Artistically Challenged

Clandestine Insertion (well, sort of), Part II

2005-09-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

I jumped back in my car, carefully did a U-turn through the debris, and headed South down the other side of the street. This time I made a few stops to closer inspect the area. My first was at the remains of a large brick building that had recently burned down. Smoke smoldered upwards and a few small fires still jumped here and there. I left my car to grab some shots. It was incredible looking, so I took quite a few pictures.

My next stop was in front of “Lafayette School,” where what caught my eye was another boat and a wheelchair. I assume that they just threw their crippled colleague in the car or boat and high-tailed it out of town, not bothering to take the time with the chair.

Instead of following the directions of the soldiers at the last checkpoint, I wound my way West though cluttered side streets. I had to make several turns and often had to backtrack along the way to avoid deep water and obstacles in the road. My little sedan wasn't the right vehicle for the job, but at least I hadn't driven here on my motorcycle. I can't believe I even considered that!

After various twists and turns, I found myself only a few blocks down the street from the guarded gravel blockade I had circumvented earlier. Feeling cocky, as this time I was already within the Parish limits, I drove up to it and parked, wanting to have a look around. On my side of the barrier was a small group of tents, which housed a few refugees from the city. Numerous boats had been beached at the end of the canal on the North side of the street. Apparently this group of survivors had decided to camp on the first dry land they encountered during their flight.

I turned around and headed back East on Claiborne. Just after crossing Carrollton, an abandoned ambulance blocked part of the road in front of a looted bank. I would imagine that a bank would be one of the worst places to loot, because with any kind of warning, all the cash would have been secured in the safe. I somehow doubt that those citizens smashing through the windows with bricks and tearing up the interior were studied safe-crackers.

Driving on, I came to Broadway St. and saw a sign for the New Orleans Zoo pointing South. On a whim, I turned, figuring that it would be interesting to see in what condition the place had survived.

Broadway is a smaller street than Carrollton, but it is also a divided boulevard, and was mostly clear. The little cross-streets were pretty thoroughly blocked, but I began to see small crews of NG engineers, cutting swaths through the downed trees with chainsaws and clearing piles of brush and junk with Bobcat “skid-loaders.” They were working in the midst of downed utility poles and power lines, but they assured me that this whole area had its power shut off.

I saw a canoe grounded on the median a little further down the street. I would have ignored it as just another abandoned boat, but as I drove by I saw that its prow had a really cool, hand painted design. I stopped for a closer look and a picture.

While kneeling before the canoe to try to get a close shot, an SUV pulled up on the other side of the road. A man in an EMT uniform got out. He said that he recognized the canoe as belonging to his neighbor, so I helped him lift it to the roof of his truck. I offered a length of rope to secure the load, but he declined, saying he only lived a block or two away. As he carefully drove off, I wondered if he wasn't just stealing the damn thing. It was pretty cool looking.

At its Southern extreme, Broadway runs right up to the levee bordering the Mississippi river. Following the signs for the zoo, I turned East, ending up on Magazine street. I noticed hastily painted markings on some of the houses in the area. I had heard that the cops and soldiers were leaving these to mark which houses had been checked for survivors and which held dead. There were so many different agencies with different SOPs for making these marks that there was never any real consistency to them. I don't know how other units were supposed to decipher them.

Two blocks later, the terrain opens up; a golf course to the North and a grassy park that serves as the front lawn of the zoo (and aquarium, I think) to the South. Encamped in that park was 1st Battalion, 179th Infantry, Oklahoma National Guard.

I parked out of the way, but near their motor pool. I figured that my car was probably safer here than in my driveway in Los Angeles. I stuffed the camera and my notebook into a bag and walked toward the closest cluster of tents and camouflage netting. I didn't want to start wandering around taking pictures without getting permission.

Before I even reached the tents, an alert Staff Sergeant was already on his way out to question me. I told him my story. Once he knew that I wasn't just there monkeywrenching, he relaxed and we chatted a little. Gesturing at my pants and boots, he asked if I was ex-military. When I replied in the affirmative, he said, “You need to go see the First Sergeant. He'll probably be able to set you up to go out and take some pictures. Tell him you're a veteran.” He then grabbed a nearby Specialist and ordered him to escort me to the 1SG and then take me around their area for photos. He pointed out another cluster of tents to the East and said, “Stay out of that area. That's Battalion HQ. They might get a little weird with you being here.”

No problem. The Specialist and I walked over to the area where the First Sergeant was supposed to be. He saw us coming and came over himself to see who this outsider was. I have to admit. I've talked shit about the “Nasty Guard” in the past, but these guys were on top of things, and most of them were real veterans, not peacetime army slugs like myself. Experience in Iraq and Afghanistan has dramatically sharpened the morale, quality, and readiness of our Guard and Reserve troops (in both my opinion, and that of all of the troops that I spoke with about it).

I introduced myself, explaining my hope that I could link up with a patrolling unit. The 1SG decided to take advantage of my camera and attentiveness, so he laid into me. Apparently he was fairly exasperated at the lack of a strong, central leadership in control of the current situation (I think he may have called it a “goatfuck”), as well as disgusted at some of the coverage the media was providing.

“You want to take some pictures? I've got some goddamn pictures for you. You see that big fucking stack of water over there? You take a fucking picture of that! There are rumors running around that we don't have proper supplies of water and food, and that's bullshit!”

“Roger, First Sergeant,” I blurted. This guys had me practically standing at parade rest. I'm really just paraphrasing his language here. I was getting carpal tunnel from writing “fuck” over and over in my notebook.

“Listen, the Governor and the Mayor had no fucking food, water, or other supplies pre-stationed at all. HHC of the New Orleans National Guard was underwater within the first three days and had no communication. We were wheels up in under 72 hours. We left our jobs and families before a lot of federal and non-profit agencies were even mobilizing, so don't fucking tell me our response time was slow. We were mobilizing before we had gotten permission to enter Louisiana, because we knew we'd be asked, but the fucking people who are giving us shit about not arriving fast enough are dead wrong! It is technically an act of war for one State's Guard to enter another State under arms and without permission. Those people need to take another look at the Constitution!”

“Roger, First Sergeant.”

He was about to continue, but another two photographers wandered into the area. Looking at them, he gave me the cross-streets where I could find the Bravo Company command post and evacuation point. He told me to say that he had sent me and it was ok for me to be there. With that he stormed over to question and enlighten the new arrivals. The specialist and I left to dutifully take pictures of the stacks of food and water. Here's visual evidence (as per the orders of the 1SG) of the abundance of food, water, and other supplies available to 1/179.

That mission accomplished, we walked around the AO. There wasn't much going on. This was a headquarters and support operation. I took a couple of shots while my escort gave me tips on the local gang situation.

“There are two main gangs around here. One gang drives white Ford Escorts and the other drives red 'dually' trucks. If you see a line of either driving toward you, turn around and get away as fast as you can.”

He said that they'd pretty much disappear during the day, but could still be sometimes seen at night. The troops were having an effect on their free reign, however.

Valuable advice, because I probably would have assumed a convoy of similar vehicles to be an official one. Luckily, I saw none of this. I thanked him and headed back to my car, ready to finally be making some progress.

I missed the turn and ended up accidentally passing through a checkpoint and back into Jefferson Parish. When I realized my mistake, I turned around, but the cops at the checkpoint wouldn't let me back in. No problem. I headed North, found the 90 West, and drove right back through the hole at the gravel barrier, waving at the NGs who remembered me from earlier. I headed back to what I knew was the general area of the B Co. command post, watching the signs for the proper street names.

Clandestine Insertion (well, sort of), Part I

2005-09-22T19:25:00.000-07:00

About 7:30 AM, after giving my thanks and saying my goodbyes to the St. Charles Parish volunteers, I was back on the 90 and heading toward New Orleans. The word then being broadcast was that Jefferson Parish (part of greater NOLA, it wraps around Western and Southern Orleans Parish) was allowing people back into the areas that weren't still under water. My plan was to follow the Western branch of the 90 from Bridge City, travel over the Huey P. Long Bridge, and find a way into New Orleans from the West.

I was wearing BDU pants and jungle boots, but I didn't try to look too official. I wasn't intending to mislead anyone about who I was (and I didn't), but I wanted to look as unobtrusive as possible - at least at a distance. Plus, those are about the best work clothes ever, and I didn't have to worry about trudging around in the filth and ruining them.

The key to the whole plan was whether the H. P. Long bridge was actually open to civilian traffic. Once across the Mississippi, there were numerous routes into Orleans Parish, but unless I could get over the river, I was at an impasse.

This part of the 90 had been packed with traffic before (due to police checkpoints that were there when I last attempted to get into the city), but it was smooth sailing for me that morning. The ridiculously narrow-laned bridge was mostly unoccupied, and I was quickly over the river and back on surface streets. This was a pretty major road, but it was nearly deserted and power lines still lay across the blacktop in certain areas. I began to wonder if my stupid map had directed me to the wrong place (or if I had stupidly misread the map). To add to the confusion, this Western branch of Hwy 90 (at this point called the Jefferson Highway) turns East as it heads toward New Orleans (where it becomes S. Claiborne Ave.), eventually intersecting with the Eastern branch of Hwy 90, which is at that point, actually pointing West.

With no obvious alternatives available, I continued on until I saw a gravel barrier that had been dumped across the road a few blocks down. It appeared to serve as both blockade and temporary dike, as it extended past the intersection, meeting a low levee bordering a canal to the North, and stretching a couple hundred feet (more or less?) to the South. One lane of travel had been cut through the gravel, as the water had receded. A sign (seen at the top of this post, but the shot was taken later) confirmed that this was the Jefferson / Orleans border. Some of the downtown NOLA pumps were back on line and operating with dramatic results. I could see several MPs guarding the narrow, newly-cut passageway.

I took a right a block or two shy of the barricade, drove 3 or 4 blocks, and then took a left on a smaller street - back toward Orleans Parish. As I figured, the troops and city police were only manning the major arteries into the City, and this intersection was unguarded. It is simply not possible to block every avenue of approach to a given area, unless there are physical choke points, such as the "Crescent City Connection" bridge I had failed gain permission to cross on the other side of the city. It was also not necessary. There were enough armed troops in Orleans Parish to provide an effective show of force, keeping opportunistic criminals from being too confident that their crimes would go unnoticed.

I wasn't on a major street, but it was just clear enough that I could get around downed trees without running over too much detritus. The side streets weren't cleared at all, and many of them, particularly to the North of me, were at least partly filled with water. I've never been in a flood zone before. It was hot and, aside from distant noises of helicopters and military vehicles, quiet and still. I could also see evidence that the water level had recently been higher. Cars and buildings showed water lines, and small boats were scattered about with surprising regularity, obviously abandoned when their occupants reached the high points of the terrain and could evacuate on dry land.

The first big cross-street I came upon was Carrollton Ave. (which was really a boulevard divided by a wide, grassy median), and I headed North to work my way further in. It was better cleared than the road I had just been on; better traveled, too, as I could see a few military and civilian vehicles heading here and there.

The further I went, the deeper the water in the side streets appeared to be. Carrollton appeared to be the high ground of the area - it was dirty, but dry. My sense of smell is fairly weak, but the scent of the water was starting to become pretty potent. I have spent my share of time humping a ruck through the swamps of the South-Eastern United States, and I know the stagnant, decaying smell that penetrates the air around them. The aroma I was experiencing was sort of like a thick version of that, but with several other heady additions (some more distinct than others): shit, gas/oil, chemicals, dead things.

Already in town, I wasn't too apprehensive about passing through a National Guard checkpoint I could see a couple blocks ahead of me.

I stopped my car when directed. The soldiers asked for picture ID and my destination. After that, they waved me on my way. As I said above, one of their main jobs in NOLA was to act as a show of force. Just by being there they were making the statement that all the previous looting and other nonsense was a thing of the past.

I continued North, amazed at the amount of water, downed trees, and filth in the streets of what obviously used to be a decent neighborhood. I didn't stop to check it out up close, wanting instead to try and travel deeper into the city. Ok, I stopped once, but that was to try and feed a couple of hungry dogs who, while initially interested, eventually scorned my offering of a couple of granola bars. I left the food on the side of the road, should they choose to reconsider, and kept driving.

Continuing roughly North, the street changed from middle-class residential to fast-food and gas station commercial, the houses on the side streets were becoming smaller and cheaper. Ahead was another NG checkpoint, a few hundred feet in front of a freeway overpass. I slowed to be ID'd again, and saw that the road dipped down to cross under the freeway (I-10) and was completely flooded. I parked and got out to talk to the guardsmen.

They struck me as sort of an odd group. Two were enlisted Joes, which seemed normal, but there also was an Infantry captain and a chaplain – a major. While they checked my ID, I asked them if they minded if I got a few pictures. The captain told me I'd have to make it quick because they were leaving the area. He said he didn't want me messing with the body; taking pictures of it. “The body?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Right there.” He pointed down to a spot about 5 feet from us. I followed his gesture to a grubby sheet, which tented up in the unmistakable form of a face-up, spread-eagled body, and covered all but one hand. I was surprised by the fact that I hadn't seen it already. It stood out: a big blue and white square on the median. I had noticed a rarely-experienced, tangy smell in the area, but I guess I didn't put two and two together. The chaplain laughed and said, “That's exactly what happened to me!” At least it now made more sense that a captain and a major were visiting this checkpoint.

I told them I'd only be a minute and snapped a few shots of the area. One block up, the receding water had left scattered junk, among which was a large number of shoes. It's interesting that scattered shoes are often among the common remnants of disasters.

The canal, flooded underpass, and the surrounding area:

I asked the soldiers if there were any way to get further North. They said that most of the cross streets were flooded or blocked, but I could try and swing South and East.

Manning The Supply Depot, Part II

2005-09-19T10:54:00.000-07:00

I woke up at about 6:30 AM as the volunteers started arriving. After packing up what little stuff I had brought into the trailer, I started helping set up the assembly line for the day. While I did this, I went through a mental tally of my financial status. It wasn't costing me much to actually be there (gas, mostly), but I had bills that were due before I left and I certainly wasn't making any money while I was away from home. I was determined to have another crack at getting into the city, but I could only afford another couple of days before I had to get back to Los Angeles. I made up my mind to spend the rest of the day distributing food, but the next morning I'd be off.

The National Guard guys arrived shortly thereafter, and we opened the gates. Cars began flowing through the assembly line and the day dragged on. I have to admit it. This work sucked.

A few new volunteers made the day a little more interesting. One in particular was an older man who showed up to lend a hand. Actually, I think he showed up just to get out of the house. He seemed friendly enough, but man, could he talk! I spent close to half and hour not getting any work done (or a word in edgewise) while he went on about his ex-Air Force Intelligence son's cloak-and-dagger activities (toeing the line of telling me too much, if any of it were true), the local chemical plant he used to work for, and just about anything else he could think of. I kept inching away, looking for an out, but he'd close the distance right back up and continue the conversation. Someone else made the mistake of joining us, and when the old man's attention was diverted to the new arrival, I made my escape. I spent much of the rest of the day playing cat and mouse with him, trying not to get caught back up in conversation. It was funny watching others get trapped, though, and I amused myself by seeing how long they lasted, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to another, before making their own getaways.

The old man's crowning achievement of the day occurred as we were getting to the bottom of one pallet of MREs and needed to strip another of its plastic strap packaging. Our hardest-working trustee asked if anyone had a knife to cut the boxes free. The old man looked up and said, "What? A brother without a blade?" Geez, man! Even the crickets must have been shocked, because for the next few seconds silence reigned.

"It was a joke," he said quietly, realizing his faux pas.

I was a little conflicted. It was sort of a funny comment; even funnier coming out of the mouth of an old man, but the trustee was right there! He's a prisoner and had his race and his internment rubbed in his face. I've got to give it to him for taking it well. He ignored the remark and continued working as hard as ever.

We finally closed the gates at 6 PM. I was dirty and soaked with sweat, so when one of the local volunteers offered the use of his shower, I gratefully accepted. After washing off, I felt like a new man. I sat in the kitchen with my host and his wife, drinking beer and discussing the situation while their three kids ran around the house, fighting and playing.

They had a copy of the New Orleans Times-Picayune from a couple of days before Katrina hit the area. As has been currently focused on by the MSM, the paper had been highlighting the worst-case disaster model for NOLA for years. This particular issue revisited that possibility, with full-color graphics of the downtown areas that they believed would be inundated. Besides the fact that the hurricane really only grazed New Orleans, and also that (I am pretty sure) the article spoke of Lake Pontchartrain overflowing the levees rather than breaking them, it was a remarkably accurate prediction.

Although the "nobody could have predicted this" argument is scoffed at (rightly so) in this sort-of post disaster environment of finger-pointing, it has been pretty obvious that many people had not taken the warnings seriously. Even NOLA locals who had been at the heart of these discussions had done virtually nothing to prepare for the possible deluge besides storing a couple of day's worth of food and water, if that. My hosts had done little more than that even though other models (they told me) had predicted that if a hurricane had struck the Western areas of New Orleans, massive flooding was expected in their very neighborhood!

An aside: I am mildly amused by pundits from points across the spectrum (full disclosure: myself included, unfortunately) reciting all manner of NOLA and State disaster plans, noting catastrophic computer models, and discussing the constitutionality of federal aid under natural disaster conditions, all nodding sagely to each other as if they had been dutifully studying these sources for the last thirty years and had been fighting the system, trying to make things right. I'd argue that the majority of these brave soldiers (again, myself included), fighting so diligently for their current unshakable beliefs, had previous opinions of New Orleans that ventured no further than the French Quarter, its great atmosphere, and drunken, co-ed tits.

I wanted to get back to the Parks and Recreation trailer so I could continue to organize my thoughts and pictures, as well as to get all my gear repacked for my next attempt at infiltrating New Orleans, so I wrapped up our conversation, thanked my hosts for their hospitality (especially the shower!), and made my way back. I wanted to pick up some beer (to focus the mind and calm the soul, of course) at a gas station on the way back, but found that the Parish had restricted alcohol sales after 7 PM due to the hurricane.

Due to the hurricane? At what point in life could I possibly enjoy a cold beer more than in the stressful aftermath of a hurricane? Hasn't there been enough damage done already? Oh, the humanity!

Manning The Supply Depot, Part I

2005-09-17T13:14:00.000-07:00

I couldn't believe that I'd slept until almost 10 AM. Feeling groggy, I grabbed a soda from the truck stop and started heading back up the 90 toward New Orleans. I tried to concentrate and figure out what exactly I was going to do. A friend had called me the previous day while I was standing on the levee, taking pictures of the beached barges. After giving her a brief rundown on what I had been doing, she half-jokingly told me I was just "sightseeing." I took a little offense to that. I had been trying to get to an area where I could take a greater part in the effort, but I had so far been unable. I did have to admit to myself, though, that what I was currently doing did feel a little like sightseeing. I decided to break from my plan of getting into NOLA and see if I could hook up with any established relief groups outside the city, at least for a couple of days.

Enid and Madonna, the employees of the roadhouse where I ate the day before, had told me about a food distribution point not too far up the road. I decided to head over there and see what was happening. A couple of wrong turns and a stop for directions later, I pulled up to a local Parks and Recreation center. It was basically a double-wide trailer surrounded by soccer, baseball, and football fields. The parking lot was filled with boxed supplies and a long line of cars wound through the assembly line they had created to hand out food and water. MPs were working the gates, making sure that no one got out of hand, and a mixture of civilian volunteers and trustees (from the St. Charles Correctional Center) were passing out boxes of MREs, cases of water, and bags of ice. Although not party to the level of disaster seen in New Orleans, St. Charles Parish had lost most of its power during the hurricane and, like much of the area, had supply problems in stores because not only were residents and evacuees stocking up, but deliveries were delayed, having to be diverted from elsewhere to make up for the shortages .

I drove up to the MP working the entrance to the area and asked who I could speak to about volunteering. The MP told me to find the "older, fat, bald guy named Billy." I parked in an unused corner of the lot and went to find him. A civilian volunteer pointed me the way and soon I was standing before a man who I swear is a dead ringer for COL Kurtz, Marlon Brando's character in Apocalypse Now. He's 50-something, skin-bald, and was sporting shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. He was obviously an old Southern boy, and his manner suggested he was absolutely in charge of the operation. He was a pretty nice guy, but I never once heard him say "please." I am kicking myself for not getting a picture of him. I kept thinking, "I'll grab a photo of him later on," but when it came to the end of my time there, he had disappeared, and I had missed my opportunity.

Billy told me to jump right in and help pass out supplies. I cracked my knuckles and prepared to break a sweat. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's picking up and throwing around heavy stuff. Unfortunately, as soon as I walked up to the MRE station, they called a lunch break for the volunteers and put the whole operation on hold.

I had practically just woken up, so I wasn't hungry yet. I grabbed my camera and took a few shots of the area while everyone else ate and the line of cars grew.

As volunteers and trustees filtered back to their stations, they opened the gates back up and started letting cars in. Although there were 8 trustees and several civilian volunteers, I could tell we were a little short-handed. No sooner had we gotten back to work, though, then a couple of National Guard 5-tons rolled up and about 25 soldiers spilled out, ready to assist in the relief effort.

As quick as that, we were overstaffed. I spent much of the rest of the day picking up trash and stripping down shipping pallets of supplies while the National Guard handed out the goods.

A little bit of local info I learned along the way: St. Charles Parish is sort of interesting, because although it's one of the smallest counties in Louisiana, it's also one of the richest. It contains a nuclear plant as well as several chemical plants that all have the potential to cause an environmental disaster. As a result, this little Parish is the recipient of quite a bit of federal homeland security funding, and was an early beneficiary of FEMA aid.

I do need to point out, though, that part of the reason they had gotten FEMA aid so early was due to easy access to the area (the distribution center was just off major highways that were not damaged by the hurricane or flooding), as well as the fact that the community was very well organized. They not only handled their own citizens' problems, but extended their support to those from outlying areas. The Parks and Recreation center had been delivering supplies for 6 days at this point. When they ran low on one thing or another, the FEMA rep would make a phone call and, sooner more often than later, a big rig would show up with the requested supplies. I have no idea where they were staging the trucks, but this operation was pretty finely tuned, as far as I could see.

The trucks would drive right into our area and unload. I heard the drivers were being paid ridiculous amounts for their effort, but how else would the government mobilize this much transportation power on such short notice? Aid like this always costs a fortune, but there are few other options available. Imagine the costs that would be involved to staff, equip, and hold in the highest readiness, quick-reaction government resources to deal with this sort of situation. Those costs would be even further multiplied by the fact that a rapid reaction force cannot maintain the highest readiness levels at all times. They absolutely must be relieved by other units 2/3 -3/4 of the time, or else they reach a state of "combat ineffectiveness." Each of these additional units would be equally expensive. At least by paying these drivers a king's ransom now, the government spares itself the cost of sponsoring them during "peacetime."

The trustees would assist the truck drivers and forklift operators in the unloading process. Most of these guys were pretty laid back. I think they were happy to be out on work-release, but it also seemed like they were glad to be able to assist in the relief effort as well. One trustee in particular (shown below) was amazing. He worked his ass off all day, finding things to do when his fellow orange-suiters were on break, and lending a hand wherever he could. I told him he was doing a great job and working really hard. "That's how I do it," he replied matter-of-factly, wiping sweat off his face. I don't know what he did to land in the county clink, but bring this guy to Los Angeles and I'll hire him for every show I work on.

We continued handing out food, water, and ice throughout the day. I spoke to the National Guardsmen, and it turns out they were all from South Carolina - transportation and maintenance, mostly. Most of their group had returned from a 1-year tour in Iraq in February, and while they'd obviously rather be at home, they felt that they were finally getting to do the kind of thing they'd signed into the Guard to do. It's an arguable point that they weren't also doing that in Iraq, but I didn't bother.

They had all gotten into the area just a day or two before, and hadn't been given any real mission as of yet. Commanders need to keep soldiers working, though, so they sent them to the distribution center to keep them occupied. The men worked cheerfully, and would joke with each other and the people in the cars. Any passing girls that were even remotely cute got their egos boosted by these salty Guards, who hit on every single one of them.

As I was sort of the odd man out in this group of workers, over the course of the day the local volunteers asked me where I was from, what I was doing here, where I was staying, etc. I don't know how it started, but somehow several of them got the idea that I was a private detective. "So you're the private detective from California," they'd say.

"What?"

I'm sure the first to ask me this saw the blankest, most uncomprehending expression on my face. After that, I just explained to each that they were mistaken. I had told those who had asked that I worked in freelance television production, but I was here doing a stint as an independent photographer and wanted to help out along the way. Who knows how that ever translated into "private detective?"

They generously offered to let me sleep on a cot in the Parks and Recreation trailer. I'd be alone during the night and they had a cot, air-conditioning, running water in the bathrooms, and even cable TV. Power had just been restored to this section of town the day before I got there. At first I declined. I have never been much for asking for the charity of others. Sleeping in the car sucked, but I was getting more used to it. In the end, however, it was the air-conditioning that did it.

Well, the air-conditioning, the fridge for the beer that was sitting hot in my trunk, and a quiet place with electricity where I could break out my computer, download the photos from the camera, and write. I went back in the office and excepted their offer.

After we finished up for the day and I was left alone in the trailer, I took a sink bath, drank a few beers, and relaxed in the A/C. From time to time I went out and chatted with the MPs who were left with the mind-numbing job of guarding stacks of food and water overnight. At one point, a local sheriff on night patrol came by to use the facilities. He was accompanied by an ex-New York cop. This guy had been on the force during 9-11 and was as disgusted as I had been by what he had seen on the news since Katrina hit. Now he was was working as a bodyguard, but he called his employers and told them he'd be absent for a while, gathered up his ballistic vest and pistol, and headed down to NOLA with four other ex-cop buddies.

He told me that, when 9-11 happened, there had been 40,000 NY cops to deal with the situation. The local radio reports I had been hearing said that New Orleans had only 1,500 city police - roughly 500 of whom had failed to report after the disaster. To put this into perspective, the population of NY City is about 8.1 million people, while New Orleans has only about 1.33 million in greater NOLA (their city cops are required to live within city limits, a rule which has long been a matter of local contention, but they work throughout the greater metropolitan area). It can be seen, then that New Orleans is about 16% the size of NYC, but fields a police force that's only 3.75% of New York's. That number drops to 2.5% when the 500 AWOL cops are dropped from the equation.

Another way to say this is that NYC has more than four times as many cops per person as NOLA has on its best day. And one wonders why there was chaos in the streets during this disaster's opening days?

Back To The Front? Part III

2005-09-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

Maybe I've got a sick sense of humor, because even with all the chaos around me, I kept seeing little absurdities that made me laugh. Such was my feeling as I approached a gas station that had been taken over by the local police. The sight of an armed officer wearing a bulletproof vest and pumping gasoline for police and other emergency vehicles required that I stop and take a couple of pictures.

I know... I'm a weirdo.

I was starting to get a little too far away from downtown at this point, so I turned around and headed back West. As I drove, I noticed that the short, tree-littered streets to my right ran directly up to what looked to be a part of the NOLA levee system. The area appeared to be a fairly new and mid-upper middle class neighborhood. I was a little apprehensive about going into a residential area because of all the looter paranoia (not unfounded), and also because it seemed that I was virtually the only person in the greater New Orleans area without a firearm.

There were plenty of clearing crews in the vicinity, though, and the cops really hadn't afforded me anything other than a casual glance as they drove by, so I decided to head up one of the streets, winding my way slowly around fallen trees and other wind-strewn debris.

There was another road running parallel to the base of the levee, so I turned onto it and parked. I walked up the incline, and cresting the top, was rather surprised what I saw: Three large barges had been washed/smashed up onto the levee, and a ferry boat had suffered a similar fate perhaps a half-mile East of my location. I took several pictures of the barges, but for some reason, I didn't grab shots of the ferry. I don't know what I was thinking. The coolest looking barge had hit the levee mostly straight-on, and it's prow was raised up into the air. It's front-right corner had been smashed and split open, presumably when it first ran into the levee.

Google Maps has post-Katrina (and flooding) satellite imagery from New Orleans. Although much of the area I was in is obscured by cloud cover, one of the barges I saw is visible. It looks to be the one that hit the levee almost head-on.

Satellite Photo of barge on levee

One barge was almost completely beached. I walked down to get a better look at it. The first thing I noticed was that a corner of the vessel had carved a groove right up into the concrete face of the levee.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the levee looked to be nothing more than an earthen mound, hardened on the water side by a thick sheet of this concrete. Maybe it has a rocky, gravel core, but I don't know. What I do know, though, is that there was obviously significant damage to this area of the city's defenses, and if they had broken, the West Bank would have been as screwed as New Orleans proper. Maybe even worse, because NOLA was flooded by a lake with a limited amount of water, whereas this area would have been flooded the the Mississippi River itself! Needless to say, they're going to have to do some major repairs here.

One of the readers of this blog, A Girl From Texas, wrote in the comments of this previous post about the possibility of a barge on Lake Ponchartrain having been at fault for the downtown levee breaks:

I've been speaking with some evacuees that have been transplanted in my community and they say that there is a RUMOUR, and I do mean RUMOUR, that Beau Brothers Construction had some barges near the levees that were not tied properly; and as a result they banged against the walls and weakened them during the storm. I don't know anything more about it than what I just posted.

I don't know about that either, and I have heard absolutely no other mention of the possibility other than A Girl From Texas' comment, so I'll reserve my judgment. So many boats had been tossed around by the hurricane that I think it'd be hard to fault anybody, anyway. I tried using Google Maps, to find any evidence of this, but so far I've found none. I'd love to hear about it if anyone reading this knows more.

At this point, I figured that I'd take another shot at getting into downtown. I walked back to my car and noticed that while I had been there, the cleanup crews had cleared the street using a front-end loader. That was nice, since it would be easier going for my tires. I still hadn't replaced the one that blew out at the beginning of my trip.

I headed back to the expressway, looking for an on-ramp that would take me toward the bridge, and thinking about what I'd say to try and get past the cops. I figured that if I told the officers that I was a freelance photographer heading to Baton Rouge to link up with a National Guard unit, they might let me cross the bridge, after which I could just get off the highway and go where I wanted. The I-10 freeway runs right through New Orleans, and heading West, it goes directly to Baton Rouge. The only other way I knew of to get there was to follow the 90 back the way I came for about 30 miles, then get on I-310 North for another 20 or so miles, before linking back up to the I-10. It's a pretty serious detour and I hoped to look official enough for the cops to let me take the shortcut through town.

They didn't buy it.

The officer I spoke with started out, "Well, you need to turn around and drive back about 30 miles to the..." Yeah. I got it. Just tell me where to find the on-ramp to get back on the 90 in the other direction. He told me, and I drove off. I was determined to get in there, damn it, but at this point I didn't know what I was going to do.

I had been lying to the cops about actually going to Baton Rouge, but by the time I had gotten all the way out of town, I decided to take the detour there anyway. I hadn't found any internet access anywhere around NOLA and I was getting behind in my posting. I also had a bunch of new pictures that needed messing with, and I figured that I could find a decent spot to do both if I went back. Might as well have a beer or two while I'm there, you know... for medicinal purposes.

It was 5:30 or 6 PM at this point, and I was starting to crash. I had gotten little enough sleep on the way down here, and at most, 30 minutes the night before. I needed to pull over and take a few laps around the car or something. I-310 is an elevated highway, passing over the Mississippi, its tributaries, and the surrounding wetlands. There are two lanes going each way, but it has a really small shoulder on the right where I didn't think it would be wise to stop. I began looking for an exit. 15 miles to the next one, the sign said. At this point I was trying to keep from falling asleep at the wheel, shaking my head and slapping myself in the face. Hard.

I don't really remember seeing the sign for the exit, but all of a sudden my head nodded and I looked up. I was in an exit lane, but it was barricaded by a concrete divider, an old couple was stopped right in front of the barricade changing a tire, and I'm doing 70 MPH toward them!

"JESUS CHRIST!" I slammed on the breaks, finally stopping as I pulled up alongside their car. I was definitely awake at this point. I paused to compose myself and looked over at them, trying to play it off, "Uh, can I help you folks change your tire?"

The man was red faced, and looked like he could keel over with any more exertion. The woman had a little dog that she was trying to keep from running into the highway. I got out of my car, and a couple of minutes later they were ready to roll. I was rewarded with a cold Coke for my troubles. I needed it.

I hit an RV park just outside of Baton Rouge. They were kind enough to let me use their showers, but refused any payment. I grabbed some grub at a family-owned BBQ joint just down the street. There were at least 3 or 4 generations of the same family working the place. Good genetics, judging by the 20-something girls running the register and waitressing...

When I got to Baton Rouge, the feeling of the place had changed. The traffic was tremendous, and people were everywhere. Looking at the other drivers, I could tell they were going crazy. Funny. I actually felt quite at home, have been driving to work through unbelievable traffic in Los Angeles for the last six years. I stopped by the local Wal-Mart, the biggest one I've ever seen, and it was a sellout. People were everywhere, but the shelves were starting to look bare. The population explosion of the last week was really showing. I made my way through traffic to just outside of the LSU campus and parked the car. There was an internet café/coffee shop right there, and I ate and drank at a Mexican place just across the street.

It was starting to get late, so I drove back down highway 1 (The I-10 East was closed near New Orleans) and ended up sleeping in my car at a truck stop just across the 90 from Beck's Bar. I was so tired that I managed to rack for almost 8 hours in that hot, uncomfortable, little car.

A Sister Unit's Mission

2005-09-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

As I continue trying to put this together, I'd like everyone reading this to check out the story of an old veteran from Central Texas who happened to own a deuce-and-a-half and got moving much earlier than I did. It's pretty amazing, and I'll just say that I'm glad I haven't gotten into any situations that might have made me fatally regret travelling without a pistol.

Read John's story

Back To The Front? Part II

2005-09-14T10:01:00.000-07:00

As I drove East and then North on the highway, I saw "The Crescent City Connection," the bridge that connects the West Bank to Downtown NOLA (that's the name the below-mentioned mentioned crappy atlas had for it - correct me if I am wrong). Cops, MPs, and utility and cleanup crews were everywhere. Abandoned vehicles spotted the shoulders of the road. As I neared the bridge, I saw two cops with shotguns guarding its entrance. They were letting only official and emergency vehicles pass, and they waved me off to the exit directly before the barricade. I felt it wise to drop down to the streets without any argument or fast-talking, at least for now.

When I hit the surface streets (I later learned the area was called Algiers), I immediately noticed more cleanup and utility crews steadily working, cleaning the major debris clogging streets, and surveying/repairing downed power lines. There was moderate hurricane damage here, but no flooding ever occurred in this area, which, at least where I was, contained a mixture of lower and middle class neighborhoods. At first I tried to head West, toward the river, because the atlas I have is so crappy that I didn't trust it not to leave out secondary bridges in its city detail. I ran in to two soldiers guarding an intersection. They checked my ID, but since I had no media credentials, turned me away. They were pretty apologetic about it, but only residents and verifiable members of the media were allowed. I swung back around and tried a more Northerly route.

I still didn't know what to expect as I drove through the streets alone, armed with nothing but a big, scary, fighting knife. There were, and would continue to be, daily reports of psychos shooting at National Guard troops, Cops, journalists, and even cell phone tower repairmen. I couldn't believe I was there without a pistol, but I didn't have one and didn't have time enough to get one once I made my decision to go there. It's a good thing that I'm big, and a decent hand-to-hand fighter, or I might not have had the confidence to continue. I was still nervous, though. I think one my my next major purchases will be a high-capacity .45, complete with extra mags and a quick and comfortable holster system. Quite a few soldiers that I saw had aftermarket set-ups which seemed to be pretty effective.

I continued North at a slow clip, head on a swivel - looking both for interesting things to photograph and anyone who might offer any kind of threat to me. I suspiciously eyed anyone who wasn't wearing a hard hat or a helmet, ready to hit the gas and run over a motherfucker, if I had to.

I spotted a couple of Humvees and a group of soldiers a few of blocks down the street. There were 15 or 20 of them, mostly gathered around a map spread over the hood of one of the vehicles, discussing the situation.

Pulling over across the street from them, I parked and, camera in hand, approached the gathering. A Sergeant Major (SGM) and a 1st Lieutenant (1LT) saw me and broke from the group to check me out, rifles held close, but non-threateningly. I trust them. I know what's in their heads at this point.

I introduced myself, explaining that I was there to help where I could and to document the situation as a freelance photojournalist (admittedly amateur). The 1LT, seeing that I was no threat, wandered back to the meeting, while the SGM quizzed me about what was going on. He wanted to know the situation. They had just arrived that morning and were a little uncertain regarding the local terrain and politics. Here's the deal: while they had heard all the stories of random violence, snipers, and looting, and they truly wanted to help out, these combat tested, door-kicking, shooters had two problems.

The first difficulty is that these troops are in an American city doing relief work and dealing with an American problem, but there were crazies about. The soldiers had to defend themselves, but the last thing they wanted to do was shoot fellow Americans. Second, as federal troops, they were constitutionally prevented from acting as a police force within an American state. This obviously means that not only do they have no power to arrest folks committing crimes, but that their tenuous legal state made even returning fire when attacked subject to major review within the political arena. Of course, there are certain legal clauses that, in extreme situations, can be invoked to get around this situation, but the administration - already embattled by accusations of overstepping their constitutional bounds by creating and supporting the Patriot Act - was hesitant to call on these. The National Guard, acting upon invited (eventually) Louisiana state control, was to heavily augment the local police forces to serve that purpose. I found out later that active duty units like 1st Cav. and the 82nd Airborne were being relegated to body recovery. Damn, I'll bet they were pissed. These guys are action-oriented, but hey, better to not set the precedent for allowing federal troops to run shit within the borders of the US, in my opinion. They weren't scared, but they had issues.

The SGM told me that the area we were in was supposedly a pretty bad one. He noted, however, that although the locals seemed to hate the city cops, they had been pretty friendly with the troops since they had arrived. A wise choice, I think. Unfortunately, I had only just gotten into the area and didn't have a lot of info to offer these guys besides what I had heard on local radio and learned from talking to people who lived in the greater NOLA area. Trying to stay out of the way and not interrupt their planning session, I took a few shots of soldiers doing what soldiers have done in every theater of operations throughout history and moved on, heading East to see what I could see.

As I drove slowly down the street, I saw a lot of spectacular looking damage, but it was very obvious that this area was more than salvageable. There were trees down everywhere, of course, and most of the side streets had yet to be cleared, but most of the other damage consisted mainly of roofing and siding that had ripped off of buildings from the hurricane's winds. A couple structures were devastated, but most of the neighborhood was in relatively good condition.

An old man sitting in a plastic chair in front of a building called out to me as I drove past. I stopped. "Hey, you gotta light?" he asked, waving around an unlit cigarette. I got out and walked over to him, and handed him my lighter. We talked while he smoked. His name was Russell Boudreaux and he was an ethnic Cajun who lived on some backwater bijou until he met and married a "city girl" and moved with her to this area. His wife had died some time back, but he never returned to the swamps. He's a welder and probably makes more money in the city.

He told me that the first few nights during the hurricane and subsequent flooding were insane. People had been running around the streets shooting, looting, and generally freaking out. Russell had spent those nights locked in his apartment above the store where I found him, cradling a loaded shotgun, ready to defend himself if necessary. He said that it had been pretty calm during the days, especially once the local cops were reinforced by police and military forces from throughout the country, but he cautioned me against traveling alone at night in this neighborhood. "Yeah, well don't worry about that," I responded, "I may be an idiot, but I don't have a death wish." I told him about the Army unit based just down the street and said if he had any problems he should flag them down. He didn't seem worried. Funny thing about old people: some are terrified of everything, clinging on to what scraps of life they have left. Others, like Russell, aren't looking for death, but manage to work through life with an attitude that screams, "I've been through it all. What can you possibly do to me? I'm not afraid to die, but you'll have to take me down kicking and screaming." I don't expect to live as long as Russell, but if I do, I hope I share his attitude when I get there.

I gave Russell an old, GI issue, waterproof container filled with matches. It had a striking surface glued to the inside of the lid. Then I thanked him, wished him luck, and drove off.

Just a few blocks East of Russell's place, I came across the first evidence I'd seen of real looting. It was a small, local supermarket called the "BreauxMart." It was pretty disgusting - food and trash spilling out of the shattered doors out into the parking lot. While taking pictures, I kept looking over my shoulder for signs of anyone approaching. People who do this to their own neighborhood are not to be trusted, I think. And before anyone complains, this store suffered not just a run on basic supplies like food and water. It had been trashed. The people who did this did it not out of survival instinct, but mob anger.

I wanted to go inside, but didn't because I thought I might get shot as a looter by a passing cop. Perhaps this sign directly across the street added to that feeling:

Back To The Front? Part I

2005-09-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

At the bar on Monday night, I had a conversation with a guy who was telling me about authentic local food joints, and now I wanted to try one out to fill up my gut before I headed in to New Orleans. He said he liked a place called “Zomoras,” although I'm not sure about the name because he was pretty drunk. He said that it had two cartoony, fiberglass alligators out front, and I had actually noticed them on my drive South from NOLA on Monday night. It sounded good, so I was keeping an eye out for it when I was driving up through that general area. I finally saw the alligators and slowed to turn in to the lot. As I pulled up, though, I realized that the place was closed and the local fire department was using the parking lot to distribute food and water to locals who'd lost their utilities to the hurricane. I was starving, so I continued on, looking for someplace else to eat. It looked like everything was closed until I came across a crappy roadhouse where the sign advertised food and the doors were open.

I walked in and saw nothing but two older ladies sitting at the bar. The lights were out, but there was a gigantic fan rattling away, so they had some sort of power. I leaned in and asked if they were open, to which the skinny one (Madonna) replied, “Sure! We've got a generator working the ice maker and the beer is cold in the cooler there on the floor.” Normally that would have been just fine with me, but since I was looking to hook up with a military unit to travel with through New Orleans (and didn't want to smell like booze), I declined. I asked if they were serving food and the fat one (Enid) sounded off with, “Well, the kitchen's got no power, but I made jambalaya at home earlier and brought it in.” Sounds good to me. That's basically what I came here for anyway: local cuisine. As I ate, we got to discussing the current situation, and like several of the Louisiana, um, -ers, I've met here, they asked me for my perspective as an outsider on the current situation, and how it could have possibly happened as it did. I'll discuss my perspective on the whole situation in a later post, as it changes somewhat just about daily as I learn new things and see how things are or aren't progressing. This time I said something about how, regardless of blame to be placed in the coming weeks and months, I definitely didn't think that anything was improved by the Mayor's leadership breakdown, and his subsequent crying to the media and pointing fingers at everyone else. Madonna replied in an exasperated voice, “That's because he's a nigger! That's what they do!”

Riiiiight...

I changed the subject.

I finished my meal, thanked them, and continued up the 90. I was listening to the local NOLA talk radio station, which was, and will be for some time, broadcasting from Baton Rouge, wedged in to the same studio as the Baton Rouge talk station. Like most people in New Orleans, just about all the show hosts had lost friends, homes, or had their lives generally shaken up. They did a really impressive job of keeping it together, and many of their broadcasts were a combination of commentary on the situation, announcements of some of the drastic changes made to government, services, and infrastructure to accommodate the current reality, as well as acting as a people-finding service. They took callers who couldn't find friends or relatives and let them say where they were last known to be, what they looked like, and allowed them to give their phone numbers over the air in case anyone knew of there whereabouts. They also encouraged employers looking for workers to call in and announce job offerings in the various areas where NOLA residents had been evacuated. I think that the most important aspect of the majority of these broadcasts was that they let callers vent their anger, sorrow, and frustration at the state of things and then calmly explained to them how drastic changes were going to have to be made by everyone, including those not immediately affected by the damage. In stark contrast to the vultures in the national media, who encourage sales by printing huge pictures of tragedy on their front page and by publishing every conceivable rant and conjecture, the local radio talk stations tried to calm everyone down, encouraging patience and reasonable actions. I think that they did a fantastic job of this and deserve much credit for generally not resorting to the absolute bullshit spewed by the MSM which angered me so much that I drove for three days just to get down here in the first place.

A man called up the station and said he was trapped in an independent living apartment building with 20 or so other old people. He claimed that they had been given food and water, but had not been evacuated, and most (including him) could not walk down the stairs. The building had 8 stories and the elevator was broken. He said that he was diabetic and had run out of insulin, not to mention that he was supposed to receive a heart catheter a week ago, but hadn't because of the disaster. The radio host let him give out the address to the building, which I wrote down as I drove in case I ran into any emergency officials to whom I could hand it over and tell them the situation.

As the 90 approaches NOLA, it splits into East and West offshoots at a town called Bridge City (Gumbo Capital of Louisiana, according to the sign). The Eastern branch, which eventually turns North, is called the West Bank Expressway. This is all a little confusing to an outsider like me. A couple of miles East of the split the expressway rises up from a surface street with stoplights to a raised highway that curves North and then West toward New Orleans. Along the 90, I saw evidence of hurricane damage (and perhaps looting), but I had yet to see any signs of flooding.

The old man trapped in the building had said that it was located right off this road, however, and as I drove by I actually saw the apartment name he had given on the air in big letters on the side of a medium-sized brick building. I dropped down off the elevated highway and whipped a U-turn, making my way through surface streets back over to that area. I'm figuring that I'm going to have to climb the stairs and start hauling geriatrics down myself. They're all little, dessicated-looking, and light-weight, right?

I pulled up to the building and there was already a Red Cross ambulance there, with several people standing around out front. Besides an R/C staffer, there were also a few ladies in bright yellow t-shirts that said, "Scientology Emergency Volunteer" on the front. I walked up and started to tell them what I had heard of the situation and let's-get-going-and-haul-some-old-folks-down-and...

A short, pudgy, middle-aged Scientologist cut me off, angrily saying that these people had, in fact, run out of medication and that some of them were suffering more dementia than normal because of this. She said that emergency crew docs had refused to give out more medication, because the condition wasn't life-threatening, and they didn't know the full prescription history, each individual's health conditions, and so on. I was a bit taken aback by her immediate lashing out, but I explained to her the call I had heard on the radio. She retorted that some of the people had, "gotten hold of phones" and were "calling all over the place causing trouble." She continued to act like I was being some kind of unreasonable asshole. Writing her off as useless, I turned around to the Red Cross guy that was driving the ambulance and explained to him about the old man's insulin need and missed heart catheter appointment. He seemed to be more reasonable and said he'd look into it, but they weren't going to take the people out yet because they had food, water, and shelter right here. I figured that he was probably better trained and more able to handle their medical situation than I was. At least I'd given him the information I had. Just as I was about to turn around and leave, an ancient woman walked out of the building and said, "Oh you're the young man that I talked to last week. I thought I recognized you." I told her that I was sorry, but that wasn't me, breaking off the conversation and returning to my car.

I got back on the expressway with a funny feeling that all those people would soon be strapped to their beds, connected to E-Meters, and forced to watch old Tom Cruise movies while their Social Security resources were drained to purchase thousands of copies of Dianetics. I hope this isn't what happened.

I finally got back to a place with internet service...

2005-09-10T18:38:00.000-07:00

I had to make my way all the way to Baton Rouge to find a place where I could access the Internet, so there are two new posts below. I wanted to throw up a third as well, but I'm not yet finished. Maybe tomorrow...

Southern Defensive Perimeter

2005-09-10T18:09:00.000-07:00

South of New Orleans is a series of bijous, bays, and marshes that have historically acted as a buffer zone between the city and oncoming hurricanes.

Even though it's a wetland area, the force of a hurricane is dulled somewhat as it proceeds further inland. Since the first settlements in the NOLA area, levees and canals were created to control seasonal flooding and the banks of the Mississippi were hardened to keep the river following the same course, so the major port facilities would remain useful. What this does, however, is prevent the regular depositing of river silt, which not only allows the land on which NOLA sits to remain at relatively the same level, but also maintains the wetland buffer zone by replenishing the land that is constantly removed by tidal action. The result of this is that, not only is New Orleans sinking, but the marshy buffer is shrinking; more goes out than comes back in. This increases the likelihood of a hurricane traveling further inland and also makes the buffer towns and ports more vulnerable to disaster.

About an hour and a half before dawn, I started out from the little church lot I had “slept” in and headed South on highway 1, which winds it's way through little towns and parishes to a point called Port Fourchon and then East to Grand Isle, a park and recreation area (with a small US Marine observation station). On the way, the highway follows the course of a river, and I as drove further down, I could see the lights of shrimp and fishing boats, which were moored to little docks at its edges. Of course, I couldn't help but think of Forrest Gump, and how this was entirely unlike the movie as so many boats had survived. In the glow of the ships' lights, I could see debris from the hurricane, but it appeared that none of them were visibly damaged, at least as far as my untrained eye could detect.

I continued on into the pre-dawn, and as it got lighter began to see my first real evidence of serious hurricane destruction. One of the first things I noticed, besides random piles of mixed wreckage along the side of the road, was pretty severe damage to utility poles. Throughout this trip, it became pretty obvious that the some of the most vulnerable things in a wild storm are trees and utility/telephone poles, and I will have many pictures that include them here, as well as in later entries.

The stilted buildings seen in the background of the above picture are called “camps,” which translates to “summer home” in regular English. I have spoken with quite a few people who, even though their regular houses may have been undamaged, lost their camps. On the other hand, I've spoken with others who lost their regular houses, but were able to seek refuge in their still-surviving camps after the storm passed.

The sun had yet to break over the Eastern horizon when I passed Port Fourchon and ran in to a roadblock at a bridge. The park ranger manning the post informed me that only emergency personnel, military, and refinery employees (there are several in this area) were allowed to pass. Here's a shot of one of the refineries along the route (though not one accessible from the roadblock where I was forced to turn around).

I was starting to get annoyed at my lack of free reign, but turned around, drove a few hundred feet, and parked. I needed to catch up with writing my posts anyway, and it was still only 5:30 AM. I wasn't really going to miss anything if I hung out for a couple of hours. Not too long after I had parked, the sun started to rise and I snapped a few shots of it against a bijou foreground.

After a few sunrise shots just to see if I could come up with something dramatic, I popped off a shot back towards the checkpoint from which I was turned away.

Then I started back north on the highway, stopping and taking pictures whenever I thought I saw something interesting.

In no particular order:

Here are a couple that I particularly liked. I'm not sure how exactly to express this thought, but it seems to me that both of these really capture something especially graceful about the state of destruction of the subject. (Great, now I'm sounding like a less articulate version of Hannibal Lechter).

Once I meandered my way back up Hwy 1 to my starting point, still having not successfully completing my mission of linking up with any military units, I decided to try and hit some small, secondary Coast Guard and Marine bases located to the Southeast. I spent several hours driving around bijou country, getting lost, back-tracking, and sightseeing, and ended up only finding a tiny, locked, and deserted Coast Guard facility in the middle of nowhere. The only thing I really found of interest was an old fishing boat that had obviously been sunk well before the hurricane, judging from the amount of duck grass (someone told me that's what it's called) growing up out of it.

Disappointed, hungry, and ready to finally get to New Orleans, I headed back north and got on the HWY 90 to see if I could just talk my way in to the heart of the town.

Movement To Contact, Part II

2005-09-10T17:30:00.000-07:00

I took me three days to get to the NOLA area, but I spent most of day two and the first half of day three just trying to haul ass and get off the road, so I didn't take any pictures of significance. Let me just say, though, that Texas is FREAKING HUGE! I knew this, of course, but I'd never driven across it. It's a beautiful drive, but I'm not particularly looking forward to the return trip.

There were signs as far West as San Antonio that said the I-10 was closed East of Baton Rouge, with no access to NOLA at the time. I had heard as much already, so I kept driving through. Baton Rouge had supposedly taken some damage from the storm, but it wasn't really that bad, so they were housing thousands of NOLA refugees in some of their larger, convention center-type buildings. In fact, during the first week following the hurricane and levee breaks, the population of Baton Rouge reportedly doubled, making it now the largest city in Louisiana.

As I drove through town, I saw random groups of people, some carrying a few things, just kind of wandering or sitting around. I asked a cop if there were any NG units around and was directed to the LSU campus a short way down the road.

The only NG at LSU yet was a single squad of MPs from KY (this was a fun sentence to write). They were mostly new to each other, compiled from units all across their state because so many of their fellow soldiers are currently overseas (Afghanistan, I was told). Their squad leader was an E-5 (SGT). They had been in NOLA briefly a couple of days before, but had been sent back out and were awaiting orders, just sitting around. They had no idea what was going on or what they were supposed to be doing, which is not necessarily a strange thing, it being the military. They told me that they were still under (KY) state control rather than Federal, which seems stupid, and probably the reason they were being so poorly used. I knew that I didn't want to just hang around campus with them indefinitely, so I took off, heading south on a small state highway to come at NOLA from underneath, figuring that since this was the least damaged part of town (called Jefferson Parish), I might be able to get in more easily.

At this point in the trip, I was seeing very little evidence that there had been a hurricane at all. A little bit of sheet metal roofing torn off here and there, some downed power lines, and lots of piles of dead branches that had fallen off trees in people's yards stacked along the road for pickup, was the extent of the damage I observed. The worst destruction so far was an abandoned trailer that had been smashed by a falling tree.

I saw a few big, broken trees and stopped to take a picture of one of them.

It's pretty obvious that the damage wasn't that bad though, because many of the houses in the area were trailers, and almost none of them looked to have suffered at all.

It was a neat back road. Lots of little townships and “Parishes,” which is Louisiana-ese for “County.”

I saw a sign for a NG armory a little further down the road and turned off to see if there was anyone there I could link up with. The place was deserted. I figured they were probably all in NOLA already. Right next to the armory there was a typical, small-town LA graveyard, all ramshackle and random. I have always felt that these have so much more character than straight, “dress-right-dress” cemeteries with identical tombstones and manicured grass. I stopped and took a few pics there before moving on.

There's a little college just past there that had another refugee station set up. It was pretty small, probably only a couple hundred people. A gaggle of local police and a few NG (probably from the armory) were standing around making sure things stayed peaceful. This made sense, because NOLA apparently has a pretty big poverty problem and a high crime rate. When I was passing through Houston, the local radio stations were talking about how roughly 15,000 people had been moved to the Astrodome and the surrounding area. There were reportedly a bunch of them who had been causing trouble and several arrests had been made. Every refugee center I've seen has had some sort of police or NG force around to make sure it didn't get out of hand.

It was dark by the time I got up to the NOLA area, so I figured I'd see how far I could get before being turned back. Not very, it turns out. At this point, the authorities had decided to let residents of certain parts of town back in to collect what they could, but they were checking for proof of residence and requiring that every car's tank was full (no gas is available in NOLA). The closest gas stations to the checkpoints that were still operational had a pretty heavy NG and police presence, because there had apparently been long lines, people cutting, and a bunch of fist fights. I turned around right before the checkpoint just to avoid the hassle and that's when I headed to the bar mentioned in my last post.

When I left the bar, I drove to a church parking lot (I figured no one would bother me there) and tried to get some sleep. It didn't really work. It was sweltering in my car and I made the mistake of cracking open the windows. The mosquitoes kept me awake until I gave up and started driving at about 4 AM to try to locate a Marine observation station I'd found listed in a telephone book at the bar. It was located south of NOLA on Baratarra Bay. As the sun was coming up, I finally started seeing some really serious hurricane damage, which I'll detail in my next post.

Movement To Contact, Part I

2005-09-06T21:10:00.000-07:00

(I know I skipped “Op Order.” It just worked out that way. Adapt, overcome, etc.)
This post is probably unnecessarily long. I do that sometimes. Feel free to skip ahead if you become bored. You can just look at the pretty pictures...

I finally have some time to sit and write about my trip so far. Actually, I wish that I didn't have the time, but due to circumstances I'll describe in a later post, I'm sitting in “Beck's” bar in Lockjaw (or something), Louisiana, just south of New Orleans. Let me preface this by saying that there's no internet readily available – all the local hotels are booked with refugees and services in the area are generally sporadic or totally non-existent. Therefor, any specific factual details I may relate, names of people or places that I would normally look up before posting, etc. may be inaccurate, and I may never change them (probably edit this out, though).

I also apologize for some of the spots that appear in pictures that I shot through my windshield. Damn bugs. When I rule the world with an iron fist, I'll put the scientists to work on that. “Fix this problem, you fucking nerds, or suffer my wrath!”

In any case...

I left LA somewhere around 2PM on Saturday, Sept. 3rd. I didn't even make it out of LA County before Mr. Murphy came a-calling. As I was coming up on Asuza, I heard an awful noise coming from the general direction of my left rear tire. I was alarmed, but it went away, so with some trepidation, I kept driving. Not two minutes later, I heard it again, and this time it felt like I had run over something, though I had seen nothing – until I looked in my rear view mirror, that is. I saw pieces of tire tumbling down the road behind me. Not a good sign. I also have no spare tire. (That's me, the risk taker, beginning a 1300 or so mile drive with no spare tire.) I pulled over as quickly as possible and did a quick check. I could see that much of the treading had peeled off, but the tire was still inflated, so I drove to the next exit and was directed by a helpful cop (they exist!) to a very nearby tire dealer. Sixty-five bucks and half an hour later I was back on the road. (I snapped a quick picture of the tire once the guy replacing it took it off)

At this point, I'm hoping my car lasts the trip (I'm still hoping this), but I'm still thinking, “NOLA!" Shortly thereafter, I pulled up behind this car:

Who knows if she was driving to NOLA like me, but I don't really know what she hoped to accomplish by putting that sign up. Maybe a get-out-of-a-speeding-ticket-free card or something. Whatever. It's just something I noticed.

It was hot, dry, and sunny as I passed through Riverside County on the way out to Palm Desert (and all the other associated “Palms”).

I even had the perverse thought (as those of you familiar with me know I'm wont to do) that, “Hey, no chance of a flood here!” I even took a picture out the window to document that thought.

I had a couple of shitty windshield wiper blades installed, and although I had two new ones in the back seat, I hadn't replaced them 'cause I'm lazy and figured that I wouldn't hit any rain until I got to the gulf coast. Mr. Murphy – or perhaps this time it was just my stupidity / laziness – struck again.

A dark haze appeared in the distance. It didn't really look like a bunch of clouds, but once I started seeing the occasional flash of lightning, I knew that I was in for at least a little weather.

It was pretty cool looking. I could see rainbows at it's edges as I neared it:

Crappy wipers and all, I made it through, because I rule (in case you didn't know, or just needed to be reminded). As I started to break through to the other side, the sun was just starting to set behind me and the mountains looked incredible. Actually, as cool as they looked in this pic, the lowly guardrail looks even cooler in my opinion. Nice camera, Mike. Thanks! Ya ain't never getting it back.

Once I was all the way through the storm, I still wanted to play with the camera a little, so I took these shots of the storm, back lit by the setting sun:

Finally, back in the normal, sunny desert, I started to see National Guard vehicles and troops heading East. There were a lot more, including some cool military boats, but mostly I was driving and didn't want to run off the road just to take a picture.

I obviously spent too much time dicking around on the first leg of the drive 'cause I only made it to Phoenix and took way too many pictures of crap entirely unrelated to my trip.

Hurry Up and Wait!

2005-09-04T23:21:00.000-07:00

I really wanted to put up a post about my trip to NOLA so far, but I've been on the road for 15 hours and still need to get my gear ready for the final leg tomorrow. I need to be able to carry 5 days worth of food, socks, etc., because I'm going in unsupported as of right now). I don't have time to adjust, resize, and compress pics and all that related crap yet.

Some of the travel time included a supplies run to the El Paso Target store (Oh, you Texans and your hot, hot, HOT little Latina girls! They were everywhere!) and an unanticipated conversation with a Texas Highway Patrol officer who let me off with a written warning for speeding when I told her where I was headed.

I contacted Jason from the Iraq Now blog about suggestions for officially linking up with a LANG unit in NOLA. He recommended that I call their Public Affairs Office (PAO) and request rules and information. They have a NOLA number (which I got), but I figure it's not working. However, they also have an office in Baton Rouge, so I got that number, too. I'll call them first thing tomorrow.

In any case, I still intend to move this content to another blog site, but I'm trying to figure out how that's done without creating a new account. Any help on that end would be appreciated!

Jason

Warning Order

2005-09-04T02:26:00.000-07:00

To date, I have been using this blog to document various art/construction/nerd projects that I've been working on. It's been fun, and I hope to continue doing it, even if nobody ever looks at it. For now, however, I've got to change directions.

Over the past week, I've been fuming at the absolutely ridiculous bullshit, propaganda, and politicization over what's been going on regarding the calamity in New Orleans, LA (which will from now on be called “NOLA”). Over the last couple of days I've considered dropping everything and just driving there and helping out wherever I could (it's pretty easy for me – I work freelance). Well, Saturday morning I said, “Fuck it. I'm going.”

I packed up a little bit of gear – work clothes (mostly old BDU pants and jungle boots from my days as an 11B1P), my laptop, and a couple of nice cameras (courtesy of a good friend and a TV production company I have often worked for) and hit the road. I'm writing now from Phoenix, AZ, where I took a pit stop to figure out what exactly I'm going to do.

Here's what I've decided:

I have two general options (besides just going there and gawking at the carnage like the main-stream media, hereafter referred to as “MSM,” which ain't gonna happen).

Option 1 – Link up with a NOLA-deployed National Guard (“NG” - or even “LANG,” to specify Louisiana NG, if necessary) unit and act as an “embedded” reporter. Well, actually, I'd be more of a photojournalist. I have contacted a couple of MIL-bloggers (that's “military web loggers” for you n00bs) and a few other people who might be able to link me up with the proper chain of command that could actually authorize this. I don't intend on mooching their supplies, nor do I intend on getting in their way, but rather to follow them around and document the reality of the situation – a reality that has thus far been virtually absent from the doom-seeking MSM. Fortunately, I know where to look – and by that I mean sifting through both sides of the partisan divide found on “TEH INTARWEB.”

Option 2 – Volunteer with the Red Cross. Now, while this seems like the most humanitarian approach, I called their Los Angeles office and they were swamped with offers for physical help. “That's a good thing,” to quote our beloved, electronically-manacled Martha Stewart. However, I wasn't really interested in waiting around for them to figure out the situation, so I left them my number. They can call me. If I can't link up with a military unit, I will absolutely show up at one of the Red Cross NOLA aid stations and offer my services. If they have a problem with that, I'll start filling sandbags on my own...

What will follow is a photo and story documentation of what I find on my journey. I'm sure there will be exciting and graphic content as well as more mundane descriptions of people getting things done – doing what they have to do. I will try to include as much about the people involved as I can, without losing focus on the grand scheme of things.

(FYI, I may - read “will probably” - migrate all posts on this topic to a new blog site – I will make mention of that when it happens).

I kick your ball!!!

2005-08-01T01:15:00.000-07:00

My brother has created a new blog. It's of the rant variety, but he's pretty damn entertaining. Check it out at: ikickyourball.blogspot.com

TV Fish Tank (inventive title, huh?)

2005-06-14T02:44:00.000-07:00

A short while ago, I was surfing around on the Internet looking for interesting things and found this page on which a guy details a project where he turned an old, broken TV set into a fish tank. One of my roommates, The Boy, happened to walk by while I was reading it and took a liking to the concept. A few days later, he called me from work, asking me to bring a truck over to scavenge an old TV they were going to throw out. I knew immediately why he was asking this and, figuring it would make for an amusing day or two, drove right over there. As you'll see from the post-deconstruction pictures below, it's old, clunky, and beat up, but it has a lot of character. It also swivels! (admittedly, while a swiveling TV fish tank affords one a lot of bragging rights, it doesn't really lend any real utility to the project)

I suppose I should add here that there are big, powerful capacitors inside the case of every tube TV set. Capacitors are used in electrical circuits sort of like batteries - they are charged and discharged as determined by the circuit to make magical things, like free Internet porn, work. When taking apart a tube TV, wear insulating gloves, unbolt all the circuits from their mounting, clip all the wires that prevent the circuit removal, and throw the boards and other techno-viscera away immediately. I've never personally seen anyone get shocked by TV guts, but apparently it's no joke. These capacitors will hold charge for months or years (even if unplugged), I'm told. In any case, you've been warned. Back to the narrative.

The Boy is pretty motivated once he gets inspired - especially when his inspiration involves building stuff. While I take forever doing even the most mundane projects, The Boy tends to work around little problems like "aesthetics" or "physics," preferring instead to hack it together, get it done, and start enjoying it immediately. This time, however, I got caught up in his enthusiasm and forgot to bust out the camera and take a couple of pictures of the TV before we ripped in to it. After virtually completing El Desko! without snapping any shots, I had resolved to pull my act together and provide myself with material to post on this stupid page. Obviously my resolve is a little shaky sometimes, especially when presented with a sanctioned opportunity to ~~break stuff.~~ carefully take things apart.

Given these shortcomings, this picture probably gives the best idea of what the original TV looked like. A fine, US made (some parts manufactured in Mexico), Montgomery Ward television of indeterminate age.

Before attempting to battle this project, we first had to gird our loins with the proper tools for the job. As you can see, I chose to arm myself with Bud Light, while The Boy was mixing beer and Gimlets for some reason. I think he made it to about 9 PM before he passed out. Oh yeah - we also used a screw gun and an angle grinder, but those aren't nearly as important. It's sort of a Zen thing. My state of mind is more important than the physical environment around me. Plus, my power tool hand runs a little steadier after a couple of drinks...

This is entirely unrelated to the above-discussed philosophy of mental lubrication (I swear!):

As you can see, we left the speakers in the TV. There was some discussion about running our main stereo system through these, but if I learned one thing from Deuce Bigalow - Male Gigolo, it's that you don't tap on the tank and say "fishy, fishy, fishy." I figured that blasting Slayer or D12 right through the walls of the tank wouldn't be a great idea either.

The Boy had jumped in to this thinking that we could modify the TV tube to act as the tank or build one like the guy who's original project inspired us. Using the tube was out of the question - there's apparently a lot of lead used in constructing these things (especially the older ones), not to mention that it's a vacuum tube and they tend to implode when shattered. All-around bad idea.

I also impressed on him the fact that building one from scratch would take cash (on top of the money we knew we'd have to spend on filters, pumps, fish, and whatnot) and time. It would take several days to accurately cut, reinforce, and seal - especially a tank of the size required to fill the void in the now piecemeal TV.

It so happens that I had recently gotten a bigger tank for my snake, Fluffy, so we decided to clean up his old tank and see if it would fit. Turns out it was nearly perfect! The tank nestled right up to the front of the cabinet and has about 1/4" clearance from the speakers on both sides. This also gives us room on the sides and the back for the water pump, cords / power strip, etc. Also, notice that we removed the top (with some difficulty - they screwed and glued the shit out of that thing). This was so we could make a hinged lid, detailed below.

We needed to keep the top together because we wanted the cabinet to look like it was still in one whole piece, even though the lid would hinge up for easy access. Unfortunately, although the individual pieces of the top were heavily secured to the front and sides of the set, they were barely glued to each other. In short, they came apart when we were banging the crap out of the top with a rubber mallet. I also split the wood at one corner when I missed a couple of screws and tried to pry it off of its mounting. We reglued all the pieces and clamped them together. Even the corner I busted came out looking pretty damn fine in the end.

Once the glue on our broken top had properly set, we screwed a board in to the back of the cabinet. The board added to the sturdiness of the frame and gave us a base from which to hinge the lid. A few pilot holes drilled and screwed later and we had a nice looking, flip-top lid for our TV tank!

Although it looked good closed, the action wasn't smooth because the top was never intended to be opened at the angle that the hinging requires (or at all, really). I took a couple of thin slices from the lid with the band saw while The Boy used the angle grinder to remove some of the offending material from the top of the flashing that borders the hole where the tube once sat. Once we put it back together, it worked real nice.

In order to keep the lid from falling backward and ripping out the hinges or smashing the wall, we added this this cable, nicked from the decomposing planks that our landlords generously call a gate. "Safety first," was our mantra as we cropped and mounted the line. Turns out not really to have been needed, though. Where we placed the aquarium, the lid hits the wall just past 90 degrees before the cable is pulled taught.

Finally, we were ready to start setting up the actual aquarium. We went to the local Petco and picked up gravel, filters, bubbler, pumps, water conditioner, heater, and fake plants. We were advised to put all that stuff in with the water and give it a couple of days for everything to reach a neutral balance or some other such crap.

You can see from the picture below that the top of the tank appears a little low in the TV tube frame / flashing. We considered shimming it up, but the water pump (seen on the right side, just above the TV control buttons) just barely fit under the closed top, so we had little alternative but to leave it as is or build the top up higher. We didn't have any wood that would have matched (or chucked) and we thought it would look crappy if we tried, so we're just going to have to live with it. It's not that big of a deal, really.

After waiting 3 days, we took a trip to a specialty fish store where this fish nerd told us how we could only put a couple of little fish in for the first 3 weeks so they could increase the nitrate level of the tank. This shit is taking forever! Who knew an aquarium would be so complicated? I have a beta that's lived in a tiny little tank for about 2 years and he seems indestructible. In any case, we added a light, a rock, a plastic skull, and a mold of a tyrannosaurus rex claw that my mom gave my brother, along with 3 little fish called striped something-or-others (one of which is an albino striped something-or-other). Once the tank is all nitrated up, we plan to add some more exotic stuff. Maybe a small eel, those bottom-feeding sucker fish - they even have freshwater prawns. Can't do anything yet, though.

Here's a shot of the fully completed tank with all the room lights off and no flash. You can see that there is a little light leakage around the lid and on the floor. I really never really noticed this until I looked at the picture, but I think a little cleverly placed black foil will take care of it if it starts to bother me.

For a better view of the inside, I turned on the flash. Here you can see a couple of our little fish. They're mildly interesting, but really only when they're fed. One of the non-albino striped ones is kind of a bully, chasing the others and nipping at their tails.

So there it is. The only thing left to do it wait the required time and get some more fish. I'll post an update once we do. Overall, the project was really easy and fun. The only downsides are the cost to equip the aquarium and the amount of time it takes for all the neutralizing and nitrating and other foolishness. The most important thing is that it looks cool in the house and people dig it.

Postcard Paintings

2005-06-04T14:37:00.000-07:00

I found these heavy paper postcard things at Michael's (an arts and crafts store). They are pre-printed like a postcard on one side and blank on the other so the sender can add whatever they want, stamp it, and mail it off. They're supposed to be for watercoloring, but who the hell are they to tell me what to do? I don't take no lip from no stupid postcard.

I used acrylic paints and then coated each of them with urethane so they'd last longer / travel better.

One word of advice, though. The cooler your work, the better chance that some mail sorter in the Post Office will decide that they like it, reducing the likelyhood that it'll arrive on the other end. You're better off mailing it inside something else. I don't know if it was really stolen, but this was my favorite one. I sent it to my mom for Mother's Day a couple years back and it never arrived:

This is an abstract portrait of my Red Tailed Boa, Fluffy:

I don't know what this is supposed to be, but all the dots were done with multiple layers of paint, so it's really bumpy - interesting to touch:

Here's some kind of fucked up cupid or something. Creeps me out.

Yes, that's his nose, and yes, he's happy to see you.

Fianlly, this is my favorite, besides the lost one detailed above:

Anyway, these are fun little projects. They only take a little while and the paper is pretty cheap. The urethane coating process takes longer (it dries kinda slow), but I think it's worth it in the long run. Make sure the urethane is absolutely dry, or your paint will smear. (Although it can be a cool effect, especially for backgrounds - after it smears, let the first coat of urethane dry and then paint the foreground on top of that. Then let dry completely and re-coat. That's how the Kokopeli at the top of this post was done.) I recommend using the cheap foam brushes for the clearcoat rather than regular bristle brushes - less streaking - just be sure to wash them well with warm water as soon as you apply the coat or they'll dry out and be ruined.

El Desko!

2005-06-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Added larger pics that pop up if you click on the original.

A buddy of mine and I were talking about building high-end computer / home theatre systems in to custom furniture. Unfortunately, he's a real artisan, while I'm a hack. He wanted to build some stuff together, but I kind of avoided it. I can't work with that kind of pressure; the whole "right way of doing things" and all...

Anyway, I figured that, left to my own devices, I could come up with something kind of cool.

To start things off, here's a wide shot of the whole desk in action. It's mostly finished... (I'm pretty lazy)

Probably about 80% of the desk is built with old, fucked up, recycled wood. I really like the look and, honestly, the rustic look is a little easier to pull off than something more modern when you're a hack like me.

I have to take all the crap off the desk to open it up. I'd like to figure out a better way to open it for future designs, but this was the easiest way I could think of to build it at the time.

At long as the hood's up, check out my favorite part of the design: the hinges. I know that seems like a small, stupid thing, but I really like how it works and it makes me happy, OK? The hinges are light-duty, spring-loaded toy box hinges that hold the lid in the up position. They aren't designed to hold the weight of the lid - that's why there are regular "flap" hinges along the back as well.

Now let's take a look at the guts of El Desko! Being the nerd that I am, I've always loved building my own computers. This is the first time that I built the case too, though. There's lots of room for expansion and everything is reasonably well laid out. I'll do more work on this part in the future.

All the parts for the computer arrived before I completed the desk, so I was itching to get the damn thing finished and fired up. In my haste, I left a few details uncompleted. Below is the front of the computer where eventually (hopefully) I will mount a housing for the power switches, LED's, USB connections, etc.

Finally, here's the psycho who would even bother doing such a thing:

Begin here:

2005-06-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Added larger pics that pop up if you click on the original.

I wanted to put some of my pics and other random shit online. I have to find where I archived most of it, but here's something for starters. It's not anything special, but I was loaded at a hotel in Philly and decided to have a little fun with a flatbed scanner/printer.