A view of Hurricane Ike

The following excerpts were written by Gloria Rubac, a well-known anti-death penalty activist in Houston. The account was written late Sept. 12, an hour before Hurricane Ike hit the city resulting in 2 million people losing their power.

I am not sure about a certain death for people in Galveston. They were under mandatory evacuation and did have buses for people to get out, but I have heard that 24,000 people are still there. Just tonight they have opened the high school for people remaining but no food, water or cots. The mayor and police are in a huge hotel that sits up high, so I imagine they will stay dry. Also, the media are in the hotel. A camera person for the Houston NBC affiliate is the brother of Joe Nichols, an innocent man executed last year. I just talked to his mom and she said the media are in the hotel where the mayor is. But the whole city is supposed to be flooded.

The certain death, if it happens, is for the poor who did not leave and don’t have boats and will wind up on roof tops. Winnie is near the coast and near High Island, which is a wonderful birding area during spring migration. It just doesn’t make sense that transportation isn’t provided when there is a required evacuation. Damn this system.

Michael Chertoff (Homeland Security secretary) is down here, but all I heard him talking about was the oil refineries and terrorism or something that I guess I tuned out.

Prisoners near the coast were actually evacuated days ago and visitation was cancelled in about 30 prison units where tens of thousands of prisoners were transferred because they don’t have staff to deal with visits since they have additional prisoners to watch.

They did this just two or three weeks ago during Hurricane Gustav. After Hurricane Rita three years ago, they didn’t evacuate, and it was so horrible with prisoners abandoned and left in their cells with no food or water. Some of the prisons flooded, and it was just a disaster. I hope the prison system learned something from that. But I do know that prisoners are evacuated all along the coast and have been for days now. There’s about 160,000 prisoners in Texas, and I do know that there’s dozens of prisons along the coast, but I don’t know exactly how many.

Comrades, as in any natural disaster in the U.S., of course, it is the poor neighborhoods that will suffer the most and where the people have the least resources to deal with hurricanes and the after effects. We have so much to learn from Cuba.

I’ve got to finish my pot of gumbo, so I’ll have some comfort food during this hot, humid, mess. I probably won’t have power for days or weeks, so bye for now from hurricane country. ν