I work in Lafayette. It's a close-knit, well-run community of strong, old traditions. I was called, along many other Louisiana State Troopers, to join the rapid response teams sent to the city of New Orleans. We had no idea what we were getting into.
I first arrived in New Orleans the evening of August 31, two days after Katrina made landfall. Though the hurricane had passed, there were terrible thunderstorms. We thought that was bad. Later on, after living through day after tropical day with no rain, we would pray for the return of thunder and lightning.
A small group of ten officers from the Lafayette Troop were briefed at Troop B in Kenner. We were told we were going to I-10 at Causeway Boulevard to an evacuation staging area. Our mission was to load as many people as possible on buses for transport to shelters. At our briefing, they did try to give us an idea of what it was like. We were to learn the hard way that mere words were not enough.
We traveled a few miles east in complete darkness and parked behind concrete barriers that normally divided east- and westbound traffic. We came out into the storm and I thought I had stepped into a war zone. The sky was filled with Coast Guard and Army helicopters landing one right after another, providing a steady stream of exhausted, bewildered, and traumatized people rescued from rooftops or out of hospitals. And that was the beginning of our time in what I believe to be one of the worst embarrassments this country has ever inflicted upon itself.
We had to carefully navigate through a makeshift medical facility set up in the westbound lanes of I-10 directly under the overpass the only cover from the searing Louisiana sun. We weaved in and out of critical patients lying on cots or on the ground. I looked at them as I passed, and their eyes held that blank, thousand-yard stare. Some looked like they were hovering between life and death. Some had open wounds, and I'm ashamed to say that I couldn't bear to look at some of them. Doctors and medics worked frantically in an environment that was clearly not sterile to save as many as possible.
A concrete median ran between the medical area and the thousands of evacuees waiting for buses. In the evacuee area, metal barricades typically used to separate crowds from Mardi Gras floats divided the noncritical but relatively immobile people from the relatively healthy. Behind the metal barricades we met up with a young trooper who filled us in on the procedure for loading the buses. He told us to never go in the crowd alone, to always load women, children, and the elderly first, and to not allow pushing. I later found out that the young trooper's house in New Orleans East had been destroyed when the levees broke, and his wife and two small children were staying with relatives in another state.
Loading the buses proved difficult. Young men unencumbered by family tried to push their way onto the bus, while women with babies fought to maintain their position in line. Families were separated. The clothing of many people had been soiled with urine and feces and, for some, menstrual flow. They waited for hours, even days, in filth and litter, only to miss the bus and find out there would be no more buses that evening. A man walked up to me and handed me a loaded ammo magazine, and I wondered who had the weapon and if they would use it against me. I saw women carrying babies limp from dehydration, and I saw a boy vomit continuously. I saw a girl of about ten go into seizures. There were no portable toilets; we walked in human waste. It was so hot that our boots began to slowly melt.
A bus driver told a young man whose only possession was a dappled dachshund, "No dogs allowed." I hoped he would wait for another bus and hide the small dog under his shirt, but he made the heartbreaking and tearful decision to let the dog loose and get on the bus. The frightened dog narrowly avoided being run over and ran off through the crowd. Since rescuers had told victims they could bring their pets, most bus drivers were more sympathetic and chose not to further traumatize these people and so allowed the pets on board.
As I write this, I realize it's impossible to describe the chaos. There were so many people thousands. Helicopters were bringing in more than we could get out. The medical personnel eventually pulled out, and we were left in a disaster zone with no medics and no medical equipment nothing but sick, injured, traumatized people who believed they would go home in a couple of days. We watched a chemical plant explode in the distance.
My second day on the Causeway, I helped load special-needs patients on buses. These were not specially equipped buses with electric lifts. Makeshift stretchers wouldn't fit. If the person could not walk or be carried, they had to wait. One man sticks out in my memory. His mother weighed well over three hundred pounds and was confined to a wheelchair. We asked him if she could walk at all, and he said she could not. He was adamant when he said he was going to carry her onto the bus, and I thought to myself, "No way." But he did it. He hooked his arms under her armpits and locked his hands in front of her chest and literally dragged her onto the bus and into a seat. Then he gave his seat to a crippled woman. I watched tears well up in his eyes and run down his cheeks as he tried to maintain eye contact with his mother through the bus windshield.
I have to stop here because I can't put into words all that happened. But throughout my initial month-long deployment, I witnessed many incredible feats of emotional and physical strength, and incredible human weakness. I heard racial comments directed toward me. I saw people sleeping and eating in indescribable, deplorable conditions. I saw body bags containing those who didn't survive. I learned I couldn't help everyone; I could only help individuals or small groups of people.
It was an impossible situation. There was, and is, no training for this, no tactics to follow. This comes from your heart and you just have to do the best you can.
You have to forgive yourself for what you cannot do, and I'm still working on that.