I wrote this up in-between work for a 12-hour period. I am kind of worn out after writing it so I will get to the other half later. The second half is where I start to hallucinate and it gets weird… it will probably take me another week to get that one done.

Well I was just told that this would be the longest 12 hours of my life. I hope there is no one over my shoulder reading this. So I will begin this with where I am. There is a thing called an IMT (Incident Management Team) for the USCG where I have taken over the 12-hour shift for the Documentation Unit Yeomen. So this means that overall that I am ok… if you want to look at it like that. So I have 12 hours to kill and this is probably how I will be spending most of it. This will more than likely be a long story, I will try to tell it before my memory begins to blur.

Going back to Tuesday morning I remember wondering why I was going into work. The mayor had come on TV the night before to say that he is issuing a voluntary evacuation for the city of New Orleans. With the bright lights reflecting off of his shining baldhead he said that he will not issue a mandatory evacuation. He also did not feel confident enough that a cold front coming from the northwest would push off the storm enough to east to completely avoid New Orleans. At least this mayor did not look like an idiot on TV warning the city. A few years back the last mayor did something similar for a category 1 hurricane. He made it sound like the city was going to go for some crazy ride and that nothing would be left afterwards. This of course did not happen, but that is a different story.

Looking over my shoulder on channel 15 I am seeing footage of Pensacola. It really was a tragedy that hit even at those reaches of the storm. The rivers and waterways were flooded and the ports were thrashed by the storms. There has already been surveillance footage of looting during the hurricane reported into the news. You can see how choked up people are when they talk about their property and damage.

The drive to work was strange and it kind of sets up the rest of the day Tuesday. Were I to have evacuated with the few others who had at that time I would have hit some of the lightest traffic that the 90 bridge has seen since the last pre-hurricane. It was easy to get to work; I don’t think I have ever gotten there so quickly. I assume most were waiting for the rest of the family to wake up then head over towards Baton Rouge or elsewhere for the evacuation. I am glad for the little things that made the first half of the day easy, after the fact that is.

Right after getting into work I was greeted by my co-workers child. I have heard many stories about him but never met him before. I remembered hearing on the TV the night before that most schools were closed and Kerry (my co-worker) told me that her son’s day care was closed, but she still had to come into work. We both pretty much assumed the same thing: we are going to get cut loose to evacuate before too long. I was so confident that I did not even bring my lunch.

My wife was a bit upset about all this. It was inevitable that we were going to get the orders to evacuate. We live in the lowest point of Louisiana (possibly the US too being 9ft. below sea level), which is always the first to get evacuated. It is my understanding that shortly after I arrived at work the parish president (or the mayor, I am not sure who) ordered the mandatory evacuation of the parish. My wife was calling me about every 45 min to every hour after I got to work. Most of the time all I had to say was I was waiting for the admiral to give out the order and evacuate. At approximately 1100 the order was approved and I went home.

Going home traffic was even lighter than going to work. There were only a few times that I even saw another vehicle going in the same direction as me. The thing was that I was seeing looked exactly like a natural disaster movie. I wish that I had a video camera, as it would have made an excellent documentary. So instead of a documentary I offer up this non-fiction essay.

The traffic going out of the city was dense. There were very few areas with out bumper-to-bumper traffic, and those areas were mostly right after an intersection with a traffic light. This was all down LA 23 (Belle Chasse Highway). Once I entered Plaquemine Parish, police were directing traffic so there would be a smooth flow out of the city. Knowing that their job is not one they, more than likely, wanted to do I gave many of the officers a smile and a friendly wave as I passed. Surprisingly I got a wave and smile in return. I assumed they would want to evacuate with their friends and families and directing traffic would be the last thing they were “happy” to do.

I arrived home at approximately 1130. As some may know I live on a military base. It was quite creepy driving on base as I had never seen it as empty as it was. Aside from my neighbors there was only one other person I saw in the area. About 2 hours earlier the commander for the NAS (Naval Air Station) declared that the base was to be mandatory evacuated by 1800 on the envenoming of September 14th. So the base was empty because of it. I also knew that many units cut loose non-essential personnel the night before. In my little area of houses my neighbors and I were the only ones left.

The previous day my wife had packed up the house pretty much. All expensive items were moved upstairs and away from windows. All the upstairs items were moved away from windows, either into the hall, bathrooms, or closets. At night I disconnected all the rats nests of electrical cords. This includes mainly the audio receiver and the PC. The PC needed to be re-organized anyways, and I have been a bit lazy about that so it was nice to get it disconnected. I also boxed up the video game systems, which reminded me one of the reasons that I keep all the system boxes. It was nice to see all of the systems go back into their original boxes all the way back to the SNES.

After the house was pretty much hurricane “ready” it was time to pack up some evacuation items. My wife took care of most of this already during the day, but I had to pack some clothes and entertainment items for my self. Some things I grabbed incase we were not able to get back to out house – like more books than I can read – but I was reasonable in other areas because I knew space would be tight in the vehicle. My neighbors also took similar precautions to prepare for evacuation as well. So most things were taken care of the night before.

When it was time to go all we did was take the items that were charging (the 2-way radios and flashlight) and double check all the gear. I also had to do something that was tough for me – although I did not realize that it would be until about this time. I have two society finches, and they needed to be placed into the laundry room with enough food and water to hopefully last thought the weekend if needed. My wife had done this while I was at work, but I had to say goodbye and good luck.

I gave one of the radios to my neighbor while he went to the gas station. I wanted to test the radius of these as I had received them as “trash”. I assumed that the 1.5-mile distance to the gas station would be about as far as we would possibly get separated. He came in crystal clear over the radio when he was there. It was pretty fun messing around with silly call signs: “over – out” or “roger, roger!”

My wife got her turtle into his carry case (just a Tupperware container) and Bob (the pink bunny) into his carry case (a cat carry case). With them in their vehicles we got the dogs together and put them into the car. I really don’t think that the dogs had any idea what they were about to embark on so they were pretty excited to be in the vehicle. The sleeping bags that we had brought were placed into the foot well of the back seats and their beds were placed over the seats and the foot wells. So it was just like they had a back seat cushion and they were more comfortable than we were. Bob got to ride with the neighbors so I am sure he was comfortable in his little niche in their over packed minivan.

Then we were off. At approximately 1245 we departed with the initial destination of Lettsworth – a town that I pretty much pulled out of a hat, which was northwest out of the path of the hurricane’s projected route. After we got out of the NAS the traffic was light, or at least flowing well. The police officers that Plaquemine parish put up must have helped out. We first hit some major congestion on I-10.

When we got to the 90-bridge traffic was slow, but it was still moving occasionally. After you cross 90 is when you start to pick up vehicles getting on from the city and from uptown New Orleans. We were to stay on I-10 for 80 miles. At the one and a half hour point from getting on 90 we had just barely traveled 1 mile. The car had stalled out once by this point. I am still not sure why it stalled out that time. But at about 1630 (4:30pm) the electrical started to act up.

The car was running a bit hot at one point so I decided to turn off the AC. The temperature gauge surged up to almost in the red. It really sucks to sit in the sun in a black car that is not moving with no AC. I would estimate that about fifteen minutes later the CD player just shut off then came back up. I thought at first that it was just skipping, but then I looked down and saw that it was actually powering down then coming back up. I am not really too sure what happen, but then anything electrical shut down and the engine started to idle very quietly. I don’t know why, but I shut the car off to try to start it back up again.

No, it would not start back up. My heart started to race and I am sure that my eyes were darting back and forth between the dash, ignition, and stereo. I began to panic. After who knows how many attempts and a bit of cursing I radioed to my neighbors that the car had died. They pulled over to the side of the highway and then helped me push the vehicle over to the side of the road.

Now the connector for the battery has become loose before and made this problem happen. So the first thing that we tried was to adjust the connection. Then when that failed we attempted to bang on things with a wrench; like the solenoids and the battery. After a bit more cursing and panic Erin (my neighbor TC’s wife) started to pull things out of their minivan so that we can fit in there.

I started thinking that with adding the two dogs, a turtle, and two people; that the van would not possible have enough room to hold us all. I forcefully stated my opinion on this and there was some heated … argument going on for a while. Skipping back to the real problem, TC had thought that we initially might get a fix out of just getting a new battery. But would anything be open? We were luckily near an off ramp (the Tulane exit) that was flowing well and we could cut over and look for something.

After finally getting over into an outgoing lane that was when TC decided to mention that it is more than likely something that a new battery will not fix and there is probably a problem with the alternator. Well this started to make me nervous… as if I were not enough already. When we started going up and down the streets of New Orleans it was looking like no matter the problem of the vehicle nothing was open to fix it. Everything from Pep Boys to Shell Gas was closed. Luckily this rinky-dink little service station was open, “Mr. P”. I asked if they sold batteries for cars. The guy who I first talked to looked at me as thought I spoke another language. In his blue, oily, jumpsuit he told me it has been a hectic day and I have to keep track of him… “Ok”. He wanted to see the battery and I lead him across the street to where TC parked the car.

After briefly looking at the battery he told me to follow him inside. After we got in there an older black man with a dirty brown jumpsuit was referred to me. He slowly came over and asked what battery I needed. I told him the make and model of the vehicle and showed him the battery. Behind me there was a row of 6 batteries on a piece of wood on cinder blocks. I looked down and hoped that one of those would work, please let one of those work.

Now lets backtrack a bit. When I left to go find a battery place Sara was trying to find us another way to get out of the city. It was all looking pretty bleak. Our best option was a small BMW taking us to Baton Rouge. This was not really an option for us as we had the dogs, bunny, and turtle. She was also convinced that a new battery would not fix our problems with the car. So she was re-packing all of our, and our neighbor’s, luggage on the side of the road. She really thought it was possible to fit all of us into the minivan and get out of the city. I say that the minivan would have had to be practically empty to fit 6 people, 2 dogs, a cat (the neighbors), a bunny and a turtle in that thing. She must have been pretty upset and stressed about this by that time as well. I could tell with our communications over the 2-way radios. While I was getting the battery she was talking with TC on the radio getting updates of it.

So the older guy that was helping me with the battery figured that one of those six would work with the car. I was quite relieved, but still worried in general that it may be the alternator. The total came up to about $75. They did not accept credit cards so I had to run across the street to get out cash from an ATM. I then got the battery and returned to the car.

Now when we had to pull over we were heading west on I-10. When we pulled over bringing back a battery we had to face east. We pulled the new battery up to the car and placed it in. Unfortunately the connectors were not in the right spot so this made it difficult to fit into place, but it did. When I got in and tried to turn over the engine I was praying. It did turn over and I was so thankful. TC pulled the positive lead to the battery momentarily to make sure that the alternator was not a problem and I guess he found out there were no problems with the alternator. Overall from start to finish this whole thing only took about 30-40 min, but it seemed to take forever.

While out getting the battery I guess there were many people who pulled over to offer help to my wife Sara and Erin. There was even one guy who stopped while he was heading east. This really says a lot for a city that I pretty much despise and think that the majority would leave you to rot while dieing. The last guy to pull over and help, the one heading east, said that he just came from that direction and we should head there – going the wrong way I might add – to circumvent the lake before heading west. We listened to him and tuned the car off the road in the same manner that we had to get the battery so that we could head east. We caught up with the neighbors and turned onto 10 east towards Slidell.

Things went smoothly for a brief while, but we caught up with the traffic really quickly. The speed of traffic was a bit smoother here going at the brisk stride of 2 miles an hour. After we got over the river on I-10 east we decided that this speed was ridiculous. It was coming up at 6 pm and we had not even gotten out of the city yet. I was beginning to really feel trapped in the city as though it was trying to keep us in. Also after we got the new battery in we did not want to over use it, so we did not turn on the AC or radio especially considering that we were idling so much. No matter what route we took the city kept us from leaving. I said; we need to get off major roads and use as many side roads as possible to get to a safe area. I did not care if we were traveling at 5 mph the whole way, it was still quicker than 1 mile per hour and a half or 2 miles an hour.

At this point hunger was calling as well. We got off of 10 and decided to look for maps and anywhere that was open to eat. I want to say that I made the call to stay off of major highways, but I don’t recall for sure and don’t want to take too much credit. We had hoped to at least be out of New Orleans at this point in time so that we could sit down and re-plan our route. We ended up finding a Rallys that was open. It took us over 30 minutes from ordering until we got our food and by this time it was about 1930 (7:30PM). We had been on the road for 7 hours and were no where near our (normally) three and a half hour drive destination… hell we were not even out of New Orleans still.

Well we got 2 maps, 1 of New Orleans and the surrounding area and then one of Louisiana. We traveled many back roads and hit a few blocked off roads, but in under 30 min we had traveled more distance than the rest of the trip thus far. Mainly taking West Esplanade we made it all the way down to Power blvd where we headed south to see how Airline Hwy looked. It was about 5 miles further south than I-10 was. We had to pass an on-ramp to I-10 to get to Airline and it was backed up, extremely. To get on to I-10 heading north on Power Blvd I cannot imagine the wait time, but it was backed up a good 3 miles bumper-to-bumper with almost no movement.

While driving past all this we began to wonder how bad was Airline (Highway 61) because these people must have seen it and headed over to 10. Well we are not sure what happen, or why it happen, but 61 was not too congested. When we got to the New Orleans International Airport we had traveled about 5 miles and it only took about 30 or 40 minutes. This was true speed I tell you! Anyways, we stuck with it because it was a bit smoother than either route on I-10 were. Then we were coming up onto the onramp for I-10 and I decided to just stay on 61 and see it out, it could not be really any worse, only longer. Well no sooner than we passed the on-ramp to I-10 did traffic clear up, and I don’t mean going 20 mph. After one other light we were hitting cruising speeds of about 50 miles per hour. I never expected that.

Around 9pm we hit LaPlace or was it some other town. Nonetheless all of these towns that we hit in between Baton Rouge and New Orleans were alike this so I will cover them all in one fowl swoop or you would probably be bored … if you have even read this far.

Some towns would only have about 5 lights and it would take a little while to get through them, but other “larger” towns would have many lights. It would take anywhere from 30 min to over an hour just to get through one town. There were some towns where it was just one traffic light that had horrible timing holding every one up. There was another town where everyone was trying to get into a 24 hour McDonalds… well I can assume that much because traffic lightened up after that. But you could always tell which light was the last one: when the traffic was not backed up after it. In between towns we could usually hit the speed limit, which again I never expected, but it still took a long time to get around.

Let me backtrack again. When we left we knew that we had to get out, and that was about all. We were hoping to get out of the Baton Rouge area then pull over and find a Hotel. If not then we would keep trekking northwest until we found a campground and then stay there if no Hotels were found. We never really had a solid plan and I did not know that the neighbors really had no intention of camping. I knew, and had mentioned, that there were no availabilities though out most of LA and parts of TX, MS, and AL. So I was mentally prepared to tent if this turned out to be true. Knowing this I will tell the story from this point on from my perspective… as clouded as it may be.
~~–//\\–~~
As stated this is where it starts to get interesting. If you wondering about the “I will tell the story from this point on from my perspective” thing, I was telling it from a general consensus thing before. I start to get a bit upset at others at this point so they probably saw events differently.