A Sigh in the World
The Operations Section Chief, a Coast Guard commander, was professional enough to give me feedback on a particularly important map that I made for him last night. It was supposed to help him and the Navy pinpoint where they could go into the neighborhoods to rescue people who were left waiting for rescue in or on top of their houses. They took the map on a helicopter overflight, but when they surveyed the neighborhood from 1,000 feet above there were no signs of life, only small segments of rooftops poking through the fetid water, which meant there was over 18 feet of water in the streets once the water subsided. There were cars overturned and wracked up along buildings, which also told him that these people never left their houses. He was rather somber when telling me that this neighborhood with thousands and thousands of houses, where they hoped they could have saved so many people, may not have had many survivors. He hoped that those people were able to get to higher ground and be ferried somewhere else. The Coast Guard will send boats out tomorrow to check on the houses and pound on the roofs to listen for survivors. If there are no knocks answered back, they will move on to the next house. Everyone has been talking about how in New Orleans they tell you to have some sort of saw or machinery in your attic to break through your roof as part of your hurricane emergency kit. I really hope that the people in that neighborhood got to higher ground before the waters swallowed up their lives.
There are a few hundred people in the command post here. Most are from USCG Sector New Orleans and have lost their home to Katrina. Each person has their own story. Some scour the aerial imagery on the internet looking for their homes or where they left their cars. They all chuckle at the absurdity of it. I think they're well enough to know that they can rebuild and all will work out in time. One man told me of how on an overflight he could clearly see three debris paths that led across the state. He's never seen such a wide swath of destruction and he's lived through all the major hurricanes of the south. He was dumbfounded about how such a storm surge could have risen, he estimates over 30 feet, to uproot trees and decimate buildings and crush oil tanks and send huge steel ships high and dry for miles inland. This event will be fodder for numerous studies on environmental toxicology and cleanup, how the Gulf shoreline has been changed, and how western infrastructure will have to be reconstructed after total annihilation.
Count your blessings everyone and spread some kindness into the world. There is a big hole to be filled.
Photos from USCG
