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

Easily the dude on top of the dome with the sniper rifle.

TLDR

I’m not exactly sure which day it was, but it was within about a week of the storm when I went into the city. I had a friend from high school that lived down there who called me up and asked if I could go down and help him out.

I’m not from the area, so some of the location details I wouldn’t know without asking him. I met up with him and we rode down to someone’s house in a town west of New Orleans. We were supposed to try to leave at 6:00 am to try and get into the city, but ended up drinking all night and deciding that a 2:00 am departure was a good idea.

The first thing that I will never forget was the smell that we encountered miles outside of town. I’m not sure how to describe it, but it was a distinct rotten smell that let us know we were in for a surprise.

First we went into some part of town and had three destinations, his house, his girlfriend’s apartment, and his girlfriend’s parents house. It was eerie driving in and not seeing anyone at all, and absolutely no signs of life. We were stopped at one point driving in by a single law enforcement officer (not sure what jurisdiction), but were allowed to keep driving after telling a plausible story about an elderly family member we hadn’t heard back from in a couple of hours and were going to look for.

Besides the water and places where we turned around in areas that were still flooded, the “sidewalk wall” was the strangest sight I saw. We went to his girlfriend’s parents house and as we were driving on some streets it was like a wall had been put up on some parts of the street. There were so many trees that blew over in the same direction whose roots lifted up the sidewalks to where they stood up and formed a wall on one side of the street. I have never seen anything like it and hope I never will again.

At this point all we knew about what was going on was from the stories people were telling and news reports. We fully expected to run into roving bands of thugs out stealing and looting, so we had a small armament with us. As we got to his girlfriend’s parents house we stopped in the middle of the street and left the truck running while I stood guard as he ran inside to get paperwork and valuables. I have never been so scared in my life, and it’s probably good that I had some sort of liquid courage still in me. It was silent except for the running truck, there was no light, and I was fully expecting to be ambushed while standing outside the truck.

We never saw anyone there and as we were on our way to the next stop we drove by a shopping center that had a mobile NYPD Command Post set up in it and numerous other NYPD vehicles parked.

I’m not sure whether we went to his house or his girlfriend’s apartment next, but we ended up going to both of those without incident to collect belongings. His house had had about 2 feet of water in it, while her apartment was on an upper floor.

We finally left the city as the sun was coming up and never saw any sign of life other than the one officer who stopped us on the way in. I feel lucky that I had the opportunity to see some of the destruction first hand, and some of those sights, smells, and sounds (lack of it in Nola) will stay with me forever.

I was there the whole time. I was mostly in Lower Plaquemines parish, restoring levees. Then, went in the city to manage some of the dewatering operations.

Did a shite ton of work with the Federal boys, of all disciplines.


All of the rapes, and shootings, and military guys riding helicopters, shooting looters.....is made up bullshite by a "guy that knew a guy that heard....."


None of that shite happened. I was there, in the LDHS TOC, daily.

The Danzinger Bridge incident happened, though.

While doing sector patrols with the National Guard we can across a SAAB Car in the hood, looked untouched no smash windows. Opened the doors can across insurance papers called the insurance company. Turns out a doctor claimed it was water damaged. Very much the opposite, so we let them know where they can find it.

I worked for a logistics company then and we got a call for 15-20 53' refrigerated drop trailers.

We started to line them up and ask questions assuming this was for some ice or food.

They asked if they could be "set up and left running for a few weeks".

We said "sure what is the product?"

They said "deceased humans", we passed.

See once you use any equipment for that that is all you can ever use it for, so we advised them where to actually purchase the equipment from.

Those convos still kinda haunt me 13 years later.

I lived in Lakeview. I was on vacation during Katrina and to make a long story shorter, I helped my folks in Gulfport, who lived south of the rr tracks, dig out.

There was a yahoo Lakeview group I would monitor while I lived in Gulfport. We organized a meeting at Heritage Plaza to discuss getting back into Lakeview to recover our valuables. Lighted torch crowd.

After the meeting I took a chance and headed to Lakeview. I bs'ed the guard and he let me in. Surreal. I was the only one in the hood, the water had finally drained (pumped), and it looked as if the area was in the aftermath of a nuclear winter.

Walked in the house. Bad. 8 foot according to the water line. If I live to be as old as Methuselah, I will never get forget that smell. Some furniture unrecognizable. Some clothes too. I had a cheap bedspread in a back bedroom that appeared brand new. It was glowing.

After gathering some valuables and paperwork and nearly overcome by the heat, I stripped completely naked in the street to change clothes. Not a soul around and eerily quiet. I will never forget that sight. Those smells. I never broke down, but I saw neighbors later collapse in anguish. Several generations in the area will do that to you.

I was at LSU after Katrina. Some of the things I remember:

Military vehicles all over south Louisiana, including helicopters overhead going back and forth to the Mississippi coast and New Orleans.

Population of Baton Rouge doubling overnight as people bunked with friends/relatives or stayed in hotels. Everything was crowded. There wasn't an escape from that.

Massive increase in airline traffic at BTR.

Many grocery stores and gas stations in Baton Rouge being out of food/gas by noon almost every day for a while.

College Drive Wal Mart fencing off part of their parking lot and using it as storage for extra inventory. That place was bursting at the seams with customers even at 2AM.

Car dealers in Baton Rouge and Lafayette running out of new cars to sell after the storm.

Triage unit at PMAC and shelter at River Center.

Increase in crime with a lot of very desperate people all over the place.

Insane amount of traffic at all hours of the day, long lines everywhere you went. It seemed like there was gridlock all over the place, made worse by a lot of trees down, power outages (that seemed to last for weeks) and cleanup occurring.

All apartment, retail, and office space being leased up very quickly in Baton Rouge, creating a spike in real estate prices.

Constant presence of national media all over the region.

Seeing the damage in New Orleans for the first time - especially around Jackson Barracks- was pretty crazy.

A short time later, Houston residents took Hurricane Rita very seriously - so many more evacuated into Baton Rouge. There was traffic jambs on I-10 west of town so bad that people were running out of gas and abandoning their cars. Many of those people had evacuated to Houston from New Orleans for Katrina.





Despite all of that, I think the overwhelming majority of people were patient, understanding, empathetic, and cooperative under those circumstances. The people of my Louisiana made me proud despite the media focusing only on the negative.

I hope that it doesn't happen again, but if it does, I think Baton Rouge and Lafayette are more capable of hosting evacuees than before.

I will always remember an old black man being interviewed by the news and he says (talking about the levee breaking) “that water was rushing down the street like somebody was chasing it”. I will never forget that!

I worked FEMA restoration project in St Bernard parish during the middle of a parish president election. It was shady as hell.