What happened in New Orleans? Australian lawyer Richard Bourke spent the past three years working in New Orleans to save death row inmates - almost all of them both black and poor - from execution. He was amongst the last to leave New Orleans before Katrina struck. Kerry O'Brien spoke to Bourke on 7.30 report 13 September.
O'BRIEN : So why were there no lessons learnt from the first hurricane experience and the attempt to evacuate the city then? (2004)
BOURKE : Well, there were definitely lessons learnt from Hurricane Ivan. They improved the road system enormously so the white middle class with their cars could get out of the city sooner. You're talking about a group of the population with no political capital at all, poor people of colour in New Orleans. They didn't rate any sort of an evacuation plan. It was too hard and it wasn't worth it for the population you were considering.
............
O'BRIEN: Given New Orleans' record for crime and violence, did the lawlessness after the hurricane hit surprise you particularly?
BOURKE: When you're subject to a mandatory evacuation order in a city where there is no means for you to get out, no means are provided, civil institutions break down, the police and Emergency Services do not provide access to food, water and the like and those resources are lost, I think human beings are entitled to look through the window of a WalGreen store and break in and get water, dairy goods and nappies for their children. Alright, we saw images of people stealing huge televisions and that sort of thing. That's just theft and I don't know what they thought they were going to do with the televisions anyway. But most of the looting really was subsistence looting by a population deserted by its civil institutions. In terms of the other violence, some of the murders, some of the sexual assaults, it remains to be seen whether there was an increase in the crime rate after the hurricane or whether it was just business as usual in New Orleans. But no-one could be surprised. The city has a murder rate close to 10 times the national average. That's on a good day.
Transcript
O'BRIEN : So why were there no lessons learnt from the first hurricane experience and the attempt to evacuate the city then? (2004)
BOURKE : Well, there were definitely lessons learnt from Hurricane Ivan. They improved the road system enormously so the white middle class with their cars could get out of the city sooner. You're talking about a group of the population with no political capital at all, poor people of colour in New Orleans. They didn't rate any sort of an evacuation plan. It was too hard and it wasn't worth it for the population you were considering.
............
O'BRIEN: Given New Orleans' record for crime and violence, did the lawlessness after the hurricane hit surprise you particularly?
BOURKE: When you're subject to a mandatory evacuation order in a city where there is no means for you to get out, no means are provided, civil institutions break down, the police and Emergency Services do not provide access to food, water and the like and those resources are lost, I think human beings are entitled to look through the window of a WalGreen store and break in and get water, dairy goods and nappies for their children. Alright, we saw images of people stealing huge televisions and that sort of thing. That's just theft and I don't know what they thought they were going to do with the televisions anyway. But most of the looting really was subsistence looting by a population deserted by its civil institutions. In terms of the other violence, some of the murders, some of the sexual assaults, it remains to be seen whether there was an increase in the crime rate after the hurricane or whether it was just business as usual in New Orleans. But no-one could be surprised. The city has a murder rate close to 10 times the national average. That's on a good day.
Transcript
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