Hurricane Katrina: After the Flood (pictures and memories)
I remember I kept stopping at the stop signs.
Driving through New Orleans a week after Hurricane Katrina was like driving through the ruins of civilization. Although there was no traffic, save for the occasional military vehicle and the odd news van, for some reason I kept stopping at all the stop signs. “Sergeant,” my platoon leader said from the passenger seat of the Hummvee, “quit stopping at all the stop signs. There’s nobody here. Also, you really don’t need to use the turn signal either.”
Ghost town: Lower 9th
Here is me driving into New Orleans 9/6/05. The smell of decay and death was overpowering.
Outside New Orleans Sept. 2005
I’ve tried to write about my experiences in New Orleans during the aftermath of Katrina before. Each time I fail, giving up after only a couple of sentences. The tragedy on the gulf coast was so epic and so widespread that my narrow experience feels insufficient and frankly insignificant. There’s nothing I can say about Katrina that hasn’t already been said.
But I think about New Orleans sometimes. I think about the city and the people I met. I think about the devastation, the awful fetid smell of rotted food, dead and decaying pets, and sadly, dead and decaying people. I think about the generosity and spirit of many in the New Orleans area. I also think of the ugliness I saw particularly in the sheriff and his deputies in Gretna. Mostly, I think about how late we were, how arriving in New Orleans a week after the levees broke was like arriving at a brutal crime scene long after the crime.
All I can offer are a few general thoughts and some badly taken pictures. To the people of New Orleans, and all of the Gulf Coast, I’m sorry. We should have done more. I should have done more. I am haunted by the memories of New Orleans.
Note the water line
The pier is on the other side of the road
“If it keep on rainin’, the levee gonna break” –Led Zeppelin
Within 60 hours of getting the call on 31 August 2005, C Troop 2/104th Cavalry arrived from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania to the outskirts of New Orleans .There was some confusion about what our mission was as we unloaded our gear in the sweltering heat on the grassy air field just outside Slidell, LA. Three hours after arriving we were ordered north to Alexandria where we sat around playing with ourselves for 3 more days until the powers that be figured out what was going on.
Who was in charge here? As it turns out, no one was. We were troops without a leader.
C Troop 2/104th outside Slidell, LA.
“Crash on the levee mama, water gonna overflow.” –Bob Dylan
Eventually, we took up residence in Jefferson, LA at the Riverdale High School a couple of miles west of New Orleans.
One of our missions was to set up food, water, and ice distribution points (PODs as they were called). We operated a huge one in a SAM’s Club parking lot. Thousands of cars came through over the next couple of weeks.
Riverdale High School. Home sweet home.
The commander on the horn on the left. Thats the First Sergeant making plans in the center.
Driving through floodwaters on the north side of New Orleans. The smell was particularly bad in this neighborhood. FEMA had not yet checked all the houses in this area.
Into the floodwaters
Note the waterline
This area had not been searched by FEMA yet
Port Sulphur: The Disappeared
Occasionally we would recon the surrounding area. There were areas that FEMA had not yet entered. A friend of mine had sadly told me about the devastation he’d seen driving through Chalmette with his squad. The next day, I was to take my squad southwest into the town of Port Sulphur
I had never seen destruction like I had seen in Port Sulphur. The town was gone, wiped off the face of the earth. The devastation was made even more surreal and horrific in the bright, cheery September sunshine. The only signs of life we encountered were two FEMA vans and a helicopter. We were helpless pilgrims traversing a phantasmagoric nightmare landscape in the bright, unforgiving sun.
Note the mini-van under the rightcorner of the house
The town of Port Sulphur is gone
The foundation of this house is about 100 ft back off the road
Gretna: Anger and hate across the bridge.
We set up a POD in Gretna. The sheriff and his deputies bragged about keeping “the darkies” from crossing the bridge. Perhaps you read about this. This was shocking to even the most back-woods Pennsylvania yahoo. I had a fantasy about butt-stroking the Gretna sheriff in the face with my rifle. The Sheriff and his deputies stood around laughing and grab-assing while my troopers worked for hours in the 100 degree heat. I took few pictures. I became increasingly depressed and angry while we were there. I hated Gretna. And I hate the bitterness that remains.
Gretna. On the right you can see the police car. No respect for the police of Gretna. I hated that place.
Make way for the press
The Media was everywhere. Hell, 2nd platoon even got to meet R. Lee Ermey and his camera crew from the History Channel (he's famous from the film Full Metal Jacket). I almost t-boned a CNN van driving through the 9th ward one day. Fucking Anderson Cooper. And NBC news showed up at one of our distribution points one day. “Sergeant, we’d like to ask you a few questions.” I had no interest in talking to the press, so I pointed them out to my unit commander. They interviewed him and shot some footage of us handing out food and water. I wondered if they heard about the sheriff in Gretna and what he did to the people on the bridge….
NBC talking to the commander
My New Orleans
We spent about a month in New Orleans. Prior to Katrina, I had been intrigued by the mystique and history of The Crescent City; the home of the music I love: Dixieland, jazz, and the blues. The strange and wonderful amalgam of disparate cultures and people is a micro-chasm of the American melting pot, the reality of the city the representation of the American dream.
Outside of the time I spent in Europe, Asia, and Africa while I was in the Navy, I’ve spent most of my life in the northeast. But the time I spent in New Orleans during those few weeks in September 2005 forged a bond between myself and the city. New Orleans will always be in my heart and will always be special to me. I hope one day we can get together under better circumstances.
Drivin' through the French Quarter
Bourbon Street. Those are troops walking right/center. News people on the extreme left.
A house on Esplanade Street. The words on the board read "Fuck Blanco, Fuck FEMA--We've gone to Texas"
A memory I hold onto from my time in New Orleans is of the day we were driving through the French Quarter. Although the city was virtually deserted we happened to drive by a bar that was open. It was a tiny miracle. As we passed the side street bar, a drunken patron stumbled onto the sidewalk. Dressed only in a pair of grungy shorts the wild-haired and wild-eyed denizen raised two beers in the air and shouted, “Ahyoooooooo!” There was something defiant, true, and distinctly American about this crazy man. I wish we could have stopped and had a few rounds with this fellow (my squad practically begged me to stop). We drove by and cheered.
Here’s to you wild man of the Quarter. When we meet again, drinks are on me.
Me in the back of a hummvee Sept. 2005. Twilight on the bayou.
And here's the great Preservation Hall Jazz Band playing the Basin Street Blues>
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Comments
~~Rated~~
"New Orleans will always be in my heart and will always be special to me. "
MJ it's amazing to me how many people (myself included) feel exactly that way after experiencing Nawlins. I arrived later than you Jan 2 2006; not to volunteer but to work, and ended up staying til May 2007. I had first been there in the 80's several times and when I saw Katrina coming I held my breath for NOLA. As we all know the worst case scenario unfolded in front of all our eyes. I was heartbroken.
Man I have pictures and stories galore. Might have to break some out. Thanks Mr. Wycha.
Hey, this was absolutely fantastic. What a miserable disgrace. We should all be ashamed. Where was the fucking President of The United States??
Great, great post, MJ.
My late sister-in-law was a Federal Marshal at the time of Katrina and one of the heads of Homeland Security in that region. I remember the last time she and I spoke face to face, she told me a little about the experiences that she had right on the coast line in Mississippi and Louisiana where the the winds were their most ferocious and the storm surge the highest that she could never forget the stench in the air and that the water lines in the trees were as high as 30 feet.
She also told me of some of the bodies they found in trees. Way up in trees where the water had taken them. Katrina needs to be to America as seminal of event as any other. It's not only the storm but the failure of our Government to help more than it did.
Outside of the people like you and my SIL, help was too slow and the damage done to psyches were irreparable. Kudos to you for being there and helping. Thanks for this reminder that never needs to leave our conscious mind.
RATED
I returned to my home in Mid-City six weeks after the storm. I was very very lucky--I lived on the second floor of a building on pilings. We only got about 6 inches of floodwater on the first floor. For the first week or so, I was the only person save my landlords within a 10 block radius. No gas for heat, no telephone service, erratic water and electricity for months following. To get any sort of groceries or supplies, I put on my backpack and hiked down Esplanade past all the rotting fridges to the A&P two miles away in the Quarter, then unloaded the groceries, put the laptop back in the bag, and hiked back to Cafe Envie to sit on the floor with 300 other people using one of the few wireless connections in the city that sometimes worked. Finding a Phillips screwdriver to put the door handles on my new fridge was a three-week long quest--as makes sense, any kind of repair tool was in short supply, and without working phone lines, you couldn't call the stores to ask if they had something in stock. I finally found ONE in a Vietnamese mini-mart WAAAAAAYYY out in the swamps on the Westbank.
And everywhere, the smell.
Thank you so much again for what you did.
A New Orleans musician few know about, whom you would likely enjoy has an eponymous website. I met and spent time with Spencer Bohren a couple months after he lost much of his wordly possessions in Katrina. His music, personal stories and take on how it all came down were eye opening.
Your post as well.
you appear to be a nice human, good influence, thx for the pictures, an EP I appreciate whole heartedly
Rated.
I was in the hospital having babies from 9/1 - 9/7/05. I was glued to CNN the entire time. What a tragic, tragic time for America. Fortunately, you ... YOU were there ... helping, working, bringing that special thing you have to the overwhelming disorder. In case you don't hear it enough ~ Thank you. Thank you so much. xo
Your effort there IS appreciated.
We went to New Orleans in December of 2004 for our honeymoon. My Irish husband had never been to the American southland. This was my gift to him. We were there for New Year's eve and had a bloody marvelous time...and while we sat in our hotel room during that week, we watched on TV as the horrible tsunami hit South Asia. Watching those devastating pictures, we couldn't have imagined that the tragedy would come home to us just 8 months later.
My students raised money for school supplies and kids who needed the basics. Several teachers flew down and helped set up classrooms and clean the schools.
It is sad that the government responded so slowly and even more gut-wrenching to read about Gretna...but you did the best you all could do with so little leadership and so little action by the powers that be. It was good you guys were there.
Thanks for putting this all together & for sharing your experience. I believe people like yourself did make a positive difference, and New Orleans DOES stay in your heart.
Hurricane Katrina was such a systemic failure and there is so much blame to go around. I wonder if lessons have been learned. You can't just send down thousands of troops to a disaster zone without a proper chain of command. That was the biggest mistake I saw. We would have been able to get into the city at least 4 days earlier if there was proper leadership.
It wasn't until General Honore took over from the idiots at FEMA that things got done. The civilian government agencies seemed to be afraid to act, perhaps out of political concerns. The military generally does not have these concerns.
Thank you for what you did, for bearing the memories and for sharing them with us.
"Some people got lost in the flood
Some people got away alright
The river have busted through clear down to Plaquemines
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangelne
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The President say,
'Little fat man, isn't it a shame what the river has
done to this poor cracker's land.'"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The thing is, it's all about the money. In New Orleans proper, they liked to say it was all about the 'darkies', as our fine human representative from Gretna calls them. The black people were touted and held up as looters and criminals and the Fear held back the salvation just outside the door.
But that was a lie. It's really all about the money. You think if this happened anywhere else it would have and would still be the debacle it is?
Back in 1926, the rain started upriver and didn't stop. By 1927, the river had breeched all the way up into Kansas, Illinois, Tennessee. By May, the river (the River) at Memphis was 60 miles wide. Think about that.
North of New Orleans tons of dynamite were set off, saving New Orleans, but destroying the lives of those in between. It's all about the money. 700,000 people were displaced, nearly half of which were African Americans. Internment camps were set up - over 150 of them. Over 13,000 evacuees were taken to or made their way to a high levee in Greenville, MS (a place I lived for a short time), where they stayed on that levee for Days, no food or water, while boats came and evacuated women and children (whites only).
This tragedy took years to resolve itself - some say it never did, it just changed the landscape. Many, many black people flew north - landing in Detroit, Chicago, New York, Atlanta. Much music was written and played. A new era of blues was born.
When the Katrina happened, I sat in my living room every night, glued to the t.v. I lived there in '86/'87; had last visited in Feb., '05. It's like a "home" city to me. I love New Orleans. I heard Randy Newman's song again at a benefit, and realized how apt it was. It's on my desktop. I play it a couple three times a month, door closed, so I can let out some tears.
But don't let anyone tell you any different:
It's all about the money.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There's several versions on Youtube, but this is my favorite:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGs2iLoDUYE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"What has happened down here is the wind has changed...."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"... they're tryin' to wash us away...."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ConnieMack, I hadn't heard of the deliberate flooding of St Bernard's Parish (and beyond) in the 20s until we were driving through Chalmette, I wish I could say it was shocking, but it seems like the product of an era when direct action was acceptable as opposed to letting inertia and neglect do the job.
Thanks for this MJ, and serving there. Rec'd.
The most poignant visual to me of Katrina was the makeshift tomb "Here lies Vera. God help us." I still feel rage for N.O. and unusual rage against "Heck of a job, Brownie" and our absent president. It shouldn't have happened here but it did.
Yours is the first account I read from a rescuer. Thank you for this.
The ironic thing is, after 1927, after the worst natural disaster in American history, "they" enacted The Flood Control Act of 1928 - authorizing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to construct the levees to protect our waterways - not just the Mighty Mississippi, but all the way over near here to the Delta near Sacramento.
Fat lot of good it did.
Corpsman: Well, it needs to be 10x high, 12x deep, with release valve throughway thingies at A., B., C., D., E. - along here (indicating on the map).
Washington: Well, Corpsman, we will give you enough money to make it 6x high, 8x deep, and let's just cut out two or three of those release valves throughway thingies. It'll be fine! Haven't seen a flood like that in 150 years!
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2009/08/secret-history-hurricane-katrina
- rated
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I lived in S Florida when Andrew hit - in Ft Lauderdale I was spared the worst of it by far. About a week after the storm, I was driving home from a job 3 hours north, and I came upon a convoy of military driving south on the 2 lane Turnpike. It seemed to go on for miles. We all drove by on the right. I will never forget the feeling of utter relief that FINALLY "the calvary was coming" to the aid of the 10.000s of suffering homeless people of southern Dade County. I honked and waved and yelled "THANK YOU" out my driver's side window to each and every truck cab.
I thought we would have learned from Andrew how to get help to the afflicted FASTER. The deadly slow response to Katrina was mind-boggling. the chaos and disorganization you describe even more so.
THANK YOU for being there, and for chronicling it all for us here.
I worked in Gretna for several years. Let's just say that the police department was "representative.
Had to say - I really love when you write like this. I always luagh at humor pieces and your other work, but this one, and the one I read on Memorial Day.... really good work. You said you'd tried to write about this before and couldn't, and yes sometimes these stories really need time to sit within us. When the story and the writer are ready, it works. And it really does here.
And also, I wish you didn't feel you have to say you're sorry. You did so much, gave so much, and cared so much. I wish you could feel proud of all you did. You are a good, good man.
I think there is something about the Crescent City that takes a hold of you, romances you and intrigues you, disappoints a little but always titilates.
I also think the house on Esplanade looks just like the house my friends lived in - and that message rings true to their voice.
I haven't been back to the city post-Katrina. Much like visiting a loved one in the hospital, I'm afraid to confront the reality.
Thank you for serving your country and New Orleans. And thank you for writing about this.
MJ
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=1131771n&tag=related;photovideo
This video is another side of the story.
Additionally, there were many other factors going on in the city that you did not mention. Like the fact that at the time reports had come in that barges were ramming into the westbank levee, and city administrators were afraid we would soon have our own leaks, or that Gretna Police accepted and evacuated over 1000 of people who had come over the bridge prior to that group and had run out of bus drivers, or that the officer who fired the shot, which was a warning shot into the air, was not only black himself, but he fired that shot because the crowd had started to yell, "c'mon we can take them."
Another fact is that the Oakwood Mall, which is located at the base of that bridge, was on fire. Also, the person who said it was racial, was an out of town visitor who gave an opinion. An incorrect one.
At this time, several New Orleans police officers are under indictment or have pled guilty to crimes, including murder, during the aftermath of the storm. No one was killed in Gretna, no businesses were looted, and certainly no officer "shot anyone in the back."
I am truly sorry you had a bad experience with some Gretna officers while you were trying to help. But you should certainly investigate the other side of the story before you give a bunch of strangers reading this blog the wrong idea.
There are races of all kinds living in Gretna, and there are Gretna police officers of all races. Many in high managerial and supervisory positions. I count a few of them as aquaintances.
You are wrong about Gretna and it's officers, and you are judging based on one bad experience and false rumors. The Gretna Police Department kept me, and my black neighbors, safe during the aftermath of Katrina, and I love them for it.
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