MEGADOOM's KATRINA DIARY ***Sneak preview of doom***

[Megadoom]

Did you lose your cats and pups?   

You'll have to wait to know, just as I did, left wondering while being stuck in hell south of the lake.

[DellStudio1720]

This is amazing to read.

[Megadoom]

"Ah shit, I've got alot of explaining to do."

or

"I'm squashing your heads, yes you there, I'm squashing your head."

or

"Damn, the plan worked!"

[cindy]

Yes, please continue.  I had surgery to both my carpal tunnel just before Katrina hit, so I wasn't working.  I spent day after day watching the news stations and crying until finally I decided to start an exercise program to get me out of the house.  I can't imagine what it was like to actually live through it.  I, too, am curious about your pets...

[Megadoom]

Yes, please continue.  I had surgery to both my carpal tunnel just before Katrina hit, so I wasn't working.  I spent day after day watching the news stations and crying until finally I decided to start an exercise program to get me out of the house.  I can't imagine what it was like to actually live through it.  I, too, am curious about your pets...

Thanks for the support, I'm working on it now and I might be able to post it later tonight. I'm typing as fast as I can. Monday is a long day....Tuesday even worse.

[quietnite]

Thanks for this, Megadoom.

[Bill Hicks]

"Ah shit, I've got alot of explaining to do."

or

"I'm squashing your heads, yes you there, I'm squashing your head."

or

"Damn, the plan worked!"

How about, "Damn, I HATE it when I have to act like I care.  Karl, do you really think this photograph will be enough?"   

Sobering account Megadoom.  Now I fully understand your screen name.

[msegk]

Your memoir is stunning.

As a Floridian, I'm a fan of Jeff Masters' wunderground blog.  The Katrina coverage was early, dead-on, and amazing.  I followed it round the clock from Thursday on.  There is NO excuse for the doom that Megadoom is sharing with us.

The bloggers began worrying about NOLA Friday since all indications were Katrina would intensify.  On Friday night speculation spiked as data began showing a potential turn to the left.  By Saturday morning, several regular posters became outraged when Nagin didn't order mandatory evacuations.  An EMT even posted that there wasn't enough time to get the job done.  Saturday evening, Nagin recommended voluntary evacuation and the blog went so out of control that NHC-employed posters (who normally don't decloak) said they had pushed Mayfield to call Nagin, which Mayfield finally did.  Then Nagin made evacuation mandatory Sunday morning, which confused people who'd been told it was definitely voluntary.

I mean to tell you, those weather dudes went into mourning even as Megadoom was boarding up.

[wordnerd]

Megadoom
You lived through an amazing experience .
It certainly does have hints of what we can expect in a national disaster
Just think, all of the preps that all of us have made - we would just have to pick up and go - and leave everything behind
Many of us have "bug-out" bags - but the leaving everything behind - is something we haven't had to do. Especially knowing we would never see them again

[wordnerd]

I think most of us are going to die through the dieoff despite our preparations. Great fear with spread throughout the world.

I am pretty sure this is correct
I don't "want" to die - but I do believe I will be one of the ones to "die-off" in a catastrophic situation like this.
In fact, I think I might want too
especially if it wasn't going to be over right away
but go on for years and years
Hard times, I can deal with
the looting, angry and criminal  mobs - no

[Megadoom]

Megadoom
You lived through an amazing experience .
It certainly does have hints of what we can expect in a national disaster
Just think, all of the preps that all of us have made - we would just have to pick up and go - and leave everything behind
Many of us have "bug-out" bags - but the leaving everything behind - is something we haven't had to do. Especially knowing we would never see them again

I'm about to post the next chapter, downloading a few pic files, and will post shortly.

The story gets much worse. Chapter 3 is the most terrifying and what I feel is the point where society collapsed in New Orleans. That's where can see raw human behavior in its purest form. This experience forever changed me, and I'm sure it's what made me - Megadoom.

[Megadoom]

August 29th, 2005

New Orleans EMS had bunkered down for the night on the 5th floor in a large lecture room adjacent to four big windows (Very thick glass). It gave me a nice vantage point to peer out and watch Katrina come rolling in over the city. I could see downtown and all the way to Metairie. During the night I kept watch with my forehead pressed up against the glass eager to see mother nature at a category 5. I think back and wonder why. Ma cob fascination? The other paramedics were mostly asleep in their sleeping bags, as we had probably 45 people strewn across the hard concrete floors, while the supervisors kept busy on the radio's throughout the night. Out in the hallways a command center had been setup with a bank of portable radio chargers and extension cords, I thought surely it was a fire hazard, and many of the paramedics had their cell phones plugged in too. Connection with your love ones, it cannot be stressed enough, was an emotional lifeline for us all.....it was about to be  catastrophically severed.
   Between watching the rain come pouring down against the glass and the wind whipping the giant live oak tree down in the courtyard, I switched to watching the hurricane on radar from my cell phone. The green and red bands spun counter clockwise like a circular saw coming to rip us apart.


After the day's labors I grew too tired to stay awake and passed out on top of my sleeping bag for at least a few hours. When I woke, it was hot and stuffy, the power had gone out. I jumped up, it was 5am in the morning, and went to the glass to peer out. I had to take turns with other medics who wanted to see. It was still dark outside but enough emergency lighting and parts of the city that hadn't lost power were flashing and rumbling in the night. The power lines next to the interstate (I610) were swinging wildly left and right, surely they would toppled over at any moment. Off in the distance huge flashes of light lept skywards from exploding transformers. The wind howl and and flexed the thick window that we stared out of.
   Jacob, one of our supervisors, was busy on the radio's talking with the operations manager; who by the way, was resting comfortably at one of the downtown luxury hotels with the doctor. When I went to use the restroom the toilets were chugging and protesting with pressure changes making ugly rancorous forbidden sounds. I knew they would soon be backing up. Word came in that the West End pumps were unmanned and shutdown. Water began to pile up in the parking lot. I used a white van parked down below to gauge the water depth. There was maybe 4" of water up the tire. We all thought that was alot. LOL. The power lines we had been watching for an hour whipping in the wind finally gave way as the poles snapped and laid to against the interstate. I called my friend, Daryl, who had foolishly decided to stay in his brick house in Pearlington. The house was just a block away from mine. Him and I have been friends for over 20 years going back to playing with star wars figurines and still believing in Santa. I was very worried about him, and had failed to convince him to get out after the last two days talking with him. He was staying with his 75 year old mother and his fiance. Their house was 3' off the ground and he thought they would be safe from the flooding. I could tell he was scared shitless. It was now daylight and 8am. He was talking to me while peering out of his one window that didn't have a plywood board on it when a tree blew over on his mothers car destroying it completely. "Holy shit! There went the car!" Panic was now in his voice has he relayed further destruction. Tree's started bending over everywhere and falling on his workshop (a huge steel and aluminum building) and water started to rapidly come up in his backyard. Soon his 4x4 45k truck was swamped and flooded. I asked nervously where the water was in relation to his house. He said it was up to the door. Holy shit, I thought. Water had never been that high at his house, and checking the radar, it confirmed my worst fears - the eyewall was still 75 miles from Pearlington. Plus Katrina was now making a beeline for the little town....my home. 
   Most of us thought New Orleans had been spared the worst since we were on the West side of the storm and wouldn't be in that dangerous Northeast quadrant. Everybody had thought we would dodge the bullet. Daryl yelled in to the phone that water was starting to come in the door while his mother kicked some towels at the bottom....as if that was going to hold back this monster (kinda of like Obama holding back doom with some bailouts). I heard Daryl curse one last time before losing him. My best friend, 60 miles from the eyewall in a house flooding and winds outside up over 100 mph, was surely doomed. I called my wife and told her what was going on, and she was very panicked. I tried to calm her and started telling a few white lies.
   The supervisor came into the room and gathered everybody's attention: "Dispatch is receiving numerous 911 calls for help, people were dying out in the storm, and desperate for rescue." The national guard was planning to send a deuce and half over to shuttle some medics to the victims and locations. The supervisor wanted volunteers since the winds outside were steady at 85 mph and gusting over a hundred. I was feeling heroic, thinking back I wonder why, and was the first to volunteer. Some of the other medics were aghast that managers would ask us to risk our lives by going out in that mess shaking the windows and sending tree's down the street. I was prior military and knew a deuce and half could stay above the flood waters and certainly stand up to hurricane force winds so I wasn't that frightened...actually excited, anything to keep my mind off my friend, my house, my pets, and my family. The supervisor elicited a few more volunteers and we started to get gear up to go out into the storm. I went downstairs to the lobby passing up the 3rd floor where most of NOPD were hanging out. Some of their family's had also taken shelter with them there, and in addition to some of LSU's staff, it was all very crowded. Outside the lobby the winds were howling and through the concrete pillars and I could barely open the door to test the wind. Water was quickly filling the parking lot, quicker then it had been in the last hour, and I wondered what was up. I came back up and word began to spread that the 17th st canal levy was breached and the bowl that was New Orleans was flooding! It was another one of those holy shit moments!
   One of the cops had a portable battery powered TV and many of us gathered around it to watch the news reports. It wasn't long before the water began pouring into the 1st floor lobby of the dental school which was a good 10' off the ground. A dozen police cars that were sheltered in the circular driveway next to the building began to quickly flood. There emergency lights started going off from the electronics getting wet. It was surreal to watch the blue lights and strobes do their thing as water covered them completely, the flashes still going while deep underwater.

The lobby now had 4 feet of water and several of us watched the furniture topple over and float in and out of the vicious eddies. Lenny, a highly respected paramedic that worked on the extrication team began busting into the snack machines (they were bolted to the floor and didn't float) with a police baton and a fireman's axe. He yelled for me to come help. I marched through the water, now up up above my navel, pushing the cold waters filled with god knows what in around my groin. Lenny said that security had suggested that we salvage the snacks and drinks from the machines since they were now ruined. "Hey, that was a good idea," I thought, so I beat and kicked the glass separating me from the goodies. It's harder then it looks and required chairs, tools, and a fire extinguisher (in my case) to break the glass. I grabbed a clean garbage can and filled it with the soda's, candies, and ice cream. The water was continuing to fill the lobby up while we hurried to finish the job. Proud of our steal we lugged the food and drinks up the stairs, and that's when we heard the barking, yelping, and whine of dogs far below towards the basement. "What the fuck!" I said. Flood waters were pouring down the stairs towards the basement like a man-made waterfall, a very cold waterfall that sent me shivering. Just then a frantic police officer with a flashlight came bounding down the stairs and into the waterfall below. I could hear dogs barking in the darkness from where he ran to and a few barks in the floors above us. We yelled at the cop, "what's going on?"
   "Our dogs are drowning!" he said. Oh my god, I thought running after him with Lenny following close behind. Scared shitless at this point, I fumbled for my waterproof flashlight in my left BTU pocket and struggled to pull it free. I could see the cop ahead of us disappear into the murky muddy waters. Shit! I stepped off the last set of stairs and was now up to my neck in the flood. The cold water took the breath out of me. There was maybe 4' of space left to the ceiling and the waterfall sounds coming from behind me warned our instincts we didn't have much longer. I could see the cop diving in and out of the water for something. I kept colliding with stuff in the water (furniture, equipment, and......cages!) The cop screamed the police dogs are in the cages! OK...now I was panicked. Lenny and I began pawing around in the dark expecting our hands to land on a furry German Shepard and who was probably lifeless or worse - frightened and ready to bite. Lenny yelled, "I feel a cage!" I rushed over to help as he unlatched it and felt around inside. Working next to him I could feel the dog being pulled free. It wasn't moving. The cop saw that we had something and came rushing over too. We hurried unable to get our footing in the muddy slippery submersed tile floors while pulling the K9 to the stairs. I had to be careful not to let the rising water into my mouth. "Oh shit!" I screamed as several plastic bags floated by my head filled with what look like flesh and teeth.

I didn't want to know what it was and kept pressing forward with everything that made me human: survival at all costs. Lenny and I pulled the dead dog up the stairs and to the next landing. The cop was hysterical mumbling incoherently. WTH I thought, my mom used to raise rottweilers and sometimes the pups would have problems that required doggy CPR. I had never done it on a full grown dog. I began pumping on its chest and giving mouth to mouth, though I confess I'm not sure how much air was getting in with a German Shepard. Lenny and the cop helped as best they could. Minutes ticked by and nothing..... The dogs eyes didn't have that glazed look and the gum coloration looked promising so I continued. A sweep of excitement swept over us, especially me since I had a mouth full of dog spit, as the trusty Shepard started moving and panting. I could tell he was still in distress but as far as we were concerned it was a fucking miracle. Another cop came and brought a towel to wrap the dog in and bring him upstairs. Lenny ran to the 5th floor to grab our oxygen bottles and a facemask. I grabbed the IV bag and started an IV in the forearm of the dog and Lenny snapped the mask on the snout. It would be comical if not so tragic. The dog died 4 hours later after suffering a seizure. Life and death came and went at leisure. I'm glad I didn't know until months later after talking with that cop. 10 police dogs drowned, 4 saved. No-one thought the dental school could flood like that was the reasoning I heard from the K9 police. Later, after bumping into a dental tech staying with his family on the third floor that the floating baggies were experiments and cadaver parts for the dental students. Like I said, I'm glad I didn't know what they were at the time.
   Exhausted, we dragged the plastic bags and cans filled with soda and snacks to our floor, stopping momentarily on the 3rd to allow the police a crack at the loot. After distributing everything we found out that the radio's had lost communication with the EOC and Mark/Dr. Juliet. Cell phones weren't working either. Some of us who had AT&T were able to get a signal, I had Verizon, and we shared time on the phone to talk to our family's. I made the mistake to tell my wife that I was going out in the storm when the military truck arrived and she screamed and cried trying to convince me not to do it. I should have lied or not mentioned it, but my pride and the rare moment of feeling heroic left me spouting about what was going on. My wife had anxiety disorder so I should have known better. What made it even worse is that I had to cut her short since the battery was quickly dying on the borrowed cell phone. I said my goodbye's not knowing when I would be able to speak with her again. I could tell she was panicked and would probably have a nervous breakdown. My thoughts turned to my friend and my home/pets back in Pearlington. Katrina had come ashore right at my little town. What were the chances that the most powerful hurricane on record would hit my house.I could only hope. I adapted by taking my mind off it and focusing on the drama at hand.  Alas, the deuce and half never materialized as I waited hours suited up to go out. Since we had no way to communicate with the EOC we couldn't find out where the national guard trucks were or frankly...what was going on. Soon, people's phones were dead from the lack of electricity to recharge them. The portable radio's had triple backup but Jacob, the supervisor decided to drop to one main radio and use all the other batteries to power it. He and one of the dispatchers spent the afternoon and evening trying to get a signal out. The lobby was now flooded up to my neck, but at least the winds were beginning to calm down some. The live oak tree outside was now stripped completely of its limbs and a good deal of limbs.
   The hot stifling shadowing insides gave wave to late evening and not much was said by anyone. We just waited. Eventually, it grew too hot and one of us shot out a window to give us some ventilation. My last visit to the bathroom found me splashing into a overflowed latrine backed up by the flooding. Later that night it was to get worse as many of us had to do number 2. Stool and toilet paper floated down the halls by morning. Forget the smell, I don't even want to talk about it. I didn't sleep much but rather paced the East hall looking towards the city. The supervisor was staring off in the distance with a pair of binoculars and the dispatcher kept repeating: "EOC, this NOHD at the dental school, come in." He tried vainly on every channel. I had a headache now as my head bobbed with fatigue. Around 2am dispatch decided to bounce a signal off the FAA airport tower and found some reception on a remote channel. Hours later some scratchy signal was received and the first few messages came across. "New Orleans completely flooded, NO east crew in peril, units destroyed, requesting coast guard help!"
   So completes the second day of doom.
   

[Dry Observer]

Really interesting, Megadoom. One thing I remember about the aftermath of Katrina, and that I often cite as a way of getting people to think about dealing with an ongoing crisis, is that some towns didn't get their power restored for months afterwards.

One of CNN's field reporters' hometown is in that area, and she kept going back to see how the rebuilding was going. You would think that with the reconstruction being shown on national television, they would have gotten a little more help than other places (heck, maybe they did). But as they go along in the series, you see them celebrating Thanksgiving with no power, Christmas with no power, and so on, on top of all their other problems.

It was revealing, to say the least, and it's an easy sell to a lot of people in less-developed areas -- that maybe your rural area or small town won't be at the top of the list for reconstruction in a major disaster (assuming there is any large-scale reconstruction -- but that's a subject for more flexible thinkers).

So... how would you handle being on your own for several months, as an individual, as a family, as a business, as a community, without an outside supply of electrical power?

[Megadoom]

Really interesting, Megadoom. One thing I remember about the aftermath of Katrina, and that I often cite as a way of getting people to think about dealing with an ongoing crisis, is that some towns didn't get their power restored for months afterwards.

One of CNN's field reporters' hometown is in that area, and she kept going back to see how the rebuilding was going. You would think that with the reconstruction being shown on national television, they would have gotten a little more help than other places (heck, maybe they did). But as they go along in the series, you see them celebrating Thanksgiving with no power, Christmas with no power, and so on, on top of all their other problems.

It was revealing, to say the least, and it's an easy sell to a lot of people in less-developed areas -- that maybe your rural area or small town won't be at the top of the list for reconstruction in a major disaster (assuming there is any large-scale reconstruction -- but that's a subject for more flexible thinkers).

So... how would you handle being on your own for several months, as an individual, as a family, as a business, as a community, without an outside supply of electrical power?

Pearlington didn't see power for the most part until January 06'. It took 6 months for us to get into a FEMA trailer on our property, but I'm jumping ahead.

How would I handle it?
It's quite simple...really. You get used to it, and you do your best.

[Dry Observer]

Really interesting, Megadoom. One thing I remember about the aftermath of Katrina, and that I often cite as a way of getting people to think about dealing with an ongoing crisis, is that some towns didn't get their power restored for months afterwards.

One of CNN's field reporters' hometown is in that area, and she kept going back to see how the rebuilding was going. You would think that with the reconstruction being shown on national television, they would have gotten a little more help than other places (heck, maybe they did). But as they go along in the series, you see them celebrating Thanksgiving with no power, Christmas with no power, and so on, on top of all their other problems.

It was revealing, to say the least, and it's an easy sell to a lot of people in less-developed areas -- that maybe your rural area or small town won't be at the top of the list for reconstruction in a major disaster (assuming there is any large-scale reconstruction -- but that's a subject for more flexible thinkers).

So... how would you handle being on your own for several months, as an individual, as a family, as a business, as a community, without an outside supply of electrical power?

Pearlington didn't see power for the most part until January 06'. It took 6 months for us to get into a FEMA trailer on our property, but I'm jumping ahead.

How would I handle it?
It's quite simple...really. You get used to it, and you do your best.

Oh, I wasn't directing that last at you. That's the kind of hypothetical question I drop on people. Once they realize that's happened to people in a bunch of towns, even one showing up repeatedly on television, in the United States, it makes the possibility a bit more real. And I think it's a great starting point for people.

Forget societal collapse for the moment. Forget the idea that nobody might be producing spare food for your consumption. What do you do "when the lights go out," when the grid goes down and doesn't come back up.

Just answering that question makes people rethink so many fundamentals about their lives and helps them realize that their backup plan has to be more than three bags of Cheetos and a 24-pack of Pepsi.

...Maybe twice that many Cheetos, ya know? 

But yeah, after what you've been through in Katrina, I'm assuming you can conceive of a long-term blackout with no other complications -- you're just not expecting anything that easy to go down.