Katrina and The Cajun Navy - 7 Years Later (Pt.6)

This is the seventh installment on this topic.

To read from the beginning please go to entries beginning 9/20/12. 

  

To describe the NOPD officer as "youthful" is almost an understatement.  He was not a kid, but in his short-term memory he could remember being one.  He wore enough uniform or accoutrements to barely reveal his authority but he carried himself in such a way as to assure everyone that he had the information we needed.  The other officers with us deferred to him so we all gathered to listen.

          “If you see something you need that would assist you in accomplishing our mission, like a ladder or a rope, take it.  If you can make a record of where it came from, do it in the hopes that we might be able to return it.”

After that last statement, I found myself glancing around, first at the faces of the volunteers and then at the immediate landscape around us.  Did anyone believe that we could borrow tools and return them?






From everything apparent to us since we had arrived in the city, this group was the first organized effort to enter this area with the job of removing citizens from their now 2 day-old plight.  We were provided no equipment we did not pack ourselves, and about an equal amount of information on what we were to do and how we were to do it.  The young officer spoke as if he had more information than us, but uttered no specifics that would allow us to confirm that.

Other than the movements and conversations of this group, it was eerily quiet all about.  The overpass above connected east and west bound bands of silent interstate.  Chef Menteur to the front and back appeared desolate.  No signs of life.  The early sun was beginning to encourage formation of the first beads of sweat on our adrenaline-pumped contingent.

Scores of imaginations of those now standing and half-listening were actively forging images of what might lay before us, with only the limited stimulus or input of  the scenes absorbed during this brief morning.  No one really seemed to know.  The earlier suggestion that we might return necessary tools taken for our mission had only momentarily aligned with our 21st century sensibilities.  Almost instantaneously a more primitive instinct told us that some of the rules on the outside simply could not apply today.  

    

OK this is a little exaggerated
but you get the point

Their status as lawmen apparently gave our Assumption Parish counterparts a free pass to carry their firearms into the city. They wore their Kevlar vests and tactical utility belts while brandishing short-barrel shotguns, automatic rifles and weapons my unsophisticated eye could not identify.  I had not seen a weapon on or in the possession of any of our guys.  Although, as sure as each of them had put a pocket knife in their pants with their keys when they left home, some carried guns of some kind.

Flight of the Navigator

Knowledge is power.  My designated status on this mission was that of a home-grown New Orleans boy among a gathering of wide-eyed foreigners trusting me as their navigator.  That knowledge, and whatever perceived status I held as the company attorney allowed me to disguise the fact that I was a misfit in this bevy of swamp rats.





Many of these guys had begun hunting squirrels and rabbits as children with guns they received before they were potty-trained.  Having had an active childhood playing organized sports until dislocating an ankle playing football, I turned in high school to student government and service organizations.  There was a natural progression into law school.  I loved to fish when I got the occasional opportunity but I did not grow up hunting.

To these guys, guns were like bicycles to a suburban kid.  They were part of their identity, a kind of extension of who they are.  They were comfortable using guns, and they were more secure with them at their sides.  I began to hunt socially when southwest Louisiana became an integral part of my life late during college, but the shotgun I owned on this particular day was better off at home.

While our construction crew still felt compelled to stealthily conceal their weapons, even if only by light t-shirts, our deputy friends felt just as compelled to exhibit theirs for all to see.  Pumped up, whether by adrenaline flow or their training, they were ready to go.  I suddenly felt naked, briefly wishing I had pulled my one shotgun out of the closet, or from wherever I had left it after I used it last.

          “If you encounter a dead body, don’t touch it.  Leave it alone.  That will be handled later.  We are here to help people.  There have been some reports of rescuers being shot at and boats being taken.  If it gets too rough in there, we’re getting out.  Bring those who will leave, but don’t force them.  No pets.  Do not travel alone.  Go out in pairs.  As far as weapons, carry what you feel you need for protection.”

Kind of late for the whole weapons thing!

Man, did I feel naked.

Many childhood memories came to mind of my aunt’s new brick home purchased as the suburbs popped up in this area in the 60's.  It was new and it was brick so it was fancier than anything any of my family had ever lived in before that time.  Despite aging and some disrepair in parts of the area, it remained the home to many middle and upper-middle class residents.  We would learn that some of them were the very police, fire and other public agency employees we would be working with.  

We loaded up and our convoy shoved off, heading east.  Quickly, the divided highway began to resemble  television news images of distant foreign war zones.  Sections of the asphalt over-laid concrete highway were obliterated. Everywhere was debris.  Signs, utility poles and wires were down and buildings were literally blown apart.  Our senses, heightened by the ominous tone of the officer's projection of what might lay ahead, were now cranked up to another level by the debris strewn gauntlet we now had to pass.



As we painstakingly progressed, we began to notice locals roaming about.  They did not look friendly. Was it real or imagined?  Were they angry with us as representatives of the authorities who had not yet exercised their powers to drop resources upon them sooner?  Was it just frustration?  Was this our perception due to our new perspective?  It did seem we were more separated from the makeshift HQ and home base on Canal Street, whether only physically, or psychologically as well.  It felt as if we were farther from people, from civilization, from mankind.  Senses began to signal that all of this was really more unreal than real.  Whatever the reality, as we headed deeper into this new wasteland, the uncertainty of what awaited us was festering increased anxiety and elevated tension. 

A glance to the left, north toward Lake Pontchartrain, revealed streets under water within 100 feet of The Chef. With its permanent shore out of sight about two miles away, its temporary boundary was now a stone's throw from the man-made elevation of the string of ground we were now traversing.  It then occurred to me that the the high waters through which we had barely passed earlier could be impassable on our return, depending upon the level at which the intruding waters of the lake and the city would equalize.  Just six inches more could leave us stranded amidst  strangers whose frustration was rapidly growing.

Our movement was slowed by chunks and sheets of asphalt ripped from parking lots, then lifted and dropped onto the main roadway by wind or water.  In one block, balls, pins and paraphernalia from a bowling alley were strewn randomly about the parking lot, into the street and across it onto the lot of an auto parts store. 



At an obstructed area ahead, the lead vehicle slowed to zig-zag across the median to avoid debris.  The first gathering of people that could be considered a crowd seemed to be mulling into the direction of our passing parade.  We noticed that the lead vehicle was approached by an individual, who then approached the driver of each following vehicle in succession.  He clearly was trying to get someone's attention and appeared to speak briefly to those who slowed and allowed him to do so.  Each one moved on in steady pursuit of the first.

Without hesitation, the man moved in a direct line from the window of the vehicle in front of us, to my driver's window.  He was a young stocky man, probably in his late 20's.  He was obviously distraught and was perspiring heavily.  His pleas to the drivers ahead of us had brought him closer to those vehicles than anyone had approached any vehicle all morning.  Those others who had waived their containers and approached earlier this morning, had appeared to quickly resign themselves to the fact that our appearance was not their rescue, and they reluctantly accepted our passing.  This gentleman seemed neither resigned or agreeable to this entire string of relief passing him by.

As he left the window of the vehicle in front of us, he was undeterred by the apparent rejection he had met.  During his looming approach, I thought, and I may have said out loud to myself,

“Don’t stop, we've got to get where we’re going.”

In addition to sticking with the mission of reaching our assigned territory, I  realized that slowing long enough to actually hear a particular person’s problem would make moving on that much more difficult.  Regardless, I found myself confronted with a face, a person and dilemma.  By my nature, I could not and would not ignore him completely by merely driving on.

Could I hear what was deeply troubling him and still drive on after he shared it with me?  I slowed without stopping, to indicate to him, and to me, that we had other plans.  He walked along and spoke politely, but beseechingly, 

          “Please, my girlfriend has been in labor for hours.  It’s a breached birth and she needs some help.  She needs to get some help.  She can’t have the baby here in the street.”

His face was contorted with anguish.  The perspiration poured off of his face and onto his already saturated shirt.  It appeared to me that this was more sweat than he could have possibly accumulated by this early hour of the morning.  No doubt his distress was real and was great, and he must have been suffering with it for quite some time trapped here powerless, literally and figuratively.

My stumbling reply was something to the effect that:

          “We have to stick with what the police have told us to do.  We cannot move off of that track.”

He pleaded:

          “Can’t you just take us where we can get some help?” 

Again I fumbled,

“I’m sorry, we can’t.”

Reluctantly I drove on, consumed suddenly by my deeply ingrained Catholic guilt.

“Dammit”, I thought,

“It would've been easier had I not had to actually talk to a real person.”

Had I avoided the face, the person, and the need, it would have been easier on my conscience.  But the buffer zone provided by separation and distance had been shattered.  The guilt faded as I focused on the propeller of the boat in front of us.

                              


Not that it provided any consolation, but had I known then what became strikingly clear during the next few days, my response would have been different.  It would have been clear and certain.  It could have been simple and to the point:

          “I’m sorry, sir, but there is nowhere to take her.  There is no place to get her help.  There are no resources in another location.  We could only move her to another place just like this one...or worse”

                                           

During this day and those following, individual volunteers worked valiantly with limited resources and virtually no communications.  They were guided by rag-tag authorities heavily burdened and pre-occupied by the knowledge that their own homes and families were suffering the ravages of the storm.  Everyone knew that federal, state and local with powers and resources were out there, somewhere.  No one quite understood why they not in here?

It would become apparent that "the powers that be" were having better luck maintaining that buffer of separation and distance that delayed them putting faces and names on the people in the crowds.  Were the crowds on the interstate just inanimate groups or census numbers?  How could government not feel compelled to move faster?

Those masses from the bridges and the fringes of the flooding would move eventually to the over-crowded Superdome.  Those eventually "rescued" would be dropped at the convention center like airline baggage awaiting transfer to another flight.  They would cram into the dark, musty buildings only to later overflow into the surrounding streets and sidewalks when the air became dank and un-breathable.

Where was the cavalry?  For days, as the rescues progressed, unless one was on the verge of death and got transferred to the MASH unit at the airport, there was no medical care.

For those now left on the overpasses, bridges, and rooftops of the city, there was no food or even water.  A national outcry spurred action by authorities four days after Katrina hit, but until then, both the rescuers and those to be rescued were pretty much on their own.


                

On this day, our thoughts returned to the man and the plight of his girlfriend and their baby.  Some of us surely rationalized that his story was an exaggerated attempt to get a ride not otherwise available.  If so, he was quite the actor.  Whatever is the reality, we later would know that moving her would not have improved her chances for a safe delivery of a healthy baby.  There was simply no place to move her where she would have been helped.  Mother Nature, who had helped create her circumstances, was her best ally to get her and her child through the birth.  All we could do was keep her in our thoughts and prayers. 

We moved on.  It seemed on initial glance that the cruelty of nature and the circumstances had created this new perspective of reality.  In fact, in the big picture, it all became obvious that nature is not cruel, she is just much bigger than us.  She is not vengeful, just indiscriminate...and predictable.  Hurricanes are no surprise to those who love to live in the gulf south.  They are just a measured risk we accept for the benefits of living here.

          

In this America of opportunity and wealth, we may live our whole lives without confronting the difficulties of accomplishing survival in other parts of the world.  We were now getting the opportunity to obtain first-hand, a brief, clear glimpse of the lifelong plight of a large segment of the world’s population that lives without running water, without electricity or without medical care on demand.  It was completely alien to this home-grown, NOLA ex-pat lawyer raised in a modest household that never lacked necessities or medical care.  Though hand-me-downs and public health care were the norms for my nine brothers and sisters, they were nevertheless available.

The story of the man and his girlfriend would become one of many on a list of experiences to occur during the brief few days that would soon pass.  The weekend before, in the comfort of our homes a short drive away, we could not have known that we would now be here beyond Thunderdome, and that bottled water would become a treasure more valuable  than any other possession.

To Be Continued