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Chapter 56
Friday, September 2, 2005
K plus ninety hours
Things were moving
much more quickly at Tulane Medical Center. Late the day before,
National Guard CH-47 Chinook twin-rotor helicopters had joined
in the airlift. Unlike the MEDIVAC copters which could only manage
between two and six evacuees each, these behemoths were designed
to carry as many as sixty people. As they were the property of
the US Government, HCA could not hire them as they hired the
MEDIVAC helos. They could only request the Guard's help.
On Friday, the Guard
came out in force. One after another, the Chinooks and the smaller
Blackhawks shuttled the staffers, their dependants, and the others
still trapped at TMC. And it wasn't a moment too soon. Things
were going from bad to worse as each day passed, and after the
last of the patients was flown out on Thursday, the decision
was made to abandon the hospital and move all the remaining people
to the parking garage. George and the others spent their last
night sleeping on the bare concrete of the parking structure,
with only blankets and pillows for comfort. It was dark and smelly
and noisy, but the worst was the rumble at 4:30 a.m. George and
the others looked out to the east to see it glowing red.
"Fuck!"
cried one voice in the darkness. "Is it a terrorist attack?"
"Something
blew up, or maybe a plane crashed," said another.
There was very little
sleep after that.
~*~*~
K plus ninety-five
hours
At 0900 sharp, one
thousand Army National Guard Troops stormed the Convention Center.
Dressed in camouflage and armed with M-16s, they completely intimidated
anyone even thinking about causing trouble. The operation went
like clockwork, and while it would take hours to completely search
the huge building, the Guard was in situational control of the
facility within fifteen minutes.
The vast majority
of the refugees were happy to see the federal troops; they had
little trust left in the NOPD. Then they became overjoyed when
they saw what the Guard brought with them - 200,000 MREs and
all the water 20,000 people could ever want.
~*~*~
Will Darcy threw
the last of his suitcases into the back of his BMW while Lizzy
watched.
"Okay, that's
it," he said as he slammed the trunk. He turned to take
Lizzy into his arms. "I'll call as soon as I know where
I'll be staying in Houston," he said after a kiss.
"When are you
coming back?" Lizzy played with his collar.
"Probably not
until next weekend. I'll call you when I know."
"Are you driving
or flying?"
"If we can
get a place to store the jet in Baton Rouge, I'll fly."
They shared kisses
and whispered endearments before Will reluctantly pulled away.
Lizzy watched as the BMW drove out the front gate.
"Lizzy!"
cried Emma from the kitchen door, holding up a telephone. "Come
quick!"
~*~*~
As the last four
hundred people were being airlifted, George and the others spent
their time cleaning up the parking garage. Asked about it later,
all George could say was it was their place, and they wanted
to leave it clean for their return.
George could remember
little of the flight. One minute he was being hustled into the
Chinook, and the next thing he knew he was on the tarmac of Louis
Armstrong Airport. He was handed a cold bottle of water and a
granola bar and escorted to a waiting air-conditioned bus. He
was in the seat before his tired mind could function enough to
ask where they were going.
"Southwest
Medical Center, Lafayette," he was told.
"But…but
my wife's in St. Charles," George protested as the bus began
to move.
"Call her and
have her meet you," he was advised. "That's what everyone
else is doing. We can't stop. Does your phone work?"
And so it was a
couple of hours later that George climbed off the bus to see
Emma and Elizabeth waiting for him. He didn't say a word; he
trotted in his fifthly scrubs to meet her halfway in an emotional
embrace. Lizzy, hanging back, strolled slowly towards her friends,
allowing them this moment of relative privacy. Theirs was not
the only happy reunion. The others exiting the bus were moving
into the hospital, shyly glancing at the celebrations occurring
about them.
Lizzy was finally
close enough to hear her friends. George was sobbing into Emma's
shoulder, his hands tangled in her hair.
"Emma, Emma,
I'm so sorry…I'm so sorry."
Emma's eyes were
shut, her mouth firm, as she clutched her husband tightly to
her. "Hush, hush, baby…It's all right. We're going
to be all right."
"I should have
been there for you."
Lizzy turned on
her heel and walked away, embarrassed that she had overheard
such a heartrending moment. She kept a respectful distance and
waited until the couple was prepared to join her. George wiped
his tears away with the sleeve of his scrubs and grinned. "You
better not touch me, Lizzy. I stink like hell."
"Get over here,
big guy," she ordered. After hugging him, she escorted the
couple to her Honda for the drive back to Pemberley.
~*~*~
K plus ninety-eight
hours
An event of some
significance took place at high noon. Mayor Nagin would later
claim that a "real John Wayne kind of dude" stepped
off a US Army BlackHawk helicopter at Louis Armstrong International
Airport to take command of Joint Task Force Katrina. His name
was US Army Lieutenant General Russel L. Honoré of First
US Army. A Louisiana native, he was in command of an estimated
100,000 troops, FEMA representatives, and other US government
personnel, including two US Navy amphibious assault ships (USS
Iwo Jim and USS Bataan), that had poured into the
region in the greatest governmental response to a natural disaster
ever.
Immediately upon
hitting the ground, Honoré began barking orders. He was
not one to find out if he had authority before acting; he simply
assumed it, until informed otherwise. To most, it seemed the
best thing to do was cooperate with this oversized personality.
For the first time since landfall, order had come to the recovery.
Meanwhile, the US
House of Representatives passed HR 3645, the first of the Katrina
relief bills, authorizing $10.5 billion in help. As the Senate
had passed the same bill the night before, it awaited the President's
signature.
That would happen
the next day, for President Bush was finally on the ground in
the strike area, touring the devastated Mississippi Gulf Coast.
~*~*~
Sergeant Danielson
had been a member of the Ohio National Guard ever since he had
gotten out of high school. As such, he had been called in to
natural disasters before. But he had never seen anything as devastated
as the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Depending on the
topography, the storm surge had come onshore anywhere from between
one-half mile to two miles, wiping out everything. There were
only slabs left on most buildings near the coast. Brick buildings
faired little different from wooden ones. Huge trees were torn
from their roots and tossed about like matchsticks. Most impressive
- or horrifying, depending on one's mood - was the sight of the
massive floating casinos stranded hundreds of yards inland from
their docks. Danielson could not imagine that mere water could
have attained such power as to move the huge barges up and over
the coast highway. He was happy that Ohio never suffered such
storms.
His squad was working
a mixed detail with Mississippi Highway Patrol and Biloxi police,
searching for bodies. It was a grim, depressing, but extremely
necessary job, made all the more unpleasant by the scorching
sun reflecting off the sand. The Army had made many improvements
to the camouflage BDU, but it was still stifling in the late
summer heat.
"Sergeant!"
cried a private at the point.
"What do you
have?" he called out.
"I smell something…yeah!
Got one right over here."
The detail made
its way over to a clump of vegetation, which turned out to be
an uprooted tree. "See, Sarge? It's right under there. You
can see a bare foot."
Sure enough, a flash
of pale flesh could be made out amidst the debris. The stench
of decomposition filled their nostrils, and the detail was forced
to put on their medical masks. They worked quickly with limb
cutters, clearing the branches away from the body, and saw it
was that of a white male dressed in a black t-shirt and navy
shorts. A police officer began taking photos while a trooper
called in a truck.
As the Guardsmen
pulled on latex gloves, the officer examined the body. They could
hear the policeman's muffled voice as he recited into a small
recorder. "Body appears to be Caucasian, young, somewhere
in his twenties or thirties. State of decomposition suggests
the body has been here for more than four days. Some post-mortem
damage to the body, probably from the vegetation he was found
tangled in. Preliminary cause of death appears to be drowning."
He stopped and reached towards the body. Danielson watched as
he withdrew a brown object from the victim's back pocket.
"I've extracted
a wallet from the body." He opened it and removed a card
from it. "Mississippi driver's license in the name of John
Lewis Waguespack." He rattled off the address, one that
sounded familiar to Danielson.
"Hey, isn't
that the address of the condo torn up a couple of blocks from
here? Where we found the woman?"
"Yeah, it is.
I passed by it often enough - before -" The cop didn't finish,
because he didn't need to. Before the storm. Before Katrina
tore the hell out of Biloxi.
"Think there's
a connection?"
"Don't know
if we'll ever know." He rifled through the wallet. "ID
from the Jean Lafitte Resort & Casino in the name of John
L. Waguespack. I guess that's who this is." No one was stupid
enough to ask if the photos matched the body. It had been out
in the sun for more than four days, after all. "Maybe there's
a connection, after all. We can check with the casino owners
if they had a young blonde woman working there. Someone connected
with Mr. Waguespack. Might get a name. It's worth a shot."
The detail carefully
lifted the body and placed it into a zippered bag of heavy black
plastic as the recovery vehicle, a flat-bed five-ton 6X6 cargo
truck in desert brown, rumbled up. The police officer placed
the wallet in a small clear plastic bag and placed it with the
body before the body bag was closed. The detail then carefully
placed the body into the bed of the truck.
As the truck drove
off with its macabre cargo, the team began its patrol again,
glancing at a massive dark object just a quarter mile away. The
barge sat on the beach as if it had been placed there, the superstructure
built over the hull in tatters.
Ironic, isn't
it? thought Danielson.
Mr. Waguespack and his place of work died just a few blocks
from each other.
~*~*~
K plus 102 hours
After a flyover
of the city, President Bush spent an hour touring the flooding
with the governor and the mayor. The three then retired to Air
Force One to begin a momentous meeting, coordinating the relief.
Ellie Elliot was not invited to the meeting, so her knowledge
as to what occurred came from those in the mayor's inner circle.
The mayor was angry,
she was told, and made no bones about hiding his anger from the
governor or the President. He demanded help - a lot more help.
He also showed his appreciation for General Honoré's arrival.
The President agreed that more personnel was needed and pledged
to do whatever he could to get them to the city.
Mr. Bush then turned
to Governor Blanco and talked about how things could be better.
At this time, the governor repeated her insistence for the immediate
return of all Louisiana National Guard personnel and their equipment
from Iraq and Afghanistan. According to what Ellie was told,
both the President and the mayor were taken aback by this demand.
The President told
the governor that help needed to be brought in now, and returning
LANG would take too long and make little practical sense, as
there were additional National Guard troops in other states,
ready to be deployed. Additional troops and personnel would be
needed, he agreed, and he stressed the need for a unified command.
He brought up federalization for the first time.
The governor balked
and requested time to fully consider the ramifications of federalization.
The President did not push the idea and moved on to a joint statement
to be issued before he left New Orleans.
Ellie was stunned
by what she had heard. The President of the United States was
here, asking about what was needed, and the governor was still
talking about her pipe dream of bringing home the LANG? Had the
woman lost her mind?
~*~*~
Elizabeth was catching
up with the news on the radio in the kitchen at Pemberley. Apparently,
a warehouse in New Orleans East had blown up in a spectacular
manner early that morning, alarming most of the city. Authorities
at first were concerned about arson, but now a natural gas leak
was suspected to be the cause, according to the WWL reporter.
WWL 870 AM was owned
by the radio conglomerate Entercom Communications, and because
of the destruction of their New Orleans studio, they had to relocate
to Baton Rouge. In a brilliant stroke, the company came to an
agreement with their biggest competitor, Clear Channel. They
established United Radio Broadcasters of New Orleans, a joint
venture that teamed Entercom and Clear Channel talent to broadcast
hurricane recovery information around the clock, simulcast on
numerous AM and FM frequencies, including WWL's enormous 50,000
watt tower and transmitter, which had survived the storm. Special
phone lines had been set aside for government, utility, and charitable
officials to communicate needed information to citizens through
the hosts. It was the most complete and useful news and information
in the region, and the signal could be picked up at night in
most of the country.
Lizzy turned down
Darcy's Bose Wave radio as Emma walked in. "Where's George?"
Emma sat on a stool
opposite her friend. "He took a shower and then climbed
in bed. The poor dear is exhausted."
Lizzy noted that
Emma's hair was a little damp, but she let her observation go
without comment. The two moved towards the den, Emma looking
all round.
"Lizzy, I don't
think I've ever told you yet just how beautiful Pemberley is."
"I know. It's
hard to believe that this will be my home."
"Here - not
the condo in New Orleans?"
"It's Will's
wish to live here and commute in, and I'm very happy to be of
the same opinion! I grew up in the country, and the city never
really felt like home. We both love it here."
"It's like
a fairytale. Did you ever think you'd be living in an antebellum
plantation house?"
Lizzy laughed. "I
dreamed about it, certainly. But I never thought it would come
true. But, Em, Pemberley's not a real antebellum house."
"Really? It
looks like it. When was it built?"
"This one -
1930."
Emma stopped short.
"This one? How many Pemberleys have there been?"
Lizzy suggested
they sit down in the den. "Now, I'm trying to remember everything
Will told me about this place, so I hope I get it right. This
is the third house on this site - if you don't include the shack
that was the first farmhouse here. The first house was built
by the Dansereau family before the Civil War. They were French
Canadians who immigrated to Louisiana after the War of 1812.
Have you ever seen Destrehan Plantation?"
"Yes - it's
close to the I-310 Bridge."
"Well, I'm
told the original house was much like that - two-story house
with open galleries on three sides. It was like a two-story covered
porch along the front and sides of the house. It didn't have
the flanking two-story wings like Destrehan has. It was entirely
made of wood.
"In 1862, the
Union captured the City of New Orleans almost without a shot.
With the fall of the city, they controlled the lower Mississippi
River from the Gulf to Baton Rouge. Northern gunboats would patrol
the river, looking for rebels. But there weren't any - most of
the Confederate soldiers were in the western part of the state,
or in Mississippi, or back east with General Lee. Bored, the
boat crews would take target practice with their cannons on the
plantation houses lining the river that refused to fly the Union
flag. One day they fired upon Pemberley, and it caught fire.
The slaves by then had already fled, so the family could do nothing
but watch it burn. It's said Mr. Dansereau died of a broken heart."
Emma shook her head.
"How sad!"
Lizzy warmed into
her favorite part of the story. "His wife refused to leave
Pemberley, and she moved into one of the old slave quarters.
One maid, a former slave, stayed with her. But she sent her daughter,
her only child, to the convent in New Orleans - not to be a nun,
but to be educated. By the time Clementine Dansereau left the
convent to live with other family in the city, the war was over
and a young man from England named Henry Darcy had arrived. He
immigrated to the States to work with his cousins, the Fitzwilliams,
in their export business. He soon met Miss Dansereau and they
fell in love. The story goes that she asked but one thing of
him for their wedding - that he rebuild Pemberley for her mother.
He swore he would, as soon as he could afford it.
"The Fitzwilliams'
shipping business did very well, and a few years into their marriage,
Henry began construction on a new Pemberley. Unfortunately, old
Mrs. Dansereau died in one of the yellow fever epidemics, so
she never saw the new house. But Henry and Clementine moved in
a year later and raised their children there."
The two ladies sighed
romantically and then Lizzy continued.
"Henry by then
was a part owner in the shipping business, but he wanted to try
his hand as a gentleman farmer. He tried indigo and tobacco without
success before he turned to sugar cane.
"The Darcys
didn't suffer too much during Reconstruction, due to Henry's
English background - nobody could say he was a rebel. The Fitzwilliams
had lost a son in the war, but their money protected them from
the carpetbaggers. Things proceeded without incident, the house
passing from son to grandson, until it was badly damaged in a
hurricane during the 1920s.
"The stock
market crash of 1929 hurt a lot of people, but it gave an opportunity
to the current owner of Pemberley, Edward Darcy. Labor was cheap,
and the Depression didn't hurt the sugar business too much. He
decided to raze Pemberley completely and rebuild her in the Greek
revival style, all in brick and plaster this time. He put in
modern plumbing and wiring, too. That's the house you see today.
Will's father commissioned a major renovation of the place during
the 1990s." Lizzy waved her hand about the room.
Emma nodded. "So,
this place is a reconstruction. They did a wonderful job, Lizzy."
The phone rang,
and Lizzy checked the Caller ID. "Yep, it's Gina. She's
been calling every day since the phones came back. Please excuse
me."
"No, go ahead.
Tell Gina hi for me."
~*~*~
K plus 106 hours
A disaster in America
had occurred, and the entertainment industry stepped forward
as it always does - it put on a show. In the tradition of George
Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh and all the ones that followed
- Live Aid, Farm Aid, and the 9/11 Concert for New York City
- singers performed acoustic versions of ballads and actors read
from badly written scripts on teleprompters, urging their fellow
citizens to call a toll-free telephone number and donate to a
charity, in this case, the American Red Cross.
Of course, the people
on whose behalf they were performing couldn't hear or see the
concert - they had no power or TV.
NBC's "A Concert
for Hurricane Relief" at least had local talent, like Harry
Connick Jr, Wynton Marsalis, Tim McGraw, and Faith Hill. John
Goodman was a long-time resident of New Orleans. But what did
Lindsay Lohan, Eric LaSalle, Glenn Close, Hilary Swank, Richard
Gere, and Leonardo DiCaprio have to do with the Gulf Coast? Their
pleas were suitably somber, interspaced with photos and footage
of the damage, but one couldn't help but recall the last such
benefit, the one for New York in the wake of 9/11, and the emotional
outpouring of full- and part-time celebrity residents of the
Big Apple gave the event a feeling of sincerity, something that
was missing in this telecast.
Chris and Mari enjoyed
Aaron Neville's soulful performance of Randy Newman's "Louisiana
1927," Mari wiping tears from her eyes. Chris was hoping
that the scandals that engulfed the Red Cross back in 2001 wouldn't
erupt again, when he sat straight up. Comedian Mike Myers had
just finished his solemn pitch when his partner, a rapper named
Kanye West, began to speak.
"What
did he say?" Chris turned to Mari.
Mari blinked. "Something
about soldiers shooting black people in New Orleans."
"Where the
hell does he get off - What!? 'George Bush doesn't care
about black people?' My god, people are dying down here and this
asshole wants to make a political statement!? I don't care what
you think about Bush - that's beyond stupid. Where did they get
this clown?"
Mari shook her head.
"He's a well-known rapper. But that's no excuse to say those
things on national television." Chris jumped up from the
couch and paced, working off his frustration, as Mari tried to
console him. "Baby, please calm down. Look, I'll turn off
the set."
"No, Mari,
leave it on," he fumed. "I know I shouldn't let it
get to me, but this jerk just kicked us in the shorts!"
"I know. Right
now, everybody feels sorry for us. But if this disaster turns
political, turns black vs. white, the region is going to lose
a lot of support. People will be pointing fingers instead of
helping. We've got to stick together."
Chris sat back down
on the couch, wrapping his arm around his wife, as the performers
all sang "When the Saints Go Marching In" to close
the hour-long broadcast.
After the screen
went black, Chris asked, "Heard from Kyle yet?"
Mari frowned as
she shook her head. She had gotten emails or phone calls from
all of the members of her combo except the guitarist. "No,
and I'm really worried about him. All the other guys have checked
in with me. What could have happened to him?"
"I don't know.
Maybe he's caught up in the evacuation and can't get to a phone."
"I hope so,
but I keep worrying that he's trapped somewhere and…"
"Babe, it does
no good to think about what might be."
"You're right."
She was quiet for a minute. "Baby, what are we going to
do if LSU can't reopen Charity anytime soon?"
Chris ran his hand
though his hair. "We'll have to go elsewhere."
"Leave the
state?"
"It's not like
there are a lot of positions for psychiatrists in Louisiana.
Guys with seniority, like Mickey Segura, will get positions somewhere,
but for newbies like me…"
Mari steeled herself.
"Okay. First thing tomorrow we start looking for a new position
for you."
"Honey, I'm
sorry. Your music…"
She slid into his
embrace. "Look, we know my singing is secondary right now.
It was barely paying the bills before the storm. With my insurance
background, I should be able to get a job anywhere."
"I don't want
to leave New Orleans."
"Neither do
I, but we have to be practical. We find a position for you, and
I can continue my music until the city recovers enough so we
can come back home."
Chris looked her
in the eye. "Mari, if we have to leave, we will come back
someday. I promise. We will come back home."
"I know…I
know. As long as we're together, we'll be okay. 'For better or
for worse,' remember?"
He enfolded his
wife into his arms. "And I don't know how much worse it
can get."
~*~*~
Since the National
Guard assumed control of the Convention Center, conditions had
improved for Scott and the Johnson women. The troops brought
in truckloads of water and MREs. The floor was still hard, the
heat was still stifling, and the stench had only grown worse,
but at least their throats weren't parched and their bellies
had food. For the first time since the flooding began, Kaywanda
had hope that this torturous existence she and her small family
had endured was coming to an end.
~*~*~
K plus 109 hours
Even though Governor
Blanco had declined the President's offer of federalization of
the National Guard during the meeting on Air Force One, the White
House was still concerned over the evacuation efforts. Blanco's
continued insistence of the return of the LANG from the Middle
East was worrisome, and aides wondered if state officials had
come to realize the impracticality of the governor's scheme.
Therefore, late that night right before midnight, Washington
offered one last time to place the National Guard under command
of JTF Katrina and General Honoré. Surely Baton Rouge
would see the advantage in consolidating command and control
during this crisis, and they couldn't object to a Louisiana native
being in command.
Baton Rouge promised
a quick response.
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