Hurricane Katrina
I went with a group of 8 officers to Louisiana. In Baton Rouge my group of 4 was given an assignment in Covington which is directly across the Lake Pontchartrain causeway from New Orleans. The other group was given an assignment in Kenner which is a suburb of New Orleans.
My group arrived in Covington and as soon as we exited I-12 we saw damage all around. Tree’s toppled over, power poles down and damaged buildings. When we arrived at our assignment we found we were going to be providing security for a Bell South phone company facility that was sprouting up at the local American Legion.
Workers were there constructing tents for Bell South employees and families that had been displaced to stay. They were also installing facilities so repair crews could use the facility as a base. There were helicopters flying to the south towards New Orleans on a regular basis, and I saw a C-130 mid-air refueling a Blackhawk helicopter.
For the next three nights my group provided overnight security for the facility. There were also two soldiers from the Alabama National Guard with us all the time. We had electricity, running water and all the food we could eat. Bell South did a great job taking care of its employees and us.
Last Wednesday morning after completing our shift several of us decided to go into New Orleans to look around. As we got closer to New Orleans on the causeway we could make out the skyline and see numerous helicopters flying around the city. Once we crossed the causeway we were in Metairie. We could immediately see there had been more damage here than in Covington. Windows were broken, debris was scattered about, and street after street was impassible due to downed power poles, trees and other debris.
We began to work our way towards downtown. A couple of times we ran into water over the road and had to find an alternate route. We saw street after street of damaged buildings. Helicopters flew overhead. The military and police were seen in large numbers. Sometimes the soldiers appeared to be on patrol, other times they were in convoys and other times they were already working clearing debris using chain saws to cut trees.
We stopped once to change drivers. A couple of people were inside a building and when they saw us they took off. One was on a bicycle and he was so busy looking over his shoulder at us as he tried to get on his bike that he ran it into the curb and almost fell over. It appeared that they may have been trying to loot.
We had to pass a couple of checkpoints to get into town. Once they saw we were the police they just waved us through. We worked our way downtown and ended up within just a couple of blocks of the Superdome before we ran into water. There was not much traffic but it was a free for all in town with cars going down streets the wrong way.
When we left the downtown area we got on I-10 and headed west to the causeway. It sure was uncomfortable getting on the freeway and having vehicles coming towards you in your lanes. We went west a little ways and ran into an area where there were soldiers in red berets standing near where the freeway had some water across it. It looked passable at that point but we talked to the soldiers. They told us that a little further down the road we would not be able to get through because of water over the road. We were also told there had been some “hostile activity” in the area earlier. These soldiers had a certain swagger to them that made it seem they were pretty squared away. I was later told these were probably guys from the 82nd Airborne Division.
We turned around and headed the wrong way down I-10 back towards downtown and worked our way back towards the causeway on side streets. We saw areas of town where there was widespread destruction and then in others the only damage seemed to be downed trees with no real structural damage to buildings. There were very few people in the city that were not military or police.
My group arrived in Covington and as soon as we exited I-12 we saw damage all around. Tree’s toppled over, power poles down and damaged buildings. When we arrived at our assignment we found we were going to be providing security for a Bell South phone company facility that was sprouting up at the local American Legion.
Workers were there constructing tents for Bell South employees and families that had been displaced to stay. They were also installing facilities so repair crews could use the facility as a base. There were helicopters flying to the south towards New Orleans on a regular basis, and I saw a C-130 mid-air refueling a Blackhawk helicopter.
For the next three nights my group provided overnight security for the facility. There were also two soldiers from the Alabama National Guard with us all the time. We had electricity, running water and all the food we could eat. Bell South did a great job taking care of its employees and us.
Last Wednesday morning after completing our shift several of us decided to go into New Orleans to look around. As we got closer to New Orleans on the causeway we could make out the skyline and see numerous helicopters flying around the city. Once we crossed the causeway we were in Metairie. We could immediately see there had been more damage here than in Covington. Windows were broken, debris was scattered about, and street after street was impassible due to downed power poles, trees and other debris.
We began to work our way towards downtown. A couple of times we ran into water over the road and had to find an alternate route. We saw street after street of damaged buildings. Helicopters flew overhead. The military and police were seen in large numbers. Sometimes the soldiers appeared to be on patrol, other times they were in convoys and other times they were already working clearing debris using chain saws to cut trees.
We stopped once to change drivers. A couple of people were inside a building and when they saw us they took off. One was on a bicycle and he was so busy looking over his shoulder at us as he tried to get on his bike that he ran it into the curb and almost fell over. It appeared that they may have been trying to loot.
We had to pass a couple of checkpoints to get into town. Once they saw we were the police they just waved us through. We worked our way downtown and ended up within just a couple of blocks of the Superdome before we ran into water. There was not much traffic but it was a free for all in town with cars going down streets the wrong way.
When we left the downtown area we got on I-10 and headed west to the causeway. It sure was uncomfortable getting on the freeway and having vehicles coming towards you in your lanes. We went west a little ways and ran into an area where there were soldiers in red berets standing near where the freeway had some water across it. It looked passable at that point but we talked to the soldiers. They told us that a little further down the road we would not be able to get through because of water over the road. We were also told there had been some “hostile activity” in the area earlier. These soldiers had a certain swagger to them that made it seem they were pretty squared away. I was later told these were probably guys from the 82nd Airborne Division.
We turned around and headed the wrong way down I-10 back towards downtown and worked our way back towards the causeway on side streets. We saw areas of town where there was widespread destruction and then in others the only damage seemed to be downed trees with no real structural damage to buildings. There were very few people in the city that were not military or police.
posted by TexasCop at 12:52
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