I can't believe this story hasn't gotten more play around here...maybe I missed it, and my apologies if I did, but I think this should be getting a lot more attention. I first read it on Andrew Sullivan, then saw it in the
Durham Herald-Sun and now in today's
Duke Chronicle.
Four days after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast Aug. 29, unleashing her winds and floodwaters into the Big Easy and surrounding areas, Buder said he saw plenty of television coverage of the disaster but no relief in sight for the survivors.
"CNN is there, but the National Guard can't get there? There's something wrong with this," Buder said, adding that he called Byrd to tell him, "We've got to go, we just gotta go."
I'm not only trumpeting this because I'm a Duke alum (and rarely prouder to be one than when I heard this) but also because it's the best proof I've seen yet that those conservatives who are still desperately clinging to the idea that the response to this crisis has been adequate are simply full of shit.
From the Herald-Sun:
By about 7 p.m., the students made their way back to the boy on Magazine Street. He directed them to some people "who really needed to get out." The resulting evacuation began at a house at the corner of Magazine and Peniston streets.
The first group included three women and a man. The students climbed into the front seats of the four-door Hyundai, and the evacuees filled the back seat. They left the city and headed back to Baton Rouge. There they deposited the man at the LSU medical center and took the women to dinner. The women later found shelter with relatives, and the students got about four hours' sleep inside the LSU chapel.
At 6:30 a.m. Sunday, they made their second run into New Orleans, returning to the house at Magazine and Peniston streets. This time they picked up three men and headed back to Baton Rouge. Two of the men were the husbands of two of the women evacuated the night before. The students reunited them with their wives and put the two families on a bus for Texas.
From the Chronicle:
"The Lord promised me he would never leave me. He told me hope was on the way. I never knew it was going to be three wise men, three blessed wise men," Howe said of Byrd, Buder and Hankla...
..."Three people... will always be in my mind. They got my wife and family out of a very, very bad situation that the Army and Military couldn't," a man who identified himself as Courtney Johnson said on a recording.
3 kids in a Hyundai got in and saved 7 people. "I haven't seen that report," said Chertoff and Brown.
Edit: I forgot one of the best parts...on facebook.com, the website for college students, you can list your political preference. Buder is "moderate", Byrd and Hankla "very liberal". Not saying it's representative, just that I'm not surprised.