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

This is the eighth installment on this topic.

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

Parallel to The Chef, approximately one mile to the north is I-10 and equally as far north of that is Hayne Boulevard running along the Pontchartrain lakefront.  These east-west thoroughfares are tied together by 4-6 primary roadways running roughly north and south.  Since those are approximately equidistant from each other between our starting point and the I-610 connection to St. Bernard Parish on the far east end near the NASA plant, these roads would be our staging areas.

Each of them was situated closely enough to the high water that the elevation of Hwy 90 provided nearly perfect boat launches into the flooding. Our group's vessels were dispersed at four of these launch locations.  Ours in particular set up operations at Read Blvd.

Because we could launch only one rig at at time, many were afloat and gone before anyone appeared with instructions or guidance.  Impatiently and hurriedly, they sped off, hopefully to return with people and information.  All boats could steer only north initially.  We assumed there would be some organization to their action once they began hitting the cross streets of the neighborhoods where they might fan out for full coverage of the area.  The water in the roadways provided ample clearance for the propellers almost immediately after entry.  After each boat had barely left the "dock", their motors were opened full throttle, sending wakes into the small front yards and walls of the closely-spaced homes.

Once the last boat had set off, it seemed the others began returning almost immediately, loaded with weary faces. Some appeared relieved, some concerned. Some had minor injuries and some had different levels of disabilities. Some were reluctant to show relief just yet, as they seemed to know this was only one short leg of a much longer ordeal that had begun with the clouds moving in before the wind and water.  Where, when or how it would end remained to be seen.

Our guys were gone again as soon as unloading was complete.








It did not seem that we had just begun preparing for this journey only about 24 hours before.  We were in a new place and a different time.  It had taken ages, it seemed, to get there.  We had hit brick walls and had stopped and started so many times that no one was concerned with details or plans when the crews finally got into the water and began shoving off.  Not much was discussed about what would happen next.

The arriving passengers were impatient as well, to have their chance to step out of each small dinghy and to walk on dry ground.  Their exits were prompt.  Except for a few errant slips, all who could disembark themselves did so quickly and without incident.  Those who were sick, infirm, elderly or otherwise impaired would be helped or lifted carefully and gently by the biggest and burliest of our guys.  Upon exiting, many engaged in idle chatter and some exchanged greetings and smiles.  Each would have stories of the last few days and would begin sharing them with each other.

During the cooling breeze of the boat ride and the excitement of the rescue, most seemed to not yet notice the rapidly elevating temperature that was now approaching 90 degrees.  It was barely mid-morning.  Losing their sea legs, they began to survey the scene.  Some curious, some bewildered, none could find any immediate indication or guidance as to what would happen next.  Like gathering at a corner stop for a city bus with no impending arrival time, the not-yet-fully-rescued strangers drifted up to the shoulder of the highway.  No shade, no water.  Optional seating was provided by only the hot asphalt shoulder or the grassy sloping ground adjacent to The Chef.

Having spent over two days without electricity, running water or air-conditioning in the sweltering New Orleans heat, it is likely that some hoped for, if not expected, air-conditioned buses and bottled water to greet them.  After all, they were being rescued, weren't they?  Maybe later.

With one of the first groups brought in, was a slender lady, past middle age but with straight blonde hair styled like a much younger woman.  She was happy to be on dry ground but obviously distraught.  Unlike others, she did not seem so excited about being safe or out of whatever situation she had left.  She told her personal tale of having weathered the storm with her sister.  From her tone, it was clear it was not just any sister, if there can be such a thing.  This was her lifelong friend, confidante and soul mate.  I would guess they were inseparable and could have wished for no better companions than each other for fighting a hurricane.  At least they were in their home, with each other.  As the story unfolded, it became clear that she had not only lost track of her sister, but she had lost her completely.  As she sobbed uncontrollably, she told us that her sister had been dragged from her very grasp by raging wind and waters and that she had no doubt died.

Happy that our charge had escaped the torrent and that she was now safe, those who could hear her slowed or stopped their frenetic motion to listen and to share her loss.  It was again one of those moments in which the insulation of distance and relationship that shielded us from emotion had crumbled, exposing each of us to this real, very personal circumstance.  In these fleeting moments, that  we would experience repeatedly during the next few days, our dispassionate rescue job was altered and snapped into a sudden surge of emotion and human connection.  Those who heard her were happy she was now safe and heartbroken for her loss.

The lady regained her composure and disappeared into the crowd to melt in the sweltering sun at the corner and to await the next chapter of her fate with a heavy heart.  As the scores, and then hundreds of bedraggled were deposited onto the concrete bank of the new lakefront, they joined the crowd with the others, clueless about what lay before them.  Within the hour of the grief-stricken sister arriving, a joyous scream rose up from the crowd in which she had become invisible.  Everyone within the sound of her jubilation celebrated in some fashion, the arrival and heartfelt embrace of the first sister with the second who was very much alive.

As the folks passed us to grow into the masses on the corner we were able to piece together their stories and form some idea of the circumstances and conditions they had left, and that we would face going in.  Our travelers were coming from rooftops and from attics of homes soaked and consumed by 6-8 feet of water by this third day.  Their stories confirmed what we had gathered in bits and pieces from authorities.  The water in the mile from The Chef to I-10 progressed from inches to over 6 feet.  Beyond that its depth increased to as much as 12 feet approaching the lakefront.

                                        

The residential neighborhoods at the north and the south were interrupted in the middle by a light commercial corridor along I-10.  The once grand Lake Forest Plaza Mall west of Read and south of the interstate was a showcase in its day, 30+ years before.  Despite its size it contained no residences and no victims as far as we knew.  However, adjacent to it was Methodist Hospital, Metropolitan Hospital, and various apartment complexes and hotels.  On the east side of Read, the commercial development did not run as deep.  Before transitioning again into suburban developments, the convenience stores, gas stations and hotels on the east side of Read stood as the front line before a high rise assisted living facility on which some of us would soon focus.

At first, we heard only stories from the Metropolitan Hospital.  The information that trickled down to us indicated that it was in fact a hospice.  It held patients on their final journey in this world, who had opted to forego medical treatment and life-sustaining care.  The word from that building was that a preacher or a priest remained, and that he refused to leave these dying patients.  He had food and water and the number in his care was not clear.  He asked for nothing and would accept nothing, wanting us to use our resources for others.  He offered us gasoline if we needed it.  Unless he was running generators, he certainly would not need it.  Every car in the parking lot was completely submerged by flood waters.  Because it seemed to be a situation under control, we bypassed the hospice for the rest of the day, tending to others more in need of our services.

5 years post Katrina
(AP/Boston Globe)

The acknowledged organizer, director and head honcho of our group was Ronny Lovett, the owner of R & R Construction.  That company employed most of our rescuers.  However, by her nature, to which Ronny fully and voluntarily  deferred at times, the de facto managing director, drill sergeant and organizer extraordinaire was Sara.

Sara had been instrumental in putting Ronny in business 10 years earlier.  She was the company's CPA and was Ronny's long-time friend and adviser.   Small in stature, her position on anything was always crystal clear and her decisions always certain.  Regardless of their position on those decisions, no one considered questioning her here as her decisiveness and casual assumption of authority lulled all into a comfortable sense of security.  Outside of this situation, on a normal day, questioning her still required preparation, fortitude and stubbornness whether for debate or true conflict.  Any discussion would almost certainly end upon her subtly convincing her opponent that they had won her over...to her side.  She was dictatorial through her gifts of persuasion and never abused her influence.  When she adopted a cause, the troops rallied.





Her cause on this day would become a 15-floor assisted living facility jutting into the sky out of a concrete parking lot.  Its location was about a block east of Read, a block south of I-10 and behind the half submerged branch of the New Orleans Public Library.

Sara first engaged me to assist her in “evaluating the situation” at this high rise facility.  At the time, it was not clear just what it was or who was in it.  After 12 years of marriage, I knew that Sara asking me to help her evaluate the situation meant that I was to shadow her and follow her instructions as she evaluated the situation.  She would plan a strategy within minutes of her arrival.

Our flat bottom metal marsh boat drifted carefully up to the edge of the parking lot of the non-descript pale building.  The structure, surrounded by the expansive lot and then by streets, residences and low-slung stores in the distance, had nothing to block its view.  From the road, we could see into the bottom floor that was under four or more feet of water.  At first, there seemed to be a clear shot across the lot to the entrance of the building.  On second glance, it was clear that it would require a careful approach to avoid the vehicles and other unknown obstacles hidden just beneath the darkened surface of the water.


We idled in cautiously into an area of sights and sounds of life emanating from the many screened windows on higher levels of the concrete box.  In direct view, on the bottom floor, was an opening that appeared to have housed a large plate glass opening, possibly a door 10 -12 feet wide.  To attempt to get a handle on the location and size of the population inside, we first meandered slowly around the entire base of the building following the sounds of the variety of voices coming from within.  Greeted by a host of excited and happy welcomes from many of the fifteen floors, it became obvious that there were more than a few people inside.  We returned to the large opening to determine if that space would provide a viable entryway.

Floating slowly, and a bit apprehensively past the cased gateway into the the shadows of the interior, the height of the ground level room was diminished by more than half by the the elevated liquid floor.  We found ourselves inside some sort of meeting room or dining area with little clearance between the tops of our heads and the sheet rock ceiling.  To the left, the top of an electric organ was exposed.  Bibles and pamphlets floated amidst debris and the occasional dead bird or rodent.  Tables and chairs were barely visible beneath the surface of the water which rippled ever so slightly from beneath the gentle drift of the boat.

At the rear and in the center of the room, in an alcove past an open door, an area reserved for religious worship was visible.  A group of candles sat on a small altar protruding just above the water line.  On the wall was a familiar picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  As a lifelong Catholic I recognized this framed iconic image from my youth.  Familiarity with it was reinforced and forever etched into my mind by the five years I spent in the city under the tutelage of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart (Sacre' Couer) as an 8th grader at St. Aloysius High School and then four more at Brother Martin High between 1969 and 1973.

Brother Martin High (1969-present)

St. Aloysius (1869-1969)

In the far back corner of the dining area, to the right of our path from the sunlit exterior entrance stood a blank metal door.  Once opened, indirect light from our point of entry provided minimal illumination into the bottom of a dark, bare concrete stairwell landing.  From our perspective as passengers in the flat-bottom aluminum boat, the sight of three bare concrete walls  inside the stairwell indicated that it came down from the second story behind the wall to our right.  Any signs of life, or of the pathway to the upper floors would come only after entry into the stairwell followed by an immediate 180 degree turn to the right.  The entire landing was under 3-4 feet of water indicating that the lower five or six stairs would also be submerged. 

From above that dank floodline which we could now only imagine, and before any faces were seen, came the very real sounds of human activity and the animated voices of people jostling for positions.  The dark water, we would soon determine, acted as a weak and temporary force field restraining the mass of people anxiously waiting for transport.  In the meantime they politely, but unflinchingly held the positions they had established on the inclined concourse.  Had a larger craft been positioned at the landing, their anxiousness would likely have fueled a more forceful crush of bodies into the small portal to their rescue.  With only the sounds of the first small dinghy invisibly clanging into the walls of the dining room and into the door casing of the stairwell, the anxious residents restrained their instincts and maintained a semblance of impatient decorum.

To discover and actually view the reality of what we were presuming based upon sounds and circumstance required some of us to exit the boat and move without its protections into the stair well aperture.  Leaving only our pilot afloat we lowered our feet, and then our legs into the uncertainty of the stained water until they disappeared from sight.  As we descended deeper beneath the surface we were each briefly struck by the unexpected cool snap of the water as it enveloped our stomachs and lower backs.

Using our feet as if they were red-tipped canes, we each felt about negotiating around objects large and small, some fixed and others bouncing randomly about.  With the guarded anticipation of walking along the muddy bottom of a backwoods pond or a cypress swamp, we slid slowly along toward the single step up into the stairwell, hoping not to encounter any of the wild imaginings then fleeting through our brains.

Then (1972)

Of more realistic concern should have been the risk of injury from some yet hidden source revealed only upon the infliction of pain.  Even a minor injury could be devastating, if not life threatening, considering our remote location and lack of facilities.  The water was still cool and only a short time had passed since its intrusion into the habitat of the landlubbers.  It had not yet occurred to us that it was any more dangerous in these waters than it was in the lake waters in which we would dip ourselves and our fishing lines in the 60's in between "No Swimming" notices caused by elevated bacteria levels. (See Save Our Lake.org)

Now

Now

As we successfully fumbled onto the landing we turned and peered up into the rectangular tube ascending to the dim light trickling downward from the second floor entry door propped open against the interior wall.  In between that door and the motley rescuers were 40 or more faces, some smiling, some fearful, but all anxious.  To this day, my recalled first impression was of images of elderly, desperate prisoners peering from the confines of trains during WWII not knowing if they were being rescued or being left to their own devices to escape an impossible plight.

                                                     
                   



Of course, that impression is grossly exaggerated, but in the dark, humid confines of the stairway filled with forlorn and beleaguered citizens stacked sardine-style shoulder to shoulder between cold concrete walls, pushing forward, both physically and mentally towards potential freedom, that initial impression remains in my brain's RAM. 
       

   To Be Continued

    

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