'We ain't leaving New Orleans'
2005-09-06 08:09
New Orleans - Troops and police begged people on Monday to leave their New Orleans homes, some of which have water up to the rafters, but a hard core of residents are becoming hurricane dissidents.
Authorities are not ruling out a forced evacuation but are holding back from giving the order. First they are giving warnings that the refuseniks may not get supplies of water.
Bob Holventhal, 73, and his wife Mare, 74, sat on the porch swing of their beige bungalow in western New Orleans resisting the pleas of a group of sheriffs deputies who did bring food and water.
Mare Holventhal thanked the sheriffs for their help, then sat down next to her husband on the porch.
"He's been my husband for 49 years and we've been living here ever since," she said.
'No need to leave'
She said she had tried to convince her husband to go. "The city isn't safe. We could catch a disease. He doesn't understand we could get killed, they could shoot us," she said, referring to the thugs who have been terrorising the city since Hurricane Katrina hit on August 29.
But her husband remained adamant: "I ain't leaving here, I don't need to leave here."
Chief Sheriff's Deputy Todd Entrekin and a group of other officers left the Holventhals to try and work on other holdouts.
"We're working through the side streets offering them food and water," he said. "If they need evacuating, we'll help them out," Entrekin said, while adding there were no plans yet to force anyone to leave.
But New Orleans Deputy Police Chief Warren Riley on Monday told remaining residents to leave, warning authorities did have the powers to force an evacuation.
"There is absolutely no reason to stay here. There are no jobs. There are no homes to go to. No hotels to go to and there is absolutely nothing here," Riley told a news conference, saying the city has been "destroyed."
"Our law enforcement people are not involved in taking people off the streets and forcing them out of the city at this point. There may come a time where we get into that mode, but we are not there right now."
United States Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has also warned that it was not "reasonable" for residents to stay.
But many of the dissidents are elderly like the Holventhals and have lived in the city all their lives. The authorities say there is also a hard-core criminal element holding out. But there are other reasons.
Forty-nine year old musician Troy Tallent sat busking in the French Quarter even though there was hardly a soul to hear the blues wailing from his Pignose guitar.
"I will stay here, I love this city. I came for the music and I will stay for it. I'll take the good and the bad," he said. Tallent said he had not left because "I have a dog, some cats, a lady and a house I have to take care of."
Bob Rue, who owns an oriental rug store, said he would never leave his business.
"They can't make people leave... I'm not going anywhere."
- AFP