possible.

As for New Orleans: I really don't see why there shouldn't be a shoot-to-kill order for looters. Okay, yeah, some are going for food. But I've seen numerous ones on the news carrying TVs down flooded streets. Beyond the basic question of what the hell you're going to do with a TV in a flooded soon-to-be-condemned city, I have no sympathy for the people who want to loot for the sake of looting.

Or are they "expressing their discontent with their social status"?

As for "Shiawase Decision" fears: To an extent, there ought to already be security forces working for these people. The Army ought to be guarding each of them, but there's just not enough boots on the ground for that to be effective. If the military can't protect them, a reasonable number of private security personnel is more than reasonable.

I think amen to the looters!

If the government wants to abandon them, they should get as much as they can, for as long as they can.

Additionally I hope the first "relief worker" who shoots to kill a looters gets shot in the face by the looter. Killing the citizens because they are trapped in the city, and UNABLE TO LEAVE BY GOVERNMENT ORDER is murder. I already feel a bigass class-action lawsuit against the U.S. government for their shoddy emergency work coming on. If Uncle Sam kills anyone the survivors of the disaster will be filthy rich for the rest of their lives, and the country cannot afford a large settlement.

Additional: New Orleans Free City?

Oh, God, not another one of these.

Look, I'm not going to get into a pissing match with you about Iraq, suffice to say that we're there and there isn't a whole lot we can do at the moment about it. We can't pull applicable assets out of Iraq because they really don't exist. We already have enough AF members available within the States to handle it. They just can't get there fast enough.

As for morality--guess what? Theft is theft is theft. It's still immoral to steal, even if you aren't going to get caught. You're trying to tell me it's not immoral to steal from someone else, and I'm telling you you're full of shit. Food and water, life essentials? Okay, I'll go with you that far, especially in the case of perishables and such that are going to be useless in a week. But plasma-screen TVs? How do you call that kind of theft "moral"?

There are some things that I think you are missing, Superlicious.

First off, the order to evacuate New Orleans was sent down the pipe with short notice, but most people were actually able to get out. Many of those that weren't able to evacuate were able to find shelter in the superdome and the civic center. Granted, some people weren't even able to make it there. And many of those people have already been rescued. However, you have a rather large group of people who didn't leave or take shelter because they were too stupid/poor/lazy to do so. It is THIS group that is causing trouble.

The NOPD and rescue workers have not had problems with people looting food and supplies. Those people, when found, are being rescued. The problem is with people stealing things like TVs and such, and with them committing violence against other trapped people/cops/rescue workers.

The government has NOT abandoned the people of New Orleans. My company, working very closely with FEMA, the cops, and all levels of city, parish, state, and federal agencies, has been working around the clock for 5 days straight trying to help people. The New Orleans Mayor himself has been out there, without sleep, without AC, doing what he can to help. Despite what you might be hearing, everyone is working to HELP the people of New Orleans, not shoot at them.

However, some people out there aren't helping the situation. They are shooting at police and rescue workers, they are robbing/raping/looting other poor, destitue familes that are stuck out there, and many of those same types of people have made it out of New Orleans and are doing the SAME things to outlying towns and cities even as far as here in Baton Rouge. It's THOSE people who are hindering the rescue effort. It's THOSE people who are causing the state leadership to get so irate and demand the federal government to send troops. It's THOSE people that I would gladly shoot myself if they come anywhere near my home looking for what they can steal/loot.

Because if you want stability, you adhere to the underlying morality of the consensus. Note that I said underlying, because I'm sure someone's going to bring up gay marriage or some other minor point.

Don't kill people (except in self-defense).
Don't rape people.
Don't steal (again, a pass is, by me in a moral view and the police/military in a practical view, given on the people stealing food).

It's not a hard concept to grasp.

So it's okay to steal from other citizens, harming them and their livelihood even more than has already occured?

Stop dodging, hyzmarca. Choose one. No gray area, no qualifiers. By using the term "stolen" you have tacitly agreed that the looters are, in fact, stealing. So now I'd like you to give a straight yes-or-no answer to the question "is it okay to steal non-essentials from other citizens who will be further harmed by the actions of these looters?"

"Yes, it is okay for looters to steal from fellow citizens."

"No, it is not okay for looters to steal from fellow citizens."

A point, Blacken: Morality and society have both broken down in NO. At the moment the only morality is what you create for yourself, a kind of forced Nietzscheanism. Theft is reprehensible in our society, but in a place where our society no longer exists (the current anarchic NO) it ceases to be so. Outside of this environment theft is punishable within the guidelines of law (And unless I'm missing something, the law doesn't call for the execution of theives, as you have advocated), but within the environment, it is not even illegal (there being no law remaining). The only order such a 'society' has is what is imposed by an individual on themselves, and what they can forcibly impose on others. The looters are not imposing an anti-theft morality on themselves, and those that could (the police, the national guard, etc) have so far chosen to exercise their power in sporadic and limited terms. Therefore the looting is neither immoral nor illegal, it simply seems so from our societal, ordered perspective.

My opinion: Let the looters loot. They're not really hurting anyone (except perhaps financially, and with a disaster of this scale that hurt is but a mere drop in the ocean). The murderers and rapists, however, deserve every bullet they get. While it may not be immoral or illegal to them, it's stupid and wrong (in an absolute sense of the word, no ambiguity). Other people are more useful whole and alive to any continued survival effort, and if they cannot control themselves enough to preserve that much survival instinct, they need to be removed from the equation.

You are right, Sharaloth. The looters are of course of far less importance than the murderers and rapists. If there's a choice between a bullet in a rapist and a bullet in a looter, the rapist gets the lead injection each and every time. I say the looters deserve the same for the fact that "you break one law, you get punished; you break another, you still get punished." Do I really think the military should be gunning down all of the looters? Not really. Their time is better spent elsewhere.

However, under martial law, there is no law that governs thievery. What needs to be done is just done. If a crowd of people is walking out of a Wal-Mart with plasma TVs in hand (a point that this raises: don't they fail the Darwin test on the ground of base stupidity? who will they sell the TVs to in lockdown within NO) and military elements shoot them, not only is it legal, it simply can't be questioned for the duration of the emergency.

Is NO officially under Martial Law? Everything I've read so far from news organizations has not said they are. What's your source on that? (looking for more info)

Do you really believe looting is justly punishable by death? It's open range in their, right now, and if I had a gun and some food and shelter, there's no question that I'll defend it if necessary, but I would in no way call it just. Justice and necessity, here, do not easily allign.

[edit]

No, no part of the area is under martial law yet. That is a rumor. It is officially a state of emergency. That, of course, may change.

You sure?

Is it really punishable by death? Depends. To be honest, I'm less worried about them stealing from Wal-Mart than I am from the now-trashed mom-'n-pop store nearby. Wal-Mart will barely notice. These people, when (or if) they return, already have so little--others depriving them of even that have no rights in my mind.

Ah, so not martial law, but something close. Still not free reign to shoot people, though, just arrest without regard to civil or miranda rights. Technically, the people in NO right now DON'T have rights, because those rights cannot be enforced. Any authority that moves in, however, is still bound by the rights that they are attempting to enforce, thus giving those rights to the people they are enforcing them on. Fascinating stuff, really, but your advocation of killing people for looting one place but not another (when the financial devastation of an unlooted store left vacant for a month is not so much different from a looted store left vacant for a month, especially with proper insurance {though we could see that go down the tubes too, as discussed earlier}) is arbitrary and against the principles of the order that the forces there are trying to restore.

I think I've just figured out what is going on here. I would like everyone reading this thread to pay particular attention to what I'm about to say.

No one here is looking to shoot people who are walking out of wal-mart with a flat-screen TV and an iPod. The "looters" that the news and press conferences keep talking about are people who are armed and stealing not only from places of business, but also from other residents. These "looters" are also committing acts of violence against EVERYONE they encounter, be it police, rescue workers, or other trapped residents. PLEASE do NOT get caught up in the semantics of the word "looter". These people are a threat to EVERYONE, not just to people's property, and they need to be dealt with.

I don't have time to type more, but if anyone wants more info, either e-mail me at chris.louviere@ieminc.com or you can catch me on AIM (screen name: TheOneRonin).

Warlords implies a certain organization. It may seem slightly anachronistic, or at least out of place, but bandits is (perhaps a little oddly) more accurate.

"Warlords" implies very limited, low-end organization and a lot of lack of overall organization. Similar to Bug City or the Barrens.

But, I will say this: Blacken, there is no black and white. No matter what the religious or the moralists try to bullshit, in the end the black and white view is just that: Bullshit. The entirety of life is moral relativity. For example, it's okay to kill Person X because of Reason Y, but not okay to kill Person Z because of Reason R. Now, before you think I'm just using law, keep in mind that same example comes from stories and rules in the Bible. Worse, is that the laws of the United States, supposedly (that is a very key word) based on an underlying morality, fully support that example.

So, no matter what, there is always going to be a qualification, always going to be an exception, always going to be a case where you may not like it, but it's acceptable. Don't like it? Too bad. Reality doesn't care if you like it.

You want example of moral relativity? Look at your own posts. Look at how it is okay for the military to literally walk down the street and shoot looters. Now, compare that with a case of it not being martial law and just a regular city. Is it okay then? No? That's moral relativity.

Accept it or no, I don't care. But don't think I'm going to stand by and let you try to dictate that it shouldn't be used when you are so clearly using it yourself.