Bus of evacuees crashes; 1 dies ...

[Liberal In Texas]

17 others injured in highway rollover on way toward Texas

OPELOUSAS, La. – After four days of chaos, nearly 50 people finally escaped New Orleans. But on their trip toward Texas, their bus swerved to avoid another car and overturned on a state highway Friday – killing one man and injuring 17 others.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/katrina/stories/090305dntexkatbuscrash.1d94208a.html

Damn.

[vickitulsa]

1. I can confirm this story, and the fact that there are -- as in so many

things about this disaster -- conflicting reports as to what happened.

My dearest online friend, Annie, lives in Opelousas, LA, and she has been keeping me updated on amazing events in her own town as a result of the hurricane/flooding catastrophe. I have passed along some of that information here at DU in several posts over the last few days.

However, yesterday as Annie and I were talking in Yahoo Messenger, our normal method for our lengthy "visits" which were frequent BEFORE this disaster and have taken place several times a day since last Saturday, she told me about this bus wreck. Annie and her husband Billy are both disabled, as am I; and they live on very meager disability checks, as I do also. So we have a lot in common and have become very close over the last few years.

Opelousas is not a large city, and it is located about a three-hour drive from New Orleans. I had thought Annie told me 300 miles, but it was, rather, a three-hour drive. She and her community have been very busy ever since survivors of the Gulf Coast disaster began streaming through their town on their long and grueling journeys to somewhere "safe."

Opelousas has three shelters now for those coming into their town, and the motels and rooms for rent have been filled to overflowing as well. So the citizens have been taking survivors into their own homes, letting them stay in spare rooms or on the couch or floor when there were no more beds. Many of those generous enough to open their own homes to these poor suffering people cannot afford to feed them, so others are helping with that. Annie herself spent the afternoon yesterday cleaning out her closets for clothing, towels, and soap and shampoo which she donated. A neighbor with a pickup was driving around to get whatever her friends could offer to help out.

Annie says that many of those who escaped the horrors in New Orleans or other devastated areas have no idea what to do next or where to seek long-term help. They are traumatized, utterly exhausted, and at their wits end. Some weep almost without ceasing. I think the good people of Opelousas are weeping along with them ... but they are also doing whatever they can to really HELP.

She tells me some of the newcomers are already talking of staying in her community, since they have no homes to go back to now. Annie says jobs are not plentiful there, but she hopes somehow everyone can pull together to make it work. Her attitude is constantly positive, even though she herself sounds quite exhausted and almost ragged from the stress of the past week.

So yesterday as we were talking in instant messages, she interrupted herself to tell me that a bus had just crashed in Opelousas, killing one person and injuring many! I was stunned, as was she. She told me the scant news from the local news report on the story then, and I asked her to find out all she could later.

At about ten p.m. last night she finally came back on Messenger and confirmed the bus wreck story. She told it as the Dallas News report did, giving the same two conflicting versions -- one by the officials, another quite different from a passenger in the bus. She said that in fact there were SEVERAL passengers in the bus who gave that version.

Interesting to me that not only was the official story contradicted by witnesses who were involved in the accident, but that the differing versions were both given in the very *first* accounts reported by the local news. Apparently some in the news business are getting wise to the PR they're being spoonfed, so they are investigating further after hearing "official" reports. So many times we are getting starkly different versions of the same event. While that does sometimes happen in "normal" life, the sheer consistency of the pattern -- with official reports being countered by witnesses -- in this disaster is very suspicious to me.

And apparently to others as well!

We only want the truth, not the spin, and not lies or deceptions or staged photo ops or tricks!!! This disaster is bad enough as it is; heaven knows the LAST thing we need to add to the burden is lies from our government as it tries to absolve itself of guilt for not preventing the levee breaches or heeding ample warnings, and for not getting the rescue and relief effort into motion far sooner.

~VV

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[Liberal In Texas]

2. Well written. What a mess this country is in.

Thank goodness there are people still willing to help each other, becuase our gov't. sure has dropped the ball.