No Ordinary Heroes:. Demaree Inglese
to hit Louisiana was Andrew in 1992, and before that you had to go all the way back to the sixties, with Betsy and Camille. “These storms are never as bad as the weatherman predicts,” was the refrain I heard all over town. In the last few years that had held true—and attempts to put the population on alert had woefully backfired.
The evacuation for Hurricane Ivan, in 2004, had been a disaster. Weather experts and municipal authorities had wanted the people of New Orleans to stop ignoring hurricane threats, and a large portion of the population had heeded the advice and evacuated. There had been just one small catch: the powers-that-be had not bothered to open all lanes on the interstates to outgoing traffic until after the cars had slowed to an intolerable crawl. The ninety-minute drive to Baton Rouge took eight hours; Houston ended up being a twenty-four-hour trip.
Only a couple of months ago, Hurricane Dennis had been projected to hit New Orleans. Everyone on staff at the jail had taken extraordinary precautions. Deputies, families, doctors, and nurses had all arrived prepared to ride out the storm for three days. While we slept, the hurricane had made landfall on the Florida Panhandle and we didn’t get a drop of rain.
But I was coming to believe this time would be different. Katrina couldn’t be ignored. And as a member of the jail’s disaster planning committee, I’d read too many reports with dire predictions: If Katrina came close, the whole city would flood. A fifteen-foot storm surge would stop the pumps that protected New Orleans. If the storm actually hit the mouth of the Mississippi, fifty to a hundred thousand people could die. After the storm, the city wouldn’t have power or water for weeks. Anyone who stayed could die from dehydration—or, if they drank floodwater, they’d get dysentery and die from that. Despite my own tardy response to Katrina’s threat—and much as I liked to kid around with my friends—I’d spent the last thirty-six hours convincing as many as possible to get out of town.
The gas was still flowing as I pulled into the station. Next to me, the other customers rushed around, barely acknowledging anyone else as they talked on cell phones and filled their tanks. After using the pump, I went into the mini-mart to see if anything edible remained. During Ivan, tons of Spam had been available at the last minute, but now there wasn’t a single can left.
I tried to ignore the people shoving past me in the aisles and filled a cardboard box with beef jerky, canned ravioli, spaghetti with meatballs, Vienna sausages, breakfast bars, and the last single jar of peanut butter. As I reached for it, another shopper gave me a scathing look, but she didn’t say a word. The bread was gone, but someone mentioned that the French bakery on Magazine Street was still open. After I paid and got some cash from the ATM, I drove straight to the bakery and bought three round loaves.
With two problems solved, I turned my attention to what to do with my car. I called a friend, who suggested the Canal Place parking garage. So many residents were driving out of the city, surely there would be spaces. I had a plan worked out by the time Gary arrived at my house. His first words were true to his pessimistic outlook.
“I just know my house is going to flood,” he said. “And even it if doesn’t, I’m sure one of the trees in my yard will fall on my new roof. I cut away some of the branches, but I don’t think that’s enough.” Gary paced between my couch and TV. Frowning, he ran his hand over his closely cropped brown hair. “A category four could flatten everything.”
Hating to focus on the possibility that everything I owned could be destroyed, I shook off the bad feeling. “Let’s go,” I said, palming the keys to the patrol car.
My parking plan was simple. We’d use the patrol car to shuttle first Gary’s Honda then my Mercedes to the garage. Afterward, we’d return to my house, pick up our food, clothes, and bedding, and head for the jail.
The Canal Place lot, however, was jammed full, as were the next two places we tried. Apparently, a lot of residents had a similar idea; New Orleans citizens, it seemed, were waking up and belatedly trying to shelter their vehicles from the elements. I felt the same way. My Mercedes was brand new, and I hated the thought of flying branches and debris marring its spotless pewter finish. I needed advice from someone who really knew the city. I signaled Gary to pull over and wait while I called Mike Higgins.
A native of New Orleans, and an excellent psychiatrist, Mike Higgins was a good soul in an unconventional package. Thirty-five with a shaved head, he was an athletic, wiry 150 pounds. Shy around strangers, among friends he became talkative, with a biting sense of humor. A stickler for following rules, Mike terrorized the nurses with phone calls about lapses. He had already worked at the jail for some time when I took over the medical department, and I made him director of psychiatric services almost immediately. When I reached Mike on the phone, he was at a garage on St. Charles Avenue with plenty of open spaces. We’d meet there, and I’d drive everyone to the jail in the patrol car.
“Are Moby and Georgie with you?” I asked before hanging up, referring to his two dogs. Mike might have been a hardass with the nurses, but he positively doted on his animals. As for me, I was allergic to them. I wouldn’t refuse Mike a ride, but I hoped they weren’t along.
“They’re in my office.” Mike knew the dogs caused me discomfort, and he made an effort to minimize my contact with them. But he also went out of his way to see that Katrina would do them no harm.
When Gary and I got to the garage, we found Mike on the fourth level by his parked pickup. Brady Richard, head of Medical Supply, was there too. “REE-chard,” he’d say, when he was introduced, emphasizing the Cajun pronunciation of his name. Brady had grown up on the Bayou, and he greeted us in his thick accent. “Y’all ready for this?”
“As ready as we can be.” I noticed that Brady hadn’t shaved. Not only did he and I sport similar military-style haircuts, he, too, had an aversion to razors, and most of the time he walked around with two or three days of dark stubble.
Nobody cared if Brady looked a little scruffy. Outside of work, his life centered around his extended Louisiana family, his dogs, and the area’s most popular hobbies—hunting and fishing. He probably wouldn’t shave again until after the hurricane.
As everyone was piling into my patrol car, my cell phone rang. It was Sam Gore. He had already unloaded his things at the jail, but he was resigned to leaving his car outside unprotected. I told him to meet us at the garage.
We waited for him by a cement wall that overlooked the city panorama of skyscrapers, with their acres of glass. Would all those windows shatter in the face of 150-mile-an-hour winds? The sidewalks that bordered the banks, law firms, and office buildings of the central business district were empty, though the sun was still shining and few clouds broke the blue of the sky. Except for the doomsday weather reports and the deserted streets, there was nothing to indicate that a storm of unprecedented intensity was headed our way.
When Sam pulled in, he locked his car and slid into the backseat of the patrol car with Gary and Brady. Five minutes later, we were at the jail. I let Mike and Brady out at the Correctional Center, and dropped off Sam at Templeman 1. Gary stayed with me while I stopped at the maintenance yard and filled the patrol car with gas before heading home to shuttle my Mercedes and get our stuff.
Back at the house, Gary and I listened to the weather as we loaded supplies into the patrol car. The National Weather Service had just issued a special warning about the massive devastation that would accompany a category 4 or 5 storm.
“It’s going to be worse than I thought,” Gary said.
I knew by now the storm probaby would not veer off and miss New Orleans. “At least we’ll be safe in the jail.”
Gary wasn’t reassured. “With a storm this big, I’m not sure it’ll matter where we are.”
The first drops of rain fell as we got back on the road. By the time we neared the Superdome, the sprinkle had become a steady drizzle.
“Look at that!” Gary exclaimed.
I glanced to the left. The scene at the massive stadium, home to the New Orleans Saints, could only be described as mind-boggling. An enormous line of people stretched down the ramp, wrapped around the building, and continued down