Katrina, Part II: What We Saw

From September 3 through September 8 we were in the area affected by Hurricane Katrina. The first indication that we were approaching something unusual was just the convention center in Alexandria that had been turned into a makeshift Coast Guard command center.

The next thing, that I first noticed probably somewhere in the Alexandria area, although maybe as far north as Shreveport, was the convoys of charter buses heading down to New Orleans to pick up evacuees. We’d see 20 charter buses in a single convoy, and just convoy after convoy of them. Then we started seeing large convoys of military vehicles. We also started noticing smaller convoys of 3 or 4 vehicles from non-military agencies like Parks & Wildlife vehicles, state police from various states, local police from outside Louisiana, county sheriffs and local fire departments and emergency medical technicians and ambulances from all over the country.

I’ve seen a great city still standing but – at least the part we were in – dark and empty.

Then the day of search and rescue began, and emergency vehicles with flashing red and blue lights could be safely ignored because those were the only vehicles there were, and we were all going to the same place. Traffic signals could be safely ignored, because if there was one other vehicle approaching an intersection, no distractions existed to keep us from noticing it a long way off. We turned on the radio and there was no music. There was only talk and news about the hurricane, and New Orleans radio announcers were announcing from Baton Rouge.

Along the gulf coast from the west side of New Orleans to the east side of Biloxi I have seen rows of billboards twisted like the wire twist ties on loaves of bread. By the way, if you’re ever in the market to build a billboard, the ones with big round steel poles seem to hold up a little better than the ones that are supported with steel I-beams. Not much stands up to 150 MPH winds, though. I’ve seen piles of construction debris that used to be buildings, buildings so thoroughly demolished that I couldn’t tell what they used to be.

I’ve seen truckloads of water sitting abandoned at a bottling plant near the Superdome, the trucks themselves apparently washed away from their plant by the storm. I’ve seen small shops emptied, apparently by looters. I’ve seen a hand painted note on the plywood covering the windows of a small shop, saying: “We kill looters” and another sign on a different shop saying “You loot, we shoot.” And I believed them, and at the time, it seemed reasonable. I’ve also seen people casually picking up things that didn’t belong to them and walking off with them, sometimes things that belonged to their rescuers and that would be used to help their neighbors that would be rescued next, but they stole them, and at the time, that seemed reasonable, too.

I saw neighborhoods standing in water up to the window sills, where the shops were all closed and the houses had no electricity or running water, and they’d been like that for a week, and the people sat on their front porches and smiled and waved at us as we went by, assuring us that they were fine and had no desire to leave. They waded waste deep through a toxic water mixed with oil and gasoline and garbage and the strong smell of rotting corpses, but they acted like they weren’t in need, and declined rescue. Is there a sermon illustration in there somewhere?

I’ve discovered that when you’re using an interstate highway onramp as a boat ramp, it’s surprisingly difficult to tell what’s under water. It’s not obvious where the actual streets are. You have to look consciously at the buildings, overpasses, streetlights and so forth to deliberately guess where the streets are. And still, you come unexpectedly upon sudden, deep holes, and you can’t picture in your mind what normal city thing is under the water there. Once, in water that the duck could still drive, rather than boat, through, the back right corner, where I was, suddenly dropped so far that I thought one of our recently rescued victims might fall out of the duck, if the whole vehicle didn’t tip over. It seemed like a sidewalk ought to be there, and it might be something normal and obvious, but I couldn’t think what that hole could be.

I’ve seen giant cargo or tanker ships in the Mississippi River pushed up at a 45 degree angle against the shore. I’ve seen big, fancy yachts tossed completely out of the marina and set down, apparently undamaged, in parking lots and out on the shoulder of the nearby freeway. I’ve seen a marina where boats were tossed together like a child’s toy box. Growing up in tornado alley, I’m used to seeing the relatively narrow swath of utter destruction that a tornado can cause. But this week, I rode through that kind of destruction for hours. Between New Orleans and Biloxi is a forest that now looks like a game of Pickup Sticks. The limbs are stripped bare, and big, strong, healthy trees are snapped near the base like dry twigs.

At Crossroads Church of the Nazarene, east of Biloxi, their brand new building has had the steeple ripped off the roof, and all their parking lot light poles are bent at odd angles or lying on the ground.

And I’ve seen a Domino’s Pizza place on Business Highway 90 in Westwego, Louisiana, be the first business in that area to reopen after the hurricane, and it was good. I’ve seen new life in a dead city, and it was good.

Brad Mercer
September 10, 2005