A weird, but true, perspective on Katrina Disaster...

[spacelady]

Our family lives in Satsuma, AL, 30 miles north of Mobile. My husband, 9 yo daughter & I had a chance to attend the tapings of Wheel of Fortune at the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.
We made plans in advance to arrive Friday evening, Aug. 26, and go to the show on Sat. Aug 27. Now before you conclude that we are flaming idiots, keep in mind that our region had been hit with Ivan (Very Bad but not horrible for our family.) Then we have been hit in 2005 with varying degrees of Arlene, Cindy & Dennis. The Experts scared us to death with Dennis & it was a big nothing except for its 20 mile swath which was very destructive but not widespread. So with the experts forecasting for days about this abrupt northerly turn of Katrina, we thought that a New Orleans strike was remote and decided to go ahead as planned.
There is a lot more that I can tell you about our experiences and I will if asked, but one of the weirdest things is that when we went to the gameshow tapings, another very large convention was wrapping up that Saturday & it involved policemen & firefighters. Now isn't that weird & kinda deja vu regarding drills being conducted right before a disaster?

edited to add: Why didn't those attendees stay & help? Not Blaming them, just wondering..

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Those EMS personnel didn't fare all that well...

Nor was their expertise utilized.

http://www.emsnetwork.org/artman/publish/article_18337.shtml

[spacelady]

2. Thank you so much Lumberjack_Jeff for that info,

I have been trying to find out about that aspect of who was there and what they saw. The news flows so fast, important things are missed.

[spacelady]

3. You know, I had actually read part of this account, but I had been so out

of touch for a week that I did not make the connection. Thank you again for the info & that is a powerful story.

[Merlot]

6. It is a very powerful account. Everyone should read it.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. Sure can't argue with that first person account...

[mackdaddy]

11. This Is INCREDIBLE!!

This explains a lot. No wonder they were shooting at the cops.

[Impeach_Shrub]

4. They prolly tried to stay and help, FEMA turned away all kinds of help

and the failure to rescue victims seems quite deliberate.

[spacelady]

7. Impeach_Shrub, I think you are right & I hope these stories are

yelled from the rooftops of the media. Even though I'm a new DU member, welcome to DU! It's a great place.

[Impeach_Shrub]

9. Ty, ty, ty very much. I can tell it is. N/T

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. This is a big problem in hurricane zones

we have so many false alarms that people start to ignore them. Besides most of the time even if the storm does hit, it's not as bad as everyone thought. Another factor is that you do get sort of use to them.

By my third hurricane last year, we went out to a resturant that was still up and running in the middle of the storm. Our electric had already gone out and it was better then another can of tuna.

[spacelady]

10. It is a problem of the boy who cried wolf type. Now with national

attention brought to looting, it makes property owners leery about leaving even in a dangerous situation. Not disparaging or condoning looting because that is a grey area that is not best determined by military types.

[NYC]

12. Were those only local police and firefighters?

Do tell us more about your experiences. I have a friend who was there that weekend, but he was working.

[spacelady]

13. We arrived in New Orleans Friday around 4:00pm & it must have been

the end-of-week rush hour because it took and hour to go from Slidell to the hotel 2 blocks from the convention center. This was going IN to town, the road going OUT of town was not busy at all. After settling in, we walked to a Cajun restaurant/dance hall called Mulate's for dinner. We hadn't been there before, what a wonderful place! The band was great and the elderly gentleman who played a washboard tie took a shine to our daughter and had her up on stage for two songs with the band, playing washbord & triangle. Then he asked her to dance, so she could learn Cajun dancing. Beautiful memories, the place was packed, no one even imagining what would take place in just a few days.
On Saturday, we were scheduled to attend the afternoon taping of Wheel. The front desk warned us that the authorities were discussing diverting I-10 for evacuation. Katrina was still a long way off but taking an ominous direction. We decided to go to see the show we came for. When we got to the convention center, we encountered a large EMS group just wrapping up their program. I don't know where they were from. We attended 3 tapings of Wheel & they were going to have two more tapings that evening & they encouraged people to stay if they wanted, but understood if they didn't. The Sunday tapings were cancelled. We took off for home at 6:00pm and police were beginning to set up cones and divert traffic. We got home in record time with no traffic jams. It now seems just surreal.

[NYC]

14. It's a good thing you went when you did.

Who knows what will become of New Orleans. Thanks for the report.