How will they return to playing football in the Louisiana Superdome? The official site of the New Orleans Saints only just put up a reference to the disaster plaguing their home city and tickets are available to see the Giants come to town on September 18. The Superdome, currently a hellhole, will soon return to its normal function, but how can it ever be the same? How can one go there to witness something as frivolous as a football game when is has become home to such unspeakable horrors?
If you have the stomach for it, I urge you to read Trapped in the Superdome: Refuge becomes a hellhole from The Seattle Times. It does an excellent job of describing the hell that has become of the Louisiana Superdome and I'm posting a few excerpts below.
A 2-year-old girl slept in a pool of urine. Crack vials littered the restroom. Blood stains the walls next to vending machines smashed by teenagers.
"We pee on the floor. We are like animals," Taffany Smith, 25, said as she cradled her 3-week-old son, Terry. In her right hand she carried a half-full bottle of formula provided by rescuers. Baby supplies are running low; one mother said she was given two diapers and told to scrape them off when they got dirty and use them again.
At least two people, including a child, have been raped as the arena darkened at night. At least three people have died, including one man who jumped 50 feet to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for.
There is no sanitation. The stench is overwhelming. The city's water supply, which had held up since Sunday, gave out early yesterday, and toilets in the Dome became inoperable and began to overflow. "There is feces on the walls," said Bryan Hebert, 43, who arrived at the dome Monday. "There is feces all over the place."
The article refers to the Superdome curse, often blamed for the poor performances of Saints teams over the years. Apparently, it was built on top of a cemetery. Today, it is a national disgrace, a hellhole of forgotten and frightened people. You can't blame this on the curse. This is a failure of humanity.
