Part 1
Like most Americans, he had seen the devastation of Katrina on television. I work from home and have a TV on in my office. The haunting images of Katrina’s wrath memorized me. It didn’t take long
before you start seeing animals in the television shots of the destruction. They were everywhere, on rooftops, looking out of windows, swimming for their lives and
being carried through the flood waters in the arms of its owner. He kept thinking… someone has to do something for these animals. I can remember a feeling of helplessness and panic. “Why is no one doing anything?”
One morning about a week after the storm, sitting at my desk watching animals struggling for survival on TV…I heard a voice…a loud voice… “You have to go!” It almost sounded like it was coming over my shoulder though.
He was alone in the house. I never questioned what I heard, it was that powerful! Immediately, I started emailing all the big animal groups heading to the
region, offering to help. Humane Society of United States, ASPCA and many more. I kept getting automated “we’ll get back to you” email responses, and I started getting
very impatient. I felt that my 20 years of experience with exotic birds could be useful…somewhere in the region. I waited impatiently to hear from someone, for two days. I finally said “to hell with this!!” and I literally packed up my car and left, not knowing exactly where I was going or what I would be doing. He had heard of a staging area, the Lamar Dixon Equestrian Center in Gonzales Louisiana, where they kept all kinds of animals that were being rescued. I thought I’d start there.
What made me think I had something to offer to the situation, I have no idea.
I am not a particularly brave person and my only real qualification was an intense love for animals. All of them, not just the parrots.
With my little Volkswagen, Cabrio, packed to the brim, with a borrowed tent, a sleeping bag, boxes of granola bars, canned nuts, crackers, 6 cases of bottled water, 15 gallons of gasoline in gas, Gatorade, a couple weeks worth of jeans and t-shirts, boots, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, and baby wipes. I jumped onto I-10 west and headed towards Louisiana. I didn’t know that the person who went out that day… wouldn’t be the person who would come back.
Armed with directions from Map Quest, I spent the next 16 hours on a drive, which Map Quest said would take 8-9 hours. I-10 was packed with all kinds of relief workers, power company trucks, church groups, heavy equipment trucks and semis. Their license plates were from all over the East Coast. I saw groups of about 20 power company trucks, traveling close together, with matching power company logos on the sides of their trucks. There were endless caravans from different phone companies, police departments, and fire departments and trucks, full of chainsaws, bottled water, and workers, all heading west. Everyone that day rushed to help. The feeling of being on that road, that day, was eerie and electric at the same time.
The traffic moved steadily until I reached the Mississippi border. The traffic became a parking lot of slow moving vehicles. this is where i started
seeing the signs of Katrina’s wrath. The first thing I noticed was that the huge billboards along the road were damaged. The 3+ foot heavy metal poles that supported them were twisted like pretzels. With every mile, the damage got worse and
finally there were no signs anywhere. No highway signs, no exit signs… no PERIOD signs. I began to see mattresses strewn along the road and clothing hanging on the trees that lined the highway. The houses I could see had roof damage and many sported new blue tarps to replace the shingles that were once there.
When I got to the I-10 Pascagoula Bridge, all traffic had to be diverted to the west side. A barge had destroyed a large section of the east side of the double bridge during the storm. I remember thinking, “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Little did he know at the time, how profound that statement would go. Until now I had only had a glimpse of what awaited me.
At one point, the traffic was inching, a few feet at a time. This went on for hours. There was a guy on a Harley right in front of me, whose bike was packed with bags. I eventually pulled my car up next to him, so we could talk… I was going crazy at this snail’s pace. He was on his way to Biloxi from Tampa Florida. He was a trauma nurse and was going to volunteer for a week to help out at a hospital. I wished I could have talked to more of those people on I-10 that day. They all had a story, where they came from… where they were going and what they were going to do. Seeing this outpouring of love deeply touched my heart.
The further he drove, the destruction kept getting worse. It’s a strange feeling going down a road and not knowing where you are. The lack of signs proved to be very unsettling for me and I eventually had to turn off the freeway to find someone who would just ask “Where am I?” to guide me I stopped at a semi-destroyed insurance office, where I saw 2 men trying to retrieve some items from their damaged business. They asked me where I was going and I told them I was headed to Gonzales, Louisiana. They wanted to know why I was going there and I told them I wanted to help the animals. A man’s face lit up and he started telling me all about his Jack Russell. He even took out his wallet and showed me his little “Jack” picture. It was evident, how just the thought of the animal of him, put a smile on his face. When I left, this man said, “Thank you for coming to help us.” It felt extremely awkward to hear this, and I yelled “You’re welcome.” I found out that it was somewhere outside of Gulfport, Mississippi and continued on.
What was creepy in the daylight, became even creepier at night. However, darkness saved me from seeing the destruction along the interstate. I knew it was there…
and my imagination began to go in double time. I would find out later, that my imagination did not even come close to the horrible reality.
I was so ready to get somewhere where I could get out of my car. There were no rest areas along the road, they were all closed, because most of them no longer existed, and their entrances were all blocked. Needless to say, the toilet facilities had been reduced to a paper cup that I found in my car. My Map Quest directions had become useless, because the suggested roads were no longer open. Everyone had to go through Baton Rouge and back.
I finally arrived in Gonzales, Louisiana at 11:00 pm and found the Lamar Dixon Equestrian Center. There was a control gate that was being manned by the National Guard. After all this travel, they didn’t want to let me in. WOW!! Fortunately for me, I have the ability to speak my way in and out of situations. My mouth started to run and it sounded like it knew what it was doing. After a lot of my BS they finally let me in! From time to time I wonder what I would have done if they hadn’t made the decision to let me in that night. Who knows, but I’m sure I would have thought of something.
The first thing I saw were tents everywhere and I could hear dogs barking in the distance.
I headed in the direction of the dogs. Lamar Dixon is a great exhibition center. The 6 “stables” house about 960 horse stalls. I eventually found myself in Barn 6 wandering around; trying to find someone who knew what was going on. The dogs were EVERYWHERE…hundreds of them. There were only a couple of people, cleaning wire boxes and walking some dogs. I discovered that the people “in charge” had gone to bed. Someone saw me standing there and asked me to walk a dog. I was given a leash that had a very emaciated white pitbull on it. She looked at me with scared and pitiful eyes and we went for a walk. The first thing that struck me was how noisy it was with all the dogs barking, how hot, and how huge this place was. When I returned the dog to the barn, a girl asked me where he was sleeping. I shrugged and she suggested I set up shop near hers. I followed her to a back corner of the complex. It was dark and I had never pitched a tent before. So she and another guy who was in a tent in the area helped me.
As tired as she was from the trip, she could hardly sleep. It was very hot and humid and there was not a bit of air movement anywhere. Eventually I had to take off all my clothes and go to bed with just a sheet covering as little as possible. It’s hard to sleep when you have sweat pouring out of every pore on your body. Eventually exhaustion washed over me and I fell asleep. Morning camera quickly…
to be continue…