New Orleans was fun.....Once.

I understand that most people don't usually put tragic stories in a blog however, after recent events I feel compelled to share the events surrounding my last visit to New Orleans. I've visited New Orleans three times prior to leaving to be part of the rescue and resupply effort following hurricane Katrina. The first time in 1992 during the LYF youth gathering. I remember very well walking the streets of the French Quarter, gathering in the Super Dome for chapel services, and pounding nails into a house being built for Habitat For Humanity in the convention center. During my second visit I was on a cross-country training flight (Army Aviation term for flying a relatively long distance to go to a restaurant and eat expensive food for the low price that the FBO charges us after filling our Huey with over 100 gallons of jet fuel). We flew to the helipad at the Super Dome to practice helipad landings, and visited a heliport that catered to off-shore oil rigs. The third visit was two weeks prior to the hurricane. We were on a hospital transfer and after dropping off our patient, we landed at the Super Dome for fuel. After refueling we caught a cab to get something to eat. Upon returning to our aircraft we got a ride from a cabbie who told us that he was in the process of buying the cab company from his former employer.
This last visit was much different from the last three. Before leaving we were told that the damage in New Orleans was easily ten times worse than what we had seen on T.V. How true that statement was. T.V. couldnt prepare us for the smell of sewage, various chemicals in the water, and death. It also couldnt prepare us for the frustration of people just not wanting to be evacuated. It was sad to see these people walking though water that would surely cause disease, and death. My crews first evacuation mission was for two elderly couples living in a duplex we hovered over the building lightly resting one skid of our helicopter on the roof of the building then carefully loaded them on to the Huey. The next day we hoisted an elderly man from his home on the eastern side of the city. Later that day we came across a whole neighborhood of people who insisted (even after explaining the possible health hazards) that they did not want to be evacuated they did however, want to be resupplied with food and water. After returning with their resupply we found a family of four from that neighborhood that had a change of heart and decided to be evacuated. While flying from their neighborhood over downtown and to the evac. point at the airport, you could see in their eyes that they didn't realize just how bad off the whole city really was. We flew over one of the levee breaks and were amazed at how the water just pushed neighborhoods of houses out of its way. We also saw a train that was ripped off its tracks and pushed aside as if a tornado had come through the area. In a roughly 48 hour period we had flown over 20 hours, performed evacuation, MEDEVAC, re-supply missions and even took people to get prescriptions refilled at one of the few hospitals that was still somewhat operating.
There were some uplifting and even humorous things that happened. For example when landing at the airport to drop off our patients or passengers at the triage center they were loaded on to baggage carts, which reminded me of a part of the movie Airplane! where exactly the same thing happened. Another thing was the Air Forces re-supply point at Zephyr field ( a baseball stadium about five miles west of the Super Dome). Any time we landed for fuel or food and water, they ran up to the Huey with cold water, and took an average of fifteen minutes to refuel and re-supply us. It was great to see such highly motivated people push as hard as they could to see to it that we could spend as much time in the air as possible. When we returned to the airfield we were operating out of in Hammond LA, there was a restaurant owner and a banker that got together and without being asked, made us dinner every night. The first night was lasagna and the second was steaks. The food was the quality that you would expect from a 4 star restaurant. Every night before leaving they thanked us for helping in New Orleans, It was nice to hear that we were making a difference in someone's life.