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Update: Day 3 Dallas Convention Center/New Orleans Evacuees 9-7-05
Finally found Bob who comments here and is also a National Guardsman working the evacuee situation in Dallas.Things are happening very quickly here. But before I get into that, I will let you know whatâs happening in regards to Bob. After arrival Sunday evening they stayed at the convention center over night but the next day were moved to a downtown hotel a few blocks over from both the Reunion Arena and Dallas Convention Center designated shelters for the evacuees. At first they were doing 12 hour shifts but reinforcements arrived and they are now doing officially 8 hour shifts, even though with briefings and other activities it is still a 10 hour day for each Guard shift. Bobâs shift is officially 7AM to 3PM. Bob is responsible for working with the Lubbock Police Department contingent of the over all police presence at the Convention Center and also for being present for boarding of school buses that arrive early in the morning to take the kids to Dallas and various suburban school districts. Local news put the number at 2,000 New Orleans students attended their first day of classes yesterday in Dallas and the suburbs and the schools are integrating these kids into extra curricular programs very quickly. Football is big in Texas so high school athletes from New Orleans were immediately given tryouts on the very first day and 20% of those candidates made first team (varsity) football teams even though they need to wait a mandatory 15 day UIL transfer period before they can hit the high school gird iron. Regarding kids, local gangs in Dallas are trying to start stuff with the New Orleans kids already but tomorrow afternoon the Dallas Police intend to crack down on that tomorrow afternoon and I will get to that in a moment. Bob said the guard is responsible for three things: Shelter for evacuees, working with law enforcement by adding a military presence and deterrent, in this case, the guard is displaying an unarmed presence. And Homeland Security related assignments which he cannot go into. Other than a summer cold, he wanted to tell everyone thanks for asking about him and he hopes everyone is doing well. People are moving in and out of the center and the Texas Workforce Commission is finding both full time and part time jobs for people as quickly as possible with positive results. You might have heard that the US government is giving each adult evacuee $2,000 as early as yesterday so if you have a mom and a dad, each family now has $4,000 and of course monthly unemployment each month so there is a lot of hope in these peoples lives. There is a McDonalds three blocks from the Convention Center and a gang consisting of at least a dozen youth are making their presence known there. Many evacuees walk on into downtown to that McDonalds for dinner and the last three nights these youths have been there. Tonight they started making the evacuees walk sort of a gauntlet of gang youth shouting at them for being in Dallas, saying pea brain stuff like Dallas people wouldnât invade New Orleans and other garbage. Sounded like liberals talking about Iraq statements. These have got to be crack head, troll losers. I had to go through there on the way over to the Convention Center to look for Bob this evening and the gang got a bit out of hand. They usually shout their garbage to groups of young New Orleans guys who come through so sounded like they were trying to start a gang on gang violence thing. However, a New Orleans family of a Mom, Dad and two little girls 3 and 5 years old had to pass through that gauntlet and take the verbal abuse of these punks. What they do not know is that when they show up tomorrow afternoon near that restaurant the Dallas Police intend to swarm the gang tomorrow, round them up and process them. I found that out when I reported what I saw to the command center at the Convention Center, they told me they had reports and had plans to be in that area of downtown tomorrow to take the gang down. Just in time because a group of New Orleans men, not boys but pretty tough looking young men, where watching the Dallas gang from the Convention Center entrance and talking about the Dallas gang, but hopefully the rumble wonât happen.
Posted by: RG 2005-09-08 |
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