Words Whispered in Water. Sandy Rosenthal
the Greater New Orleans region.
Steve dispatched his office manager to find space in Baton Rouge. Moving quickly was critical. Other businesses were doing the same thing by moving their operations temporarily to Baton Rouge, to Lafayette, and to the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Waiting even a day or two could mean finding nothing at all.
With quick wit and fast driving on I-10, Steve managed to find office space at 5700 Government Boulevard. The building was a bit run down, but we got an excellent price and the space fit our needs. We would move in twenty employees as soon as furniture, equipment, and supplies were delivered—compliments of the Great American Insurance Company, the joint-venture partner with my husband’s company. They had come to the rescue by providing these things gratis. The plan was to open on Wednesday, September 13.
During the one-hour drive back to our hotel room in Lafayette, we tuned in yet again to Garland Robinette on WWL (AM) radio in New Orleans. “Garland,” a well-known, trusted voice, was filling in for a sick friend when he went on the air on August 29, 2005. Later, due to the station’s strong signal, Garland was dubbed “the voice of New Orleans” because his was practically the only one heard during that interminable week. On this day, we found out that the Coast Guard’s search for people in immediate danger was still ongoing, and there was no contingency plan for people who were in relative safety but trapped in appalling conditions.33
We arrived back at the Drury Inn just as two busloads were pulling in from disaster zones. Most were elderly residents of south Louisiana, and each had a story more harrowing than the next. It seemed that there were two predominant reasons why aging residents had chosen against evacuation: they had never flooded before or they had to care for their pets—or both. The stories of howling dogs being peeled from their crying owners’ arms by rescue workers haunts me to this day.
***
Harvey Miller clung to the oak branch and started to further despair as he saw the helicopter fly away. But then he saw that a Coast Guardsman had been let out of the helicopter onto a nearby roof.
He yelled to Harvey, “We can bring a boat for you and your wife!”
As Harvey breast-stroked back to the house, a forty-foot motorboat towing a pirogue (a long narrow canoe) pulled up. Two big, burly men helped Renee and Monet through the window and into the boat. Harvey was too big to fit through the window, so he went downstairs, and the boat pulled up to the front door.
In that incongruous moment, with the helicopter chugging overhead and a boat backing away from the house, Renee called out, “Did you lock the front door?”
Everyone in the boat laughed.
***
On Thursday morning (September 1), we woke up in our insular world. Our cell phones were charged but useless. Email communication was effective but only for those who used it. Therefore, I was still not able to contact my family in New England. I could only imagine what horrors they envisioned if they were watching television. I needed to tell my family that we were all fine and that we evacuated with clothes and supplies for several weeks.
On this morning—three days after the floodwalls broke—in a world unto ourselves, we at least knew where Steve and I were going to work. Now we needed to take care of the second order of business. We—and 40,000 to 50,000 other families in the Greater New Orleans region—needed to find a place for our children to go to school. We had it easier than most because we had just one child to worry about, and we now knew that our office would be in Baton Rouge. We looked first to that city for a school for Stanford and scheduled a visit for the very next day (September 2) at the Episcopal School of Baton Rouge.
I drove to a nearby Walgreens to purchase a few supplies that we had not brought with us. Our planned three-week motel stay had just been expanded to a disquietingly unknown amount of time. I found an electric pot to boil water for my favorite Lipton tea and inexpensive mugs to drink it in. I also found a Chase Bank close by where I was able to confirm access to our bank account. At least we could get to our money. For the hundredth time in those awful days, I was glad for life’s most basic things—a mug of tea and having my sons and husband with me at night! We knew for sure that many people were dead. In time, we would learn just how many. And it was rude to feel anything but grateful.
***
Meanwhile, the Millers had basic survival on their minds. The Coast Guard boat brought Harvey, Renee, and Monet five miles away from their safe house to the point where I-10 splits. The trio was dropped off at a ramp, which led to the dry land on the west side of the 17th Street Canal. They walked up to medical stations where people were being registered. There were dozens of trucks parked but no toilets and no food.
Renee, who had had open-heart surgery just one month earlier, was dizzy, so a medical team agreed to take her in. But not Harvey and Monet. Harvey tried to board one of the buses, but no animals were allowed. Harvey walked to the curb, and the obedient Labrador sat down next to him. Someone came by and gave them K-rations (US Army food that heats up by itself). It was red beans and rice, and it tasted horrible. Even the dog wouldn’t eat it. Someone else came and gave them a bottle of water. With Monet next to him, Harvey fell asleep on the I-10 entrance ramp with his feet in the road.
***
In this surreal world, we got an encouraging dose of reality during the afternoon on Thursday when we received an emailed copy of a forum post from our daughter Aliisa. In the days after the 2005 flood, the forums of the Times-Picayune (the local daily newspaper) were, for most, the only mode of communication. The forums, lifelines for much of the citizenry, were posted by NOLA.com, the digital version of New Orleans’s single major newspaper. The paper’s main office and printing presses on Howard Avenue had flooded, so the paper production was relocated to offices of the Houma Courier in Houma, Louisiana, about an hour southwest of the city. Jon Donley, NOLA.com’s founder and editor-in-chief, was a visionary who had clear ideas about how the new online medium would be instrumental in putting evacuees in touch with each other and later in rebuilding New Orleans. On this day, the forum post that my daughter Aliisa sent brought us very welcome news: the portion of New Orleans where we lived had not flooded! And it stated that reports of vandalism and looting could not be verified.
***
The sound of someone yelling, “Buses are coming!” woke Harvey. He tried yet again to get on a bus, but again authorities said that no dogs were allowed. At one point, a National Guardsman offered to shoot Monet for him—humanely—if that would get him onto a bus.34 Harvey declined! Meanwhile, twelve ambulances were lined up and waiting, but no one was getting into them.
Harvey walked up to a driver and said, “I will pay you if you take me to Baton Rouge.”
“I cannot, sir,” he said. “This is the FEDS.”
Just then, the driver looked at Harvey’s black Labrador and asked, “Is that Monet?” He had grown up in the Lake Vista neighborhood and recognized her. Becoming more helpful, he offered, “Look, we’re getting together transportation for the pets because like you, people are refusing to leave without them.” The driver then guided Harvey to a kind-looking woman with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
The woman gave Monet some dog food and then said to Harvey, “I am collecting animals and bringing them to a shelter in Baton Rouge. You cannot come, but I will give you a receipt and later you can get your dog.” Then she tried to put Monet into a cage.
The dog had never been caged before, and she didn’t bark. She screamed. She screamed and screamed. Harvey took his receipt, tucked it into a pocket, and forced himself to turn his back and walk away as Monet continued to scream. With each step, he told himself that she, at the very least, would be safe.
As Harvey dragged himself away from Monet, a young man, who was driving a bus, pulled up to him and asked, “Are you a single? I have one seat left.”
Harvey climbed the steps and collapsed into a seat without even asking where he was going. He learned later that the bus was going to Houston. Harvey didn’t know where Renee was, his dog was going to Baton Rouge, and he was now headed for Texas.
***