Accounts of Katrina: Survival and Recovery
Boating
By Bill Quigley,
I was in a hospital for 5 days and 4 nights during
Katrina. My wife is a nurse and I was there with her.
We left in a small fishing boat puttering down
Napoleon Avenue.
The hospital had about 2000 people in it. Katrina
exploded several big windows and the floods surrounded
us with 8 feet of water. We lost electricity right
away and soon lost the backup generator which was in
the flooded basement. The water system stopped. We
were advised not to drink the water and could not
flush toilets.
You can imagine a hospital with 2000 people without
electricity, water and flush toilets. Breathing
machines did not work. Computers did not work. Cell
phones did not work. Lights did not work. Elevators
did not work. The cafeteria was in the basement so we
had limited food for the first days and no food at the
end. There was some bottled water. Nurses and aides
and doctors and staff and families and visitors were
all pitching in and doing heroic work despite the
absence of modern medicine.
Outside it was much worse. People on rooftops were
screaming for help. People shot guns to try to get
the attention of the helicopters that kept going far
overhead. People were swimming in the water. People
were boating in the water. A body was floating in the
water. Security turned wandering people away from the
hospital and they walked back out into the waters.
The hospital first evacuated some premature infants
in incubators out on Tuesday. Staff and families
carried incubators down several flights of stairs to
the parking garage. There they were handed through a
hole in the wall into the back of a truck which took
them to the roof for helicopter rescue.
No one was ever told where the helicopters were
going. Mothers of the infants were not allowed to
evacuate with them. Not enough room in the
helicopters, they said. The tiny babies flew away to
who knew where, mothers behind. Heartbreak
unimaginable to any parent. The helicopters stopped when it got dark Tuesday
night. Nearly 1500 people remained in the hospital.
Some doctors broke open vending machines for food so
we had cheetos and Hawaiian punch for dinner. It was
getting hotter all the time. People lay down by
broken windows to try to catch a breeze. People were
very tired but sleep was tough.
My wife and I tried to take some quiet time together
to plan and went into the darkened chapel. We were
stopped by a dead body lying on a gurney covered in a
sheet. Patients were dying.
On Wednesday, the helicopter started up again.
Elderly patients were carried down dark stairwells and
driven to the roof. Small groups of people went out
by airboats that roared down
helicopters stopped coming. No one knew why.
People waited for hours for the helicopters to come
back, but they never came. Patients were lined up on
the roof and down the halls. Volunteers were waving
pieces of cardboard over them trying to cool them off.
Medicines were unavailable. We were out of food.
Until the sun set, an army sergeant and I held up a
homemade sheet sign on the heliport trying to flag
down helicopters. The sheet said "HELP!!! People
dying!!!" A medical mechanic waiting on the roof to
be picked up by his company was cynical. "You are
wasting your time" he said "people are dying all over
the city."
A marine helicopter saw our sign and landed but was
too small to take patients. They gave us a case of
water and a case of
halls inside were full of waiting patients in
wheelchairs and cots. The doctor in charge apologized
for the situation and explained that they had no
medicine to give anyone. "We have some food," he
said, "but those who have already eaten today should
not eat because we do not have enough for everyone."
He then handed out a tin of
The night was hot and slow. There were still over a
thousand people left in the hospital. Worried about
security, the hospital asked everyone to gather up
their clothes and possessions on the first and second
levels. We "slept" on the floor by a pair of broken
windows.
The next morning nothing happened for several hours,
then the skies started roaring as helicopter after
helicopter landed. A sweet sound.
About mid-day all the patients had left and we
boarded a small fishing boat piloted by two young
volunteers who were ferrying people out to Napoleon
and
others and drove through the streets of
That truck took us out to Causeway and I-10. When we
rounded the ramp, the whole truck gasped. Thousands
and thousands of people were waiting in the rain under
the bridges. Mud was everywhere. There were no
toilets. National Guard people were everywhere.
Helicopters were landing across the highway and then
taking off. It seemed like a big crowd scene from a
bad movie.
As busses pulled up, the crowd surged forward. Many
people had been outside for days and were desperate to
get on a bus. No one knew where the busses were going
– they would not tell us, but people wanted on no
matter what.
We decided to volunteer until the lines went down and
ended up catching a ride with some volunteer nurses.
Boating down Napoleon, we saw many trees felled by
Katrina. Almost all had sparkling Mardi Gras beads
stuck in their branches. I hope that image will
remind me to look honestly at both the painful
destruction and the bright hope for better times.
Editors' Note: Bill Quigley has accepted an invitation from the Fellowship
of Reconciliation, an international interfaith peace
organization, to be a part of a peace delegation to
Iran in early December. They will be meeting with peace and justice groups
in various places in Iran from Saturday December 3 until Monday
December 12.
Updated on November 1, 2005
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Loyola Relief Fund |