Beyond Katrina

Laughs with Leno: NOLA Oil Spill

Jay Leno: “And the Coast Guard closed over 100 miles of the Mississippi River after an oil spill of over 400,000 gallons of oil. The Federal government leaped into action…within 30 minutes of the spill. … How does this make the people of New Orleans feel, huh? They get wiped out by Hurricane Katrina, it takes FEMA, what, six days to show up? A barrel of oil spills, the White House goes, ‘No!’ And they’re down there.”

Source: Agweb.com

Katrina documentary focuses on animals

Director Screens Film at LSU

Now here's some news that I find interesting because it focuses on topics I am passionate about ---Katrina, grassroots media, a good story, and (as the Native Americans call them), "the four leggeds".  Folks may not realize that Katrina created  the nation's largest pet evacuation  with over  50,000 animals abandoned. The pet saga was one of the most horrific aspects of the katrina disaster for me personally--- It definitely contributed to my own feelings of shock, helplessness, and consternation as I witnessed its unfolding in those dark, chaotic days when NOLA was submerged.

At any rate long tail** filmmaker and photo-journalist  Mike Shiley  was at LSU  yesterday   to screen his film "Dark Water Rising: Survival Stories of Hurricane Katrina Animal Rescues," a documentary about animal rescues during those early harrowing days after the storm. The story behind the story is quite interesting and it definitely validates the rise of personal, independent media - a movement I am also deeply passionate about. 

Armed with a homemade press pass Shiley left his home in Portland Oregon three weeks post-Katrina and headed to NOLA in search of a good story--and he found it. Five years earlier  Shiley left cubicle nation (Corporate America)  to pursue his passion: "voluntarily placing his life in danger in order to tell the story". Now this to me describes a true visionary and a person after my own heart.  Not only because folks like me  and Shiley seem to be configured in some strange way to gravitate toward disaster, but because  in my view the epitome of a well lived life is to pursue one's vision with passion and conviction ---where there is no vision the people perish.

BTW,  Shiley has traveled to 38 countries, creating documentaries for the past five years.The Daily Reveille reports here.   I would like to add, however,  that I  do not agree with Shiley's assertion  that the   "the mainstream media has failed us." In my humble opinion mainstream  media stepped up to the plate bigger than ever before during Katrina ---Reporters showed their humanity in the face of the crisis  and I found it very comforting.  A "we're-all-in-this-thing-together mood" seemed to prevail in journalism at least for this time and it helped get me through. And I feel that the most  intriguing aspect of our times  is precisely the convergence of  mainstream media and grass roots, independent media---what might be birthed out of this intersection is something that I feel will transcend but include them both.  Differences in opinions aside, Shiley's story is quite amazing.

**Often presented as a phenomenon of interest primarily to mass market retailers and web-based businesses, the Long Tail also has implications for the producers of content, especially those whose products could not - for economic reasons - find a place in pre-Internet information distribution channels controlled by book publishers, record companies, movie studios, and television networks. Looked at from the producers' side, the Long Tail has made possible a flowering of creativity across all fields of human endeavour. (Source Wikipedia)

7 N.O. officers indicted

NEW ORLEANS — Seven police officers were indicted Thursday on murder or attempted murder charges in shootings on a bridge that left two people dead during the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. More at 2theadvocate.com and at wafb.com.

Unsung Heroes

By: Rick Portier

One of the benefits (and curses) of being one of the more experienced photogs at my station is working solo.  It was on just such a cursed day that I stumbled across my favorite story from the storm.

Dozens of FEMA workers milled about outside the old Dillards building near downtown Baton Rouge. It looked like the fire drills we practiced when I was in grade school.  This was no drill, but there was no danger. Someone accidentally set off a fire alarm in the make-shift FEMA, Because I had no reporter for the day, it was my duty to chase things like this.

It was clear that this would never see the air-waves, but I squeezed off a shot or two just to prove I had been there.  When my cell phone beckoned, I was sure my bosses had found something equally mundane that needed my attention. At the other end of a bad connection,  a raspy voice barked, "Rick, how's it goin' dude?" The voice wasn't familiar.  Neither was the number, but that's not unusual. I give my cell number to lots of strangers. This stranger was a little stranger than most. It's Kevin Cronin. (no, not the lead singer from REO Speedwagon.) Kevin owns Body Image Tattoos on Government St. I worked a story with him several years ago, and he wanted to hook-up again.

Seven ambulances are parked in the gas station next-door to Kevin's shop, none of them local. Inside, a cacophony of voices struggle to be heard over buzzing needles, and The White Stripes blare from a small speaker in the ceiling. There must be 30 people in here, all of them paramedics, EMT's, or first responders.

Kevin pushed his way thru a sea of blue T-shirts from places like Michigan, Illinois, and Hawaii. "Is this great or what? We've been packed for three days. They're all getting Katrina tattoos!"

Kim Paulsen is a big ole boy who doesn't look out of place in a place like this. He's retired from the National  Guard. "I saw people on TV yelling they needed help, so here I am -- on my own dime -- two planes and a bus. No body's paying me to be here." Kim is only one of hundreds of emergency workers in town helping in the recovery. Everyone in the crowded tattoo shop has a similar story. These men and women have lived the tragedy and human suffering wrought by Katrina.

It's Kim's first tat. His bright blue eyes are blank as the artist's needle jabs his shoulder over and over and over applying color to the eye of a hurricane symbol that will be with him for the rest of his life. Kim doesn't want to talk about the emotions he experienced while recovering bodies with the Guard in New Orleans. His tough-guy facade can't hide the pain in his eyes.

Rob Kelly and Chip Arnold from Illinois and Lake d'Arbonne, La. watch from across the counter.  Debbie Fabiano is getting inked. "Pain don't hurt!" Debbie is, a painted lady from Detroit. She blames her tears on the needle bouncing off her back, but she and everyone else knows the needle is only bringing up painful memories buried just beneath her skin. "Ironically," she says "the pain I'm experiencing here, sort of connects me to the pain of all those people we're helping." She's already got a 9/11 tattoo on her back. Katrina will go right along side of it. The enormity of the destruction is what brings her to tears. "People have lost their family, their pets...their livelihoods... "

Rob is the youngest of the heroes preserving their emotions with multi-colored pigments. He sniffs and snorts as he struggles to speak of the misery he has seen during his tour through the soup that has devoured so many lives. "Something good's gotta come out of this. That's what this tattoo is. You have it for the rest of your life...just like the friendships we've made."

Of all the stories I've told following Katrina, this one has stuck with me.  Maybe it was the disbelief on their faces as they spoke of bodies floating in the streets, maybe it was the instant camaraderie sparked by a common experience, or maybe it was simply standing in a room full of heroes, whatever it was, these men and women left their mark on me.  While politicians and bureaucrats pointed fingers and assigned blame, folks like Kim, Rob, Chip, and Debbie acted.  For that, we are eternally grateful.

You can watch their story at:

http://media.swagit.com/s/wbrz/The_Advocate/09202005-19.html

Rick Portier is a television news photographer in Baton Rouge. For more of his unique stories and interesting rants see his personal blog at http://turdpolisher.blogspot.com/

 

Remembering Leslie Deamer

By Rick Portier:

"Journalists and psychotherapists do essentially the same job, that is to sit down and listen to people, to try to construct narrative. And journalists have a responsibility and an opportunity to construct that narrative well, and to do it in a way that is authentic to the experience of the people with whom they are talking. Journalism that contributes to further distress and pain, unnecessarily and gratuitously, is bad journalism. Good journalism, by telling narrative, by hearing people, by giving them space to talk authentically and be heard, can be profoundly transformative."

(Mark Brayne, DART Centre for Journalism & Trauma, Europe)

Pearl and Patricia Deamer sit huddled in the dark.  The living room curtains are drawn.  The waning sun peeks through the slit where two panels meet.  There lives have been dark for 40 days.  But this evening, they are laughing.  It's the  first chuckle they've had in three days, and it comes at the expense of the blonde-haired reporter sitting across the coffee table.

To be fair, they are not laughing at WBRZ's  Veronica Mosgrove; they are laughing at a light-hearted comment I made at her expense. V and I have a brother-sister type relationship that seems to put people at ease. Whatever the reason, that laugh is good therapy for the week these two have had. They have been waiting with great trepidation to get to New Orleans. Neither had heard form Leslie Deamer since Hurricane Katrina paid him a visit 40 days ago.

About a week ago, during a call from the make-shift morgue in St. Gabriel, Pearl heard the words that she had been dreading for nearly a month. Her brother, Patricia's father, was dead. 

On September 10, a recovery team searching house-to-house found Leslie's body.  He was buried in silt and debris in the bedroom of his St. Bernard Street home. When the levees broke, Leslie's home flooded too quickly for him to escape. There is still no word of Leslie's sister, Ella who lived with him.

When Leslie's part of the city was finally opened, Pearl and Patricia returned to collect his personal effects, mementos of a lifetime of love.

A fluorescent orange "x" stained the roof of Leslie's home, in the upper quadrant, "1fd," rescue code for one found dead.  Below the cross, the time and date authorities found his body. It's been 25 days.

Aunt and Niece lean on each other as they enter the flood ravaged home. Everything had been thrown from the corners to the center of the house. A crystal punch bowl sits untouched on a coffee table. Memories of Thanksgiving feasts, birthdays, and back yard bar-b-ques flood the home trying to undo the damage done by Katrina. From the bedroom, an other-worldly moan rises, then a scream. Leslie's body is still inside.

Face-down on the floor, Leslie is covered with sediment and soot. "It just looks like part of the floor," Patricia pauses a long moment to compose herself, "except it has arms and a head." Someone, somewhere in the red tape that consumed the early stages of the Katrina recovery, has forgotten about Leslie Deamer. "We did...everything we were supposed to do...And my father...just laid there...And nobody else...did what they were supposed to do." Pent up emotion overwhelms Patricia. She's been grieving the loss of her father for a week. This is anger.

Tears stream down her flushed cheeks.  "It's a crime against nature...to do a human being like this." Are the only words Pearl can whisper.Patricia searches for words that describe the feelings of helplessness and sorrow that washed over her the moment she discovered Leslie's body.  "To leave him...that amount of time, with nobody taking care of him."

These are the moments I struggle with as a photographer. When do I stop being a journalist and start being a human being. When do I turn off the tally light and try to comfort someone whose pain I cannot begin to imagine.

We sat off camera and talked a while after that.  We talked about work, life, and family. We hugged each other at the door.

That night, we all got what we needed. Veronica and I were reminded about what is important in life. Pearl and Patricia got to laugh. And now, no one can forget Leslie Deamer.

Rick Portier is a television news photographer in Baton Rouge.  For more of his unique stories and interesting rants see his personal blog at  http://turdpolisher.blogspot.com/

New Web Address for St. Bernard Parish Video Site

St. Bernard Parish resident and musician Benjamin Chappetta just sent me an update on the new domain address for his Katrina video site. The site offers free previews of live video footage taken during Katrina and in the immediate aftermath when St. Bernard Parish flooded. The site is also the home of the now-famous video accompanied by the music of Randy Newman and peformed by New Orleans musician, Aaron Neville. People were so drawn to this video in the early days following Katrina's landfall that in "a 24 hour period, it was viewed over 50,000 times" chewing up 1,500 Gigs of bandwidth!!!   The videos are quite moving and what's even better is that Benjamin offers them free to look at from the site. You can also order dvd copies with proceeds going to the musician's instrument replacement fund. To visit the site go to http://www.katrinavideo.info/

Update 10/6/09 - Benny Chapetta emailed to thank me for this post. I asked him about how things were going in St. Bernard. He reports "St Bernard finally got a McDonalds (Paris Rd) open last week and the coming weeks will have our first major grocery store open (Winn Dixie, Paris Rd). Not bad considering it's 13 plus months after. Things are moving slowly". I asked him if he'd consider writing up a post or two for us with more details  about how recovery is going in SB since he is at the epicenter there. so...we'll see!

Katrina Storm Surge Blogs

Over at Weather Underground,  blogger Margie Kieper is organizing a  series of blogs documenting the impact of Katrina's storm surge. Today, she documents the damage at Grand Island, LA. Each day for the next 20 days she'll move down the coast to Mobile, AL, showing what happened to each 10-mile long section.

Damage to Grand Island, LA in the aftermath of Katrina. Image credit: NOAA.

'Jane Doe' in Tennessee could be La. evacuee

Jane Doe

By EMILY KERN

Advocate staff writer

The woman with laughing eyes, round face and a sometimes flirty demeanor is missing something that could help reunite her with her family -- a name.

The "Jane Doe," who appears to be in her 80s, arrived in Nashville, Tenn., on a medical evacuation flight thought to be from Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.

Unable to provide any information about her home or family, the woman was taken first to Baptist Hospital in Nashville, and then transferred to Bordeaux Long-Term Care.

The nursing home staff that has cared for the woman since early September calls her "Precious."

"We asked her several times what her name was," Baptist Hospital social worker Ellen Bush said.

"One time we thought she said 'Gail.' Another time, it sounded like she said she was looking for Linda, or Linda was looking for her."

"That's really a stretch, though," Bush added.

The woman with black, curly hair, who sits in a wheelchair, arrived on a National Guard flight Sept. 3, possibly after being airlifted from a New Orleans-area hospital.

Four other people on that flight were taken to Baptist Hospital, and all of them have since been identified, said hospital spokeswoman Rebecca Ayer.

Bush said the woman arrived clean and with a few articles of clothing, including a pink robe and slippers.

"She looked like she had been well-cared for," Bush said.

Bush said the woman has sparkling eyes and a girlish, round-shaped face. Her tongue protrudes in a pronounced way, which sometimes is associated with certain medicines, Bush said.

"She really likes music, and she really does get a little bit flirtatious around men," Bush said.

At a fall festival sponsored by the long-term care facility, the woman did not want to leave the site of a band playing Elvis tunes.

"The doctors speculated as to whether she might be developmentally delayed or maybe had some dementia," Bush said of the woman's inability to communicate.

At Bordeaux Long-Term Care, Chief Operating Officer May Bennett said the woman smiles a lot and enjoys being around people.

She also enjoys dolls and stuffed animals, Bennett said.

"This woman seems to be doing well. She's happy. She's being cared for," Bennett said. "Our concern is that somewhere, there is a family very worried about her."

Bush said she tried to register the unidentified woman with the American Red Cross, but was unable to do so without a name.

Bush said she has spoken with administrators of nursing homes in Louisiana trying to find someone who knows the woman's identity.

She faxes the woman's picture whenever possible.

"I would love to see her reunited with her family," Bush said. "I would love to see her reaction. I know she would just laugh and laugh."

Anyone with information about the woman is asked to contact David Lampley, patient advocate at Bordeaux Long-Term Care, at (615) 862-6868.

Occasionally I am so moved by a visitor comment that I feel compelled to move it out of obscurity. This post from fifteen year old Taylor from New Orleans is one such example. Here it is in its entirety and without edit....

hurricane katrina. has affected many lives. many of them are my closest friends. weather i know them personally or not, i consider them all my faimly. I have lived in new orleans since birth, and i would not like it any where else. This is all i am. My heart goes out to everyone who has lost their love ones, and their homes and more. If you have ever gotten to come here or even expierence the love and understanding of this place you would know. We are all one, come togther to help.. and make new orleans a better place. Me being a 15 year old girl, i have been out of school for almost and month and a week. Most kids would be happy, to get a break but i am sad. I want a sence of normallcy back in my life. The friday before hurricane katrina hit me and a bunch of my friends went to our schools first football game of the year. We paraded down saint charles avenue, for our very first jamboree. After having a victory, came back and had oru first back to school dance. The sad th ing about it was... we knew katrina was comming but no one expcted us to be this bad... the biggest worry on my friends and minds were... "oh great now were not going to have break for the rest of the year". I packed my bags expecting this to be a 2 or 3 day trip. But it wasnt... the destruction on TV was heartbreaking. Faces fammilar to me with tears in their eyes... to see people suffor in such a manor. It hurts so bad. But as we are told, and i have faith... NEW ORLEANS will rebuild. my heart goes out to all of you. i love new orleans.

A New Phase - The Probes Begin

It feels that we are entering a new phase here...the begginning of the probes. N.O. Superintendent of Police Compass resigned under pressure from Mayor Nagin. The Federal Probe in Washington began a few days ago w ith Mr. Brown (former Fema director) blaming  dysfunctional Louisiana for the break-down in emergency management. 

The N.O. police department is investigating the officers who left their posts during the aftermath. The Baton Rouge Business Report put out an article disputing the media reports about the  looting that was to have gone on here in Baton Rouge immediately after Katrina. They attribute it to a rumor mill sparked by fear. Rumors are flying that some of the stories that came out of New Orleans in the same vein were also exaggerated. I don't know if I believe that one.

There is some kind of bureacratic brouhaha going on with the Red Cross - every day there is a new article about some atrocity they've committed.  Families of the victims are frustrated because they can't get the remains of their loved ones for burial. The whole identification process is going soooo slow. Fema is still doing bureaucratic crazy stuff. The frustation and stress levels remain high here.

As I write the folks in southwest Louisiana are trying to deal with the devastation heaped on them by Hurricane Rita.  In comparison to the global coverage afforded Hurricane Katrina, Rita has been presented as quite a benign Hurricane. Don't believe it. The recovery in the impacted areas will be lengthy - and Rita has just compounded the misery here. 

New Orleans has re-opened despite warnings from public health officials that the city is a health hazard. Sewage system isn't up and running yet, the water isn't safe to bathe in or drink yet, tons of debris and garbage remains, the dead are still being collected, power out in many areas, should I go on?

Over the past few days there has been alot of news & activity here in Baton Rouge. The air space has been particularly busy again - black hawks & red cross hovering over head. Only about thirty something bodies idenitified and released to the families out of the 8 hundred plus at the morgue. The victims families are very frustrated with that.

Part of me has wanted to blog, but I just found myself in melt down after Hurricane Rita swept through and wasn't able to. Too many hurricanes in too short a time frame. What was it two in less than 30 days ? Has it really only been thirty days? It seems like a lifetime ago that Hurricane Katrina was making her way to landfall.

At any rate, I will catch up the blog starting tomorrow and through the week-end.  Oh, I almost forgot...the federal courthouse in downtown Baton Rouge was evacuated this afternoon because of a bomb scare. A suspicious package was delivered there for New Orleans mayor Nagin. The contents of the package turned out to be benign though. 

I realize this post sounds so negative and I really am a very optimistic person. It's just the reality of what is going on here. Perhaps things will look better in the morning!