Hurricane Katrina Part 1

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As everyone in America not living in a cave is probably aware, Hurricane Katrina arrived on the doorstep of New Orleans on August 29, 2005. The crazy luck is that if Katrina had arrived 24 hours later than she did, we would have already been well on our way to our trip around the world. Instead, because of the capricious winds of fate, we became evacuees (or refugees, or whatever politically-incorrect name you want to give it). Here's our story...

As Shan and I toiled at our final week of work, we were aware that a storm was churning in the Gulf, but at that time it was supposed to hook hard after crossing over Florida and boomerang back into Florida a second time. Friday night Shan and I celebrated our newfound employment status (or lack thereof) by eating dinner at Commander’s Palace one last time. Needless to say, we didn’t have a care in the world, save how we were going to spend the next 16 months. We woke up Saturday to the news that the predictions had changed - New Orleans was now firmly in the projected path. Interesting, but Shan and I still were not overly concerned. We’ve been through many hurricanes living in New Orleans, and besides, the predictions could change again just as easily they had in the last 24 hours. Shan spent Saturday morning packing up the remainder of her stuff at her old office and then she came home to help me pack up more of the apartment. We listened to the radio as we worked, ran some errands and marveled at the lines forming at the gas stations. At this point we had no intention of evacuating.

(Note for all those who don’t live in hurricane-prone areas and wonder why people don’t evacuate: It is important to understand that the early hurricane predictions (3-5 days out) are notoriously inaccurate. By the time the projections get relatively accurate, you’re roughly 2 days out from landfall. Then there is a crush of people evacuating from a city with very few evacuation routes. Anyone you ask can tell you some version of the typical evacuation hell story - tried to evacuate, roads were clogged with 300,000 other frustrated people, took “x” hours to drive 4 miles, gas stations along the way drained of gas before you got there, checking every hotel along the way only to learn that the next available room appears to be in Montana - all so that you can return a day or two later to find that the worst damage your house sustained was an overturned garbage can. Frustration leads people to declare “I’ll never do it again.” If people are going to be hot, sweaty and uncomfortable, the popular thought is that at least you can be hot, sweaty and uncomfortable at home. Plus, let’s face it, a lot of bars have great drink specials for those who stay behind….)

Anyway, Shan and I monitored the storm’s progress all day Saturday, hoping the predictions would have it going further east or west. By the time we woke up Sunday, though, it was looking pretty grim. It was now a powerful Category 5 hurricane headed directly for New Orleans. For the first time, we considered evacuating. Then Mayor Nagin called for a mandatory evacuation, something that had never been done in the city’s history. Since it was supposed to make landfall sometime Monday, there was no way we could move our stuff in time. We decided we would finish the last of the packing (no sense leaving immediately just to sit in traffic), shore up everything as best as possible and “beat feet” out of the city.

Leaving at the last minute turned out to be an advantage, at least for a while - all the traffic was ahead of us. We sailed across the Causeway at 50 mph, easily reaching the north side of the lake without too much traffic. Unfortunately, it didn’t take us too long to catch up to the back of the line, however. And the back of the line isn’t exactly where you to be when you’re looking for a place to sleep. Naive as we were, we thought that Natchez, Mississippi would be far enough away to get a hotel room. It’s a loooong 3 ½ hour drive, for Christ’s sake. Whooh boy. In the history of gross underestimations, this one rivals General Custer’s pre-battle intelligence on the size of the Native Army. It seems that if you’d have wanted a room in Natchez, you would’ve had to make reservations when Katrina was just a puny tropical storm hoping to beat up on Cuba. Natchez on Sunday night was like rush hour traffic, only with more cars moving half as fast on less developed roads. So we decided to bite the bullet and drive ANOTHER 1 ½ hours up to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Surely there had to be ONE room where the weary heroes of this particular tale could rest their heads, right? As call after call to hotels yielded one harried desk clerk after another laughing at our request we realized that a hotel on this night would be out of the question. Sigh.

We slept in the car.

We “woke up” the next morning and took in the sights around Vicksburg. For those that have never been there, Vicksburg is a cute bed and breakfast town with an inglorious history as being the site of a great southern defeat during the War of Northern Aggression. It seems that Vicksburg, perched high up on a bluff, was perfectly positioned so that the Confederacy could reign lead down on any ship trying to get down the Mississippi River. But rather than fight them from the river, the Boys in blue just surrounded the town and starved them out. Not glorious, but it worked. Eventually the town surrendered, reestablished itself and built a Cracker Barrel.

Shan and I decided to refortify ourselves at the aforementioned breakfast mecca, then try again to find a place to sleep to wait out the storm, which had just begun to make landfall in our home roughly 270 miles south of us. Through Shannon’s manic phone work we were able to line up a bed and breakfast for Monday, sparing us another night spooning with the gear shifter. After our happy go lucky day of site seeing, we retired to our room as Katrina was making her way into inland Mississippi. It was a relief to be able to take a shower and watch the news at last. Unfortunately for us, though, Vicksburg was on the western edge of Katrina’s wrath and we lost power early in the evening. Without TV and good intelligence as to the status of New Orleans, we woke up REALLY early to beat the normal after-hurricane rush getting into the city, eager to get home and begin moving our stuff out of the apartment. We had no idea…

As we got closer to New Orleans, the sun was just coming up. Driving into Mandeville (on the north edge of Lake Pontchartrain) the destruction wasn’t that bad. We saw a bunch of downed power lines and trees, wind-damaged buildings and billboards, but nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to a hurricane. We started to worry when the police wouldn’t let us cross the Causeway. We then attempted to get in from the west via I-10. Again, no dice. We were finally able to pick up a local radio station, though, and began listening pretty intently to the reports that were starting to come in from officials still in the city. As the sun was coming up, they were reporting that water was filling the city, perhaps from a breach in a levee. At this point, though, they didn’t know where it was coming from. Now that it was getting lighter, they were trying to figure out what was happening.

We decided to see if we could find a room for the night in Baton Rouge, about an hour and a half northeast. We managed to secure one by calling a reservations number for a major hotel chain, though by the time we reached the hotel, many other evacuees had apparently also figured out that getting back into New Orleans was going to be impossible that day and were refusing to give up their rooms (not that I blame them). After fruitlessly scouting the Baton Rouge area for another hotel room (and silently cursing ourselves for giving up the one we had in Vicksburg) we quickly decided that we needed to get FAR away if we were going to be able to get horizontal with pillows again that night. We turned north again, headed for Little Rock, Arkansas.

(Shannon here)

This is our second day in Little Rock. We don’t have much solid news at this point and New Orleans continues to flood as we write this. Sean and I have no idea how our neighborhood is faring, though we are taking it as a good sign that (so far at least) they aren’t showing footage of any mansions on St. Charles Avenue that are underwater - I doubt the media could resist showing that if it were occurring.

Our situation is frustrating, to be sure. We have no idea when we will be able to return to the city, and without knowing that, our trip is basically on hold. We’ve been trolling the Internet looking for any little clues as to what is going on, but there just isn’t much out there. The major network news is showing the same cycle of footage - looters, flooding, looters. It’s really not telling us anything valuable. We’re not sure if we should stick around here in the hopes that they will get the flooding under control and the city pumped out, or if we should just head for Seattle and wait there. I know city officials cannot give a timeline until they get things under control, but the “not knowing” is killing us. In a lot of ways, we are so much luckier than other evacuees, though, and we’re trying not to forget it. After all, we’ve been planning this round-the-world trip for quite a while and we’ve saved up quite a bit in preparation. So even though we’re spending our “trip” money right now, at least we have savings to spend. I met some ladies from New Orleans in the laundry area of the hotel we are staying at and talked to them for a bit today. One of them lived right next to the 17th Street canal and has seen her house on TV - flooded up to the roof. They have no where to go, since all of their family lives in New Orleans and has evacuated with them. They have very little savings, no hope of a paycheck anytime soon, and they’re not sure what to do. It’s a scary feeling, I’m sure. At least Sean and I have family in Seattle that will let us crash there indefinitely and money in our bank account. And if we lost all of our possessions in New Orleans, well, it’s just stuff. We can replace it.

Sean and I had a Team conference - we’re going to do some site-seeing here in Little Rock and then move on to Oklahoma City. If things change for the better in New Orleans, we’ll still be close enough to return. If not, we will begin to head north to Seattle…

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Comments

[ravenlynne]

From a fellow new orleanean
That was a bad time for all of us down there. Glad to see ya'll made the best of it.