Speechless

I was listening to This American Life yesterday on NPR, which was (of course) about Hurricane Katrina, and they had the most amazing, detailed accounts from people who were stuck in New Orleans. Including a woman who stayed because her mother was a nurse at the hospital, and therefore required to stay as "essential personnel." They ended up at the notorious Convention Center, where, she said, for four days trucks with water drove by them without stopping, soldiers and police prevented them from leaving, and they were made to line up every few hours, in the sun - old people, babies, quickly dehydrating - for buses that never came.

Finally, she said, people concluded that the plan was to keep them there and kill them. Rumors started that the authorities were planning to intentionally breach levies and drown everyone there, and make it look like an accident. At first, the woman was dubious that this could be the case; it sounded crazy, paranoid. But after a while, she said, it was the only explanation that made sense. Why else would trucks continue to drive past with water, without stopping? Why else wouldn't people be allowed to leave and find their own way out of the city? Why else would soldiers be toying with the crowd through the endless line-up exercises, if not to keep people busy and distracted? It seemed like the only rational explanation.