Made Me Want To Scream

In pain, agony and disbelief. Where is our humanity?

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | We'll return for your sister's body, the rescuers said. Two months on she was still in the house: "The rescuers overruled her. They broke in through an upstairs window, went past Sis's body and let Bodie pack a bag before they took her to the makeshift hospital at New Orleans airport. They said they would come back for her sister.

Two months later two family friends, John Gaines and Stacey Martin, went to the house. Ms Martin used to clean for the women and Mr Gaines thought taking her to the house would give her some closure.

'I left Stacey alone to get her memories,' Mr Gaines says. 'She went upstairs and after a while she screamed, 'Sis is in here. Sis is in here.' I thought, 'Here we go. She's hallucinating.' So I went upstairs and sure enough, there was Sis.'

Two months after she was first seen, Sis's body lay decomposing in a townhouse in the business district. Mr Gaines says she died with one of her feet on the floor, as though she was trying to get out of bed. The foot had rotted from the leg. Someone had covered her body with clothes. But when Ms Martin tried to remove the clothes, Sis's face started to come off with it. Just as downstairs bears the flood's watermark, so the headboard shows the stain her hair made as it splayed out above her head. 'She had no face,' Mr Gaines says. 'The skin had shrunk right up to the bones on the body and was jet black. All the fluids had run out of her.'"

No cussing, I promised I wouldn't cuss but I am so fracking angry. What is the excuse this time? Incompetence? At least the Keystone Cops were funny. This is malfeasance.

Two days later, on September 8, someone wrote in black marker pen, "1 elderly DOA [Dead on arrival]. 2nd floor bedroom. No hazards," on the front wall of the New Orleans house. On September 10, Ms Holloway was called in California and asked for a DNA sample so that her mother's body could be identified. She was told that a sample of Sis's DNA had been taken, put it in a pouch with her identification and it would be matched with her daughter's before the body was released.

On September 13 Steven Pacheco, an official of the Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals (nobody knows how that organisation got involved), went to the house and called to inform Ms Holloway that her mother was dead and that her mother had written a letter to her daughter that was in her purse.

Ms Holloway asked him if he would mind going back and getting the letter and some other keepsakes. Mr Pacheco did. "There were so many good people all along the way," Mrs Holloway says. "But so much incompetence." That day someone wrote "DOA upstairs" and the date on the same front wall of the house in red spraypaint.

I've watched CSI and they have done many a graphic description of both sight and smell.

On September 17, Ms Holloway held a double memorial service for her mother and her aunt, presuming that her mother's body was in St Gabriel's morgue and would soon be released. She kept calling but nobody could help her locate the body. One volunteer said they did not know which body was in which bodybag.

More than two weeks later, Mr Gaines arrived to find Sis's body still in the house. He called the emergency services and they finally came to take her away. This time they marked the house in yellow spray paint, right over the red.

Three days after the body was removed, the firefighters came. They were gathering information about people who had not been found by their loved ones and wanted to know what had happened to Sis.

If this was an isolated incident I wouldn't be so upset, but then you read the about the firefighters and you wonder, if it wasn't for world opinion what would prevent them from bulldozing the areas into a mass grave and let nature take it's course. Then I remember, that land is worth something and they can rely on eminent domain to take what they want.

We really can't handle one more disaster with the disasters we have in charge. From Katrina to the tornado this administration has shown a willful disregard for the lives of the citizens entrusted to their care. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and they are making Nixon look like a rank amateur.

For people who object to being compared to the little creep with the funky mustache and swastika, they don't seem to mind singling out a section of the population for dehumanization.