Eye of the storm

As Gustav approached, New Orleans hospital workers swore they wouldn't repeat the mistakes of Katrina -- and they were right.

By Sheri Fink

Topics:New Orleans

When residents of New Orleans began drowning three years ago, the city’s director of Emergency Medical Services, Jullette Saussy, faced a devastating crisis. Radios failed. Ambulances were trapped. She needed boats and high-water vehicles to respond to the increasingly frantic 911 calls from people threatened by the rising waters.

Saussy and other city, state and federal officials vowed the next time would be different. So as Hurricane Gustav bore down on New Orleans this weekend, I went with Saussy to the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal, the city’s designated evacuation point, to get a firsthand look at how much progress had been made.

At 9 p.m. on Saturday, two hours after Gustav’s first squall drenched New Orleans, she and other first responders had already spent days helping the city brace for a long, ugly fight with the storm.

The city’s mandatory evacuation program had ended hours earlier, but Saussy was receiving reports that several dozen of the city’s sick and elderly were still stranded in their homes. They and their families were calling 911, insisting they had registered for the city’s special-needs transport program, but that help had never arrived. The program was officially over, but Saussy and her EMS teams pledged to keep it going.

“We’re not going to leave people,” she said. “We’ve seen what it looks like when people drown.”

Ambulances picked up those residents and took them to New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal, the city’s designated evacuation point. “We got a lot more coming,” Saussy told an emergency medical technician there.

Of all the ghosts of Katrina, perhaps the most haunting was the specter of vulnerable residents suffering and dying at home and in hospitals and nursing homes before help arrived. Hospitals became furnaces as they lost power in the summer heat, surrounded by water and cut off from communications. Few times in American civilian history have health workers faced such horrific conditions and wrenching choices over whom to save first when rescue boats and helicopters were slow to arrive.

Hospital administrators swore their facilities would be better prepared for the next storm. Among them was Robert Lynch, CEO of Tulane University Hospital.

Hours before Gustav’s predicted arrival, I watched Lynch, dressed down in khakis and a Tulane shirt, give a pep talk to a roomful of grave-looking nurses and support staff. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your effort to be here,” he told them.

Some of them, including Lynch, had watched three years ago when Lake Pontchartrain flooded the hospital’s generator, knocking out all the facility’s power. For days, staff labored in extreme heat until all the 1,600 people who had sheltered at the hospital were flown by helicopter off the top floor of its parking garage. Bed-bound patients were carried down staircases on mattresses.

This time, as the storm threatened, hospital officials discharged patients who were capable of going home and told staff to find other accommodations for their own family members and pets. That left only about 430 people to be evacuated from the main campus if the levees failed again. The Lakeside campus was down to just a few high-risk pregnant mothers and babies. Generators at the main campus had been raised high above the ground, and a larger fuel tank installed, along with flood gates and pumps.

And there was another difference. Many of the hospital’s critically ill patients and those who rely on electricity-powered technology, such as dialysis machines, were being evacuated to other cities that officials expected would be safer. Doctors used medical judgment when choosing whom to evacuate. The bottom line, Lynch said, was this: “Who would you pick if you had the choice of moving someone now — planned, controlled, with very good medical assets like a mobile ICU, versus going out like Katrina?”

Across southern Louisiana, doctors at other hospitals made similar choices about whom to evacuate. But even well-laid plans hit hitches. As Gustav’s predicted landfall grew closer, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin called it “the mother of all storms.” Hospitals decided at the last minute to evacuate even more patients.

Cindy Davidson, an administrator with the Metropolitan Hospital Council of New Orleans, helped coordinate an aerial evacuation using local, state and federal assets. On Sunday, 231 patients were on her list, many of them critically ill. Ambulances from as far away as Pennsylvania were ready at 6 a.m. to begin shuttling ICU patients to New Orleans Lakefront Airport. Then they waited. And waited. “It took a long time for the planes to actually come in,” Davidson said.

When the air evacuation teams arrived, many weren’t prepared to transport the most critically ill. “They kept asking, ‘Don’t you have some ambulatory patients?’” Davidson said. In the end, many of the sickest patients had to be transported by ground. At least three patients died awaiting evacuation at area airports, according to remarks by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. It was impossible to know whether the wait contributed to their outcomes. Davidson said that although careful plans had been established in recent years to evacuate individual regions of the state, “we never planned to evacuate the whole southern coast of Louisiana.”

Still, while the process was far from smooth, the accomplishment was considerable. “We got everyone out on our list and plus some,” she said.

Just after 10 p.m. on Sunday, EMS director Saussy was still at the Union Passenger Terminal in downtown New Orleans, struggling to get the city’s last special-needs residents out of town. It was raining again when an ambulance pulled up with an elderly couple. Other ambulances with more elderly and sick residents were on their way, and about two dozen relatively healthy people still waited inside the terminal.

Two U.S. Army National Guard officers warned Saussy that for safety reasons the evacuation vehicles needed to be on the road by 10:30 p.m. Just then, two empty yellow school buses drove up to the terminal.

“Hallelujah, hallelujah,” said Saussy, who had eaten almost nothing that day and had only two hours’ sleep that night. Passengers were guided to the buses as the wind picked up and rain began falling harder. Then the buses and several ambulances pulled out, heading toward Baton Rouge and presumed safety.

Saussy walked through the rain to her car and drove back to the emergency operations center at City Hall, where she hunkered down for the night with colleagues from FEMA and the National Guard, as well as state and city officials. Several asked how her night had gone. “We got everyone out,” she said again and again.

Hours later, Gustav’s eye hit the Louisiana coastline. Its winds whistled eerily through cities that had been battered so recently, pulling down young trees, street signs and traffic lights. It knocked out power in Baton Rouge, hit the town of Houma and took out a levee in Plaquemines Parish.

On Monday night, Davidson began hearing that hospitals in other parts of the state were on backup power, perhaps some of the same hospitals that had taken in the patients she had worked so hard to evacuate from New Orleans. “They’re going to have fuel issues in a day or two,” she said.

Tulane University Hospital’s Lakeside campus had lost electricity six hours after coming off the city grid, despite having three forms of backup power. The hospital had only a few patients by then, but one was a baby on a ventilator. Lynch oversaw the baby’s safe evacuation to the main campus. Things were functioning so smoothly there that a group of key maintenance workers had time to gather by a window overlooking the street, chatting and watching the hurricane shake tree branches.

Late Monday night, Lynch got a call from Louisiana Secretary of Health and Hospitals Alan Levine, warning of a new and unexpected medical crisis. Much of Baton Rouge, where many New Orleans patients had been transferred before the storm, was without power.

By this morning state officials were warning that more than 800 sick people might need to be moved from the affected hospitals. Could Tulane accept some of them?

Yes, Lynch said, this time it could.

: Dr. Sheri Fink is a reporter for ProPublica whose articles have appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Discover and Scientific American. Since 2004 she has been a frequent contributor to the public radio newsmagazine "The World," covering the global HIV/AIDS pandemic and international aid in development, conflict and disaster settings. Her book "War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival" won the American Medical Writer's Association special book award and was a finalist for the Overseas Press Club and PEN Martha Albrand awards. More Sheri Fink

- 3Comments
- Permalink
- Print
- Short URL
Share:
- Email
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Digg
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- ShareThis

The homeless: Pawns in the war on OWS?

A death at Occupy NOLA leaves protesters questioning the motives behind the city's closure of a nearby tent city

By Matthew Reichel, Alternet

A homeless man sets up a tent at Occupy Seattle on Oct. 5, 2011 (Credit: AP/Ted S. Warren)

Topics:AlterNet, Occupy Wall Street, Homelessness, New Orleans

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

Beneath the veneer of New Orleans’ vibrant culture lies a history of tragedy. From the yellow fever outbreaks of the 19th century, the many catastrophic storms that have visited the city, the violence of the Civil War and Reconstruction, to the vast social dysfunction of contemporary New Orleans, this is a city that has known adversity throughout. It is sadly fitting, then, that Occupy NOLA is one of the few occupations to have witnessed a death at the encampment. Last week, 53-year-old Ronald Dean Howell, known as “Curly” or “Old School” to friends, was found dead in his tent. The coroner’s chief investigator, John Gagliano, stated that the cause of death was “complications from alcohol abuse.” According to other occupiers, the man was homeless, and likely relocated from another tent city at Calliope Street and the Pontchartrain Expressway, which was closed by authorities on Oct. 27.

Occupiers throughout the country have naturally found themselves sharing space with local homeless populations: the most vulnerable and marginalized of the 99 percent. This has been particularly pronounced in New Orleans, which continues to struggle with an acute homeless problem stemming from the devastation of the city’s housing stock during Hurricane Katrina. According to data provided by UNITY of Greater New Orleans, the city’s largest homeless nonprofit coalition, the homeless rate remains 70 percent higher than prestorm levels, with nearly 10,000 people lacking some form of permanent shelter. Many of these suffer from serious mental and physical illnesses, including high levels of alcohol and drug abuse. Howell’s story is typical, and his death would probably have gone largely unnoticed had it not occurred in the midst of this burgeoning movement. Instead, his passing has served to illuminate the systemic problem of homelessness in New Orleans, while also raising suspicions about the city’s motivation in closing down his previous home on Calliope Street.

In post-Katrina New Orleans, affordable housing has become a serious issue. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, four of the most recognized public housing sites were demolished: Lafitte, St. Bernard, B.W. Cooper and C.J. Peete. This came on the heels of contentious debate in the city council, which voted unanimously in favor of the demolition despite vocal opposition from community members. According to the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), these units were replaced by mixed income housing, each managed by various private developers.

Meanwhile, the general housing stock was devastated by the storm. According to HUD, 75,000 units were destroyed, and 45,000 remain abandoned today. The diminished supply has naturally resulted in increased rents across the board. In the same HUD report, the median cost of housing in New Orleans increased 33.2 percent, from $662 in 2004 to $882 in 2009 (adjusted for inflation). Meanwhile, the rate for the most affordable housing has risen dramatically. According to Linda Gonzalez, the Director of New Orleans Mission, a nonprofit providing services for the homeless, “basic apartments cost about $250 before the storm and are now up to $500 to $700 depending on what area of the city.” This is confirmed by data from the HUD report that shows the number of units available in the $300-600 range has fallen from 66,300 in 2004 to 19,300 in 2009. Affordable rents have greatly dissipated in the city, while wages have stagnated as part of the larger, national trend. In response to the HUD report, UNITY Executive Director Martha Kegel was then quoted as saying: “We have more unaffordable rent than even New York City. That’s because we have very high rent and we have very, very low income.”

As such, the homeless population has grown so rapidly that “tent cities” have become a relatively common occurrence. The Occupy NOLA encampment, located at Duncan Plaza, is not the first of its kind. In 2007, a homeless camp took shape in the same location, eventually growing to include 249 individuals, according to UNITY. That encampment was ultimately closed by the city, beginning Nov. 21 of that year. Then-Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration worked with the nonprofit community, including UNITY, to relocate these people to a mixture of hotels or apartments. A similar encampment at Claiborne and Canal with about 150 individuals was broken up in similar fashion the following July. In both cases, the nonprofit community was provided prior notice and allowed to make assessments of the physical and mental health of people at the encampment.

The most recent closure, however, has diverted from this practice. While City Hall spokesman Ryan Berni stated that all of the “usual groups were included in the process,” some relevant organizations say they were not involved. Linda Gonzales, director of New Orleans Mission, which is just across the street from the Calliope encampment, says she was not given any prior notification. When asked if this was unusual, she replied “Yes. They typically call and let us know when they are going to do a sweep. I guess they just didn’t need us.” Meanwhile, Mike Miller, lead outreach worker at UNITY, said “We weren’t involved with the Calliope closing, and the plans did not meet our standards for humanitarian enclosures.” He says they were only given a few days’ notice, and that the city actually fenced off the camp a day prior to the announced closure date.

Miller further explained that his team was unable to make appropriate evaluations prior to the closing. “We knew it was coming. Were we given a specific date? No. We were not given an opportunity to assess the physical and mental health of the individuals at the encampment.” When asked about the city’s claim that the vast majority of the population was provided some form of temporary or permanent housing, he responded “Whatever their numbers are, I take it with a grain of salt. I don’t believe it because we are dealing with the same faces.” He emphasized that the city was essentially just “rearranging the problem” rather than solving it. “By shifting people around, you lose people: the sickest of the sick.”

Given the city’s diversion from the norm in closing this camp, some Occupy protesters have grown suspicious that the city maliciously intended to use the homeless as pawns to help destabilize their movement. Nia, who is integrally involved with the movement, said: “It would be utterly ridiculous to not think of the possibility that this was done with that intent.” While she emphasized that the group has welcomed the homeless population to the camp, she also explained that much of the group’s organizing capacity has been exhausted by attempting to meet their needs: providing food and tents, dealing with security issues, and trying to integrate them into the movement. Furthermore, she points to a potentially coordinated effort of authorities throughout the country to destabilize these movements by displacing homeless communities to the Occupy encampments. She said: “People have been coming here from throughout the country saying they have had the same exact experience with long term homeless (in their occupations).”

City officials, meanwhile, deny such machinations. When asked why the Calliope encampment was closed, mayor’s office spokesman Berni said: “Anytime there is a large encampment, there is a risk to public health and safety. What we did underneath the expressway was a lengthy process, in ensuring the necessary housing and vouchers to help people get back on their feet.” When asked if he thought that anyone from the Calliope encampment may have relocated to Occupy NOLA at Duncan Plaza, he was willing to admit that “some people” probably did.

However, the scene at the camp suggests the effect was probably more pronounced. What began as a few dozen people has grown to over 100 permanent campers, the vast majority of whom are homeless. On the increase in homeless numbers since the Calliope closure, Nia said: “There was an immediate slight increase. Then, a bunch of people were given hotel vouchers, which was fine, until they ran out and they came here.” Another Occupy NOLA organizer, Dehlia Labarre, corroborated the hotel voucher story, saying “We have reports of a number of people who were given a week-long voucher and then ended up here when it expired.” Berni, meanwhile, denied any knowledge about expired vouchers.

Adding to peoples’ suspicions has been the overly compliant nature of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) with regards to the encampment. Only one arrest has been made thus far at the site, and that was of a “machete wielding transient” that NOPD public information officer Frank Robertson said “had nothing to do with Occupy NOLA.” He explained that there have been no further reports of violence or noise complaints. When asked if they have any plans to close it down, he refused comment. However, he did admit that the police have “undercover officers in the area of the camp.” This rather surprising admission suggests that the NOPD may be focused on covert means of destabilizing the movement, rather than facing the scrutiny that would come with overt confrontation a la New York, Chicago and Oakland.

Evidence seems to point to intent by the city to diminish Occupy NOLA. If authorities were genuinely interested in protecting protesters’ First Amendment rights as Berni claims, would the NOPD be deploying undercover patrols? Meanwhile, the concurrent closing of the Calliope camp is suspicious, given the break from past trends and discrepancies in reports from the city and homeless nonprofits. Furthermore, the city’s claim that most of the homeless at that camp were provided alternate housing is contradicted by the reality on the ground at Occupy NOLA, where dozens of tents have sprouted up since that closing.

Malicious intent or not, the reality is that authorities have failed to address the underlying issue of inequality at all levels of government. Decades of conservative orthodoxy, attacks on the social safety net, stagnant wages, and rising education and housing costs have culminated in a level of precariousness unseen in decades. It is hard to envision a more appropriate illustration of this than frustrated youth occupying public space together with the most marginalized members of the population in the “city that care forgot.” While the death of Ronald Dean Howell was probably unavoidable, the tragedy of poverty and homeless can be conquered. By refocusing debate on the needs of the marginalized majority, the Occupy movement has taken a significant step forward in this continued struggle.

: Matt Reichel is a writer currently living in New Orleans. Respond to him at: mereichel@gmail.com. More Matthew Reichel

- 18Comments
- Permalink
- Print
- Short URL
Share:
- Email
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Digg
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- ShareThis

What’s the dirtiest city in America?

It's not New York, Philadelphia or L.A. ...

By Emma Mustich

42nd street, New York City

Topics:Travel, Health, New Orleans

In its June 2011 issue, Travel + Leisure magazine has ranked America’s ten dirtiest cities. Where does your hometown — or favorite tourist destination — fall?

Here’s the list:

New Orleans
Philadelphia
Los Angeles
Memphis
New York
Baltimore
Las Vegas
Miami
Atlanta
Houston

The ranking is not exactly scientific — it’s based on input from the magazine’s readers, who fill out an annual “favorite cities” survey — but the results hold up fairly well next to the conclusions of other studies. T+L explains:

: Emma Mustich is an assistant editor at Salon. Follow her on Twitter: @emustich. More Emma Mustich

- 52Comments
- Permalink
- Print
- Short URL
Share:
- Email
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Digg
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- ShareThis

Evacuations in Cajun country after spillway opens

Louisiana reeling from historic flooding

By Michael Kunzelman, Associated Press

Water diverted from the Mississippi River spills through a bay in the Morganza Spillway in Morganza, La., Saturday, May 14, 2011. Water from the inflated Mississippi River gushed through a floodgate Saturday for the first time in nearly four decades and headed toward thousands of homes and farmland in the Cajun countryside, threatening to slowly submerge the land under water up to 25 feet deep. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) (Credit: AP)

Topics:Natural Disasters, New Orleans

Renee Ledoux cried when the National Guard and sheriff’s deputies showed up at her front door and warned her she needed to get out to avoid water gushing from the Mississippi River after a floodgate was opened for the first time in four decades.

But by the 5 p.m. deadline Sunday, the 44-year-old Ledoux and her boyfriend Billy Hanchett decided to ride it out one more night on air mattresses inside the empty home in Krotz Springs. They have a camper they plan to stay in on a friend’s property outside the flood zone.

“We really don’t want to go,” Hanchett said. Ledoux added that she felt blessed that they had the camper because a lot of others have nowhere to go except shelters.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama planned to fly to Memphis, Tenn., on Monday to meet with families affected when the river flooded there as well as local officials, first responders and volunteers.

Deputies all over Louisiana Cajun country were warning residents to head for higher ground and most heeded it, even in places where there hasn’t been so much as a trickle, hopeful that the flooding engineered to protect heavily populated New Orleans and Baton Rouge would be merciful to their way of life.

Days ago, many of the towns known for their Cajun culture bustled with activity as people filled sandbags and cleared out belongings. By Sunday, some areas were virtually empty as the water from the Mississippi River, swollen by snowmelt and heavy rains, slowly rolled across the Atchafalaya River basin. It first started to come, in small amounts, into people’s yards in Melville on Sunday. But it still had yet to move farther downstream.

The floodwaters could reach depths of 20 feet in the coming weeks, though levels were nowhere close to that yet in the towns about 50 miles west of Baton Rouge.

About 11 miles north of Krotz Springs in the town of Melville, Mary Ryder, her fiance and her fiance’s father were loading up a trailer with as many belongings as they could fit to drive over the levee to stay with relatives on the other side of town. Ryder lives in a mandatory evacuation area, where water is starting to creep into backyards. They worried about what might happen if a broader evacuation is ordered.

“They say we have to leave town. We have nowhere to go,” she said. “What are we going to do? I have no idea. We need help up here.”

The spillway’s opening diverted water from the two major Louisiana cities — along with chemical plants and oil refineries along the Mississippi’s lower reaches — easing pressure on the levees there in the hope of avoiding potentially catastrophic floods.

That choice angers John Muse, who drove from Lafayette to Melville to help his 86-year-old father-in-law Clovis Cole move his belongs. He said officials seem to be paying more attention to the concerns of Baton Rouge and New Orleans than people who live in the basin.

“They hurt a lot of feelings by putting that water in here like they did,” he said. “What’s happening here, I’ll tell ya, it’s not fair.”

In Butte LaRose, some 50 miles downstream from where the Morganza spillway was opened, Chalmers Wheat, 54, was among the few left — and even he was headed for his father’s home in Baton Rouge outside the flood zone. He and his twin brother, Chandler, were making a few final preparations to protect his home with plastic lining and sandbags.

“It’s almost like a ghost town,” said Wheat.

It will be at least a week before the Mississippi River crest arrives at the Morganza spillway, where officials opened two massive gates on Saturday and another two Sunday. There are 125 in all. The Mississippi has broken river-level records that had held since the 1920s in some places.

The Army Corps of Engineers has taken drastic steps to prevent flooding. Engineers blew up a levee in Missouri — inundating an estimated 200 square miles of farmland and damaging or destroying about 100 homes — to take the pressure off floodwalls protecting the town of Cairo, Ill., population 2,800.

The Morganza flooding is more controlled, however, and residents are warned each year that the spillway could be opened. A spillway at the 7,000-foot Bonnet Carre structure in Louisiana also has been opened.

Just outside Krotz Springs, 23-year-old Jake Nolan said National Guard troops knocked on the door of his home in a subdivision to tell his mother of the evacuation order. He said they advised her to have white towels and have access to the roof if they planned to ride it out — presumably in case of a rescue — though that didn’t appear to be part of any official instructions. And besides, he didn’t need an order to leave with his wife and three children.

“I don’t want to be stuck here if the water does get bad,” said Nolan, who planned to stay with a sister in Port Barre.

It seemed animals didn’t want to be stuck anywhere: Deer, hogs and rabbits have started running from the water flowing near the floodgates, said Lt. Col. Joey Broussard of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. An electronic sign on Interstate 10 warned of a possible animal exodus: “Wildlife crossing possible. Use caution,” it read.

Despite the mandatory evacuation order, Krotz Springs town clerk Suzanne Bellau said it was unlikely the sheriff’s office would force people to leave. For most, the worst part was wondering what may happen. National Guardsmen were building a second levee to bolster protection for the town.

“It’s the unknown, that’s the problem,” Bellau said. “Is it going to come into their homes or not? And the people who are leaving, what are they coming back to?”

Associated Press writer Kevin McGill in New Orleans and AP Video Journalist Robert Ray in Krotz Springs, La., contributed to this report.

: More Michael Kunzelman

- 2Comments
- Permalink
- Print
- Short URL
Share:
- Email
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Digg
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- ShareThis

As water creeps closer, residents warned: Get out

Louisianans flee from floodwater released by the opening of the Morganza Spillway yesterday

By Michael Kunzelman, Associated Press

A member of the Louisiana National Guard stands guard as water diverted from the Mississippi River through a bay in the Morganza Spillway begins to fill a pasture in Morganza, La., Saturday, May 14, 2011. Opening the Morganza spillway diverts water away from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and the numerous oil refineries and chemical plants along the lower reaches of the Mississippi. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) (Credit: AP)

Topics:Natural Disasters, New Orleans

Deputies warned people Sunday to get out as Mississippi River water gushing from a floodgate for the first time in four decades crept ever closer to communities in Louisiana Cajun country, slowly filling a river basin like a giant bathtub.

Most residents heeded the warnings and headed for higher ground, even in places where there hasn’t been so much as a trickle, hopeful that the flooding engineered to protect New Orleans and Baton Rouge would be merciful to their way of life.

Days ago, many of the towns known for their Cajun culture and drawling dialect fluttered with activity as people filled sandbags and cleared out belongings. By Sunday, some areas were virtually empty as the water from the Mississippi River, swollen by snowmelt and heavy rains, slowly rolled across the Atchafalaya River basin. The floodwaters could reach depths of 20 feet in the coming weeks.

The spillway’s opening diverted water from heavily populated New Orleans and Baton Rouge — along with chemical plants and oil refineries along the Mississippi’s lower reaches — easing pressure on the levees there in the hope of avoiding potentially catastrophic floods.

About 11 miles north of Krotz Springs in the town of Melville, water was already starting to creep into some people’s backyards. Parts of the town not protected by levees were under a mandatory evacuation order. Glenda Maddox’s husband had temporarily reopened the gas station he closed in December so people could fuel up before they leave.

“Nobody knows what’s going to happen,” she said. “We don’t know if the levee is going to hold up.”

The station’s shelves were mostly barren, save for a few soft drinks and bottles of motor oil. Only cash was accepted 7/8 7/8– no credit cards.

In Butte LaRose, some 50 miles downstream from where the Morganza spillway was opened, no water was expected until at least later Sunday. But Chalmers Wheat, 54, was among the few left — and even he was headed for his father’s home in Baton Rouge outside the flood zone. He and his brother were making a few final preparations to protect his home with plastic lining and sandbags.

“It’s almost like a ghost town,” said Wheat, who was getting some help from his twin brother, Chandler.

Sandbags were still available in the center of town, but there were few takers Sunday.

Krotz Springs is roughly 30 miles closer to the floodgates, and deputies ordered people to evacuate Sunday morning even though the water hadn’t yet arrived.

Wayne Duplechain, who lives in the parish about eight miles outside Krotz Springs, said he would have his family stay in a camper parked on his son’s property outside the flood zone. He hoped to return, though, and ride out the flooding. He has three layers of sandbags stacked 2 feet high surrounding his ranch-style, brick house and figures the water won’t start lapping against them for seven or eight days. Plus, he has a generator and a boat to escape in if the water gets too high.

“It’s going to be slow-rising, so I’ll get out if I have to. I’m not totally stupid,” he said. “If it comes over the sandbags, I’m leaving.”

“I don’t want to be stuck here if the water does get bad,” said Nolan, who planned to stay with a sister in Port Barre.

It seemed animals didn’t want to be stuck anywhere, either: Deer, hogs and rabbits have started running from the water flowing near the floodgates, said Lt. Col. Joey Broussard of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. An electronic sign on Interstate 10 warned of a possible animal exodus: “Wildlife crossing possible. Use caution,” it read.

Despite the mandatory evacuation order for some people, Krotz Springs town clerk Suzanne Bellau said it was unlikely the sheriff’s office would force people to leave. For most, the worst part was wondering what may happen. National Guardsman were building a new levee to bolster protection for the town, in addition to a levee already standing.

“It’s the unknown, that’s the problem,” Bellau said. “Is it going to come into their homes or not? And the people who are leaving, what are they coming back to?”

That was also true downstream in Butte LaRose, where Chalmers and Chandler Wheat had been making last-minute preparations. Chalmers Wheat figured his house would be all right so long as the water level didn’t exceed 2 feet.

“If the water gets higher, we’re pretty much …” Chalmers Wheat said, before his brother chimed in: “Screwed.”

Associated Press writer Kevin McGill in New Orleans and AP Video Journalist Robert Ray in Krotz Springs contributed to this report.

: More Michael Kunzelman

- 6Comments
- Permalink
- Print
- Short URL
Share:
- Email
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Digg
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- ShareThis

Miss. River spillway opens, towns await floodwater

Louisiana opens major floodgate for first time in nearly 40 years

By Mary Foster and Melinda Deslatte, Associated Press

Mississippi River floodwaters continue to creep up the Old Train Depot in downtown Vicksburg, Miss., Saturday, May 14, 2011. The waters from the Mississippi River and its tributaries are not expected to crest in Vicksburg until Thursday. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) (Credit: AP)

Topics:Natural Disasters, New Orleans

Over the next few days, water spewing through a Mississippi River floodgate will crawl through the swamps of Louisiana’s Cajun country, chasing people and animals to higher ground while leaving much of the land under 10 to 20 feet of brown muck.

The floodgate was opened Saturday for the first time in nearly four decades, shooting out like a waterfall, spraying 6 feet into the air. Fish jumped or were hurled through the white froth and what was dry land soon turned into a raging channel.

The water will flow 20 miles south into the Atchafalaya Basin, and from there it will roll on to Morgan City, an oil-and-seafood hub and a community of 12,000.

In the nearby community of Stephensville, rows of sandbags were piled up outside nearly every home.

Merleen Acosta, 58, waited in line for three hours to get her sandbags filled by prisoners, then returned later in the day for more bags.

Floodwaters inundated Acosta’s home when the Morganza spillway was opened in 1973, driving her out for several months. The thought of losing her home again was so stressful she was getting sick.

“I was throwing up at work,” she said.

The opening of the spillway diverted water from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and the numerous oil refineries and chemical plants along the lower reaches of the Mississippi. Shifting the water away from the cities eased the strain on levees and blunts the potential for flooding in New Orleans that could have been much worse than Hurricane Katrina.

C.E. Bourg stopped by a hardware store in the shadow of the Morgan City floodwalls to buy grease for his lawnmower and paint — items on his “honey-do list.” Floodwaters came close to overtopping in 1973, but since then, they have been raised to 24 feet and aren’t in danger of being overtaken.

Bourg, an attorney, said he represented a worker who was injured on the 70s-era floodwall project and learned a lot about how they were built.

“I got a copy of the plans,” he said. “This one’s built right, unlike the ones in New Orleans.”

The Morganza spillway is part of a system of locks and levees built after the great flood of 1927, which killed hundreds and left many more without homes. When the Morganza opened, it was the first time three flood-control systems have been unlocked at the same time along the Mississippi River, a sign of just how historic the current flooding has been.

Earlier this month, the corps intentionally blew holes into a levee in Missouri to employ a similar cities-first strategy, and it also opened a spillway northwest of New Orleans about a week ago.

Snowmelt and heavy rain swelled the Mississippi, and the river has peaked at levels not seen in 70 years.

In Krotz Springs, La., one of the towns in the Atchafalaya River basin bracing for floodwaters, phones at the local police department rang nonstop as residents sought information on road closings and evacuation routes.

Like so many other residents downstream of the Morganza, Monita Reed, 56, recalled the last time it was opened in 1973.

“We could sit in our yard and hear the water,” she said as workers constructed a makeshift levee of sandbags and soil-filled mesh boxes in hopes of protecting the 240 homes in her subdivision.

About 25,000 people and 11,000 structures could be affected by the oncoming water, and some people living in the threatened stretch of countryside — an area known for fish camps and a drawling French dialect — have already fled. Reed’s family packed her furniture, clothing and pictures in a rental truck and a relative’s trailer.

“I’m just going to move and store my stuff. I’m going to stay here until they tell us to leave,” she said. “Hopefully, we won’t see much water and then I can move back in. “

It took about 15 minutes for the one 28-foot gate to be raised in the middle of the spillway. The corps planned to open one or two more gates Sunday in a painstaking process that gives residents and animals a chance to stay dry.

Michael Grubb, whose home is located just outside the Morgan City floodwalls, hired a contractor this week to raise his house from 2 feet to 8 feet off the ground. It took a crew of 20 workers roughly 17 hours to jack up the house onto wooden blocks.

“I wanted to save this house desperately,” said Grubb, 54. “This has tapped us out. This is our life savings here, but it’s worth every penny.”

Three feet of water flooded Grubb’s home the last time the Morganza spillway was opened.

Water from the swollen Atchafalaya River already was creeping into his backyard, but Grubb was confident his home will stay dry. He has a generator and a boat he plans to use for grocery runs. The water from the spillway was expected to reach Morgan City around Tuesday.

“This is our home. How could we leave our home?” he said.

The crest of the Mississippi was still more than a week away from the Morganza spillway, and when it arrives, officials expect it to linger. The bulge has broken river-level records that had held since the 1920s in some places. As the water rolled down the river, the corps took drastic steps to protect lives.

The corps blew up a levee in Missouri — inundating an estimated 200 square miles of farmland and damaging or destroying about 100 homes — to take the pressure off floodwalls protecting the town of Cairo, Ill., population 2,800.

The Morganza flooding is more controlled, however, and residents are warned by the corps each year in written letters, reminding them of the possibility of opening the spillway.

At the site of the spillway, water splashed over the gates on one side before a vertical crane hoisted the 10-ton, steel panel. Typically, the spillway is dry on both sides.

This is the second spillway to be opened in Louisiana. The corps used cranes to remove some of the Bonnet Carre’s wooden barriers, sending water into the massive Lake Ponchatrain and eventually the Gulf of Mexico.

By Sunday, all 350 bays at the 7,000-foot Bonnet Carre structure were to be open. The Morganza, a 4,000-foot long structure built in 1954, was expecting to only open up about a quarter of its 125 gates.

The spillways could be opened for weeks, or perhaps less time, if the river flow starts to subside.

In Vicksburg, Miss., where five neighborhoods were under water, a steady stream of onlookers posed for pictures on a river bluff overlooking a bridge that connects Louisiana and Mississippi. Some people posed for pictures next to a Civil War cannon while others carried Confederate battle flags being given away by a war re-enactor.

Larry and Paulla Dalrymple spent part of the day with a video camera, filming the river roll past a casino and swirl around the giant bridge pilings.

“Wow. It’s really running,’” Paulla said. “It’s amazing what the water can do — what it’s doing to people’s lives.”

Deslatte reported from Krotz Springs. Associated Press writers Michael Kunzelman in Morgan City, La. and Holbrook Mohr in Vicksburg, Miss., also contributed to this report.