[Rhodes22-list] Brad Mercer - What I Felt - Katrina (was Herb's sailing trip)

[elle]

Herb,

What beautiful writing.
What a beautiful story.
What a beautiful man.
What a loss.

elle

We can't change the angle of the wind....but we can adjust our sails.

1992 Rhodes 22   Recyc '06  "WaterMusic"   (Lady in Red)


--- On Thu, 10/30/08, Herb Parsons <hparsons at parsonsys.com> wrote:

> From: Herb Parsons <hparsons at parsonsys.com>
> Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Brad Mercer - What I Felt - Katrina (was Herb's sailing trip)
> To: "The Rhodes 22 Email List" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
> Date: Thursday, October 30, 2008, 1:28 PM
> I'll write another one later, but for now, I'll
> share what my old 
> college roommate wrote about Katrina. But first, a little
> background (I 
> think I shared this writing on here before, but some of you
> weren't here 
> back then)
> 
> I'm registered as a captain with a company that runs a
> sight-seeing tour 
> system using DUKWs (pronounced duck). It's an
> amphibious WWII era 
> vessel. They decided to send one of then down to NO to
> assist in 
> rescue-recovery immediately following Katrina. Even though
> I had not 
> actually worked for them, they wanted a USCG licensed
> captain operating 
> it on this trip, so they called me, and I jumped at the
> opportunity.
> 
> In some ways, the trip was a bust - the boat developed
> engine trouble 
> the second day, and we had to have it picked up, the
> company lost a LOT 
> of money on the effort. On the other hand, we pulled 67
> people out the 
> day we ran it, and spent the rest of our time there running
> supplies to 
> other parts of LA and MS, so I felt we were productive over
> all.
> 
> Brad Mercer was my old college roommate. He and I have
> stayed close over 
> the years. We didn't do 1/10th of the "grand
> adventures" we planned as 
> college kids, but we have gotten together a few times to
> revive the 
> spirit of them. This was a good opportunity for that, so I
> invited him 
> to come with us. "Us" turned out to be him, me,
> and Max, another guy 
> that worked for the tour company.
> 
> Obviously, Brad and I made the trip in 2005. We talked
> about it a lot 
> since then, and he wrote three very good journals about our
> experience. 
> This was the best of the three. It's a bit long, but
> definitely worth 
> the read.
> 
> Brad was seriously considering writing a book, but shortly
> after our 
> trip, he moved to Australia to help another friend start a
> church. He 
> and the friend, who was from Australia, had successfully
> started a 
> church in the Dallas area, and now Brad felt it was time to
> repay the favor.
> 
> They got the church started, and it's still growing,
> but about a year 
> after he moved down there, around March of last year, Brad
> called me 
> with the terrible news that he had colon cancer. Not the
> "big C", but 
> the big "C C", and it was amazingly aggressive.
> We lost him late 
> November of last year, and though the world at large took
> little notice, 
> we lost a good one.
> 
> This is what he had to say about our adventure
> =====
> 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, landing 
> 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
> 
> 
> Chris Geankoplis wrote:
> > Wow Herb,
> >             Thanks for so elequently sharing the
> story.  Great imagery and
> > human connections.  I am so glad you told me about the
> trip.  Thanks, and if
> > you have any other stories please share them.  Tell
> you what.  I found some
> > old journals I wrote as a kid over in Italy and some
> old negatives, all in a
> > box of my late mother's.  The day after these
> elections I'll pass some of
> > the stuff on if you will tell me another story.
> >
> > Chris G
> >
> >   
> >   
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