The Katrina Files

PART VI

CHAPTER 16

Joey and Dana had been sitting in traffic for a long time trying to figure out any alternative routes out of town that weren't bogged down with traffic. Dana suddenly began having sharp pain in her abdomen. "Ar . . . Ar . . .Are you going into labor?", asked a nervous Joey. "I'm not sure", she answered. She was quite certain that it was contractions she was having, so she began timing them just like her doctor instructed her to do. "Thirty minutes apart", she announced to Joey. "Should we get you to a hospital?", asked Joey. They decided that going to the hospital was the best thing to do, so they called their doctor alerting him to the situation. "Dr. Meyer says to meet him at Charity Hospital", Dana said to Joey. "Charity?! I don't wan't our baby born in Charity!", protested Joey. "I don't think we have much of a choice", she said holding her belly. They made their way to Charity Hospital and Dana was whisked to a room to await delivery of her baby. After calling family members to inform them of the situation, Joey met Dana in her delivery room. She was hooked up to an IV and all kinds of monitors. "I guess we're here to stay", said Joey looking at all of the medical equipment in the room. "We'll be okay", said Dana reassuringly. 

Joey looked at his watch: 4:00 pm. It had begun to rain and he was staring at the sky in the distance. The soft drizzle was leaving tiny water drops on the window. From his vantage point on the 5th floor, he could see that the streets below were deserted. He was surprised that they had been attended to so quickly, given that hospital's reputation for slow service. He had been here before as a teenager. He was in school and suddenly had really bad abdominal cramping that seemed to get worse and worse. His dad had come to pick him up from school and rushed him to Charity Hospital. They waited in the waiting room for hours before they were attended to and by the time the doctor got around to examining him, the pain had gone away. He had passed in front of the hospital many times before and there was always people in front of the hospital indicating how busy it was on the inside. On this day, Charity, like the rest of the city, had battened down the hatches as it prepared for Hurricane Katrina. The entrance was closed and shuttered in anticipation of the coming bad weather. As the day progressed, the weather was slowly deteriorating. The rain would come in waves and the wind was slowly beginning to pick up. When I think about it, it really wasn't all that different than a typical New Orleans rainstorm. When it rains in the Big Easy, it pours! I mean getting anywhere from 2 inches to 12 inches from a sudden rainstorm is not that unusual. The thing is that you knew in the back of your mind what was on its way. There were questions and unknowns that only time would answer.

CHAPTER 17

"There's nothing else on!", complained Bill Clark as he flipped the TV channels on his remote control. "Well, you can't go outside", reminded his wife Mable, "it's starting to rain harder." Bill walked out of the front door onto his porch. He watched the rain coming down in a torrent. Water was beginning to pool up in the street as it was going down the storm drains creating a stream. Bill thought how great it would be to have a stream like this in front of his house. He could just walk out of his front door and cast his fishing line. He was daydreaming about catching fish when a gust of wind blew a sheet of water onto the porch wetting everything including Bill. He let out a few expletives as he walked back in the house. Mabel laughed as she handed him a towel. He sat down to watch the source of his complaints: the all day news coverage of the coming storm. If this had been a "normal" Sunday, he would have been watching football games on TV instead of the news reports. He would be wearing his New Orleans Saints gear and he would be yelling at the TV. His mind flashed back to previous hurricanes that threatened the Louisiana and Mississippi gulf coasts in his lifetime. During Hurricane Betsy in 1965, he and his parents were living near where he was now. The winds howled and as a child he was afraid, but when it was over, they walked outside and besides a little flooding, it really hadn't been that bad. He vividly remembered having to get on his father's shoulders because of the high flood water. His father was a tall man, about 6 feet 3 inches, and with Bill sitting on his shoulders, he remained high and dry. The flood waters reached his father's chest as little Bill pretended to be a 10 foot tall giant. They lost power for a few weeks, but it was just like camping in the wilderness. They grilled their food outside in the daytime and at night, they lit candles and played inside. The best part of all, was  . . . NO SCHOOL!  As far as the other major hurricane, Camille, it turned at the last minute towards the Mississippi gulf coast giving kids a few days off from school. As an adult, he had seen his share of "near misses", which gave them an excuse to have a hurricane party which was a New Orleans tradition.