First Person : Death In The Streets

In an exclusive MSNBC video, photojournalist Tony Zambado tells the story of refugees abandoned at the New Orleans Convention Center ... "law abiding citizens" who "followed directions" but who have been without food or water for four days. And there is no police, no national guard.

Compare Zambado's first person account with the videos of today's briefings by Homeland Security and the White House (also here).

Do you see any official acknowledgement of the backlog of buses and supplies that Zambado saw parked outside New Orleans while law abiding citizens, who did what their government directed them to do, are dying from dehydration and hunger? I thought not. Ask the administration why not.

Excerpts from the 9+ minute video:

I thought I'd seen it all ... I've never seen anything in my life like this ...I can't put it into words ... the amount of destruction that's in this city and how these people are coping. They are just left behind. There's nothing offered to them. No Water. No Ice. No C-rations. Nothing for the last four days. They were told to go to the Convention Center. They did. They're behaving... They just want food and support. And what I saw there I've never seen in this country....

I saw two gentlemen die in front of me because of dehydration. I saw a baby near death.... Dead people around the walls of the convention center. Laying in the middle of the street. In their dying chairs. Where they died, right there in their lawn chair. They were just covered up. In their wheelchair. Covered up. Laying there for dead. Babies. Two babies. Dehydrated and died.... I couldn't take it...

... I had to go outside last night to bring in support system for our network... I counted 82 buses, sitting just outside New Orleans... And I said, "What's the problem? Why are they not letting you in?" "It's unsafe." ... Somebody was putting out bad news that it was totally unsafe. It's not unsafe to come in and help these people... These people are not looting.... they're being very orderly ... just trying to survive. They're being very orderly.

If you have a PC and Internet Explorer, watch the video.

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Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, Politics