A True Look at the City

In the days following our first visit to New Orleans, we continued to support the WWL crews by covering a variety of local Baton Rouge stories and press conferences. We put together the story about Wayne's neighborhood and the rescue of his former neighbor, Mrs. Taylor, then a traffic piece concerning the considerable congestion now present on the roads of Baton Rouge, and finally a look at how LSU's hallways and campuses are now jam-packed with students. Sightseeing at the university was a definite bonus.

Understanding we were here to support the folks from WWL, we marched forward, but still, I was ready to do some real work and felt time in New Orleans was needed. We had only spent three hours there in the previous six days. We finally got our chance on Thursday.

Racing down Interstate 10 in stride with military and rescue workers, we got as far as we could until the highway was swallowed by deep waters. We made our way through the uptown region, still littered with trees, power lines, and debris, but the roads were considerably clearer and the military presence was in greater numbers. We got lots of video and stills of the devastation and cleanup progress and moved on to downtown.

Satellite trucks and news crews dominated the main drag along Harrah's Casino. Helicopters filled the skies, military humvees and transport trucks rolled through the streets, and ambulances and police vehicles sounded sirens throughout the city. We stopped intermittently, getting shots of the work underway and happened upon the Superdome. It was a tragic site, the roof delaminated, still water blanketing the streets, and trash covering every square inch. The putrid odor in the air was a combination of spoiled food and other things I'd rather not attempt to guess. Looking upon the once grand building, I could only think of the horrors that transpired inside over the past week. It made me sad.

Confident with the amount of footage and interviews we obtained, we pressed east where we were to meet a Virginia Beach local who was involved in some sort of "spec-ops" with a private contracting firm. Under the impression they were going to do some rescue missions, we were going to tag along, so we made our way along the high-spanning highways to the east that towered over the most flooded sections of the city. It was my first glimpse of the real devastation.

We occassionally stopped, taking pictures of vehicles with water covering their roofs and houses submerged in the murky, brackish waters. While stopped at one point, a Japanese television crew stopped and popped an interview on me as I surveyed the damage. Their English was broken making the questions confusing, but I was able to give them my outsider's take on the situation. In all I expected to encounter and experience on this adventure, the last thing was an appearance on Japanese television. I would love to see the piece.

The severely flooded regions spanned for miles and miles and the amount of destruction was indescribable. The east side of New Orleans is lost and to finally see the enormity of its devastation, I truly now understand how horrific Hurricane Katrina was for this city. The uptown and downtown regions, though having substantial amounts of damage, will survive and prosper, given the proper cleanup and unity throughout the community. It will take some time but it is a feasible endeavour. The east side, however, has been completely destroyed.

We arrived at our meeting place where small bass boats and zodiacs were being put in to the streets that were now flooded canals. On arrival, a rescue worker approached me.

"Do you know what's going on here?"

"No, we just got here."

He pointed towards the flooded neighborhoods. "We just found ten bodies over there."

I looked to a New Jersey rescue crew who had set up camp on the banks of the neighborhood. Hopefully they were able to help him out.

Our contact arrived and unfortunately were planning a corporate contract, checking the security of an unnamed business in the area. Their voyage was an estimated three-hour trip that would not involve any rescue attempts so we declined the invitation and headed back to the city.

On arrival to our live truck downtown, the media flocked around a press conference with Vice-President Cheney. The sheer masses of news crews seemed to frighten the Vice President, as he jumped in a state police car and quickly disappeared without a word.

Along the drive back to downtown New Orleans, my eyes never left the endless flooded neighborhoods that spanned for miles and onward to the horizon. Many have said this is the worst disaster they have ever seen. After this last hour of our adventure, I now understand and agree. What we had seen up to this point had been bad, but commonplace in the aftermath of a hurricane. What we saw in the vast underwater regions of East New Orleans was the worst, far-reaching destruction I have ever witnessed in my lifetime.

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