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10/13/2005
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Thank you Shady,Wing, and the rest of my friends of the q3 community for your care and concern. I did get the emails you all sent. Thank you. It's great to be back!!
Today is the first day since Hurricane Katrina that I have my internet connection and my cable tv restored. Not only did my parents lose their home from the storm, my Uncle did as well. Now they are all living with me and my family. While my mother was fortunate enough to be able to salvage a few trinkets of memory and importance, my Uncle was unable to save anything. The water rose up above the roof.
While sections of the Slidell Parish were hit hard, as is the case with my Parents and Uncle, some areas did very well. While I'm just a mere mile from their houses, we had no standing water. Though, of course, there were so many trees down, no roads were passable. Driving through the area was a shock in the days following the storm. I had to park three blocks from the house and walk the rest of the way. While this was amazing, compared to new orleans, we were living it up with our generators and window A/C units. I spent the first three days after the storm working ANd sleeping at the jail in Covington.
In New Orleans they were air lifting thousands from rooftops, dealing with looters who decided it might be fun to shoot and kill rescue workers, criminals raping and pilaging everything in their path, massive flooding, and the feeling that you were alone in a world that had just come to an end. When I was finally able to drive into New Orleans, I was overcome with the feeling of nausea and was preparing to vomit. The destruction and devastation is utterly horrifying. Driving through a town that I lived in for years, looking at what used to be, you could not imagine anything this apocolyptic would ever occur naturally. Just through the drive in, on the highway, you could spot the water level lines on every structure around you and realize the water was well above yourself. Every car that stayed in New Orleans during the storm was under the water, and now standing lifeless encased in a layer of ashy, muddy dust. Buildings everywhere collapsing, walls knocked over, and not a soul in sight. The worst being the odor. The water that came in left everything with the stench of the sewer, moldy fungus growing everywhere, and overpowering to even those who can stand to eat kimshee (oriental seaweed, buried under the earth for months to rot, dug up, water added, and jarred for your palatable pleasure).
I have many friends who lost everything in new Orleans. All of them are finding new lives in whatever remote locations they were evacuated/transported/airllifted to. There is nothing for them to return to. The city is completely disabled. Whatever areas were only moderately affected are stuck in time. The small businesses that want to open up to the remaining public that is there, can not find enough people available in the workforce to help them make money. Power is still of in the majority of the area, and water still undrinkable. All larger corporations have moved operations to other locations all over the country, which left many having to either move with them, or be unemployed.
Having said all that, I'm desperately waiting around for the New Orleans City Council or the Mayor (Nagin) to temporarily/permenantly suspend the Law Enforcement residency rule so that I may work Criminal Patrol in their city. They are desperate for officers. Although, in my efforts to speak with Human Resources in New Orleans, I learned all of their offices were combined into a small room. Warrants, Crime Lab, Detectives, Administration, HR, Payroll, etc., are all in the same office, sharing a cell phone. Whatever person they did have in HR is now MIA. So even before they are able to hire officers from outside of the city lines, they will need to hire a staffer.
The first weeks following the storm, after returning home, locating my family members, and trying to organize our lives, I provided outside security to a local nursing home that had a constant flow of people looking for shelters. Since all power was out everywhere, and the home has a massive generator, it was a massive light source, a signal of life in a dead city. Additionally, looters had begun breaking into the pharmaceutical stores trying to maintin their habits while thier prior sources were evacuated.
It was a wild ride, one I will never forget. While my son was in another city for the storm, he did come back about a week afterwards. He too will never forget the desruction he has witnessed. Fortunately, school started back up last week, providing some feeling of a return to normalcy.
It will continually get better and better. I look forward to helping New Orleans. The future is suprisingly bright, like a clean slate. My parents will be moving into the rental property next door to me. My uncle will be moving into an apartment next month, with whatever new belongings he has since collected.
What will the world be like tomorrow?
-Ho (BobFromAccounting)
The last three images are from my neighborhood...
These next three images are from my neighborhood..
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