Katrina Pot Poury
October 2005
I couldn't seem to turn the television off. I just sat there, a captive of my emotions: sadness, disgust, anger, frustration, empathy, helplessness. Then about the forth or fifth day the obvious finally occurred to me. I was retired. I had a few extra bucks. I had absolutely no obligations to anyone. And I had a new car. Just get off your ass Jim, and go. So I did. I loaded my car with cases of water and food and headed for the Gulf Coast. The only plan I had was to drive south to Mobile and then take I 10 west until I found folks who needed help.
I keep a well stocked evacuation duffle in my trunk, so I really didn't even have to pack. Maybe the first few hours I had some fleeting doubts about the practicality of my trip. One Toyota Corolla full of food and water wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket. But the longer I drove the more I realized that the trip wasn't about how much I could really help-- it was about me being there. I didn't want to arrive at the gulf tired and in the dark, so I stopped at the Holiday Inn in Montgomery Alabama. I was lucky to get a room, because they filled up before dark, and the desk clerk told me the Mobile hotels were all full. The next day I stopped at a Wal Mart on the outskirts of Mobile and filled up the space I had left with dog and cat food. But then I realized that I didn't have a genuine necessity, especially if I had to spend the night in my car. No booze. No way I was going to tackle Katrina without a bottle of Stoli.
The clerk at Wal Mart couldn't help, but I finally found a bar open and got directions to the nearest liquor store. As I was leaving the bar a young guy who was obviously a local asked me if I could spare a dollar. So I said to myself, "hey I came down here to help, buy the guy a beer". But when I opened my billfold, I didn't have any singles, just some crisp new twenties from the ATM, so I gave him a twenty and told him to enjoy himself. He said wow, or something like that, shook my hand and said "God bless you". Yep, I was in the south alright.
Finally on I 10 headed west, at one point (I don't remember where it was) I ran into a stop and creep traffic jam that must have been several miles long. Actually I was quite patient sitting there because I assumed that I was coming to a National Guard checkpoint and someone there would tell me where to go. But it turned out that a bridge across some river had been damaged and they had closed the south side of I 10. There were signs directing us into one lane but no officials of any kind around. Within a few hundred yards after both lanes opened up we were whizzing along at 70 MPH again. In Gulf Port, a number of businesses were open, but all the lights were out and the National Guard was directing traffic. I still had no idea where I was going, so I tuned in to a local radio station to get information. A Red Cross official came on the air and announced that he had heard there were a people out there in cars who had come to help, but didn't know where to go. He went on to brag about how hard he was working and he had work for everybody that could volunteer. But then he said "just report to the Harrision County School" (might not be the correct name of the county). Period. Someone else came on and the information continued, but no one seemed to have realized that people from out of town driving around had no idea where the hell the H* County School was. I did see a huge parking lot where a number of tractor trailers were unloading, but I didn't drive 700 miles to drop off my stuff at a staging area, so after about a half hour of driving around the area looking for a way to get in or find anyone who could tell me where stuff was needed, I just got back on I 10 and headed west again.
Pretty soon the damage along the highway became more obvious, but still no sign of officials. At one point I pulled off and tried to determine from the map where I was. It looked like I was somewhere around Pass Christian or Long Beach. Katrina had torn most of the signs apart so it was really hard to know where I was. (If I had bought the map software for my fancy new GPS receiver I would have been able to tell, but no matter). So I just turned left and started looking for people.
Occasionally I would see a house with the folks who lived there sorting out the remains of their stuff. By now the damage was pretty bad. Someone had been through there sawing downed trees across the road and making it fairly passable. Wires were down everywhere and in a couple of places I had just enough headroom to drive under telephone poles leaning precariously across the road. I had no idea whether some of the wires were live or not, so as a precaution that may have been pointlessly silly, I was careful to not lean against the door as I drove over them. Eventually I came to a National Guard road block that marked the start of the quarantined area, but he didn't know where a distribution point was, just that I should turn left there.
Finally I came across a church school of some sort that had local people setting up a distribution point, so at last my little drop in the bucket had arrived to the people that needed it. Some folks helped me unload my car, and then I joined them to unload a trailer that I gathered had come from a parent church associated with the school. I was pleased to see that others had thought to send food for the pets and things to give the kids something fun to do. After a couple of hours, I reluctantly realized that I would have to abandon my plan to stay several days. I am just too damn old. Working in that oppressive heat, and having to sleep in my car with the windows rolled up to keep from being eaten alive, and to wake up dripping with sweat every hour or so and having to start the car and run the air conditioner long enough to make it bearable would have been more than I could handle. If I had stayed I realized that I was a good candidate for heat stroke, and the area already had all the health emergences it needed. So I headed north on Mississippi 49 to avoid the traffic jam on I 10. This must have been the route Katrina took because there was major damage all along 49 and I 59 toward Meridian. There I picked up I 20 and headed east and home.
Just over the Georgia state line I came across the Welcome to Georgia rest area. Amazing. Those folks had their act together. There was every kind of emergency vehicle one could imagine; generators running, people extremely well organized. It was set up like a country fair. Clothing here, food there, baby needs over there. Folks were busy making sandwiches, setting up places to rest, to register, to get information. It has been a long time since I have been impressed by anything a bureaucracy has put together. The only problem was that very few evacuees came that way--- just one of those impossible communication realities, very difficult to get information flowing from those with help to those in need. But never again will I make fun of Georgia--- that peanut farmer clearly has a lot of neighbors just like him.
And that brings me to the real point of this discourse. Somewhere on the other side of my web page, I wrote about how proud I was to be an American in the 9/11 aftermath, but that our subsequent behavior has left me disillusioned. Then driving down I 65 from Montgomery to Mobile, I realized I was in a caravan. There were hundreds of us- trailer trucks with relief signs taped to them, buses packed with water, food and helpers, trailers and pickups loaded with supplies, good old boys towing their flat bottomed boats ---- it was wonderful. Once again, I was proud to be a part of something. But it really didn't have anything to do with being an American, or a Christian, or any of the traditional ways we have distinguished ourselves. The very same kind of people rushed to the devastated beaches in the Indian Ocean. The classification I was privileged to be a part of is, in the end, our greatest, perhaps only, hope. The People Who Go to Help.
October 2005
I couldn't seem to turn the television off. I just sat there, a captive of my emotions: sadness, disgust, anger, frustration, empathy, helplessness. Then about the forth or fifth day the obvious finally occurred to me. I was retired. I had a few extra bucks. I had absolutely no obligations to anyone. And I had a new car. Just get off your ass Jim, and go. So I did. I loaded my car with cases of water and food and headed for the Gulf Coast. The only plan I had was to drive south to Mobile and then take I 10 west until I found folks who needed help.
I keep a well stocked evacuation duffle in my trunk, so I really didn't even have to pack. Maybe the first few hours I had some fleeting doubts about the practicality of my trip. One Toyota Corolla full of food and water wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket. But the longer I drove the more I realized that the trip wasn't about how much I could really help-- it was about me being there. I didn't want to arrive at the gulf tired and in the dark, so I stopped at the Holiday Inn in Montgomery Alabama. I was lucky to get a room, because they filled up before dark, and the desk clerk told me the Mobile hotels were all full. The next day I stopped at a Wal Mart on the outskirts of Mobile and filled up the space I had left with dog and cat food. But then I realized that I didn't have a genuine necessity, especially if I had to spend the night in my car. No booze. No way I was going to tackle Katrina without a bottle of Stoli.
The clerk at Wal Mart couldn't help, but I finally found a bar open and got directions to the nearest liquor store. As I was leaving the bar a young guy who was obviously a local asked me if I could spare a dollar. So I said to myself, "hey I came down here to help, buy the guy a beer". But when I opened my billfold, I didn't have any singles, just some crisp new twenties from the ATM, so I gave him a twenty and told him to enjoy himself. He said wow, or something like that, shook my hand and said "God bless you". Yep, I was in the south alright.
Finally on I 10 headed west, at one point (I don't remember where it was) I ran into a stop and creep traffic jam that must have been several miles long. Actually I was quite patient sitting there because I assumed that I was coming to a National Guard checkpoint and someone there would tell me where to go. But it turned out that a bridge across some river had been damaged and they had closed the south side of I 10. There were signs directing us into one lane but no officials of any kind around. Within a few hundred yards after both lanes opened up we were whizzing along at 70 MPH again. In Gulf Port, a number of businesses were open, but all the lights were out and the National Guard was directing traffic. I still had no idea where I was going, so I tuned in to a local radio station to get information. A Red Cross official came on the air and announced that he had heard there were a people out there in cars who had come to help, but didn't know where to go. He went on to brag about how hard he was working and he had work for everybody that could volunteer. But then he said "just report to the Harrision County School" (might not be the correct name of the county). Period. Someone else came on and the information continued, but no one seemed to have realized that people from out of town driving around had no idea where the hell the H* County School was. I did see a huge parking lot where a number of tractor trailers were unloading, but I didn't drive 700 miles to drop off my stuff at a staging area, so after about a half hour of driving around the area looking for a way to get in or find anyone who could tell me where stuff was needed, I just got back on I 10 and headed west again.
Pretty soon the damage along the highway became more obvious, but still no sign of officials. At one point I pulled off and tried to determine from the map where I was. It looked like I was somewhere around Pass Christian or Long Beach. Katrina had torn most of the signs apart so it was really hard to know where I was. (If I had bought the map software for my fancy new GPS receiver I would have been able to tell, but no matter). So I just turned left and started looking for people.
Occasionally I would see a house with the folks who lived there sorting out the remains of their stuff. By now the damage was pretty bad. Someone had been through there sawing downed trees across the road and making it fairly passable. Wires were down everywhere and in a couple of places I had just enough headroom to drive under telephone poles leaning precariously across the road. I had no idea whether some of the wires were live or not, so as a precaution that may have been pointlessly silly, I was careful to not lean against the door as I drove over them. Eventually I came to a National Guard road block that marked the start of the quarantined area, but he didn't know where a distribution point was, just that I should turn left there.
Finally I came across a church school of some sort that had local people setting up a distribution point, so at last my little drop in the bucket had arrived to the people that needed it. Some folks helped me unload my car, and then I joined them to unload a trailer that I gathered had come from a parent church associated with the school. I was pleased to see that others had thought to send food for the pets and things to give the kids something fun to do. After a couple of hours, I reluctantly realized that I would have to abandon my plan to stay several days. I am just too damn old. Working in that oppressive heat, and having to sleep in my car with the windows rolled up to keep from being eaten alive, and to wake up dripping with sweat every hour or so and having to start the car and run the air conditioner long enough to make it bearable would have been more than I could handle. If I had stayed I realized that I was a good candidate for heat stroke, and the area already had all the health emergences it needed. So I headed north on Mississippi 49 to avoid the traffic jam on I 10. This must have been the route Katrina took because there was major damage all along 49 and I 59 toward Meridian. There I picked up I 20 and headed east and home.
Just over the Georgia state line I came across the Welcome to Georgia rest area. Amazing. Those folks had their act together. There was every kind of emergency vehicle one could imagine; generators running, people extremely well organized. It was set up like a country fair. Clothing here, food there, baby needs over there. Folks were busy making sandwiches, setting up places to rest, to register, to get information. It has been a long time since I have been impressed by anything a bureaucracy has put together. The only problem was that very few evacuees came that way--- just one of those impossible communication realities, very difficult to get information flowing from those with help to those in need. But never again will I make fun of Georgia--- that peanut farmer clearly has a lot of neighbors just like him.
And that brings me to the real point of this discourse. Somewhere on the other side of my web page, I wrote about how proud I was to be an American in the 9/11 aftermath, but that our subsequent behavior has left me disillusioned. Then driving down I 65 from Montgomery to Mobile, I realized I was in a caravan. There were hundreds of us- trailer trucks with relief signs taped to them, buses packed with water, food and helpers, trailers and pickups loaded with supplies, good old boys towing their flat bottomed boats ---- it was wonderful. Once again, I was proud to be a part of something. But it really didn't have anything to do with being an American, or a Christian, or any of the traditional ways we have distinguished ourselves. The very same kind of people rushed to the devastated beaches in the Indian Ocean. The classification I was privileged to be a part of is, in the end, our greatest, perhaps only, hope. The People Who Go to Help.
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