Don’t know what to say here but the logistics of getting help there are unbelievable. The place has not organization. The local government had no contingency plan, the mayor of New Orleans sucks donkey balls and interviews like a thug and not an educated politician. After i heard him speak it all fell into place.
Better today. Better organized and huge number of people here now.
Local response non-existent other then fire dept and very few police. La. State police and feds restoring order.
Military made huge difference. USCG especially deserves kudo’s. They are the best at this. Army also. Tank carriers and 5T tucks only ones that can get thru water.
Water and food available but not abundant. Not enough water to wash yet.
Safe enough to venture into inner city and begin cleanup. Still need to be out by dark. Heard wifi and cell may be restored today. Should make comms easier which will expedite effort for all. Airport is a big base now.
Send money and clothes if you can. Both will be needed by the poor.
[quote]hedo wrote:
Better today. Better organized and huge number of people here now.
Local response non-existent other then fire dept and very few police. La. State police and feds restoring order.
Military made huge difference. USCG especially deserves kudo’s. They are the best at this. Army also. Tank carriers and 5T tucks only ones that can get thru water.
Water and food available but not abundant. Not enough water to wash yet.
Safe enough to venture into inner city and begin cleanup. Still need to be out by dark. Heard wifi and cell may be restored today. Should make comms easier which will expedite effort for all. Airport is a big base now.
Send money and clothes if you can. Both will be needed by the poor.[/quote]
God Bless, well do a fund raiser in our company.
Donate all you can.
Have a garage sale and get rid of all that crap you don’t need and donate the money.
Send old clothes, whatever.
This kind of tragedy brings out both the best and the worst in people - unfortunately, every 1000 acts of selflessness wil be overshadowed by the media’s coverage of one act of mayhem.
But as for the angry folks - these folks are desperate, and I imagine not a one of us would want a camera crew and reporter to be in our face during our most desperate hour.
[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
I think it is taking an awfully long time, but I would say that it’s a much more difficult process than it would have been driving down prior to the storm. Big trucks need to drive on interstates – they need those bridges. The terrain around New Orleans is about the worst I could imagine in terms of getting big trucks through if the interstates were made impassable and the bridges taken down by the storm – it’s basically swampland, and flooded swampland right now.
The logistics must be a nightmare, but they need to get it done, and quickly.
LowfatMatt wrote:
Please keep in mind that I only said what I said as a point of reference. Nothing more. There is no way that the two tasks could be compared.
Logistics: yes. Insane. But, (and I know I am going to get in deep with this opinion, but keep in mind that it is just that) I think in times like this we need to act first and ask questions later. 9/11, sure, we couldn’t go around blowing up every party we thought might have been responsible for it. In this case I think maybe, just possibly, there was a bit more bureaucracy than necessary considering the circumstances. I dunno, hind sight, I guess… and this coming from an average Joe that has absolutely no idea about what goes into these types of things.
Like I said, just an opinion from a complete novice / outsider on the situation. I certainly am not sitting back and blaming the government for this one. Freak of nature / act of God sort of thing. No one can be held accountable. I guess it’s just human nature to need to put blame somewhere. [/quote]
Oh definitely. It’s so hard to make sense of a situation like this.
One of the things that seems obvious now, in hindsight, is that they should have done more to get people out ahead of time – but then you think, what about all the other warnings that have come through over the last 40 years since the last major hurricane hit the area. What if they had completely evacuated all those areas each time? Obviously, that would start looking very expensive and unnecessary after it was effected a few times and the storms didn’t hit.
Also, we have to remember that NO is essentially still flooded, and has been this whole time. So there are at least two separate operations going on – rescuing individual people from flooded areas within the city (and trying to maintain law and order in those areas, and protect the emergency evacuators), and then the coordination of supplying and/or removing the people from the high ground to which they have been evacuated (which, of course, is hugely difficult without accessibility of huge buses/trucks and trains (and apparently even the helicopters and planes are having trouble landing in the area).
I think they definitely need to examine what sorts of inherent impediments are built into the responding structures that may have contributed to the delayed response, and also what should be done on a going-forward basis in terms of making certain to evacuate people ahead of time, in quick fashion, once it becomes a near certainty that something of this magnitude will occur.
[quote]Wreckless wrote:
haney wrote:
…
Do you honestly believe the people raping, and stealing drugs, and killing patients got their weapons legeally?
…
Do you honestly believe these weapons were manufactured and then sold illegaly?[/quote]
I would say they obtained them in a similiar fashion to how many roid users on this forum obtained them.
lets think about it. Assault rifles are banned. How would these guys get assault rifles? Not many collectors, or hobbyist are known to be thugs. Most would consider themselves of a John Wayne style. Good guy against the evil. So I highly doubt it is a hobbyist who is doing this. So where would some punk thugs (assuming they are 30 and under). Where are these most likely poor thugs getting illegal banned assault rifles?
[quote]Pretzel Logic wrote:
I guess those non-critical comments I made about blacks were wrong. It seems like their true colors are coming out as more and more are turning to violence and lawlessness. It seems like a lot of them are getting mad and fighting over getting out and food and water and since they can’t blame the storm, they blame the government. I agree it seems like the government could be doing more and maybe if they weren’t so thin right now, more military could be sent, but most of the people there are blacks who are used to govenment housing and relying on the government. They are getting desperate, and it seems like the worst is coming out. They are not being helpful and cooperative with the people helping them. The only white people I saw were ones who stayed to help sick and dying people. Now I hear rescuers are backing off because of the violence from the people they are trying to rescue. I just hope the good people black and white can stick it out and deal with it and get through it.[/quote]
This is not the time to show your true color. you Know one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. So pls dont generalize this dumbass group with the black population in general. For educated people see no color there are dipshits in every race.
[quote]lostinthought wrote:
yeah this is bad, bad, bad. My heart hurts for those people there and who were evacuated…everyone as a whole. In my opinion, the part that scares the shit out of me is that this is possibly a slight glimpse of what the future holds for all of us. [/quote]
Agreed, thank you for this post. Give to local churches in Baton Rouge. Many of these churches have been providing necessities since this tragedy began, and need our help immediately. Also, a larger percentage of our money will be directly utilized.
I agree with Vroom and Connor. Dont make this about racial or political tensions…there is no gene in blacks that makes them rape and murder, just as there is no evidence that people that dont believe in God run around with assault rifles. C’mon fellas, you should be smarter than that.
Unfortunately, even though I am a diehard liberal, I do believe that martial law should have been imposed on that city from the very start. Looters should have been handled more harshly, if not shot. It would have been for the greater good.
But remember guys, no one, black, white, rich, or poor, should have to go through what they are going through down there. Noone should have to drag floating corpses of their loved ones through a flooded city.
[quote]Pretzel Logic wrote:
I guess those non-critical comments I made about blacks were wrong. It seems like their true colors are coming out as more and more are turning to violence and lawlessness. It seems like a lot of them are getting mad and fighting over getting out and food and water and since they can’t blame the storm, they blame the government. I agree it seems like the government could be doing more and maybe if they weren’t so thin right now, more military could be sent, but most of the people there are blacks who are used to govenment housing and relying on the government. They are getting desperate, and it seems like the worst is coming out. They are not being helpful and cooperative with the people helping them. The only white people I saw were ones who stayed to help sick and dying people. Now I hear rescuers are backing off because of the violence from the people they are trying to rescue. I just hope the good people black and white can stick it out and deal with it and get through it.[/quote]
Another bigoted asshole comes out of the wood work. Unbelievable.
Good day today. Really good. Getting better. Depots being established. Water food, medical care. I don’t anybody who has slept more then a few hours in the last three days. Brave souls all.
Army all over the place. Saw the Marines today too. They got the bigggest helicopters I have ever seen. USCG still the workhorse. They are all kids and work till they drop. Literally. If they ever open a bar down here I will buy them all a round.
The new General down here is a hot shit.(honore?) The cajuns say “he cuts a wide swath” which is a big compliment from them.
Thousand of people here. Military, FEMA, Contractors, police. momentum is building and I think it is in good order considering. Comms are starting to come on line. Logisitcs are starting to click. Looting and shooting has waned. I think. NO cops apparently got more then a few. Who knows. Big, big effort being made but it is all coming in by heavy truck or air. Got to get this place dewatered somehow. Cooperation very good. Contractors are supporting the troops and police till we can get in and work. fixing thier boats, equipment setting up camps etc. Fema getting a bad rap but they have become the city and state govt down here overnight. Big task for anybody.
[quote]hedo wrote:
Good day today. Really good. Getting better. Depots being established. Water food, medical care. I don’t anybody who has slept more then a few hours in the last three days. Brave souls all.
Army all over the place. Saw the Marines today too. They got the bigggest helicopters I have ever seen. USCG still the workhorse. They are all kids and work till they drop. Literally. If they ever open a bar down here I will buy them all a round.
The new General down here is a hot shit.(honore?) The cajuns say “he cuts a wide swath” which is a big compliment from them.
Thousand of people here. Military, FEMA, Contractors, police. momentum is building and I think it is in good order considering. Comms are starting to come on line. Logisitcs are starting to click. Looting and shooting has waned. I think. NO cops apparently got more then a few. Who knows. Big, big effort being made but it is all coming in by heavy truck or air. Got to get this place dewatered somehow. Cooperation very good. Contractors are supporting the troops and police till we can get in and work. fixing thier boats, equipment setting up camps etc. Fema getting a bad rap but they have become the city and state govt down here overnight. Big task for anybody.[/quote]
Glad to hear it! We thank all of those putting the victims’ lives first and helping out. Thank yall very much.
Here’s something interesting. Not sure if any of you use Google Maps site, but I just happened to wonder what (if any) satellite imagery was available of the disaster so I went and looked. Pretty interesting, to say the least.
There isn’t much available yet; the only imagery I found was part of the New Orleans area.
I’d post some screen shots, but it’s kinda against Google’s terms of use. So here’s what to do.
Go to http://maps.google.com/
Enter “New Orleans LA” in the search bar. There will be four buttons at the top right on the map: “Map, Satellite, Hybrid, (and added recently) Katrina.” If you click on Satellite and then Katrina you can see the difference. Zoom in or out (on left).
It’s kinda amazing to see what was destroyed and what was left unscathed (in some cases, a small canal / levee is all that’s keeping the two apart).
Here’s a story that’s not gloom and doom:
I heard from my friend Steven who’s been taking care of his mom in NOLA. She’s dying of cancer. Anyway, Steven had boarded up the house really good, and when the floods came, it knocked out their power, but the damage to the inside wasn’t that bad. His mom’s still alive… they got the power back yesterday, and everything seems to be going as good as it could be for now.
Hurricanes suck.
Yeah, the football team too. Go FSU!!
Some interesting ideas concerning the future rebuilding of the city. I believe that NO will be a much stronger city after this. God be with all the souls affected by this tragedy.
The city that will be
By Drake Bennett | September 4, 2005
THIRTY YEARS AGO, in their book ''3000 Years of Urban Growth," the historians Tertius Chandler and Gerald Fox calculated that of all the cities that had been flooded, burned, sacked, leveled by earthquake, buried in lava, or in some way or another destroyed worldwide between 1100 and 1800, only a few dozen had been permanently abandoned. Cities, in other words, tend to get rebuilt no matter what.
We’ve been assured that New Orleans will, too. Residents and civic leaders–like their counterparts all along the ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi coast–have pledged to return and rebuild, and the federal government has promised to help. ''The great city of New Orleans will be back on its feet," President Bush said Wednesday. ''And America will be a stronger place for it."
But, after what promises to be a Herculean clean-up operation, what will the new New Orleans look like? How much will it resemble its antediluvian self?
The short answer is that, right now, no one knows. With the focus on rescuing stranded residents and restoring basic order, with very little sense of what will be found when the waters recede, and with the city likely to be uninhabitable for months to come, government officials understandably have said little about the more distant future. Still, according to Paul Farmer, the executive director of the American Planning Association (APA), once people do return to ravaged cities ''there’s often a rush to rebuild way too quickly," before there’s been much discussion about what exactly is being built.
And the debate, when it comes, is likely to be bitter. ''There are zillions of stakeholders from residents and landholders to city and state officials to business interests," says Jerold Kayden, co-chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. What sort of master plan emerges from this tangle of interests is anybody’s guess, but it’s possible, even now, to get a sense of the options. That some of them are so radical only serves as a further reminder–if in any were needed–of the difficulty of building a safer New Orleans.
Though no one is eager to talk about the situation in New Orleans as anything but an epic tragedy, planners and architects agree that, historically, devastation has often created an opening to address deep and long-standing structural problems. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, for example, the city was transformed from a wooden to a (far less flammable) brick one. ''There was a major cultural change in building design," says James Schwab, an APA researcher specializing in disaster recovery, ''a determination that, if we don’t want this to happen again, we’ll have to make a major change in the way we’re doing things."
For New Orleans, perhaps the most provocative suggestion is that the city, at least in part, be moved to a less precarious location. House Speaker Dennis Hastert provoked a furor when he suggested, in comments to a suburban Chicago newspaper, that it didn’t make sense to spend billions to rebuild New Orleans below sea level, but planners say it’s actually something worth thinking about. As David Godschalk, an emeritus professor of city and regional planning at the University of North Carolina, puts it, ''The $64,000 question on this one is whether to rebuild it where it is or not. The fact is that something never should have been built there in the first place, that’s pretty clear now."
Kayden believes that whether to move the city should depend in part on how much of the existing city survives the flood: ''I hope there’s a lot of urban fabric still there, but if there’s not–if it’s a tabula rasa, if enormous swathes are effectively rendered useless–then what is one rebuilding? Why rebuild it if it’s below sea level?"
The details of such a plan would be devilishly complex, and would raise questions from the practical (where to put it?) to the almost philosophical (would it still be the same city?). Lawrence Vale, head of MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and co-editor of the recent book ''The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover from Disaster" (Oxford), sees economic and political considerations effectively mooting any such proposal. ''My sense is that the number of people who raise that question is directly proportional to their distance from New Orleans," he said. ''The combination of the level of financial investment that people already have in the city with the level of emotional attachment that they have to the place makes it very hard to think about moving the city."
Perhaps even more ambitious is the possibility of simply moving the river. As Godschalk puts it, ''We might be thinking about redirecting the Mississippi River, that was one of the precipitating elements in this whole disaster." While that sounds fantastical, the fact is that the Mississippi today only continues to flow by New Orleans because of an assiduously maintained set of upstream dams and levees. The river has changed course several times over its lifetime, and it’s only because of a massive engineering effort that the river didn’t changed its course 50 years ago as it silted up its own riverbed.
Of course, even if such a task were to be deemed feasible, the attendant social and financial disruption would be unimaginably large and complicated. Whole settlements and industries have grown up along the river. Godschalk readily concedes the enormity of the necessary negotiations: ''What are we going to do about all the property that’s there, all the ownership by individuals and businesses and homeowners and so forth? How are those people going to be compensated?"
Another idea focusing on the river comes from a Harvard Graduate School of Design project run by Joan Busquets, a professor there who served as planning director for Barcelona in the years when the city remade itself for the 1988 Olympics. This spring, Busquets’s team of architecture students looked at how to revitalize New Orleans, which even before Katrina was an economically depressed city. Their solution was to focus redevelopment on the docklands along the Mississippi. Using the example of Rotterdam, another low-lying port city (and in a country that has itself largely been reclaimed from the sea), they suggested that New Orleans move much of its already-derelict shipping activities to the outskirts of town and transform the area–which includes some of the city’s highest ground–into a commercial and residential district.
In the wake of Katrina, Busquets argues, the new development could absorb many of the residents from the city’s lowest and most vulnerable areas, which could be abandoned to function as a sort of flood buffer, restoring some of the original logic of the city’s settlement. ''For decades or for centuries," explains Busquets, ''the city always selected the higher places for residences. The lower places were dumps for when there was a lot of rain."
There are also less transformative fixes that might help somewhat. ''One thing that’s frequently used in coastal floodplains is just building elevation," says Schwab. ''Just clear out a lower floor so the water can just pass through without actually affecting living areas." In other words, houses could be raised up on stilts. Different materials would help, too. ''Wood and plaster don’t hold up very well," Schwab says, ''Concrete and stucco tend to hold up a lot better."
Such changes would change the unique architectural character of the city, its famously historical look and feel. But as Vale puts it, ''a sustainable city has to react not only to its own history but to its environment."
The way New Orleans was built, after all, not only failed to protect it, but may even have helped feed Hurricane Katrina. Since the early 20th century, planners point out, the draining and infilling of wetlands for development, and the prevention of some of the Mississippi’s regular smaller-scale flooding through upstream levees, stripped New Orleans of natural defenses against hurricanes. Wetlands help absorb storm surges, floods dissipate the Mississippi’s strength and leave behind silt that would help counteract the steady sinking of the city.
Indeed, whatever happens, Vale and others hope that the rebuilding will avail itself of such natural safety valves. ''We have ignored the ecosystem of the Mississippi Delta at our peril for more than 100 years, and the situation is much worse because of that," says Vale. The city, he believes, needs '‘to work with the natural systems of the area"–among other things, expanding a proposed Louisiana state project to fill in coastal wetlands with water and silt diverted from the river–’'as part of the problem-solving rather than simply building higher and bigger dikes."
Got onto the internet today. Good communications now exist. Patchy but it is there. The difference in the response is amazing. Command and control are the key.
Here are some random thoughts.
This is the biggest disaster in our history. Lots of people lost everything. Everyone lost something. The unemployed will find work on the recovery. It willbe massive. Morale is high. Food and water is plentiful. Enough to wash and shave etc.
Take this as an observation. Stop watching the news. The media is failing the country and the people of NO should run them out of town. IF you say something positive they stop filming. They pester the poor people till they complain about something… I have heard the words “thank you” and “bless you” more then anything else from the survivors. Are the broadcasting that message back home to you?
Go help people. Take your old clothes to a church if you don’t have money to send. They have no clothes to speak of left for the people. It all got destroyed.
Looting and shooting we thought stopped but a team of contractors got shot at. The NO police got most of them. Good job by them. Got ambushed on a bridge we heard and they attacked the criminals. Good for them. The NO cops need some good news.
As too looting never as big as they said. I read some stories on here about racial bullshit. First off everyone here is black. Cops, govt, most military. So are about 1/2 of the responders. Lots of black owned business’s. The politicians are driving up this shit. These people looted in most cases because they were scared and didn’t have anything stocked up and didn’t get out. The crooks who took other shit (tv’s and booze) would have been robbing stores and people anyway in most cases. That’s what crooks do, day in and day out. It’s not about race it’s about fear of dying in my opinion. Drop the racial bullshit for awhile. It will make you feel better. Don’t try that shit down in NO. Tell the politicans the same. Actually in summary. Fuck them.
Kudo’s to military, especially the USCG. Kudo’s to the Army. Big green made me proud. Thanks to thousands of volunteers with boats and food they brought on their own. I’ll tell you this the cajuns from Lake Charles and oil workers (divers) saved a lot of people. Black and white by the way. Nobody shoots and these mothers either.
In short I think the country is doing a magnificent job responsding to this. There is only one road in and out and the water is deep. It is backed day and night with refugees coming out and supplies going in.
Please thank them or go load supplies at a USCG base or reserve airfield. I bet the kids that got left behind have been working 24/7. Loading box’s is a good workout and we are all muscle heads. Trust me you’ll fell the burn.
Still a big need for emt’s, nurses, and contractors of all types. Body searches start soon.
Back at it now. My 5 hr. break is off. But we are all clean and fed so it’s better then yesterday but not as good as tomorrow will be I hope.
[quote]hedo wrote:
As too looting never as big as they said. I read some stories on here about racial bullshit. First off everyone here is black. Cops, govt, most military. So are about 1/2 of the responders. Lots of black owned business’s. The politicians are driving up this shit. These people looted in most cases because they were scared and didn’t have anything stocked up and didn’t get out. The crooks who took other shit (tv’s and booze) would have been robbing stores and people anyway in most cases. That’s what crooks do, day in and day out. It’s not about race it’s about fear of dying in my opinion. Drop the racial bullshit for awhile. It will make you feel better. Don’t try that shit down in NO. Tell the politicans the same. Actually in summary. Fuck them.
Kudo’s to military, especially the USCG. Kudo’s to the Army. Big green made me proud. Thanks to thousands of volunteers with boats and food they brought on their own. I’ll tell you this the cajuns from Lake Charles and oil workers (divers) saved a lot of people. Black and white by the way. Nobody shoots and these mothers either.
[/quote]
Good to hear.
[quote]hedo wrote:
Got onto the internet today.
[/quote]
Just curious…how did you post the previous two times if you had no internet access?
[quote]gojira wrote:
hedo wrote:
Got onto the internet today.
Just curious…how did you post the previous two times if you had no internet access?[/quote]
Should have said full time internet access.
Mrs. Hedo posted for me. Sent e mails out for me too asking for stuff. Many friends are trying to keep up and this seemed easiest way.
Following from a TN national Guard Pilot. Good summary. Truth about what is going on. No finger pointing. Selfless determination by military and civilian personnel. That’s it.
New Orleans, September 3rd, 2005
I just returned from New Orleans on a hurricane relief mission in the C-130. Let me just start by saying I was awed. Not in what I saw in destruction and devastation because I had/have already seen enough of that on TV. What really hit me hard was the absolute determination and
willingness of all those involved in the relief effort. I just want to quickly tell you what I was a part of and what I witnessed as it just really filled me with pride and reminded me again why we are such an amazing and successful country.
It started when I showed up for the flight in Nashville. Instead of the flight planning I would normally do (the other pilot did it), I wastasked to call all 60 or so of the pilots from the 105th Airlift Squadron (my squadron) and find out their availability to fly hurricane reliefmissions. Now, don’t forget these are all Air National Guard men and women and most all have full time jobs outside of flying for the Guard.
Almost without exception, every pilot offered whatever assistance was needed. No surprise. I then jumped in the airplane and flew directly to New Orleans Int’l, which was and is only open to relief efforts. We had on board with us an aero medical evacuation team. They are a group of
highly trained nurses and med techs that are qualified in evacuating wounded and sick soldiers from the battlefield and keeping them alive enroute to a medical facility.
One of the many missions of the C-130 is basically a flying hospital. We can literally set up and intensive care unit in the back if needed. So, with our team of aero meds and flight crew on board, we set course for New Orleans with the rough idea that we would transport injured and sick people to Elington Field, TX (Houston, TX). From there we would
fly to Alexandria, LA, Charlotte, and then back to Nashville. Our mission ended up evacuating one of the VA hospitals’ patients as well as several civilians.
The weather was not great once we neared New Orleans. We made it in and were met by an airport SUV that led us to what is normally an airline passenger gate. The difference was the gates housed medical teams (mainly military that had just arrived) and scores of sick refugees
(for lack of better term). We squeezed ourselves into a parking spot perpendicular to a C-141 and next to two C-17’s. There were other Air Force planes on the ground as well. By the time we finally left, five other C-130’s and another C-17 had joined us.
What happened next just really made my heart well with pride. From every direction and in about 15 to 45 second intervals, helicopter after helicopter continued to land right next to us. It was a mix of Army Blackhawks, Coast Guard helicopters as well as Marine and Army. They were joined by what must have been 15 “Flight for Life” helicopters from
hospitals all around the Southeast. I saw Miami, Arkansas, and many other names painted on the sides. This was not normal operations. These pilots were practically landing and taxing on top of each other. They came in fully loaded with sick personnel. Many right from the rooftops.
One New Orleans Airport fireman took on the duty of aircraft marshaller and marshaled in choppers left and right. The helos would unload and then take right back off. It was not uncommon for a helicopter to be on the ground less than two to three minutes and then blast back off. We were basically parked in the triage area. These helicopters were
immediately met by ground personnel who helped the people off the helos and if they couldn’t walk, they put them on a stretcher or just flat carried them.
What makes it so extraordinary is when I realize that these ground personnel were just the airport workers, airline employees, cart drivers, fireman, and then the staff of all the emergency teams. It was amazing. They were not necessarily trained for the jobs they were/are undertaking. They just stepped up to the plate and did it. The tower
and ground controllers were coordinating airplanes and helicopters like they had never imagined in their most terrible nightmares and were doing a very good job of it.
There were literally so many helicopters coming in and out of the triage area that I do not understand how the tower guy could see through them all to control the planes once they landed. The little baggage trailers and tugs that you normally see zipping around the airport were being used to move survivors out to the airplanes. They can best be described as mini ambulances.
The terminals at the airport were triage and staging areas. The airport vehicles that are usually operated by airport managers and security were leading airplanes and helicopters to newly created parking spaces.
Then the huge thunderstorm hit to make matters even worse. Thunder, lightening, and driving rain pounded the airport and surrounding area for over 1.5 hours. The helicopter pilots and crews never stopped.
Everyone was so determined and working with such purpose. I literally watched this one helicopter bring people in a then leave again for another load four times in the 1.5 hour long torrential rain storm. This pace was not uncommon. Another thing that exemplified the
unselfishness of the rescuers was this one old and worn out red and white helicopter. It looked like something that does heavy lifting for construction up on mountains. Basically, it did not look like one that was designed to carry people and conduct search and rescue.
From all I can tell, it was just a privately owned helicopter that the two pilots decided they were going to make work for this. I still remember the pilot in the left seat. He just had on jeans, tennis shoes and some kind of old shirt. He was a little overweight, but you could just see the determination and purpose on his face as he brought that big helo in run after run after run. Don’t misinterpret what I am describing. The military guys were doing this too, but I did not expect
this from some private company or individual.
It just was incredible. Absolutely incredible. There is no way the helos should have been flying in this weather. If this was just some regular mission or training flight, you can bet your kids Super Play Station that they would not have been flying. It would have been easier and probably safer to floss a shark’s teeth them to have gotten these guys to stop flying.
The same thing went for everyone working to organize and evacuate the sick, hurt, and elderly inside the airport. The process was a little slower than ideal, but it is a massive undertaking not ever encountered by the agencies initially put in charge. Long story short, the Air Force
medical teams got in there and got the ball rolling. As we left, a medical evacuation command post was coming on line, which will significantly speed up the process of bringing people into the airport and them putting them on planes to fly out.
Another one of our Nashville C-130’s was on the ground with us. They received their patients first. Once they could not physically fit anymore on their plane, they left and we took they next group. Our aero med team and flight crew just started helping the people who could barely walk onto the plane and assisted in the loading of stretchers.
Back to selflessness, we were also joined by two doctors who had been assisting in all the relief efforts at Tulane Hospital. They decided to go on the flight with us.
One was an MD in his 7th year of surgery residency and the other was an MD who worked full time at Tulane hospital. They had been working nonstop since the hurricane. Another resident MD told me how after the hurricane hit he had to go home and get some sleep. He awoke to rising
water at his place, so he got in his kayak and paddled down the street, past looting, which he said was very unnerving, and into Tulane hospital where he has been
working ever since. The great American spirit is indeed alive and well.
We ended up taking 20 patients on litters (military for stretcher) and 31 people (not healthy at all) that could sit up for a total of 51 to Elington Field, TX. We arrived there and were met by what can only be described as an eye watering reception. We called the field 20 minutes out and let them know we would be landing shortly and passed on our patient information.
Well, let me tell you something. As we taxied in I looked towards our parking spot and I must have counted 30 ambulances and a line of hospital workers/volunteers with wheelchairs at the ready lined up 50 deep. There was another equally long line of paramedics with gurneys.
These people had it together. We shut down engines and then watched as Elington’s smooth operation kicked into gear. The sickest of the sick were rushed to hospitals. Everyone else was given food, cold drinks,
seen by a social worker, doctor, and other specialists. Then, one of the head NASA people there gave me his car to go to Jack in the Box to get food for the crew. Incredible!
By this time we were running out of our 16 hour crew day and we still had two more stops. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get to it all as we had to head right back to Nashville, but another crew picked up the mission. I will be doing missions similar to this one tomorrow (Fri) and Saturday.
Our Guard Base (TN Air National Guard) is flying six of our eight or nine airplanes out tomorrow in direct support of rescue operations. We plan on doing this for the foreseeable future.
Overall, I cannot do justice to all the good I saw today just by writing. I wanted to try though. Basically, the operation set up down there at the New Orleans Airport is one eerily similar to that of Baghdad Int’l airport when I was there for over eight months. Just a hive of activity with people pushing their bodies and aircraft to the max. No one complains, they just get the job done and worry about the rest later.
Every citizen of this country should be so proud of what their fellow citizens are doing for each other. The pressure they are working under knowing these sick and stranded people do not have time on their side is unexplainable. Our country is one of great strength and determination. It is evident in all the rescue and relief efforts that are taking place down there. If the hard work and pure grit of all the
rescue and medical personnel I witnessed today are of any indication of the eventual outcome of this indescribable tragedy, then we are on the absolute fast track to victory.
I just want to add one more thing. I did not write this all out to highlight myself. In fact it is quite the contrary. I want all of you to know the efforts that are being made from the individual level to the highest level of government. Nothing is being held back. I just happen to fly an airplane from one field to another and am very happy to do it.
Please say some extra prayers for all of those suffering due to hurricane Katrina and for all of those working to save lives and rebuild a city.