New Orleans Poor: "You're on Your Own"

Raw Story has posted an article revealing that on July 24, 2005 the New Orleans Times Picayune printed a story that advised New Orleans poor that they were on their own in the event of a hurricane. Here's the first sentence of that story:

"City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans' poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own."

Realizing that the poor did not read newspapers and that other means of communication would be necessary to give them adequate notice, the Red Cross was preparing DVD's to distribute to churches and community organizations that would help them get this message from the director of the Red Cross out to the poor:

"You're responsible for your safety, and you should be responsible for the person next to you. If you have some room to get that person out of town, the Red Cross will have a space for that person outside the area. We can help you. But we don't have the transportation."

The message needed to be delivered because money to maintain the city's levees was lacking and research at the University of New Orleans revealed that there were around 134,000 people in New Orleans who did not have transportation to evacuate on their own.

The DVD's were supposed to have been available for distribution at the end of August.