Storm
Survivors Told To 'Expose Themselves'
from
Yahoo News, UK & Ireland , Sep 6, 2005
(Posted here by Wes Penre, Sep 9, 2005)
Storm
Survivors Told To 'Expose Themselves' Tuesday September 6, 03:28 PM
A group of female hurricane survivors were told to show their breasts if
they wanted to be rescued, a British holidaymaker has revealed.Ged Scott
watched as American rescuers turned their boat around and sped off when
the the women refused.
The account was just another example of the horror stories emerging from
the hurricane disaster zone.
Mr Scott, 36, of Liverpool, was with his wife and seven-year-old
daughter in the Ramada Hotel when the flood waters started rising.
"At one point, there were a load of girls on the roof of the hotel
saying 'Can you help us?' and the policemen said 'Show us what you've
got' and made signs for them to lift their T-shirts," he told the
Liverpool Evening Echo.
"When the girls refused, they said `Fine' and motored off down the road
in their boat."
At one point he had to wade through filthy water to barricade the hotel
doors against looters.
He said the experience made him want to vomit.
Mr Scott also slated the rescue operation, saying police were more
interested in taking snapshots of the devastation rather than rescuing
the victims.
"I could not have a lower opinion of the authorities, from the police
officers on the street right up to George Bush," he said.
"I couldn't describe how bad the authorities were. Just little things
like taking photographs of us, as we are standing on the roof waving for
help, for their own little snapshot albums"
He added: "The American people saved us. I wish I could say the same for
the American authorities."
Mike Brocken, of Chester, said he feared his wife Christine and
18-year-old daughter Stephanie would be raped when they went into the
Louisiana Superdome.
The family were also racially abused by other refugees in the stadium.
Mr Brocken, a BBC Radio Merseyside presenter and music lecturer, told
the station: "We were going to go inside the Superdome.
"I approached two members of the National Guard and they said to stay
outside because they knew it was hell in there.
"One female office basically said under no circumstances take the women
in there, because she knew what it was like.
"We were so frightened and we stayed alongside the National Guard for
some kind of protection.
"It was at that stage that they started to take us under their wing and
eventually managed to get us into the basketball stadium."
He added: "Everyone talks about the National Guard in rather derogatory
ways historically, but I've got to say that, but for them, and one man
in particular, I may well have lost my family."