Hurricane Katrina. Where shall I begin?
Well, I guess I should start on Sunday, August 28, 2005. That day, I was mostly asleep, as is normal for me because I work the night shift. Thus, I missed New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin issue his mandatory evacuation order. I didn't really realize that anything was wrong until I explicably woke up a few hours before I was due into work. I'd been up for a couple of hours when the power in my apartment complex in Metairie went out. At first I thought it was just my apartment's power that had gone out until I went outside, trusty Mag-Lite in hand and noticed that there wasn't a single light on in any of the other apartments. "So this is it, then; this is the proverbial 'it.'" Even though it was only about 9:30 that night, I decided to drive downtown to the office building in which I work. There was no visible power outages on the way there, which was a bit reassuring, although there were also no cars going in either direction along the way, not even police cars.
Water was running; children were running
You were running out of time
Under the mountain, a golden fountain
Were you praying at the Lares shrine?
I got to work and parked where I usually do, on South Maestri Street, which runs along the back of the building, between a public park and then North Maestri Street, on which was a federal building and a post office. When I got to the revolving doors of my building, the overnight security staff was busying themselves bracing the doors with 2x4 boards, so I had to walk around to the front of the building to enter through the one non-revolving door to gain entry. The security guys paid me no mind, so I took the elevator up to the tenth floor, where my office and our company's massive datacenter lies.
Work progressed in a mostly normal fashion; the only indication that something was amiss was the very occasional hiccups in the building's power, which the UPSes took care of without an awkward glance. I'd worked my full eight-hour shift when the power finally went out for good. Jim, the other night guy who doesn't normally work on Sundays, was there in preparation for the incoming storm, due to his distrust in the 250-year-old building in which he lived. He spent most of the night trying to catch some sleep on the floor of his office while I went about my nightly work duties. At approximately 5:30am, the power quit. Our diesel generator kicked itself on, keeping us in business.
But oh your city lies in dust, my friend
As Monday morning dawned, it became apparent that this was to be no normal, blink-and-you-miss-it hurricane. As the sun shown through the thick, cyclonic clouds, we witnessed windows breaking, the streets below being literally torn apart, and the same was happening to all the other buildings we could see from our office windows, which were graduallly but brutally beginning to shatter. These windows were of the double-layer variety; the outer layer was UV-treated plastic, and they were the first to go. When an inch-and-a-half window breaks, it wants you to notice it, I thought. The breakages sounded like major ordnance going off very close to where our desks lay. As it turned out, the company's CEO, Sig, the CTO, Donny, and our security specalist Mike (and his girlfriend Crystal) were on the eleventh floor preparing for the day's recovery work.
Sooner than any of us could say "Jack Ketch," our team was moving all the office's computers as far away from the windows as possible, and running thick, industrial-strength extension cables from the generator (which was situated on the ninth floor of the build's parking garage) to our office, the colocation room, and the build room which was situated within the datacenter. We lent some of this generator-borne electricity to others who had decided to weather the storm in their places of employment, so they could run their TVs and watch the news, microwave ovens for the preparation of food, and water coolers. Many of these people, who on a normal day wouldn't have been allowed to even glimpse inside the datacenter or colo room, were invited in by Sig to help out with the strengthening storm and the havoc it was wreaking on everything. Lawyers, accountants, secretaries, security guards, and janitors were all running to and fro to help staunch the flow of water that was quickly making its way into the datacenter with mops, a Shop-Vac, and a cache of promotional t-shirts we still had lying around from when were trying to get that project off the ground. The problem was that the north-facing wall of the datacenter was drywall, but behind the drywall, the windows that covered the rest of the building were still in place so as to maintain visual conformity from the ground. Most of these windows were the first to break, and hurricane force winds and increasing puddles of water were rapidly spreading from beneath the drywall and towards the 100-some racks and their countless, mission-critical servers in the datacenter and colo. Where the walls met the floor were quickly covered by the aforementioned t-shirts and the rest was rapidly mopped up (thanks to the maintanence guys, Jim, and myself) and the Shop-Vac. As the wind shifted direction, the water gradually receeded.
We found you hiding we found you lying
Choking on the dirt and sand
Your former glories and all the stories
Dragged and washed with eager hands
While the rainwater was being beaten back, the windows in the build room started cracking and so we pushed/pulled as many storage cabinets and file boxes we could find in there and strapped to them to the window frames with rolls of coaxial and CAT5 cable to desks, shelves, and whatever else we could find, hoping to minimize the damage that could've conceivably been caused had the inner window panes broken. While the putty holding the two separate panes of glass together started failing, all we could do was wait. We spent a large portion of the three days we spent in the general area just generally milling about on the internet, taking pictures of the carnage beneath the room's now half-thick windows, and engaging in interviews with CNN, the BBC, and a few local news stations, as we were the only place at ground zero with not only power but also with net access. The interviews were conducted wholly via ICQ and AIM, since cell phone reception was either non-existant or so spotty as to be unusable.
We were able to force open the electric (unpowered) access gate to the building's garage, to allow for more barrels of diesel fuel to be brought to the generator. The National Guard and some U.S. Army detachments also used the garage as a staging area for the general downtown district. Martial law had been declared the day after the hurricane departed for parts north.
By Tuesday morning, I was starting to get sick from SSRI withdrawal. (I left all my meds at home, of course) Since I'm a vegan, Crystal (the team's designated cook, with what little food was available to us) did a good job by offering me bread, peanut butter sandwiches, and whatever else we could find to fit a vegan's diet. All the rest of the team were omnivores, so they managed to maintain a greater degree of health than I, despite subsisting on little more than store-brand lunch meat, Kraft singles, and store-brand sandwich bread, all warmed on a generator-powered George Foreman grill.
Tuesday morning I decided to go check on my car, which, as you recall, I had parked on the street on Sunday evening. I was shocked to find out that it hadn't had the slightest ding on it indeed, it was filthy from all the shit falling all around it (mostly roofing insulation, broken glass, and tar paper), but it seemed as though most of the debris had fallen around, but not on my car. I think the biggest piece I had to remove was a 3"x3" piece of roofing insulation. Given the relatively pristene condition the car was in, I went for a drive, just to take a look at other areas of the city. I drove uptown, to the Garden Disrict. I was able to get to around Napoleon Avenue and St. Charles Avenue before the fallen trees became completely impassible. There were no open stores or gas stations. Every store I passed which might've sold the tiniest morsel of food was in the process of being looted. The Walgreens on St. Charles was probably the biggest target that I was able to see (though the Wal*Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street was reportedly hit very hard by the looters). At the Walgreens, a crowd was gathered outside and making orders to those who would venture in to retrieve what they needed, mostly food and prescription drugs, as the looters had managed, after blowing out the main entrance with shotguns, to destroy the steel gates that protected it by repeated firing by a wide range of large cailber weapons at it, which I could hear as I drove past. Police cars drove past as it was just another day, although I can sympathise with with their non-violent law non-enforcement in the face of gangs of thugs armed with AK-47s or Desert Eagles.
On Tuesday afternoon, when I was really starting to feel sick from SSRI withdrawal, I heard on the news (we were fortunate enough to have a TV in our little build room enclave) that there was a way ouf of the city, across the Crescent City Connection bridge to the West Bank, the outlying suburbs of New Orleans. I took advantage of this, having had the unknowing foresight to have filled my car's gas tank the Saturday before the shit hit the fan. The way to the bridge, and the bridge itself was clear, and so off I went. There wasn't much traffic heading west, and I didn't encounter a town that had power until I reached Bayou Vista, some seventy miles west of New Orleans. Given that I'd been wearing the same jeans, socks, shirt and undies since the previous Sunday, I was beyond relieved when I found a Wal*Mart in Bayou Vista, where I picked up some comfortable driving clothes and promptly changed into them in my car's back seat, oblivious to the onlookers possibly spying my private parts, as it were.
After a stop at a neighbouring Burger King for a BK Veggie Burger (sans mayo and cheese), I was off again. I got to Lafayette before finding a northbound route, in this case I-10 east, which could've taken be back to the city I'd just left, instead deposited me onto I-12 and then I-55, which I took to Jackson, Mississippi, where I picked up I-20 east to Meridian. There, I spent one hour in line for gas ($2.59/gallon; cheap by the standards of only five days later), and searched in vain for a hotel room for the night. I pressed on. Brandon had power, but no hotel rooms. Ditto for Tuscaloosa. Finally I was able to find a room at a Days Inn on the outskirts of Birmingham; the last room they had available. Showering for the first time in three days was nothing short of heavenly, as was sleeping on an actual bed as opposed to non-shag office carpet with no pillows or blankets.
I checked out of the Days Inn around 11:00 the following morning and arrived at my parents' house in Spring Hill, Tennessee, around 1:00 the following afternoon, where I've been ever since.
I do not know if my home still exists, or if the storm razed it to the ground, flooded it, or sent it off to the merry old land of Oz. I left my two beloved cats, Pepper and Jena, in the apartment because I stupidly thought I'd be returning home the following day. I fear the worst for their safety. I'm almost certain that their spirits have gone to whatever version of an afterlife that cats may experience. Based on my stupid, misguided foresight, I've deemed myself unworthy to ever adopt another cat. I simply don't deserve them after this. Pepper and Jena, I love you, and I'm so, so sorry. I'm a fool. You will both live on as saints in my memory.
As for me, my fate remains uncertain. I do not know if my apartment block survived. I do not know that I would return to New Orleans if it did survive; the fear of natural disasters such as this has made me want to distance myself as far as possible from the chance that a similar storm might happen again in a place I'm living. All of my belongings are insured, but some of them carry with them extremely high sentimental value that simply cannot be replaced. Once I find out what has become of my home, I will make a decision on where to move to, be it back to New Orleans, or to San Francisco, maybe even back to Detroit (where I grew up), or, if I can pass the immigration test this time, to Toronto.
But oh your city lies in dust, my friend
I find myself homeless in the wake of the terrible, terrible Atlantic ocean and the otherworldly winds it births.
I don't know what to do. I'm scared.
* Sig's Katrina pictures site, mostly taken from our tenth floor refuge: http://sigmund.biz/kat/
* Mike's LiveJournal, which documents all he see as it happens: http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/
* Also, the indefatigable company I work for that just keeps on chugging in the face of cataclysm: http://www.directnic.com/
Lyrical interludes by Siouxsie and the Banshees.1986
Well, I guess I should start on Sunday, August 28, 2005. That day, I was mostly asleep, as is normal for me because I work the night shift. Thus, I missed New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin issue his mandatory evacuation order. I didn't really realize that anything was wrong until I explicably woke up a few hours before I was due into work. I'd been up for a couple of hours when the power in my apartment complex in Metairie went out. At first I thought it was just my apartment's power that had gone out until I went outside, trusty Mag-Lite in hand and noticed that there wasn't a single light on in any of the other apartments. "So this is it, then; this is the proverbial 'it.'" Even though it was only about 9:30 that night, I decided to drive downtown to the office building in which I work. There was no visible power outages on the way there, which was a bit reassuring, although there were also no cars going in either direction along the way, not even police cars.
Water was running; children were running
You were running out of time
Under the mountain, a golden fountain
Were you praying at the Lares shrine?
I got to work and parked where I usually do, on South Maestri Street, which runs along the back of the building, between a public park and then North Maestri Street, on which was a federal building and a post office. When I got to the revolving doors of my building, the overnight security staff was busying themselves bracing the doors with 2x4 boards, so I had to walk around to the front of the building to enter through the one non-revolving door to gain entry. The security guys paid me no mind, so I took the elevator up to the tenth floor, where my office and our company's massive datacenter lies.
Work progressed in a mostly normal fashion; the only indication that something was amiss was the very occasional hiccups in the building's power, which the UPSes took care of without an awkward glance. I'd worked my full eight-hour shift when the power finally went out for good. Jim, the other night guy who doesn't normally work on Sundays, was there in preparation for the incoming storm, due to his distrust in the 250-year-old building in which he lived. He spent most of the night trying to catch some sleep on the floor of his office while I went about my nightly work duties. At approximately 5:30am, the power quit. Our diesel generator kicked itself on, keeping us in business.
But oh your city lies in dust, my friend
As Monday morning dawned, it became apparent that this was to be no normal, blink-and-you-miss-it hurricane. As the sun shown through the thick, cyclonic clouds, we witnessed windows breaking, the streets below being literally torn apart, and the same was happening to all the other buildings we could see from our office windows, which were graduallly but brutally beginning to shatter. These windows were of the double-layer variety; the outer layer was UV-treated plastic, and they were the first to go. When an inch-and-a-half window breaks, it wants you to notice it, I thought. The breakages sounded like major ordnance going off very close to where our desks lay. As it turned out, the company's CEO, Sig, the CTO, Donny, and our security specalist Mike (and his girlfriend Crystal) were on the eleventh floor preparing for the day's recovery work.
Sooner than any of us could say "Jack Ketch," our team was moving all the office's computers as far away from the windows as possible, and running thick, industrial-strength extension cables from the generator (which was situated on the ninth floor of the build's parking garage) to our office, the colocation room, and the build room which was situated within the datacenter. We lent some of this generator-borne electricity to others who had decided to weather the storm in their places of employment, so they could run their TVs and watch the news, microwave ovens for the preparation of food, and water coolers. Many of these people, who on a normal day wouldn't have been allowed to even glimpse inside the datacenter or colo room, were invited in by Sig to help out with the strengthening storm and the havoc it was wreaking on everything. Lawyers, accountants, secretaries, security guards, and janitors were all running to and fro to help staunch the flow of water that was quickly making its way into the datacenter with mops, a Shop-Vac, and a cache of promotional t-shirts we still had lying around from when were trying to get that project off the ground. The problem was that the north-facing wall of the datacenter was drywall, but behind the drywall, the windows that covered the rest of the building were still in place so as to maintain visual conformity from the ground. Most of these windows were the first to break, and hurricane force winds and increasing puddles of water were rapidly spreading from beneath the drywall and towards the 100-some racks and their countless, mission-critical servers in the datacenter and colo. Where the walls met the floor were quickly covered by the aforementioned t-shirts and the rest was rapidly mopped up (thanks to the maintanence guys, Jim, and myself) and the Shop-Vac. As the wind shifted direction, the water gradually receeded.
We found you hiding we found you lying
Choking on the dirt and sand
Your former glories and all the stories
Dragged and washed with eager hands
While the rainwater was being beaten back, the windows in the build room started cracking and so we pushed/pulled as many storage cabinets and file boxes we could find in there and strapped to them to the window frames with rolls of coaxial and CAT5 cable to desks, shelves, and whatever else we could find, hoping to minimize the damage that could've conceivably been caused had the inner window panes broken. While the putty holding the two separate panes of glass together started failing, all we could do was wait. We spent a large portion of the three days we spent in the general area just generally milling about on the internet, taking pictures of the carnage beneath the room's now half-thick windows, and engaging in interviews with CNN, the BBC, and a few local news stations, as we were the only place at ground zero with not only power but also with net access. The interviews were conducted wholly via ICQ and AIM, since cell phone reception was either non-existant or so spotty as to be unusable.
We were able to force open the electric (unpowered) access gate to the building's garage, to allow for more barrels of diesel fuel to be brought to the generator. The National Guard and some U.S. Army detachments also used the garage as a staging area for the general downtown district. Martial law had been declared the day after the hurricane departed for parts north.
By Tuesday morning, I was starting to get sick from SSRI withdrawal. (I left all my meds at home, of course) Since I'm a vegan, Crystal (the team's designated cook, with what little food was available to us) did a good job by offering me bread, peanut butter sandwiches, and whatever else we could find to fit a vegan's diet. All the rest of the team were omnivores, so they managed to maintain a greater degree of health than I, despite subsisting on little more than store-brand lunch meat, Kraft singles, and store-brand sandwich bread, all warmed on a generator-powered George Foreman grill.
Tuesday morning I decided to go check on my car, which, as you recall, I had parked on the street on Sunday evening. I was shocked to find out that it hadn't had the slightest ding on it indeed, it was filthy from all the shit falling all around it (mostly roofing insulation, broken glass, and tar paper), but it seemed as though most of the debris had fallen around, but not on my car. I think the biggest piece I had to remove was a 3"x3" piece of roofing insulation. Given the relatively pristene condition the car was in, I went for a drive, just to take a look at other areas of the city. I drove uptown, to the Garden Disrict. I was able to get to around Napoleon Avenue and St. Charles Avenue before the fallen trees became completely impassible. There were no open stores or gas stations. Every store I passed which might've sold the tiniest morsel of food was in the process of being looted. The Walgreens on St. Charles was probably the biggest target that I was able to see (though the Wal*Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street was reportedly hit very hard by the looters). At the Walgreens, a crowd was gathered outside and making orders to those who would venture in to retrieve what they needed, mostly food and prescription drugs, as the looters had managed, after blowing out the main entrance with shotguns, to destroy the steel gates that protected it by repeated firing by a wide range of large cailber weapons at it, which I could hear as I drove past. Police cars drove past as it was just another day, although I can sympathise with with their non-violent law non-enforcement in the face of gangs of thugs armed with AK-47s or Desert Eagles.
On Tuesday afternoon, when I was really starting to feel sick from SSRI withdrawal, I heard on the news (we were fortunate enough to have a TV in our little build room enclave) that there was a way ouf of the city, across the Crescent City Connection bridge to the West Bank, the outlying suburbs of New Orleans. I took advantage of this, having had the unknowing foresight to have filled my car's gas tank the Saturday before the shit hit the fan. The way to the bridge, and the bridge itself was clear, and so off I went. There wasn't much traffic heading west, and I didn't encounter a town that had power until I reached Bayou Vista, some seventy miles west of New Orleans. Given that I'd been wearing the same jeans, socks, shirt and undies since the previous Sunday, I was beyond relieved when I found a Wal*Mart in Bayou Vista, where I picked up some comfortable driving clothes and promptly changed into them in my car's back seat, oblivious to the onlookers possibly spying my private parts, as it were.
After a stop at a neighbouring Burger King for a BK Veggie Burger (sans mayo and cheese), I was off again. I got to Lafayette before finding a northbound route, in this case I-10 east, which could've taken be back to the city I'd just left, instead deposited me onto I-12 and then I-55, which I took to Jackson, Mississippi, where I picked up I-20 east to Meridian. There, I spent one hour in line for gas ($2.59/gallon; cheap by the standards of only five days later), and searched in vain for a hotel room for the night. I pressed on. Brandon had power, but no hotel rooms. Ditto for Tuscaloosa. Finally I was able to find a room at a Days Inn on the outskirts of Birmingham; the last room they had available. Showering for the first time in three days was nothing short of heavenly, as was sleeping on an actual bed as opposed to non-shag office carpet with no pillows or blankets.
I checked out of the Days Inn around 11:00 the following morning and arrived at my parents' house in Spring Hill, Tennessee, around 1:00 the following afternoon, where I've been ever since.
I do not know if my home still exists, or if the storm razed it to the ground, flooded it, or sent it off to the merry old land of Oz. I left my two beloved cats, Pepper and Jena, in the apartment because I stupidly thought I'd be returning home the following day. I fear the worst for their safety. I'm almost certain that their spirits have gone to whatever version of an afterlife that cats may experience. Based on my stupid, misguided foresight, I've deemed myself unworthy to ever adopt another cat. I simply don't deserve them after this. Pepper and Jena, I love you, and I'm so, so sorry. I'm a fool. You will both live on as saints in my memory.
As for me, my fate remains uncertain. I do not know if my apartment block survived. I do not know that I would return to New Orleans if it did survive; the fear of natural disasters such as this has made me want to distance myself as far as possible from the chance that a similar storm might happen again in a place I'm living. All of my belongings are insured, but some of them carry with them extremely high sentimental value that simply cannot be replaced. Once I find out what has become of my home, I will make a decision on where to move to, be it back to New Orleans, or to San Francisco, maybe even back to Detroit (where I grew up), or, if I can pass the immigration test this time, to Toronto.
But oh your city lies in dust, my friend
I find myself homeless in the wake of the terrible, terrible Atlantic ocean and the otherworldly winds it births.
I don't know what to do. I'm scared.
* Sig's Katrina pictures site, mostly taken from our tenth floor refuge: http://sigmund.biz/kat/
* Mike's LiveJournal, which documents all he see as it happens: http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/
* Also, the indefatigable company I work for that just keeps on chugging in the face of cataclysm: http://www.directnic.com/
Lyrical interludes by Siouxsie and the Banshees.1986
VIEW 10 of 10 COMMENTS
shoulda stopped.. we've got some seriously organized evacuee stuff happening here in franklin (with only about 10,000 evacuees....)
i'm glad you made it out safe... i'm sorry about your cats.. but maybe they made it out safely?
animals have ways of doing stuff like that sometimes....