JUSIPER

 
Honor among thieves

Posted by Sini

From the Times-Picayune. This piece by Jarvis DeBerry was forwarded to me, so I don't have the link:

Not the New Orleans Police Department. Not the United States Army. Not the U.S. Coast Guard or the Louisiana National Guard. Not the New Orleans Fire Department or the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries. And certainly not the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

When Vivian Buckner, her mother Jessie Richardson and dozens of others huddled at the Lafon Nursing Home needed relief after Hurricane Katrina, the items they needed to sustain them arrived on a mail carrier's truck. But the occupants were not affiliated with the United States Postal Service.

They were thieves. They had stolen the postal truck and were using it not only to deliver needed supplies to people along Chef Menteur Highway, but they were also offering rides to the Superdome for those who wanted to go.

I know Buckner and her 94-year-old mother. We all attend the same church. When I called Buckner in Houston Saturday I teased her for missing the service we had at 7:30 a.m. Aug. 28. By that Sunday morning, though, most people had either fled, were fleeing or had picked the spot where they'd ride out the storm. Buckner had already arrived at the nursing home. She expected to ride out of New Orleans on the same bus that would drive her mother and the other nursing home residents to safety.

Buckner had attended four meetings since April explaining what would be done during an evacuation, she told me. The nursing home had had a practice evacuation. Yet, the buses Buckner was waiting for never came. According to The Washington Post, they weren't requested.

Sister Augustine McDaniel, who runs the Sisters of the Holy Family facility, reportedly decided that it would be better to stay put than try to leave. Because the state attorney general is investigating how McDaniel handled the crisis, the nun has been advised by an attorney not to talk. Because she witnessed what went on that week investigators have told Buckner to expect a subpoena.

She told me she witnessed death and despair, a dedicated staff of employees and volunteers trying to save everyone they could and then a stolen mail truck pulling up outside Tuesday.

"First when they came we were really afraid of them," Buckner told me. "We knew the Post Office wasn't open."

But the people on the truck didn't menace them. Instead, "They said, 'Y'all need anything?'"

Buckner said she and the rest of the ad hoc staff could look through the open door and see what was on the truck: water, juice, potato chips, cookies, peanut butter and crackers. So that became the list of things they needed.

The thieves promised to return, and Wednesday they brought back baby wipes and adult diapers, night gowns and Gatorade. They also brought back chicken and red beans and rice they'd taken from Popeye's. Buckner told me she didn't know how or when the food had been cooked, but the residents hadn't eaten since Monday, so they had no choice but to serve it. "Everybody ate it," she told me, "and nobody got sick."

The thieves were also good stewards of their loot. "They told us, 'Take whatever you need, but you gotta give us back the rest.' "

She had used the word "they" so often, that I finally asked Buckner how many men were on the truck.

"They weren't men," she corrected me. "They were boys."

"Boys?!"

"I don't guess they were over 18," she said. "That's how we knew they didn't work for the postal service." She paused. "They didn't work for nobody."

I tried in vain Monday to reach a spokesperson with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. I wanted to know if the boys who had stolen the truck had been arrested. If so, I wanted to know if her agency was aware that they had used the truck to save lives. Buckner said she saw a car from the postal inspection service drive past on Chef Menteur Wednesday -- after the boys had made their delivery. Like almost every other official vehicle she saw that week, that car zoomed by without stopping.

"Everybody passed," she said. "Even the army trucks passed."

Everybody except two thieves who provided aid when the government did not.

11:22 PM |