Promises ... then death
2005-09-04 22:02
New Orleans - Day after day, the aged woman clung to life in her submerged nursing home. Day after day, her son called to say help was on the way.
But rescue never came. Only a watery death.
Aaron Broussard, president of the Jefferson Parish section of New Orleans, could not stop crying on Sunday, as he told NBC television of the agonising death of a colleague's elderly mother in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
"His mother was trapped in St Bernard nursing home, and every day she called him and said: 'Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?'"
"He said: 'Yeah, mama, somebody is coming to get you. Somebody is coming to get you.
"'Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday.
"'Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday.
"'Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday.
"'Somebody's coming to get you on Friday.'"
"And she drowned on Friday night!" Broussard wailed. "She drowned on Friday night!"
Broussard quivered with rage as he gave voice to the frustration felt by much of the battered southern city at the slow pace of rescue operations after the hurricane struck a week ago.
"Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody is coming to get her," he said.
"Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences.
"For God's sakes, shut up and send us somebody."
- AFP