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Started By
Message
20 years ago - I was sent to NO for Katrina - AMA
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:03 pm
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:03 pm
I was in the Ninth Ward when the storm passed on the morning of August 29th. I was evacuated to the Superdome around 10:00pm. I was at the Superdome until I left on Labor Day.
What are your questions?
(By sheer coincidence I am in New Orleans, tonight, in the shadow of the Convention Center, which is where I caught a helicopter to leave on Labor Day.)
What are your questions?
(By sheer coincidence I am in New Orleans, tonight, in the shadow of the Convention Center, which is where I caught a helicopter to leave on Labor Day.)
This post was edited on 8/29/25 at 4:44 am
44
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:05 pm to Ace Midnight
quote:
I was at the Superdome until I left on Labor Day.
Where did you poop?
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:05 pm to Ace Midnight
How long a span did you go without water?
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:05 pm to Ace Midnight
When did you know you were all in trouble?
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:07 pm to Ghost of Colby
quote:
Where did you poop?
Great question. There were working latrines in the Superdome and the NO Center on Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday, all those were broken. We had a temporary setup with buckets and small wastebasket liners - we called that "catch and release".
On Thursday, Chinook helicopters delivered port-a-johns and we started using those the rest of the time at the dome.
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:08 pm to Ace Midnight
Have you ever posted your account of that period? Where can I read it?
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:09 pm to ItzMe1972
quote:
How long a span did you go without water?
No one at the Dome missed a meal or went without water for any length of time. We had huge pallets of MREs and water and never ran low. The problems at the Convention Center were because people (on their own because they listened to news reports) went where they weren't told to go and the small unit there was not equipped or resourced to handle them.
This post was edited on 8/28/25 at 6:14 pm
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:10 pm to Ace Midnight
quote:
By Wednesday, all those were broken. We had a temporary setup with buckets and small wastebasket liners - we called that "catch and release".
On Thursday, Chinook helicopters delivered port-a-johns and we started using those the rest of the time at the dome.
That seems like a really rough 24 hours, but not as long as I was led to believe.
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:11 pm to Woolfpack
quote:
When did you know you were all in trouble?
When I woke up Monday morning (I had gone about 40 hours without much sleep) and heard one of my troops explain we had to urinate in the stairwells, into the floodwater.
True story - when the helicopter landed at the Superdome, Monday night, I told the troops with me, "Guys? You ever heard the expression, 'Out of the frying pan, into the fire'?"
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:12 pm to Ace Midnight
How dangerous were the dome and convention center in reality?
You hear everything from gang war to everyone doing the best they can in bad conditions.
The first hand word I got from guard troops stationed in MS when I spoke with them that Labor Day was that New Orleans was completely lawless by that point.
You hear everything from gang war to everyone doing the best they can in bad conditions.
The first hand word I got from guard troops stationed in MS when I spoke with them that Labor Day was that New Orleans was completely lawless by that point.
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:12 pm to 13SaintTiger
quote:
Have you ever posted your account of that period? Where can I read it?
Just on here and just in bits. Unfortunately, I have not bookmarked any of them that I can recall.
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:12 pm to Ace Midnight
Did you ever close your eyes or sleep for any length of time? If so, what was stolen from you?
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:12 pm to Ace Midnight
On a scale of 0-10, how would you rate the way the evacuees in the Dome handled their situation? Parse as needed.
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:13 pm to Ace Midnight
What unit were you in?
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:16 pm to tide06
quote:
How dangerous were the dome and convention center in reality?
You hear everything from gang war to everyone doing the best they can in bad conditions.
The first hand word I got from guard troops stationed in MS when I spoke with them that Labor Day was that New Orleans was completely lawless by that point.
The Dome got rough from about Wednesday sundown through Saturday when we cleared it. It was not a gang war. It was a city of about 25 to 35 thousand people with problems as you would imagine.
New Orleans, itself, was in very, very rough shape by Wednesday and Thursday. Lawless probably an exaggeration, but not wholly inaccurate.
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:18 pm to Riverside
quote:
Did you ever close your eyes or sleep for any length of time? If so, what was stolen from you?
Sure. I slept 4 or 5 hours a night, Monday through Sunday. Nothing was stolen.
I was the only person on my particular post starting Tuesday for the entire time. I had a single troop who reported to me for part of the time. There was a senior NCO who dropped his stuff there. I think I slept on a cot in the parking garage a single night. A good bit of that is a blur, though.
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:19 pm to Ace Midnight
Were the rumors of widespread rape true?
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:21 pm to Ace Midnight
I’d imagine sleeping there with that group would be like sleeping in a foxhole at night on Iwo Jima.
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:22 pm to deltadummy
quote:
On a scale of 0-10, how would you rate the way the evacuees in the Dome handled their situation? Parse as needed.
Frankly, as a group, I give them a 6. There was a rowdy public demonstration (relatively speaking - it was just loud) during the day on Wednesday (or Thursday?). I witnessed a small group get chippy with a armed portal guard on Tuesday evening, right around sundown.
We effectively separated ourselves from the civilians by Wednesday. I did walk through the Dome on Tuesday during the day and everyone was still reasonably well-behaved. The problems were exacerbated by the fact we had to divert resources from evacuating the Dome to the Convention Center - that probably cost us 20 to 30 hours in getting the Dome cleared.
Posted on 8/28/25 at 6:22 pm to Ace Midnight
Why didn't you evacuate
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