[Rhodes22-list] Katrina, and What We Felt

[Wally Buck]

Herb,

Thanks for posting. Well Done!

Wally


>From: "Herb Parsons" <hparsons at parsonsys.com>
>Reply-To: The Rhodes 22 mail list <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
>To: <columbia at list.sailjazz.com>, 
><gulfcoast at list.sailjazz.com>,<oday at list.sailjazz.com>, 
><columbia at list.sailnet.net>,<coronado at list.sailnet.net>, 
><gulfcoast at list.sailnet.net>,<oday at list.sailnet.net>, 
><rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>,<odayowners at yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Katrina, and What We Felt
>Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 20:59:13 -0500
>
>First of all, I apologize for the multiple postings some of you will
>see, but I've gotten requests or emails from virtually all of the email
>lists I'm on, asking about my boat on Lake Pontchartrain. I'm going to
>have some stuff on my web site as soon as I get physically and
>emotionally rested, and can squeeze in some time catching up with work.
>However, in the meantime, I got this from my old college roommate who
>went with me on the trip. He wrote 3 documents, "What we did", "What I
>saw", and "What I felt". I thought the last one so beautifully expressed
>things I'd share it.
>
>First, to bring any of you up to date that don't know, but are
>interested, I recently got my USCG captain's license (25 ton master's)
>and started the training process to work part time for Grapevine
>Excursions. Grapevine Excursions is beginning operation of a
>sight-seeing tour service using WWII vintage amphibious vehicles called
>DUKWs. They sent one of the vehicles to New Orleans to assist in the
>rescue operations there, and allowed me to go as the operator of the
>vessel. I mentioned the trip to my old college roommate, Brad Mercer,
>and he asked if he could come too.
>
>A lot has been said recently, mostly by people that weren't there,
>about what was and wasn't done in New Orleans and the gulf state area,
>and what should have been done, and who was at fault, etc. etc.. I think
>Brad has captured a true essence of what those that were there saw and
>felt.
>
>This is what he wrote of his feelings on the trip:
>
>=====
>
>Katrina, Part III, What I Felt
>
>I have seen in this past week more literally overwhelming destruction
>* and more humbling nobility of spirit * than ever before in my
>life.  I have felt more encouraged and affirmed than I can remember
>being in a long time.  By the end of the week it felt like a badge of
>honor, a mark of distinction, to be able to call myself a human.
>
>It began at the Coast Guard operation in Alexandria, Louisiana.  The
>person in charge there, in certainly the biggest assignment of his life,
>and one for which he couldn't possibly be adequately prepared, had
>been working 20 hours a day for a week, and we civilians had shown up
>uninvited, offering to help with our amphibious vehicle (called a DUKW,
>pronounced "duck").  Yet he was as courteous and gracious as he
>could be.  He showed us around the facility, introduced us to someone
>who could figure out how to plug us in, and bragged on his people, who
>had also been working 20 hour shifts, and who were also gracious and
>attentive and helpful.  He told us about a girl in the Coast Guard in
>New Orleans who had just the previous week obtained whatever licensing
>or credentials are required to do aerial rescues from a helicopter.  He
>said a typical Coast Guard helicopter pilot may do 20 aerial rescues in
>a career, and this girl had done 70 in her first week after qualifying.
>So before we got close enough to see the first sign of wind or flood
>damage, my heart began to swell with admiration for all of the rescue
>and relief workers.
>
>The sun was rising on Saturday morning as we entered the city of New
>Orleans, a major port and renowned tourist attraction, a city of a
>half-million people, the home of the Superdome and the New Orleans
>Saints NFL football team and the French Quarter and Mardi Gras * the
>city where the party never stops.  The sky was blue, the sun was
>shining, the temperature was perfect, the roads were clear.
>
>And the great city was empty, abandoned, desolate.  We passed mile
>after mile of highways, homes, shopping centers, hotels, offices,
>churches and franchised fast-food places without people or traffic.  I
>have seen a great city skyline standing black against a black sky.
>There was nobody.  That was the single eeriest experience of my life.
>It was like being in some sort of post-apocalyptic movie.  I felt the
>emptiness, the abandonment, the smallness and the weakness and the
>transience of the greatest human achievements.  I felt what hell would
>be like for me * alone in a world that was built for relationships.
>
>As we roamed the desolate city, I felt the perspective of the looter.
>No one else was around.  No one seemed to own anything or be in charge
>of anything or responsible for anything or able to provide anything or
>to care about anything at that location.  It was like being the only
>person left alive after a world-ending nuclear war.  The whole material
>remnant of the "developed" world is now just your unexplored urban
>jungle for hunting and gathering, which is what you are reduced to in a
>place that is, for the moment at least, too primitive even for
>agriculture, much less manufacturing.  I could see the signs on the
>small shops that said things like "We shoot looters" and identify
>with the person determined to protect at any cost what was left of his
>property, but for the first time in my life, I could at least imagine
>what the world looked like to the looter, too.
>
>One of the most remarkable emotional experiences was just the spirit of
>the workers.  We must have seen agencies from 20 states represented.  We
>saw every possible law enforcement and military agency from every
>possible level of government, as well as countless private organizations
>like us.  It could have been a bureaucratic nightmare, but every leader
>we encountered, no matter how harried and overworked, was kind and
>willing to help and be helped.  Every one of them offered to share their
>food and drink (but not their gasoline), and looked for ways to keep
>structure and coordination intact while still incorporating unexpected
>offers of help.  Every one of them was working as hard as they could to
>make it work and get the job done.  One Louisiana Parks & Wildlife
>leader snapped dismissively at us when we pulled up and tried to ask a
>question, but I spoke to him affirmingly and encouragingly and
>sympathetically for no more than two minutes before he was nearly in
>tears, talking about the challenges that he faced, offering us food and
>drink and a place to park our duck.  That was probably the first moment
>in our adventure when I actually felt useful and valuable.  I couldn't
>captain the boat and I wasn't a mechanic, but I could reflect to
>people their own value in a way that made it possible for them to work
>with us.
>
>We found people at the Crossroads Church of the Nazarene like all the
>other workers.  Their brand new building had sustained damage, but the
>pastor and a group of Red Cross volunteers formed a bucket brigade-style
>line and helped us unload 217 cases of Similac like it was a party.
>
>I came close to feeling something less than admiration for the actual
>people we were trying to help, which is never a good thing.  People who
>don't want to leave stinking, flooded homes in an abandoned
>neighborhood without utilities are not apparently normal people.  Most
>of them seemed to be kind of marginal in some way.  They were physically
>sick and weak and frail, or they were a little mentally deficient, or
>they were just emotionally unstable.  They seemed to be totally out of
>touch with reality.  We tended to be in a hurry, trying to reach as many
>people as possible before sundown.  The National Guardsmen and
>professional Search and Rescue people who directed us were allowing one
>bag per person and no pets.  I'll never forget the little old lady who
>came to the boat, and then remembered that she had forgotten her Bible,
>so we waited for her to go back into her house for her Bible and come
>back to the boat.
>
>When we picked up one group of 25, they were actively engaged in their
>situation.  They didn't seem disconnected at all.  When Herb asked for
>a head count, one man immediately jumped up and counted for us.  Another
>told him some of what he needed to know about what was under water, that
>we were going through or over.  Another wrote our names down on a pad
>for the book she hopes to write someday, and to pray for us.  They
>helped each other sort out their bags when they left the boat for the
>big helicopters.  One chatted with me about where I was from, and about
>relatives he has in this area.
>
>They were people, like me.  For all their differences of accent, skin
>color and lifestyle, we were linked by an extraordinary circumstance,
>and I felt what it means to talk about our "fellow men".  We were
>part of the same extended family, and when push came to shove, we would
>help each other.  In the commonest of people is the spark of the divine.
>  In people for whom it would be easy in other circumstances to feel
>contempt or incomprehension there is something admirable and likable and
>akin to our own family and heroes.
>
>I had one emotional experience that I can't imagine anyone could ever
>understand who hasn't been there.  We had only experienced the
>emptiness and desolation of the evacuated New Orleans for two days.  For
>only two days had we had to drive 70 miles to Baton Rouge each day for
>gasoline and a restaurant and a place to sleep.  But when a Domino's
>Pizza place opened up on Monday morning, it was like seeing a loved
>one's eyes flutter and open when you had thought they were dead.
>It was shocking and exciting.  The only drinks they had were two-liter
>bottles, and they only had four available toppings: pepperoni,
>pineapple, jalepeno and olives, so I ordered a two-liter coke and a
>large thin crust pepperoni, pineapple, jalepeno and olive pizza, and it
>was very heaven.  It wasn't so much the food that was wonderful, as
>just the ability to order something, and hear the cash register and
>sense hope for a returning normality.  And then a man walked in and
>announced to the crowd of customers and employees that a service station
>down the road at such and such a location actually had gasoline for
>sale!  This crowd of normal, simple people were a victorious community
>in that moment.  Domino's Pizza, which was never anything special to
>me until then, will henceforth always represent to me the indomitable
>human spirit, and the determination to rebuild what is destroyed, and to
>revive what is mortally wounded, and to regain normality that
>catastrophe has stolen.  Civilization is not normal.  It is a phenomenal
>pinnacle to which humanity claws its way by superhuman effort, and which
>it maintains at heroic cost.  With the help of my own overactive
>imagination, in a mere two days, I caught a glimpse of that truth.
>
>The most impacting emotion of the whole week, though was an odd mixture
>of humility and pride.  I don't have any military or governmental
>affiliation that makes me "official".  I don't have any practical
>trade skills that makes me "essential".  I was just tagging along at
>the last moment, doing whatever I could, lowering and raising a ladder,
>handing out or loading and unloading boxes of water or formula, rolling
>a flat tire out of the way.  I can't imagine anyone who had the
>opportunity that presented itself to me, choosing differently than I
>chose.  But for a week, I was treated like a hero.
>
>Driving down the road with a load of baby formula, we were passed on
>the left by a white pickup truck from the maintenance department of some
>local school district, and the driver gave us a thumbs up sign as he
>passed us.  A few minutes later a woman in a sedan passed us on the
>right, made eye contact with us, and mouthed the words "thank you."
>We would stop for gas or a meal in Baton Rouge and someone would hear us
>talking to each other, or see something on our truck that suggested what
>we were doing, and * male and female, young and old * they would
>come up to us, and their eyes would water and their bottom lip would
>quiver, and they would say with a thick, choked voice "thank you for
>everything you're doing.  This is our home.  You are our heroes."
>And we would get to say: "You're welcome.  You're worth it.
>Everyone's just doing what they can."
>
>We were looking for a way to reduce the number of trips we would need
>to make to Baton Rouge to get gas, so we asked a customer at a gas pump
>who had 3 5-gallon gas cans tied on top of her car, where she got them
>or if she knew where we could get some.  She said we'd probably have
>to go all the way to Lafayette, another hour and a half past Baton
>Rouge.  A couple of minutes later she came back to us and asked us where
>we were heading.  We said we were doing relief work in New Orleans.  She
>said: "My home was destroyed, and you're going there to help.  You
>take my gas cans.  And thank you."  Of course, she refused payment for
>them.
>
>I have never lived before in a culture of such sincere mutual
>admiration and gratitude.  Surely that's what the church is supposed
>to be like, and what heaven will be like.  People who were providing us
>with food and shelter and a shower were thanking us as we were thanking
>them.  The National Guardsman who guided us on the boat, who made it
>possible for us to do anything useful at all, thank us as we thanked
>him, for making it possible.  And every night that we went back to the
>Baton Rouge church, we'd find a mint or a piece of candy on "our"
>bed, with a thank you note * sometimes a printed one from an adult,
>but usually one written in crayon by a child from a local Christian
>school.  The one I saved and brought home with me is written in red
>crayon.  In a childish scrawl it says:
>
>"Thank you.  Thank you so much for coming down here you are so brave.
>  You are risking everything for us and I want to thank you.  You will be
>in my prayes.  You will always be blessed by God.  I hope you get enough
>food and rest.  Sense you have treated us so well here is a treat for
>you.
>
>Ryan
>Victory Academy" * and at the bottom it had a cherry-flavored Jolly
>Rancher candy taped to the note.
>
>I came away from this week feeling grateful for a God who is bigger
>than the big storm, and grateful that he has made us in his own image,
>and allowed me the companionship of creatures who are only a little
>lower than the angels.
>
>Brad Mercer
>September 10, 2005
>
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