poptartlette
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2002
- Messages
- 84
An account by a few associates of mine that was featured in the local paper yesterday:
When Thomas Martin and Donna Nicholson saw reports on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, they knew they needed to go to New Orleans to help.
"We saw four days of human pain and suffering and couldn't take it anymore," Martin, a police officer, said.
So the husband-and-wife team flew from Connecticut on Friday, Sept. 2, and worked until Sept. 7 on the rescue operation there.
Although they went down on their own, they worked with the Salvation Army at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in a terminal set up for medical rescue, and served food with the American Red Cross at the police and Army's command center in the city.
People from a wide area were brought to the airport for treatment and evacuation, Nicholson, the coordinator of the criminal justice program at, said.
When the couple arrived, the lines were, literally, a mile and a half long outside the airport, Nicholson said. People waited 18 to 20 hours there to get a plane or bus out of the area.
People didn't even have walkers or wheelchairs while they were waiting, Martin added.
Five to 10 helicopters arrived at the airport every minute to drop people off, Martin said.
On top of those who were injured in the storm, there were a number of people who had diabetes, heart conditions, or psychiatric issues who had gone several days without their medication.
"So people who could've been healthy weren't," Martin said.
While there were security issues outside the airport, people were calmer inside.
Each departing plane or bus had a different destination, Nicholson said. People didn't know where they were going when they left the airport.
In the beginning, the terminal was "trashed," Nicholson said. Bodies lined the floor, which was covered in urine, blood, and feces.
By the time they left the airport 2½ days later, Nicholson said, only a few hundred people were waiting for evacuation.
'Eeriness of a city that died'
From the airport, the two went to the Unified Command Center in the city outside Harrah's Casino, where the Army, National Guard, and state and local police forces had coordinated commands.
There, Martin and Nicholson spent three days serving rescue officials hot meals. When they arrived, Martin said, the emergency workers told them it was their first hot meal in a week.
They served as many as 6,000 rescue workers a day.
They then spent one day working with the ASPCA and Humane Society rescuing stray animals.
As many as 50,000 animals are without homes, Nicholson said. In many cases, the owners left them with food and water because they thought they would be gone only temporarily while they rode out the hurricane.
Others took their pets with them. Those at the airport were allowed to take the animals on the airplanes as they left, Martin said.
As they drove around dry areas, Martin said, they picked up strays whenever they could. The ASPCA had a shelter in nearby Gonzales, where hundreds of animals were taken.
Martin said, he was struck by how quiet the city was. The normally bustling Bourbon Street was empty.
"It had the eeriness of a city that died," he added.
Heartbreaking details were everywhere -- from the emergency workers seeing their destroyed homes for the first time to a man returning from Mississippi to find out his three children had been killed in the storm.
The water stretched as far as the eye could see, they said, and bodies could be seen floating in the water.
Interstate 10, which runs from east to west through the city, was flooded on its ends but dry in the middle. There, refugees huddled without food, water, or shelter, and with no indication from anyone as to what they should do. One time, as the two crossed the highway, they saw human bodies that had been wrapped in plastic and left there.
By the time they left Wednesday, collection of the bodies had begun, Martin said.
Abandoned Bibles, photo albums
About 30,000 people were at the New Orleans Convention Center, and many had to sit outside, Martin said. With people looking for shelter, chairs, or blankets, Martin said, every car and building in a 10-block radius around the center had been broken into.
People at the convention center were without food and water for days, Martin said.
Nicholson said she saw residents walking around the city, emaciated but still refusing food and water. They were in severe shock, she said, and they needed psychiatric care.
Pictures don't capture the true sense of what is happening down there, Nicholson said. The heat was intense, and the smells from the corpses and the swamp water were also very strong.
It wasn't always the big things that made an impact, Nicholson said, citing the many photo albums, diaries, Bibles, and other personal belongings abandoned by people who left the city.
Another common theme the two mentioned was lawlessness, particularly people shooting at rescue helicopters or utility workers. But by the time they were there, they added, police had significant control of the city.
Emergency workers from New York, Chicago, Texas, and a number of small cities were out in force to help.
"Cops and firemen from all over the country converged to help their brothers and sisters," Martin said.
They worked tirelessly, sleeping outside and in cars, with nothing provided for them, he added. Only recently were they rotated out so they could get some rest.
The New Orleans Police Department was "shattered," Martin said, since 80 to 85 percent lived in the city and lost everything they had, just like many of the residents.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency was conspicuously absent, they said, something that the emergency workers noted with displeasure. Some pointed out that a private businessman supplied the food they ate at the command center, not the federal government.
The couple had worked with the Salvation Army at Ground Zero after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and had kept in touch with some of the people they met there. In Louisiana, they worked with some of them again.
The two regretted having to come back after only a week, but they had a number of personal commitments back home.
On Friday, they were still decompressing.
"I certainly know we've been changed, been affected by the experience," Martin said.
