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CWA Members On the Job in Storm's Aftermath
From telephone technicians to newspaper reporters and TV camera crews, CWA members on the job are in the thick of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, working in conditions that some journalists are likening to war zones and last December's killer tsunami.
"When you go down there, you're in a war zone of sorts – kind of a mix of the L.A. riots and the tsunami except if anything happens to you, you're completely on your own," New York Times photographer Vincent Laforet, a member of The Newspaper Guild-CWA Local 31003, said in an online interview with Photo District News.
"It's really hell," he said. "This is by far the most logistically difficult assignment I've ever covered. I'm not sure people outside New Orleans understand just how dire the situation is out here. It's a total disaster zone where people are starving to death, dying of dehydration and getting desperate. And here we are going in there, into this really dangerous situation, trying to do our jobs."
Camera crews represented by the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA are also among the many journalists braving the conditions. MSNBC cameraman Tony Zumbado was interviewed about the appalling conditions he witnessed and filmed inside the New Orleans Convention Center, where he saw people, including babies, dead and dying.
"It's the most horrific thing I've ever seen in one location," Zumbado in an interview with Today show host Katie Couric. "It is the saddest situation I've ever seen ... four days later nothing has been provided for these people. They're dying."
Bell South technicians represented by CWA locals in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are working around the clock to assess the unprecedented damage and restore service to homes that survived the storm.
In Houston, where thousands of New Orleans residents have been evacuated to the Astrodome, CWA members at SBC Communications are installing phone banks to allow people who have been without contact with their loved ones to finally reach friends and family. A similar effort by SBC employees was underway at a shelter in San Antonio.
"When you go down there, you're in a war zone of sorts – kind of a mix of the L.A. riots and the tsunami except if anything happens to you, you're completely on your own," New York Times photographer Vincent Laforet, a member of The Newspaper Guild-CWA Local 31003, said in an online interview with Photo District News.
"It's really hell," he said. "This is by far the most logistically difficult assignment I've ever covered. I'm not sure people outside New Orleans understand just how dire the situation is out here. It's a total disaster zone where people are starving to death, dying of dehydration and getting desperate. And here we are going in there, into this really dangerous situation, trying to do our jobs."
Camera crews represented by the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA are also among the many journalists braving the conditions. MSNBC cameraman Tony Zumbado was interviewed about the appalling conditions he witnessed and filmed inside the New Orleans Convention Center, where he saw people, including babies, dead and dying.
"It's the most horrific thing I've ever seen in one location," Zumbado in an interview with Today show host Katie Couric. "It is the saddest situation I've ever seen ... four days later nothing has been provided for these people. They're dying."
Bell South technicians represented by CWA locals in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are working around the clock to assess the unprecedented damage and restore service to homes that survived the storm.
In Houston, where thousands of New Orleans residents have been evacuated to the Astrodome, CWA members at SBC Communications are installing phone banks to allow people who have been without contact with their loved ones to finally reach friends and family. A similar effort by SBC employees was underway at a shelter in San Antonio.