August 30, 2008
Dear INCITE! friends and supporters,
On the eve of the 3 year anniversary of the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and subsequent government criminal negligence and assaults on the low income people of color on the Gulf Coast, our sisters from INCITE! projects in New Orleans (including the local chapter, the Women's Health and Justice Initiative, and the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic) are bracing for the potential landfall of Hurricane Gustav, which is currently projected to hit the Louisiana coast on Monday or Tuesday at a category 4 or 5. Voluntary evacuation of New Orleans has already begun, and mandatory evacuation could be declared as early as today.
INCITE! organizers and supporters in New Orleans have made over 700 phone calls to women of color and their families that make up the constituency of the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic, working to prepare and implement evacuation and safety plans.
Your assistance is urgently needed to help low-income women of color and their families evacuate safely if need be, stay safe for the duration of the evacuation, and return to the city as soon as possible so as not to fall prey to the pushout that has kept so many folks from being able to return to New Orleans since Katrina. Local organizers are using whatever resources and funds at their disposal to help women and their families evacuate, bond people being held in Orleans Parish Prison out, and support those who make the choice to stay in whatever way they can.
Your support is urgently needed: financial donations of any size are needed and would be greatly appreciated.
Donations online are preferred because we can more quickly send the funds to our folks in New Orleans.
You can send your donation to INCITE online by clicking the button below and putting "New Orleans" in the "Purpose" line:
Or you can write a check directly to WHJI and send it to:
PO Box 51325
New Orleans, LA 70151
Your donation will go directly to supporting the hundreds of low income women of color that are the constituency of the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic.
Once again, the particular vulnerability of low-income women of color and single female-headed households (including folks with disabilities, seniors, undocumented immigrant women, and incarcerated women) has been erased in the face of disaster and overlooked in the days leading up to the storm. With few resources, facing challenges and concerns for their families of their own, INCITE! New Orleans and WHJI have stepped in to fill the gap. Please send all your support, solidarity, sisterhood and strength their way, and join us in hoping for the safety and well-being of the people who are already suffering from Gustav in Cuba, Jamaica, and Haiti, and willing the storm to subside or veer off safely before it strikes the Gulf Coast.
We will keep you posted as things develop.
peace,
INCITE!
Via brownfemipower and strap-on.org a call from Critical Resistance to put pressure on the Orleans Parish sheriff to make sure prisoners are evacuated this time, instead of left behind in a flooding prison:
PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY
Prisoners of New Orleans need your help now (Hurricane Gustav)!!!!!!!
Prisoners and Families of New Orleans needs your help immediately!
If you haven’t heard already Hurricane Gustav is headed for New Orleans
and is predicted to be a category 3 hurricane, the same as Hurricane
Katrina. There will possibly be a mandate for all people (outside of
prisons and jails) of New Orleans to evacuate starting tomorrow August
29th, the three year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. It is predicted
that hurricane Gustav will pose great flooding potential regardless of
its category rating, the levee that broke by elected official’s
decisions during Hurricane Katrina has not been fixed to it’s
potential, or replaced.
The over crowding Orleans Parish Prison, located in New Orleans, holds
2, 500 prisoners (this count is not certain, due to lack of
information given to the public.) Although not official, we have
information that the Prisoners of Orleans Parish Prison will be
evacuating to Angola Prison and Hunt Prison in the next coming days
and are also prisons that can be affected by Hurricane Gustav due to
overcrowding.
During Hurricane Katrina there were prisoners able to evacuate and
others who remained locked in their cells with a minimal chance of
survival. Prisoners were left in flooded cells, with no food, and had
minimal ventilation, to say the least. Family members, of prisoners
who were held at Orleans Parish Prison, are still in the fight to
locate their loved ones who had been evacuated to other prisons during
Katrina. Due to the flooding, lack of organization and care from New
Orleans Department of Corrections and elected officials, prisoner’s
records were also missing. As a result, prisoner’s constitutional
rights have been violated.
This abuse can not happen again!
What will happen to the prisoners of Orleans Parish Prison located in
New Orleans this time?
Critical Resistance (CR) is demanding that the elected officials of
New Orleans will not create the same devastating wrongs as they did to
the prisoners of Orleans Parish Prison during hurricane Katrina.
1. we demand a full and safe evacuation of all prisoners
2. we demand to know what the evacuation plan for prisoners is
3. we demand to see a public document about that plan immediately
4. we demand information about how we can find people after an evacuation
We are urging every member, ally and comrade of New Orleans across the
country, to make atleast one call to:
Sheriff Malrin Gusman: 504.827.8505
(James Carter’s secretary said “Orleans Parish Prison is Gusman’s prison”)
James Carter: 504.658.1030
(Criminal Justice Council Member who is able to put pressure on the
sheriff even if they say they can’t)
You can also send an email: JCarter@cityofno.com
please put in your email subject: How will you protect prisoners this time?
Please call as many times as you can to put pressure on them and let
them know our demands and it is their job to be accountable to
us!!!!!!!!
For further information from us please contact Critical Resistance New Orleans:
Mayaba: 917.385.5472 or mayaba@criticalresistance.org
Koolblack: 504.813.4714 or koolblack@criticalresistance.org
(If you can’t get through due to evacuation please contact:
pilar@criticalresistance.org for further information)
In solidarity,
Critical Resistance
Lisa Harney at Questioning Transphobia has been covering the news about Gustav.
And, in case anyone hasn't seen it yet, an article from LeftTurn on the recovery in New Orleans three years after Katrina.
Everyone do what you can to make sure that recovery keeps happening, and that things aren't as bad this time around.
