(no subject)
We left Pittsburgh for Xenia again. My grandma was going to have surgery done on her leg to make it stronger, and we wanted to be there to take care of her while she recovered. My grandma never got the surgery, and my dad was pissed off. He decided it was time to leave. By this time, there was talk of letting people back into the city, so we were also gearing up to go home. This meant going through all of our stuff and figuring out what could stay and what we had to bring. It also meant using the internet to map out what the conditions were like in the New Orleans area for the time which we’d be able to get into the city. I figured out a route with the least flooding which was actually kind of tricky. Every road looked as though it had trees blocking it or it was in the flood zone. I also obtained satellite photos of the uptown area. It was difficult to make out, but we determined that our house was still standing and a tree seemed to have come down next to it. This gave us a lot of hope .
The plan was to just head south as far as we could. My dad would drop Taylor and me off at my Mom’s apartment while dad, Pat, and Grace would stay in Ocean Springs with Bob and Harriett. We were finally going home… sort of.
The trip back to the south was pretty uneventful. It was pretty uncomfortable since my back problems were starting again, but other than that it was just like any other car ride… until we reached Meridian, Mississippi. That is where we got our first real glimpses of the damage Katrina had done. Our first signs were actually, well, signs. There were street signs bent, fast food signs blown out, and billboards bent over along with countless trees down over the interstate. This only got worse the further south we got. Every time we passed a vehicle marked for disaster relief (there were tons of them too), I would wave at them. I was just happy to be closer to home.
I got back to Mandeville (my mother’s city) a little over three weeks after Katrina struck. Yet there was still debris everywhere. The sides of the roads were filled with trash, trees and pieces of random junk. There were utility crews everywhere. At my mom’s house a bunch of trees had fallen across the street making it hard to get near mom’s place. One pine tree located right next to the front door had fortunately fallen the opposite direction from the house (it would have crushed me and Taylor’s room if it had hit). Here too, the fence was down in the back.
I was so happy when my cousin James came to see us that day. James and Josh arrived at my mom’s apartment not 5 minutes after we arrived. He told me how his apartment complex had been flooded and while his apartment itself wasn’t flooded, the building had to be demolished. His place had been broken into during the storm by (presumably) rescue crews and the door was spray-painted to indicate an empty residence. Strangely enough, he found his clothes strewn around his bedroom and there were empty Corona bottles on the floor (James says they weren’t his). James showed us a video of his return to Slidell (the location of his apartment). The area was destroyed. The ground looked like a desert scene with cracked dry mud covering everything (hey, what do you think floodwaters leave behind, Flowers and a sympathy card?).
Early upon arrival in Louisiana, my curiosity was peaked. I had seen destruction on TV and behind the glass of my dad’s van, but I had not been able to really investigate it. Naturally, the first thing I wanted to do after getting to my mom’s house was explore, so Taylor, James, Josh, and myself headed for the lakefront. I wanted to see the effects of Katrina on the beach. We tried a back-alley route to the Lakefront, but there were too many downed trees. We tried to climb over them, but we encountered a large patch of fallen trees that was impossible to get through without crawling through a ditch (something I was not too fond of doing just yet). So we took a longer route through the Marina. Once we got to the Marina we found ships littering the grounds. The water had risen so much that the ships were heaved over the docks and on to the grass. There were boats resting on crushed docks and sailboats lying on top of other boats. The floodwaters seemed to pick every ounce of trash that was ever in the lake and placed it on the grass. It was quite a scene. The beach itself wasn’t severely damaged (not that there were any buildings to destroy). All we found there were odd bits of debris. We found construction hats, flags, wood, odd bits of clothing, and even an office chair resting in Lake Ponchatrain.
After our little walk, it was time to test out the infamous MRE’s. (Mom saved some of the food the Army gave her to share with us.) Let me tell you this… chemically heated Thai chicken is not very appetizing. The four of us all shared in common misery as we sampled the Thai chicken, the wild rice and beans (equally unappetizing), and we found our attempt to make Army-grade cappuccino in an empty 2-liter was unsuccessful to say the least. The whole thing went as follows: “Alright…Thai chicken…looks… yummy. You try it first” Two seconds later “*GAG* Oh God, that’s terrible… now you try it.” And this process would continue until all of us had tried everything. Actually, a lot of the MRE’s were decent, as long as the food was simple. Don’t expect subtle hints of tarragon or marjoram in Army food. These Meals included a main course, side dish, crackers or flat bread, a spread for said bread (peanut butter or salsa), a dessert (Charms, M&M’s, Red Hots), gum, Tabasco, a multi-utensil, a self-heating chemical compound, and toilet paper(you’ll know why when you eat the Thai Chicken). One strange thing about the MRE’s though, they all included matches, which we of course used to burn the remains of the MRE to the ground.
As we explored Mandeville and the rest of the North Shore, we found minimal structural damage, but a lot of tree damage. Most of the businesses on the North Shore were fundamentally fine. There might be roof damage, but nothing severe. No flood damage, no looting. The only problem was a shortage of employees. The local Winn-Dixie closed at 5pm, Wal-Mart closed at 3pm. The only fast-food places open were Raisin’ Canes, Popeye’s, and maybe a pizza place. These were simple inconveniences. The important thing was we had electricity and potable (and running) water. When we visited Josh’s mother’s house (where Josh and James were living at the time) they were still running on a generator and living off MRE’s . Even three weeks after the hurricane (people on the North Shore, except for Slidell, were able to return shortly after Katrina) tree damage was easy to spot. There were a few “blue roofs”, but most of the houses still had crush marks on the roof, if they had been lucky enough to have the tree removed. One house looked like it had been split in two by a small oak.
The one caveat to the lack of flood damage to the North Shore was a portion of the Lakefront (not the one I mentioned earlier). This area was a popular hangout with cafes, bars, and the like. The water came right over the ramparts and gutted these buildings. Seriously, the water literally pulled everything out of the buildings and left them strewn about on the ground. They were shells. One of my brother’s friends lived in this area. His home was moved 6 feet. I could drive down the road and look through the buildings to their backyards.
I experienced all of this in 2 days. At this point in my tale, my back problems became too much. I could not sit or stand for any prolonged period of time, so I was forced to lie down in bed and read for days. This was about the time when Rita struck the Western portion of Louisiana. We evacuated to Ocean Springs where my grandparents live, but truthfully I wanted to get away from the house. Ever since the storm hit, John was starting to make a ton of money with his construction work. This was giving him a big head, and as such he was treating the rest of us like garbage. I and Taylor couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as him anymore, so we stayed in our room. I was more than happy to leave for Mississippi for a weekend. Again, I had to stay on my back all weekend. That weekend, although, we were hoping and praying that Mayor Nagin would finally let us in. We were overjoyed when it was announced that our zip code would be allowed back in the city the next Friday. I was determined to go back to the city as soon as my dad left, back pain be damned. I knew this could be hazardous to my health. If I herniated my back any more where would I go to? It’s not like there were many choices for hospitals in the city. So it was stupid for me to go, but like my grandfather (the one who went to see his home in Mississippi) I was too stubborn to worry about my health.
On the 27th of September (two days before the month anniversary of Katrina), we left for New Orleans. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I mean, I had seen pictures, but photographs only say so much. That being said, we were prepared for everything. My stepmother’s family had loaded dad’s van with boxes of nails, some all-purpose tools including battery-powered saws and drills, tarps, about 25 gallons (no, I’m not kidding) of water for drinking and bathing (the faucet water was strictly off-limits), a mess of canned foods and heater meals (the cheap crappy civilian version of the MRE. All we had were the Salisbury steak and potatoes version that looked like lumpy brown gravy surrounding a white hockey puck). We brought some building supplies like wood, but only a small amount. We had clothes and books, small medical supplies and even a couple games. I brought 3 movies in case the power came on and we still had a TV. We also brought a mass of cleaning supplies like sanitizers, Lysol, plenty of bleach, soaps, and other cleansers. Secretly, I brought my large knife and, if I had one, I would have brought a gun. I know the news said the military was there in force, and that order had been restored. I know that the city was essentially deserted. I didn’t care. To be honest, the news scared me. While I kept telling myself the idea of our house being looted, of roving bands of men occupying my house, were ludicrous, somewhere in the back of my mind (and my overactive imagination) I thought it was possible.
So as we crossed the Causeway Bridge (this twenty-four mile bridge connects the North Shore to New Orleans) tons of questions ran through my head. What really was the condition of my home? Did we have power (there was a rumor that our neighborhood did)? What was the condition of our neighborhood? Did we get broken into? Most pressing of all, would the military allow us to re-enter the city? Truthfully, we weren’t supposed to be in the city yet. My dad’s plan was to tell them that he had to report for work at Children’s Hospital (he didn’t, but we hoped the National Guard didn’t know that).
My first site of the city was rather foreboding. As we approached New Orleans via the Causeway, one of the office buildings near the lake appeared in the horizon. All of the windows had been blown out by the storm. Now, imagine your standard office building, seventeen-odd floors, large as a city block, all those windows shattered, covered with plywood. The building looked more like an over-ambitious tree house than an office building. This theme replayed itself in all of the surrounding large buildings. My theory is that lower buildings didn’t get this type of destruction because there were more obstacles at ground level. This wasn’t the case for large buildings, though, where there was no shielding from the elements. So the largest buildings in every area were badly damaged. Unfortunately, this often meant churches were badly hit.
As we progressed through the suburbs of New Orleans we began to get an idea of the damage. Few signs still stood. Billboards had been blown down on top of businesses. Houses had windows blown out, trees were down, and any houses that were previously unkempt were badly damaged. The drive was very slow, not because of traffic (the only traffic was pickups, and a couple army vehicles, nearly deserted), but because we were gawking at every place we knew. “Oh damn, the roof of the Speedway was torn off!” “Look at that house!” “Man, Lakeside is busted the hell up (the Lakeside shopping center was heavily looted, but it fared better than the East bank mall that was set on fire)!” “Crap! The Victor Manning Driving School survived! (Yes, I have a dark sense of humor)”
Now was the most difficult part of the trip, the military checkpoint. Were they going to let us in? This was our only way into our part of the city. Every other entrance was either destroyed or the streets they bled into were impassable. So if the check guard didn’t let us in, that was it. Dad turned to both me and Taylor (Pat and Grace were obviously staying in Mississippi with her parents) and said “You two shut up. Don’t say or do anything. Let me do all the talking here, ok?” I didn’t dare say anything. We approached the guard and he took Dad’s license and his Children’s business card and asked what his business was. Dad only had to utter one sentence about going back to the hospital before the guard waved us through. That was it! The last barrier before we got home!
We approached the Uptown region of New Orleans, my neighborhood. Again, our first view of the Uptown region was pretty unsettling. What was once a little corner grocery/deli was now a pile of rubble. The structure seemed to just collapse on itself. We then passed through Audubon Park which was a mess of broken oaks. A couple of them had black marks all over that looked like they might be from lightning strikes. Later on, I heard a rumor that some rich folks hired Israeli commandos to escort them out of New Orleans by landing a military helicopter on the Audubon Park golf course. I don’t think I believe that one.
Finally, we got to State St. Everything looked to be in decent shape. There were even people unloading in front of the corner hardware shop. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see the church in my neighborhood was relatively fine (remember what I said about tall buildings). You know, we couldn’t even see my house until we were a half block away. I couldn’t even tell you what the rest of the block looked like at that point, because all I was looking at was a mass of trees blocking my view. And all of a sudden there she was. My home looked just like it had the last time I was there. My dad’s Civic was still in the driveway, unmolested . There were none of the tell-tale watermarks we would soon come to loathe. Our roof looked fine. I was thrilled.
Today I was talking to my dad trying to remember everything from September 27th. This is what he told me he remembered: There were two things he immediately noticed when he got out of the car. One was the smell. Everything smelled of decay and garbage, even when there were no piles around. It was like the stench of death was over the entire city. This was because of all the items left to rot in the streets: animals, broken trees and plants, houses that got water in them and moldy dead grass, sometimes dead bodies (yes, a few were found in our area. I’ll talk about that later), and any garbage left in the cans before the storm. The second thing he noticed was the quiet . The entire city was without power. There were only a handful of people in the city, and most of them were working on bigger things outside of our area. There were few animal sounds too. Most of the pets left behind had been either rescued by the LASPCA (and God bless them for everything they did) or they were dead. I know that’s a little harsh, but the bulk of the animals left behind were in the flooded areas, and few living creatures could survive that water.
Getting back to the house, the backyard was another story. Our cheap Rubbermaid shed was a pile of rubble (it seems they’re not built to withstand hurricane-force winds… or falling fences). Pieces of it were scattered around the yard, including the contents of said shed. There were gardening tools and paint supplies all over the yard. Tarp was spread across the grass creating a nice Greenhouse effect which, in the New Orleans heat, cooked the grass to the consistency of way over-cooked spinach). It sucked, but we were just happy to have a house. So we walked the perimeter (the now downed fence made for an excellent boardwalk) of the house, where we found one of the big trees in the back yard had fallen maybe a half foot from the house. The tree crushed our fence, our back deck, tore down power lines, destroyed most of our plants, and ripped some of the gutters off the house, but it did NOT hit the house, and that’s all we cared about. I think we even laughed when we saw how fine the line was between wrecked deck and new roof.
We didn’t simply go in the front door. We investigated every window and every entrance for breaks or anything that might suggest looters. When we were sure no one had broken in without having the key, we entered. The first thing we noticed was the silence. We had no power, no running water. There were no sounds coming from anywhere. The second thing we noticed was the heat. A month without power, sitting in 100+ degree heat, will turn a house into an oven. The house must’ve been maybe 120 degrees, it was cooler to sit outside in the sun than to go in the house, but we needed to see.
Being masochists, we first checked out the fridge. I will spare you the gooey details, but suffice it to say we only opened it once. The inside had turned black. Next we all went to our respective rooms to look for cracks, leaks, or built up mold. I checked everywhere upstairs, searched all the closets, the ceilings, the carpets, everything for mold, mildew, dark spots, any evidence that water had been in the house. We were so happy to find none.
After unpacking all the gear from the van (and opening every window in the house), we started picking up the debris. We didn’t get very far though. The curfew for the city was 6:00pm-6:00 am. We didn’t dare stay outside after 6:30. So all we accomplished was picking up some of the crap in the yard and moved the shed pieces on to the downed fence.
So by 6:30, we settled down to dinner. Without power or water, we had to settle for Heater Meals, which as I mentioned before aren’t exactly grand epicurean feasts. So our first night was spent in rather giddy misery. We were hungry (just not hungry enough to eat another Heater Meal), dehydrated, and sweaty (no water to take a shower). We moved around with flashlights, and fortunately we found a camping lamp (bought years ago for such an emergency, let’s hear it for foresight) which me and Taylor used to play Trivial Pursuit all night. I understand how odd that sounds. Me, my brother, and my father lie our way into a disaster zone and what do we do… play Trivial Pursuit. That was the reality of the situation. There really wasn’t much we could do for 12 hours of the day, and simply sleeping was impossible in the heat. We couldn’t even open the windows any more because the mosquitoes were swarming. It was a crappy first night back home. All night I lay on the couch sweating like crazy praying I’d hear the familiar click of the A/C coming on.
The next day was much more productive. My brother started on yard duty while I took the bolt cutters and the saw and started on the downed branches. My dad had to leave the city for a Children’s hospital meeting (they were going to find out when the hospital was planning on opening, along with any layoffs). I wasn’t able to make much headway on the tree. All I managed to do was trim every branch I could reach; leaving a bald tree and a huge pile of branches in our front yard for pickup (we dreaded getting a chainsaw because both my dad and my grandpa had hurt themselves using those things). One thing I noticed as I was working though was a humming noise coming from somewhere on the block. I sneaked into the neighbor’s backyard (which isn’t hard when the tree had crushed the fence separating our yards) and saw his Air conditioner was working. I was amazed. Maybe that meant our power would soon be one, but no such luck. As the day wore on (and got a lot hotter) I became more and more jealous of my neighbors.
Once my dad got home we were ale to get that fridge out of the house. Oi, the fridge. Remember how I said Pat’s parents loaded down our van with everything we could possibly need? I was wrong. They forgot the duct tape. Lord knows how you forget duct tape in an emergency. The stuff is like gold. So we had to acquire some before we set the fridge on the curb (otherwise the doors would come open, and we DO NOT want that to happen). So my pop brought some duct tape home, along with Popeye’s chicken. I know that sounds horribly uninteresting, but after working all day with nothing to eat but Heater Meals, you WILL remember your next real meal.
Once I told my dad about the neighbor’s A/C running, he investigated our electrical box. Turns out the power company, Entergy, turned off all the houses manually to avoid fires (which I’ll talk about later). All my dad had to do was flip a switch and we had power. Oh man, I cannot tell you how wonderful it felt to hear the A/C blowing. We spent the rest of the night clearing out garbage (by now our own pile was 4 ½ feet tall and about 17 or so feet long (not including the fridge) from the yard and our pantry (you’d be surprised what goes bad after a month in the heat).
The next day we got out of the house. Taylor and I were apprehensive to go strolling around the neighborhood alone for one good reason, the military guys. Now, we liked the Army/National Guard guys. They were all pretty nice to us. That being said, we weren’t going to see what would happen when a Humvee would pull up with me 4 blocks from home and nothing to identify myself aside from an expired License saying my address was in Mandeville, Louisiana. I don’t think that would look right. This was actually a very likely situation. The National Guard was stationed in an old adolescent mental institution (N.O.A.H ) across the street from my dad’s house. We would see humvees and other assorted military vehicles driving around our block, along with soldiers jogging in our area. We’d wave to all of them, and they’d always wave back. Anyways, we needed a refrigerator, and all we could do was keep traveling until we found an open place. This gave me a chance to see real parts of the city.
As we traveled down Tchoupitoulas, we saw a lot of the stuff they were talking about on the news. We saw busted windows at EB Games where looters took everything, the Winn-Dixie and Blockbuster were all boarded up, but you could tell by the small mountains of trash that they had been looted. There were tags on a lot of the doors (tags are spray-painted signs by the National Guard designating that the premises had been searched and the amount of bodies found in the house). It didn’t take very long to find a tag saying “1 Dead ”. Most of the stores down Tchoupitoulas were busted. All of the groceries had been torn to hell and back, and we even passed by the now-infamous Wal-Mart which was looted even by the cops. The building looked totally gutted. There were boxes and trash everywhere. We found other spray-painted signs, including LASPCA signs designating found animals and food drop spots, and one sign saying “No Looters. We are 100% protected”. Yet again, there were few cars on the road minus military vehicles.
Among all of this debris and emptiness, we saw one ray of hope. While driving down Tchoupitoulas, we saw a Domino’s open for business. Since advertising by conventional means was out of the question, they had guys standing out in the street holding signs. It was great to see a business open in the city.
We also passed by the Convention Center. The New Orleans convention center was where a lot of bad things happened during the storm. Once the Superdome’s roof was wrecked, many of the evacuees were moved to the convention center. This building was made to hold a lot of people, but not to house and feed so many thousands of people. Due to a lack of foresight, there were not enough medical supplies, there wasn’t enough food or water, nor was there adequate shelter. People were kept in the sun too long. There were a few elderly folks that died in the sun due to exposure. It was a terrible way to go. I never brought it up with my dad, but the moment we saw the center all of our conversation died. Even today, the convention center is a haunting word. When someone relates their story to us and they mention being at “the convention center”… well, it’s difficult to explain. We feel a combination of fear, dread, and nausea. So, as you can see, it was a little spooky driving by the place.
I don’t think you need a day-by-day review of the rest of my first couple of weeks here, so I’ll give you a good overview instead. I wanted you all to read about my first couple days because I am trying to get you all to understand how foreign it was in New Orleans. I want you to understand the fears and scary stuff, but the signs of hope as well.
As the week wore on, we started exploring the city, reporting our findings to everyone. My Dad would give Pat a daily update (she refused to enter the city) on who was open, who looked like they were opening, who was pretty badly damaged, and who looked ok. I would try and call people, but most of the lines were still down (dad was only able to contact Pat because he called her parent’s land line, which worked marginally better than cell phones). For weeks the only grocery store was in the next parish, there was 1 diner open in the city (maybe the first business to open in the city, how fitting that it was a restaurant ), and all other businesses (save for a couple hardware stores) were closed. We finally got water after maybe a week, and a week later it was considered potable, although there were few people who really drink it anymore . Before that, we couldn’t use much in the way of dishes or silverware because we couldn’t wash our dishes. Bathing was much worse. Think camping, only without the pretty woods or relatively fresh air and clean water around you. Yeah, just dump some water on yourself, rub on soap, and wash it off.
Fortune smiled upon us later in our week. Our neighbors had a tree down in their backyard, and they were lucky enough to find some guys to chop it up and haul it away. When they saw the tree that had fallen on our property, they told the guys to take care of it for us. We were astounded. Now, to be honest, the neighbor had his motives. First, it was technically his tree, though we wouldn’t have ever considered taking any legal action, so if were we so inclined, we could have made him pay for the damages. Second, our neighbor was trying to sell his house (it was his deceased mother’s house; he was trying to sell it before the storm). Nonetheless, I want to believe our neighbor’s intentions were primarily those of the Good Samaritan. Not only did our neighbors pay to remove the tree from our yard, but they also put our fence back up (it wasn’t pretty, but it wasn’t pretty prior to Katrina either) and they fixed our deck. They even cleared up the shattered pots and random debris around the tree. This, my friends, was one of the kindest acts I have ever seen. Prior to their help, we had no idea how to fix all of this on our own, and they came and solved all of our problems in one day. The only way we could thank them was to make them dinner.
Now I know that sounds pretty cheap, but it was really all we could do for them. There were no stores open where we could find an adequate gift. All of the decent restaurants we either closed or packed. So we drove to Jefferson Parish (this was before any Orleans Parish stores were open) to find the best steaks they had, along with potatoes, some cheese, beer, and corn (the bakery was not yet open, so no fresh bread) and we grilled out that night. We still couldn’t use the water for dishes, so we had to use the grill for almost everything. They were wonderful guests. One was a filmmaker who made small productions, the other did everything else related to movies (he even helped Pearl Jam and Spinal Tap set up performances years back). So this was one of the greatest blessing I have ever had bestowed upon me.
The plan was to just head south as far as we could. My dad would drop Taylor and me off at my Mom’s apartment while dad, Pat, and Grace would stay in Ocean Springs with Bob and Harriett. We were finally going home… sort of.
The trip back to the south was pretty uneventful. It was pretty uncomfortable since my back problems were starting again, but other than that it was just like any other car ride… until we reached Meridian, Mississippi. That is where we got our first real glimpses of the damage Katrina had done. Our first signs were actually, well, signs. There were street signs bent, fast food signs blown out, and billboards bent over along with countless trees down over the interstate. This only got worse the further south we got. Every time we passed a vehicle marked for disaster relief (there were tons of them too), I would wave at them. I was just happy to be closer to home.
I got back to Mandeville (my mother’s city) a little over three weeks after Katrina struck. Yet there was still debris everywhere. The sides of the roads were filled with trash, trees and pieces of random junk. There were utility crews everywhere. At my mom’s house a bunch of trees had fallen across the street making it hard to get near mom’s place. One pine tree located right next to the front door had fortunately fallen the opposite direction from the house (it would have crushed me and Taylor’s room if it had hit). Here too, the fence was down in the back.
I was so happy when my cousin James came to see us that day. James and Josh arrived at my mom’s apartment not 5 minutes after we arrived. He told me how his apartment complex had been flooded and while his apartment itself wasn’t flooded, the building had to be demolished. His place had been broken into during the storm by (presumably) rescue crews and the door was spray-painted to indicate an empty residence. Strangely enough, he found his clothes strewn around his bedroom and there were empty Corona bottles on the floor (James says they weren’t his). James showed us a video of his return to Slidell (the location of his apartment). The area was destroyed. The ground looked like a desert scene with cracked dry mud covering everything (hey, what do you think floodwaters leave behind, Flowers and a sympathy card?).
Early upon arrival in Louisiana, my curiosity was peaked. I had seen destruction on TV and behind the glass of my dad’s van, but I had not been able to really investigate it. Naturally, the first thing I wanted to do after getting to my mom’s house was explore, so Taylor, James, Josh, and myself headed for the lakefront. I wanted to see the effects of Katrina on the beach. We tried a back-alley route to the Lakefront, but there were too many downed trees. We tried to climb over them, but we encountered a large patch of fallen trees that was impossible to get through without crawling through a ditch (something I was not too fond of doing just yet). So we took a longer route through the Marina. Once we got to the Marina we found ships littering the grounds. The water had risen so much that the ships were heaved over the docks and on to the grass. There were boats resting on crushed docks and sailboats lying on top of other boats. The floodwaters seemed to pick every ounce of trash that was ever in the lake and placed it on the grass. It was quite a scene. The beach itself wasn’t severely damaged (not that there were any buildings to destroy). All we found there were odd bits of debris. We found construction hats, flags, wood, odd bits of clothing, and even an office chair resting in Lake Ponchatrain.
After our little walk, it was time to test out the infamous MRE’s. (Mom saved some of the food the Army gave her to share with us.) Let me tell you this… chemically heated Thai chicken is not very appetizing. The four of us all shared in common misery as we sampled the Thai chicken, the wild rice and beans (equally unappetizing), and we found our attempt to make Army-grade cappuccino in an empty 2-liter was unsuccessful to say the least. The whole thing went as follows: “Alright…Thai chicken…looks… yummy. You try it first” Two seconds later “*GAG* Oh God, that’s terrible… now you try it.” And this process would continue until all of us had tried everything. Actually, a lot of the MRE’s were decent, as long as the food was simple. Don’t expect subtle hints of tarragon or marjoram in Army food. These Meals included a main course, side dish, crackers or flat bread, a spread for said bread (peanut butter or salsa), a dessert (Charms, M&M’s, Red Hots), gum, Tabasco, a multi-utensil, a self-heating chemical compound, and toilet paper(you’ll know why when you eat the Thai Chicken). One strange thing about the MRE’s though, they all included matches, which we of course used to burn the remains of the MRE to the ground.
As we explored Mandeville and the rest of the North Shore, we found minimal structural damage, but a lot of tree damage. Most of the businesses on the North Shore were fundamentally fine. There might be roof damage, but nothing severe. No flood damage, no looting. The only problem was a shortage of employees. The local Winn-Dixie closed at 5pm, Wal-Mart closed at 3pm. The only fast-food places open were Raisin’ Canes, Popeye’s, and maybe a pizza place. These were simple inconveniences. The important thing was we had electricity and potable (and running) water. When we visited Josh’s mother’s house (where Josh and James were living at the time) they were still running on a generator and living off MRE’s . Even three weeks after the hurricane (people on the North Shore, except for Slidell, were able to return shortly after Katrina) tree damage was easy to spot. There were a few “blue roofs”, but most of the houses still had crush marks on the roof, if they had been lucky enough to have the tree removed. One house looked like it had been split in two by a small oak.
The one caveat to the lack of flood damage to the North Shore was a portion of the Lakefront (not the one I mentioned earlier). This area was a popular hangout with cafes, bars, and the like. The water came right over the ramparts and gutted these buildings. Seriously, the water literally pulled everything out of the buildings and left them strewn about on the ground. They were shells. One of my brother’s friends lived in this area. His home was moved 6 feet. I could drive down the road and look through the buildings to their backyards.
I experienced all of this in 2 days. At this point in my tale, my back problems became too much. I could not sit or stand for any prolonged period of time, so I was forced to lie down in bed and read for days. This was about the time when Rita struck the Western portion of Louisiana. We evacuated to Ocean Springs where my grandparents live, but truthfully I wanted to get away from the house. Ever since the storm hit, John was starting to make a ton of money with his construction work. This was giving him a big head, and as such he was treating the rest of us like garbage. I and Taylor couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as him anymore, so we stayed in our room. I was more than happy to leave for Mississippi for a weekend. Again, I had to stay on my back all weekend. That weekend, although, we were hoping and praying that Mayor Nagin would finally let us in. We were overjoyed when it was announced that our zip code would be allowed back in the city the next Friday. I was determined to go back to the city as soon as my dad left, back pain be damned. I knew this could be hazardous to my health. If I herniated my back any more where would I go to? It’s not like there were many choices for hospitals in the city. So it was stupid for me to go, but like my grandfather (the one who went to see his home in Mississippi) I was too stubborn to worry about my health.
On the 27th of September (two days before the month anniversary of Katrina), we left for New Orleans. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I mean, I had seen pictures, but photographs only say so much. That being said, we were prepared for everything. My stepmother’s family had loaded dad’s van with boxes of nails, some all-purpose tools including battery-powered saws and drills, tarps, about 25 gallons (no, I’m not kidding) of water for drinking and bathing (the faucet water was strictly off-limits), a mess of canned foods and heater meals (the cheap crappy civilian version of the MRE. All we had were the Salisbury steak and potatoes version that looked like lumpy brown gravy surrounding a white hockey puck). We brought some building supplies like wood, but only a small amount. We had clothes and books, small medical supplies and even a couple games. I brought 3 movies in case the power came on and we still had a TV. We also brought a mass of cleaning supplies like sanitizers, Lysol, plenty of bleach, soaps, and other cleansers. Secretly, I brought my large knife and, if I had one, I would have brought a gun. I know the news said the military was there in force, and that order had been restored. I know that the city was essentially deserted. I didn’t care. To be honest, the news scared me. While I kept telling myself the idea of our house being looted, of roving bands of men occupying my house, were ludicrous, somewhere in the back of my mind (and my overactive imagination) I thought it was possible.
So as we crossed the Causeway Bridge (this twenty-four mile bridge connects the North Shore to New Orleans) tons of questions ran through my head. What really was the condition of my home? Did we have power (there was a rumor that our neighborhood did)? What was the condition of our neighborhood? Did we get broken into? Most pressing of all, would the military allow us to re-enter the city? Truthfully, we weren’t supposed to be in the city yet. My dad’s plan was to tell them that he had to report for work at Children’s Hospital (he didn’t, but we hoped the National Guard didn’t know that).
My first site of the city was rather foreboding. As we approached New Orleans via the Causeway, one of the office buildings near the lake appeared in the horizon. All of the windows had been blown out by the storm. Now, imagine your standard office building, seventeen-odd floors, large as a city block, all those windows shattered, covered with plywood. The building looked more like an over-ambitious tree house than an office building. This theme replayed itself in all of the surrounding large buildings. My theory is that lower buildings didn’t get this type of destruction because there were more obstacles at ground level. This wasn’t the case for large buildings, though, where there was no shielding from the elements. So the largest buildings in every area were badly damaged. Unfortunately, this often meant churches were badly hit.
As we progressed through the suburbs of New Orleans we began to get an idea of the damage. Few signs still stood. Billboards had been blown down on top of businesses. Houses had windows blown out, trees were down, and any houses that were previously unkempt were badly damaged. The drive was very slow, not because of traffic (the only traffic was pickups, and a couple army vehicles, nearly deserted), but because we were gawking at every place we knew. “Oh damn, the roof of the Speedway was torn off!” “Look at that house!” “Man, Lakeside is busted the hell up (the Lakeside shopping center was heavily looted, but it fared better than the East bank mall that was set on fire)!” “Crap! The Victor Manning Driving School survived! (Yes, I have a dark sense of humor)”
Now was the most difficult part of the trip, the military checkpoint. Were they going to let us in? This was our only way into our part of the city. Every other entrance was either destroyed or the streets they bled into were impassable. So if the check guard didn’t let us in, that was it. Dad turned to both me and Taylor (Pat and Grace were obviously staying in Mississippi with her parents) and said “You two shut up. Don’t say or do anything. Let me do all the talking here, ok?” I didn’t dare say anything. We approached the guard and he took Dad’s license and his Children’s business card and asked what his business was. Dad only had to utter one sentence about going back to the hospital before the guard waved us through. That was it! The last barrier before we got home!
We approached the Uptown region of New Orleans, my neighborhood. Again, our first view of the Uptown region was pretty unsettling. What was once a little corner grocery/deli was now a pile of rubble. The structure seemed to just collapse on itself. We then passed through Audubon Park which was a mess of broken oaks. A couple of them had black marks all over that looked like they might be from lightning strikes. Later on, I heard a rumor that some rich folks hired Israeli commandos to escort them out of New Orleans by landing a military helicopter on the Audubon Park golf course. I don’t think I believe that one.
Finally, we got to State St. Everything looked to be in decent shape. There were even people unloading in front of the corner hardware shop. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see the church in my neighborhood was relatively fine (remember what I said about tall buildings). You know, we couldn’t even see my house until we were a half block away. I couldn’t even tell you what the rest of the block looked like at that point, because all I was looking at was a mass of trees blocking my view. And all of a sudden there she was. My home looked just like it had the last time I was there. My dad’s Civic was still in the driveway, unmolested . There were none of the tell-tale watermarks we would soon come to loathe. Our roof looked fine. I was thrilled.
Today I was talking to my dad trying to remember everything from September 27th. This is what he told me he remembered: There were two things he immediately noticed when he got out of the car. One was the smell. Everything smelled of decay and garbage, even when there were no piles around. It was like the stench of death was over the entire city. This was because of all the items left to rot in the streets: animals, broken trees and plants, houses that got water in them and moldy dead grass, sometimes dead bodies (yes, a few were found in our area. I’ll talk about that later), and any garbage left in the cans before the storm. The second thing he noticed was the quiet . The entire city was without power. There were only a handful of people in the city, and most of them were working on bigger things outside of our area. There were few animal sounds too. Most of the pets left behind had been either rescued by the LASPCA (and God bless them for everything they did) or they were dead. I know that’s a little harsh, but the bulk of the animals left behind were in the flooded areas, and few living creatures could survive that water.
Getting back to the house, the backyard was another story. Our cheap Rubbermaid shed was a pile of rubble (it seems they’re not built to withstand hurricane-force winds… or falling fences). Pieces of it were scattered around the yard, including the contents of said shed. There were gardening tools and paint supplies all over the yard. Tarp was spread across the grass creating a nice Greenhouse effect which, in the New Orleans heat, cooked the grass to the consistency of way over-cooked spinach). It sucked, but we were just happy to have a house. So we walked the perimeter (the now downed fence made for an excellent boardwalk) of the house, where we found one of the big trees in the back yard had fallen maybe a half foot from the house. The tree crushed our fence, our back deck, tore down power lines, destroyed most of our plants, and ripped some of the gutters off the house, but it did NOT hit the house, and that’s all we cared about. I think we even laughed when we saw how fine the line was between wrecked deck and new roof.
We didn’t simply go in the front door. We investigated every window and every entrance for breaks or anything that might suggest looters. When we were sure no one had broken in without having the key, we entered. The first thing we noticed was the silence. We had no power, no running water. There were no sounds coming from anywhere. The second thing we noticed was the heat. A month without power, sitting in 100+ degree heat, will turn a house into an oven. The house must’ve been maybe 120 degrees, it was cooler to sit outside in the sun than to go in the house, but we needed to see.
Being masochists, we first checked out the fridge. I will spare you the gooey details, but suffice it to say we only opened it once. The inside had turned black. Next we all went to our respective rooms to look for cracks, leaks, or built up mold. I checked everywhere upstairs, searched all the closets, the ceilings, the carpets, everything for mold, mildew, dark spots, any evidence that water had been in the house. We were so happy to find none.
After unpacking all the gear from the van (and opening every window in the house), we started picking up the debris. We didn’t get very far though. The curfew for the city was 6:00pm-6:00 am. We didn’t dare stay outside after 6:30. So all we accomplished was picking up some of the crap in the yard and moved the shed pieces on to the downed fence.
So by 6:30, we settled down to dinner. Without power or water, we had to settle for Heater Meals, which as I mentioned before aren’t exactly grand epicurean feasts. So our first night was spent in rather giddy misery. We were hungry (just not hungry enough to eat another Heater Meal), dehydrated, and sweaty (no water to take a shower). We moved around with flashlights, and fortunately we found a camping lamp (bought years ago for such an emergency, let’s hear it for foresight) which me and Taylor used to play Trivial Pursuit all night. I understand how odd that sounds. Me, my brother, and my father lie our way into a disaster zone and what do we do… play Trivial Pursuit. That was the reality of the situation. There really wasn’t much we could do for 12 hours of the day, and simply sleeping was impossible in the heat. We couldn’t even open the windows any more because the mosquitoes were swarming. It was a crappy first night back home. All night I lay on the couch sweating like crazy praying I’d hear the familiar click of the A/C coming on.
The next day was much more productive. My brother started on yard duty while I took the bolt cutters and the saw and started on the downed branches. My dad had to leave the city for a Children’s hospital meeting (they were going to find out when the hospital was planning on opening, along with any layoffs). I wasn’t able to make much headway on the tree. All I managed to do was trim every branch I could reach; leaving a bald tree and a huge pile of branches in our front yard for pickup (we dreaded getting a chainsaw because both my dad and my grandpa had hurt themselves using those things). One thing I noticed as I was working though was a humming noise coming from somewhere on the block. I sneaked into the neighbor’s backyard (which isn’t hard when the tree had crushed the fence separating our yards) and saw his Air conditioner was working. I was amazed. Maybe that meant our power would soon be one, but no such luck. As the day wore on (and got a lot hotter) I became more and more jealous of my neighbors.
Once my dad got home we were ale to get that fridge out of the house. Oi, the fridge. Remember how I said Pat’s parents loaded down our van with everything we could possibly need? I was wrong. They forgot the duct tape. Lord knows how you forget duct tape in an emergency. The stuff is like gold. So we had to acquire some before we set the fridge on the curb (otherwise the doors would come open, and we DO NOT want that to happen). So my pop brought some duct tape home, along with Popeye’s chicken. I know that sounds horribly uninteresting, but after working all day with nothing to eat but Heater Meals, you WILL remember your next real meal.
Once I told my dad about the neighbor’s A/C running, he investigated our electrical box. Turns out the power company, Entergy, turned off all the houses manually to avoid fires (which I’ll talk about later). All my dad had to do was flip a switch and we had power. Oh man, I cannot tell you how wonderful it felt to hear the A/C blowing. We spent the rest of the night clearing out garbage (by now our own pile was 4 ½ feet tall and about 17 or so feet long (not including the fridge) from the yard and our pantry (you’d be surprised what goes bad after a month in the heat).
The next day we got out of the house. Taylor and I were apprehensive to go strolling around the neighborhood alone for one good reason, the military guys. Now, we liked the Army/National Guard guys. They were all pretty nice to us. That being said, we weren’t going to see what would happen when a Humvee would pull up with me 4 blocks from home and nothing to identify myself aside from an expired License saying my address was in Mandeville, Louisiana. I don’t think that would look right. This was actually a very likely situation. The National Guard was stationed in an old adolescent mental institution (N.O.A.H ) across the street from my dad’s house. We would see humvees and other assorted military vehicles driving around our block, along with soldiers jogging in our area. We’d wave to all of them, and they’d always wave back. Anyways, we needed a refrigerator, and all we could do was keep traveling until we found an open place. This gave me a chance to see real parts of the city.
As we traveled down Tchoupitoulas, we saw a lot of the stuff they were talking about on the news. We saw busted windows at EB Games where looters took everything, the Winn-Dixie and Blockbuster were all boarded up, but you could tell by the small mountains of trash that they had been looted. There were tags on a lot of the doors (tags are spray-painted signs by the National Guard designating that the premises had been searched and the amount of bodies found in the house). It didn’t take very long to find a tag saying “1 Dead ”. Most of the stores down Tchoupitoulas were busted. All of the groceries had been torn to hell and back, and we even passed by the now-infamous Wal-Mart which was looted even by the cops. The building looked totally gutted. There were boxes and trash everywhere. We found other spray-painted signs, including LASPCA signs designating found animals and food drop spots, and one sign saying “No Looters. We are 100% protected”. Yet again, there were few cars on the road minus military vehicles.
Among all of this debris and emptiness, we saw one ray of hope. While driving down Tchoupitoulas, we saw a Domino’s open for business. Since advertising by conventional means was out of the question, they had guys standing out in the street holding signs. It was great to see a business open in the city.
We also passed by the Convention Center. The New Orleans convention center was where a lot of bad things happened during the storm. Once the Superdome’s roof was wrecked, many of the evacuees were moved to the convention center. This building was made to hold a lot of people, but not to house and feed so many thousands of people. Due to a lack of foresight, there were not enough medical supplies, there wasn’t enough food or water, nor was there adequate shelter. People were kept in the sun too long. There were a few elderly folks that died in the sun due to exposure. It was a terrible way to go. I never brought it up with my dad, but the moment we saw the center all of our conversation died. Even today, the convention center is a haunting word. When someone relates their story to us and they mention being at “the convention center”… well, it’s difficult to explain. We feel a combination of fear, dread, and nausea. So, as you can see, it was a little spooky driving by the place.
I don’t think you need a day-by-day review of the rest of my first couple of weeks here, so I’ll give you a good overview instead. I wanted you all to read about my first couple days because I am trying to get you all to understand how foreign it was in New Orleans. I want you to understand the fears and scary stuff, but the signs of hope as well.
As the week wore on, we started exploring the city, reporting our findings to everyone. My Dad would give Pat a daily update (she refused to enter the city) on who was open, who looked like they were opening, who was pretty badly damaged, and who looked ok. I would try and call people, but most of the lines were still down (dad was only able to contact Pat because he called her parent’s land line, which worked marginally better than cell phones). For weeks the only grocery store was in the next parish, there was 1 diner open in the city (maybe the first business to open in the city, how fitting that it was a restaurant ), and all other businesses (save for a couple hardware stores) were closed. We finally got water after maybe a week, and a week later it was considered potable, although there were few people who really drink it anymore . Before that, we couldn’t use much in the way of dishes or silverware because we couldn’t wash our dishes. Bathing was much worse. Think camping, only without the pretty woods or relatively fresh air and clean water around you. Yeah, just dump some water on yourself, rub on soap, and wash it off.
Fortune smiled upon us later in our week. Our neighbors had a tree down in their backyard, and they were lucky enough to find some guys to chop it up and haul it away. When they saw the tree that had fallen on our property, they told the guys to take care of it for us. We were astounded. Now, to be honest, the neighbor had his motives. First, it was technically his tree, though we wouldn’t have ever considered taking any legal action, so if were we so inclined, we could have made him pay for the damages. Second, our neighbor was trying to sell his house (it was his deceased mother’s house; he was trying to sell it before the storm). Nonetheless, I want to believe our neighbor’s intentions were primarily those of the Good Samaritan. Not only did our neighbors pay to remove the tree from our yard, but they also put our fence back up (it wasn’t pretty, but it wasn’t pretty prior to Katrina either) and they fixed our deck. They even cleared up the shattered pots and random debris around the tree. This, my friends, was one of the kindest acts I have ever seen. Prior to their help, we had no idea how to fix all of this on our own, and they came and solved all of our problems in one day. The only way we could thank them was to make them dinner.
Now I know that sounds pretty cheap, but it was really all we could do for them. There were no stores open where we could find an adequate gift. All of the decent restaurants we either closed or packed. So we drove to Jefferson Parish (this was before any Orleans Parish stores were open) to find the best steaks they had, along with potatoes, some cheese, beer, and corn (the bakery was not yet open, so no fresh bread) and we grilled out that night. We still couldn’t use the water for dishes, so we had to use the grill for almost everything. They were wonderful guests. One was a filmmaker who made small productions, the other did everything else related to movies (he even helped Pearl Jam and Spinal Tap set up performances years back). So this was one of the greatest blessing I have ever had bestowed upon me.