CNN just reported that as the latest buses pulled up to the Astrodome, with 5,000 people inside, they were told that the Astrodome is full. Go away. They can’t take any more people.
What in God’s name is happening? What goat-felching morons are RUNNING this evacuation? Are they TRYING to kill everyone left in New Orleans?
I am speechless. Absolutely, completely speechless.
I’m sorry, but I fail to see the source of your rage. Did you expect the Astrodome to have unlimited capacity? There comes a point where crowding more people into a limited space does more harm than good, and practical limits must be set. It’s a horrible situation, to be sure, but unfortunately resources are severely limited.
You know they’re not just stacking them in there for a couple of hours to watch a game, right? These people are going to have to LIVE in the stadium for an indeterminate amount of time. You can’t fit 50,000 people in the Astrodome for an indeterminate amount of time. I don’t know that 5,000 would be the upper limit, but they can’t fill it to capacity with refugees.
If the Astrodome is full, the Astrodome is full. The Houston Chronicle online says that refugees are being “rerouted to other locations,” so they’re finding someplace for them.
The Astrdome was only supposed to be for refugees from the ruined Superdome, and it didn’t help that a lot more people than that sought and are seeking shelter there.
No, they’re doing the best they can with a pretty sorry situation.
What has me frothing at the mouth is that for two days they’ve been saying they would be putting 23,000 to 25,000 people in the Astrodome. It’s my understanding that came from top FEMA officials, coordinating with Houston officials.
And yet nobody bothered to ask the Houston Fire Marshal!
It just speaks to a staggering lack of coordination among agencies or common sense, too. I’d wondered where they’d put 25,000 people in the Astrodome, but figured they had some plan in place for it. Turns out their plan is to send people on to other cities without telling them till they get there!
But not to worry, the Houston policeman speaking on camera a short while ago assured us, “It’s okay, conditions on the bus are better than they’ve had for a few days.” Which may be true to a point, but I know that if I’d been trapped in a stinking, fetid stadium with thousands of other people for days and finally had a chance to go somewhere where I was told a hot meal and a shower and a change of clothes and a cot to sleep on would be waiting, and then when I got there after six or eight hours on a bus was told, “Oops, we only overestimated the capacity of this shelter by 500% so you get to spend another six to eight hours on a bus before you can clean up or eat or use a real bathroom or lie down and sleep,” I might just lose it completely.
What idiot said the Astrodome could hold 25,000 people? Without ever checking with the people who actually control building capacity?
I might add that if word gets back to the people at the Superdome that they’re going to end up on a bus wandering all over Texas looking for a place to take them in, they may just not be able to get people on the buses. And the situation they’ve been trying to calm down may end up escalating all over again.
I’m not outraged because the Astrodome is full. I’m outraged because it took them this long to figure out that their planning sucked donkey balls!
Ah, okay! I misunderstood the direction your ire was pointed. 
The whole rescue effort has been fairly plotzed. There doesn’t seem to be any coordination at all…everyone’s just doing whatever they think they’re supposed to do without consulting anyone else.
Maybe they were planning to really fill the place up…until reports of rioting and rape began leaking out of the damn SuperDome. It looks to me like you’d be putting a dangerous crowd into another explosive situation. 5000 might be an easier number to handle.
The local NBC affiliate just said that the fire marshall has set the limit at 11,000 to 15,000 folks. That limit has been reached and busses are indeed being turned away.
Reports are that they will be re-routed to other shelters, (like there are any with room here), or out of town to San Antonio or Dallas.
What the hell does that mean? The Astro Dome folks got wind of these reports through a leak from the Superdome? What, do they have a highly placed source there? Or are you suggesting that there were rapes and rioting in the Superdome, and that was the substance of the reports? If the latter, you better have a cite. If the former, WTF?
It was Valerie Plame. But Bob Novak can’t tell you anything.
Mama Tiger, if the story you heard is true, it’s actually Great News!
Everything we’ve heard on the news networks is:“The system is broken”. “Lines of people waiting for buses that don’t come.” etc.
Now, if they’ve actually moved enough people out to fill the Astrodome, that indicates that the logjam isn’t as bad as has been reported. It had to take a helluva lot of buses running to move enough people to fill the Astrodome.
So I see that as good news. There are more places waiting to receive refugees, and the information that that many people have, indeed, been evacuated is a sure sign of progress.
OK, my glass is always half full. But still…
If the Astrodome is full, then it’s full; but did no one know that more buses were coming? Is there someone who’s supposed to be planning this out, or do the bus drivers just wander around at random until they find 40 cots and a water fountain.
Well, gosh…maybe the Astrodome folks heard about the violence and rapes by reading, oh I don’t know, the LA Times ?
*At least two people, including a child, have been raped. At least three people have died, including one man who jumped 50 feet to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for.
A 2-year-old girl slept in a pool of urine. Crack vials littered a restroom. Blood stained the walls next to vending machines smashed by teenagers.
“There is feces on the walls,” said Bryan Hebert, 43, who arrived at the Superdome on Monday. “There is feces all over the place.”*
This really the kind of crowd you’d want to invite into your Astrodome in great numbers?
I recall a garbage scow sojourning off the east coast a few years back, each state rejecting it, it wandered unwanted for months. I’m not googling up a cite, but it was quite the spectacle at the time. Perhaps a fellow Doper will recall this, it was probably 10+ years ago.
Are some NO refugees now in a similar plight, wandering from port to port, to be turned away repeatedly as undesirables? I’m hoping we can do better than this.
Just to be clear, 2 rapes, one suicide, and feces covered bathrooms in a place where 16,000 people were crammed for four days without electricity, food, or running water constitutes a “dangerous” crowd that is prone to “riots?” And you are suggesting that the folks at the Astrodome looked at the same facts as you and turned people away as a result? Do have any fucking idea what a riot really is? Seriously, do you? Your holier than thou shit is wearing a little thin.
I guess I’d say that a riot is a horrible thing. And guess what? From the cite you demanded: By Wednesday, it had degenerated into horror. Oops! Here’s more: “People started shooting last night,” said Stacey Bodden, 11. You’re not in the Superdome, are you? Wanna know who is? April Thomas, 42. Here’s her quote from the article: “You have to fend people off constantly,” she said. “You have to fight for your life. I wake up in the morning and the first thing I say is: Where are my babies? Is everyone here?” What part of this makes you think it’s not a riot? And why the hell would the Astrodome folks want to welcome this crowd into their building?
Shall I go on? Or have I made my point, you fucking idiot?
Now, imagine what it is like when this sort of shit happens in a place where there isn’t an empty domed stadium within 6 hours drive.
That refers to the general conditions. Not everything that is horrible is a riot.
Some people are behaving very badly. It is not clear what threat April is fending off. Apparently none of the shots fired struck anyone, if indeed shots were fired. For you to take these examples and suggest that they are in any way representative of the general crowd is offensive, frankly.
*ri·ot (rt)
n.
What part of this sounds like a riot to you, you fucking idiot? When a statistically insignificant number of people under extreme duress behave in a despicable way, you do not have a riot. You do not have a dangerous crowd. What you have is some people acting like giant fucking assholes. You know, like that thing you see in your mirror every day, assuming you are drunk enough when you get up to stomach the sight.
The only point you have made is that whatever compassion you may have possessed at one time in your life was squeezed out long ago by the largest case of pea-brained dumbass on record.
The gates have reopened.
Evidently the Mayor has overruled the fire marshall and at least 30 busses that were waiting have been allowed to enter the astrodome complex.
The pictures I have seen from the dome show the floor completely full of cots and humanity.
At least they might have a cool place to be for a few days, Might be a bit crowded though.
I surmise that the original limits were set to be able to take care of these people for an extended lenghth of time.
I imagine now that the hope is that it will be a short term stay for many of these folks and in a few days there will be a more solid and long term solution to this problem.