re: Craziest/Shadiest/Scariest thing you saw in Katrina Aftermath

When we first went back, in Metairie, mostly deserted with military helos flying around. So fricking creepy.

I was with a team sent to restore hospital infrastructure, we had set up a base at Ochsner's main campus.We were sleeping outside in vans, and SUVs, the smell will stick with me forever. Even though I spent a lot of time outside at night I never heard a single gunshot. When we had to move to a different hospital we traveled in convoy with armed security in the lead vehicle. On the first trip what I saw was hard for my brain to comprehend, there were no other vehicles, no people, no traffic lights working, the areas we went through had minimal wind damage, so the buildings looked somewhat normal, just every living soul was gone. One night in the Ochsner parking lot I walked by a pickup with a tarp across the bed, there were two feet sticking out from the tarp, at first I thought it was a body, but then the feet moved. A guy in scrubs crawled out, it was a doc working at Ochsner, his house was lost to the flood, and he had sent his family to relatives somewhere, like the rest of us he found it more comfortable to sleep outside where there was some air moving. There was one AM radio station on the air that we could pick up, it was just taking endless calls from people wanting to know where to get supplies, other help, that and a Sat phone for work was the only contact with the rest of the world.

I worked in the Emergency Operations Center on the State Police compound, and thought it was pretty shady the way Jesse Jackson and Cleo Fields would come in to the building and take over the media room after pushing Kathleen Blanco out of the way.

I moved to NOLA in 2008 to help rebuild a city Id never been to.

My neighbor was an active duty USCG rescue swimmer / AST before, during and after Katrina. He told me some stories. The one I remember is that they were rescuing women, children and elderly from the top of a building, maybe a grocery store. Shots were fired and they left but dropped off their pickups. They brought back armed personel not sure of service. Upon their return, the building was completely gone from apparent gas explosion.

I heard there was a standoff at a downtown hotel between some out of town police officers and NOPD officers who had stashed a bunch of loot in hotel rooms. The out of town guys were told to keep moving if they knew what was good for them.

Boats in trees in Venice. Buras water tower on the ground. Huge holes in the levee down there

Saw a couple dead bodies just on the curb with sheets on them. Pretty wild for a high school senior to deal with that.

We went to check on all my cousins' houses/apartments and I was given a .357 just in case. Obviously didn't have to use it, but it was crazy that we had to strap up

Didn't witness a single act of violence though.

ETA:

And anyone that was down there in the days after can relate when I say the general smell in New Orleans, especially on seriously flooded streets, was something I will never forget. Burned into my nostrils.

Someone posted some pics here of huge watersnakes that got displaced by the water. They were resting on the structure of some type of oil rig in the water. These snakes were giants. I’ve sesrched and have never been able to find those pics again.

Guns pulled over cutting in line at gas stations