Stories of Katrina, from fellow SOA students:

News from Jessica Anthony ('03, '04), attending Loyola Univ:

" I was in New Orleans for all of three days and then we left on saturday before the storm hit. But the three days there was so much fun. I remember sitting at breakfast the first day and seeing the back of some guys head and telling everyone that I knew him from somewhere. Of course no one believed me becuase I was so sure about it. Any ways when they guy walked out of the line, it just happened to be Chris Dirth from the 2004 tour. It was insanly random but a lot of fun. We went out to lunch with Jeremy Setty too, who goes to Tulane. We didn't know the hurricane was going to be this big though they told us to pack about 3 days worth of clothes and that we would be back in no more than a week. So we all packed into my little 5 person car with about 8 people and drove back to Houston which took us 8 hours when its usually 6, so we didnt do that bad. And everyone stayed at my house, including Eric Thum (who is going to Syracuse for the semester). We all thought it was going to be a little vacation. We went and did all of the touristy things around Houston, go to the museum, the astros game, astroworld. So all of my stuff is still down in New Orleans though. I'm in Chicago now at the Loyola University there. Actually Dane Martin who went on tour in 2003 was the one who mostly got me settled in. Last weekend actually we met up with Ali Darley who was in Chicago for the day. "

News from Shane Bowers ('98), spent his days working in a hospital in Metairie:

"Hello All.This is my account of my Katrina experience for those who are interested.

As I recently moved to New Orleans in May 2005 to work at East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie as a Registered Nurse, I stayed and worked throughout Hurricane Katrina. What a bad choice. (Although I did get compensated very well for doing so). My hospital became surrounded by three feet of water and it was strange seeing the streets turn into rivers. The water stayed elevated in Metairie for only a few days. The strangest thing was watching a motor boat going down the street. I worked and slept in the hospital for 11 straight days, not able to leave due to not having replacement staff at the hospital to care for the patients. We only lost electricity for a couple of days, but we did not have television for the entire time due to the cable being out. We also had no telephone contact; all lines were down, and no cell phones worked. I tried calling my family and friends on my cell phone every night after I got off of work. I was not able to get in touch with any of my family until about day 8 or 9 when I was finally able to get through on my cell phone one night, and they were not able to come to the hospital as our parish was under complete lock down. My family was hysterical due to the television reports that showed that my hospital was under six to eight feet of water. That report was incorrect as were many of the television reports. In the hospital we did have water get in through windows, many windows were blown out, and we did have to move some patients to dry rooms. We also had a very short food supply and they were only feeding the staff small meals twice a day for a few days, and then down to once per day. Our manager had stashed some food in the office, so we did have something to eat besides the 1 to 2 meals the cafeteria fed us, but we stayed hungry.

National guards, police, and some firefighters dwelled inside the hospital with us. Army National Guard patrolled up and down the halls with their rifles, and outside around the hospital. It became the norm to get on an elevator with a uniformed and armed army officer. The dress code was no longer in effect either, and anyone who had them was wearing shorts, tshirts, and flipflops, including doctors and nurses. I had not brought but one extra change of clothes, another pair of nursing scrubs, so I had to wear the same unwashed clothes everyday until I was able to leave.

During the hurricane, while taking care of patients, I would look out of the window at times and see a house or a building on fire, windows cracking and blowing out, the rain blowing sideways, and the palm trees bending over to touch the flooded streets. The high-rise buildings of the city had most of the windows blown out, and from the hospital window they looked black near the top, with black spots scattered throughout. Army helicopters, including large transport helicopters, were flying by 6 and 7 at a time in different directions. A couple times they landed on our roof with patients. Fire alarms were sounding all day long, with the automated fire alarm stating there were fires in just about every part of the hospital. In between those alarms were announcements by the President and CEO of the hospital stating the status of the building, including that one of our generators went out and the AC would not work without it, and that we were running out of fuel with the other one. Once an anouncement came for an ObGyn to report stat, so I guess someone went into labor. It became very hot, and some of the patients looked as if they would pass out any minute.

Some time in the second week I was there, we were allowed to visit our homes if we were able to get to them. (Many people couldn't, especially if they lived in New Orleans East which remained under water). As me and another staff member were walking to her car in the garage, we were stopped by two National Guardsmen who warned us to be extremely careful due to the violence, the shootings, and the lootings. Driving down the road towards her house was surreal. I felt like I was in a movie set with so many damaged buildings, no one other than us on the road, except for one woman walking down the street who we thought must have been nuts. As we drove down Veterans Ave., the main highway in Metairie, we had two swerve through downed trees on a one car wide trail that must have been made by the army. She swerved some more as we almost ran into hanging power lines a couple of times. Some of the roads going to her house were completely blocked off with downed trees and we had to find alternate routes. When we arrived, the power line was hanging just past her house at a height where you could not drive any further. There was a large tree in front of the door to her house and we had to climb through the branches to get to her door. Overhead, swarms of helicopters flew by, one after the other. Other than that, us, and a few birds chirping...silence. No people. No cars. We went in her house and made a few trips carrying food, bottled water, and her clothes through the tree, which was kind of difficult but do-able. We then headed to my apartment. We went down one street to an intersection and found all three street blocked off by trees; one large tree had taken up the sidewalk with it and the sidewalk was hanging in the air entangled in the roots. At my apartment, again no one to be seen, nothing to be heard except helicopters. My apartment remained undamaged, and I even had water, although it was deemed unsafe to use. I changed my clothes, put in a contact (oh yeah, I only had one contact in since the night of the storm when I dropped one on the floor and couldn't find it, and I am completely blind without them. It was very difficult trying to take a blood pressure or a blood sugar in the dark with only one good eye, but that's what I did for a week! in the heat, in dirty clothes, and hungry! sounds bad? yeah, it was.) My family doesn't even know most of this stuff so I am sending it to them too. Anyway, so I got a lot of my food and a lot of clothes and we headed back to the hospital to unload.

I dont remember when the electricity came back on , but it did near the end of my 11 days and the air became cool and it was awesome. We made a poster with the things we were thankful for which included: not having to commute to work, getting up at 7am and getting to work on time(7am), no rush hour traffic, getting paid for not working (we got paid around the clock, and time and a half on the clock). We started having fun, we played poker one night and my manager made us screwdrivers. . I saw a doctor with her badge on, in shorts and tshirt, and beer in hand on the elevator.

When the replacement staff started showing up, I was able to go home for 1 week. During that time, I stayed at my parents where I helped clean up the tree branches in the yard and ate army MRE's (meals ready-to-eat) for the entire week.

Now, I am back in my apartment, everything back to normal mostly. My roommate hasn't lived here since Aug. 28th. She worked at children's hospital which had to evacuate, and is just reopening this week. She is supposed to be back to work in November. The traffic is really bad, and the wrecks have doubled according to the newspaper. Debris covers the median and grass on the side of the streets. It continuously flies out of the large trucks carrying off the debris. Many places are still closed, but many places have re-opened."

11-22-05