Escape from New Orleans...

Okay, I said I wasn't going to post them, but I lied. Here is the story, complete and uncut, all in one blog. Easier to locate but long as all hell!

Escape from New Orleans Part I—Saturday, August 27th, 2005

So lets begin at the beginning of the end….

We arrived in the port of New Orleans on Saturday, August 27th from our Carnival Cruise…walked off the boat—a ridiculously easy affair since going through customs involved filling out a customs form and handing it to one of the two customs officials at the entrance to the terminal, and then walking out; no bag scans, no dogs, nothing: If you ever want to smuggle drugs, a cruise is the way to go—hailed a cab, and proceeded to our hotel, the Fairmont, a very chic four star hotel one block from the French Quarter. We arrived there at about 10 a.m. and turned on the TV; every news station was broadcasting news about the coming hurricane, so of course we called our parents and tried to find out what we should do. Their advice was (of course) to get out of there. We then called the front desk to find out what they recommended; they assured us that the hotel would be perfectly safe, and we shouldn’t worry about it since its a huge concrete structure that has been standing for over 100 years…we weren’t satisfied with that (would you have been?), so we tried to find out what our options were. Jet Blue couldn’t (wouldn’t?) change our flight; they claimed that they didn’t have any seats available and that no, they were not running any additional planes out of the area. Their last planes were scheduled to fly out on Sunday morning and that was all the info they were giving us. They changed our Monday morning, 7 a.m. flight (the exact time the weather men were claiming that the hurricane would hit New Orleans) to 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, August 30th and left it at that. Needless to say, since the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana were both saying to evacuate because Hurricane Katrina was a category five, we wanted out. The thing that astounded Brad and I the most was the complete backwards nature of the calls for evacuation; the governor and the mayor were pleading with people to leave the city, but were not giving anyone any information as to how aside from driving yourself out. There were no additional trains or buses being scheduled to get people out of the city, and it is a depressed economy, with the exception of the French Quarter. Many people didn’t have the means to get out—it certainly wasn’t because they didn’t want to. And there was no mention as to how tourists—those who were not familiar with the city—could get out. It was all very disturbing.

There were no available flights out; we called everything we could think of. There were no trains; Amtrak had already stopped running trains on Saturday. There were no buses; Greyhound’s last bus out left Saturday afternoon and it was booked. We called rental car companies, and finally—after calling Budget Rental Cars, Alamo, and a half dozen others, found a rental from Avis. They wouldn’t give us a car to go straight to New York—we would have to go to Pittsburgh first, drop off that car, and then pick up another to continue our journey to New York—but we were just happy to have a way out. The car wasn’t available on Saturday, but they had one for Sunday morning at 8 a.m.—plenty of time for us to get out of the worst of the storm, and head to safer places. We figured we’d make the best of the situation and try and find some of those odd roadside attractions—like the world’s largest ball of twine, and things like that.

Confident that we had a plan and we’d be able to weather the effects of Hurricane Katrina in a car heading north Sunday morning, Bradley and I proceeded to try and make the best of our situation and enjoy New Orleans for the one day we were really in it; it was a beautiful day—there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the temperature was already well over 95 degrees. We headed to brunch at the Court of Two Sisters, where we could not believe that the hype was real; the food was phenomenal. They had curried olives, marinated mushrooms, gourmet cheeses, dozens of cold salads like curried chicken salad, salmon mousse, seafood ceviche, as well as made-to-order omelets, waffles, and pancakes. Yum, yum I tell you, and totally worth the outrageous price of $25 per person. We then headed to the French Market where we bought a bunch of Mardi Gras beads and other random souvenirs. We headed back to the room, stopped in Walgreen’s and picked up a road atlas, checked on our car rental (again), checked in with our parents (my dad still wanted to drive down to get us, but was satisfied that we’d be able to make it out), and took showers to get ready for a night of chaos on Bourbon Street.

Bourbon Street did not disappoint; walking onto Bourbon Street off of Canal Street, we discovered a band playing “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Delighted, we headed to Pat O’Brian’s for hurricanes and dinner—more fantastic food; the coconut shrimp was beyond tasty—and happily drunk we stumbled into the streets of the French Quarter. We picked up a couple of hand grenades (another yummy New Orleans drink) which we got to go (you can drink on the street in New Orleans), and ran into more craziness. There was a “rock star” standing like a live statue on a crate in the middle of the street; an Alice Cooper look-alike came up to us to talk about the “rock star” and we discovered he was a displaced New Yorker who originally lived in Sheepshead Bay—his sister still lived on Cropsey Avenue here in Brooklyn. So Brad took my picture with the “rock star” and Alice Cooper; I think they wanted to hang out with us, but we managed to beg off and headed to Big Daddy’s—the infamous strip club that Doug got his 30th birthday lap dance from a girl with a pork chop tattooed on the inside of her thigh. Unfortunately pork chop girl was not working at Big Daddy’s—and to tell you the truth, Brad and I were of the opinion that the quality of the girls must have gone down considerably since Douglas, Amy, and Vicki were there. It was a little bit weird to be in the club because a bunch of the girls were approaching me, and asking if I wanted a dance. Funny shit. We headed over to a random bar not long after and were very entertained by a guy and girl singing old school hip hop and funk on a stage…needless to say I got pulled up there and spent a good four or five songs dancing away on stage… We left that place and stumbled into a costume/lingerie shop where I picked out my Halloween costume for this year, and headed back to the room fairly early (around 11:30 p.m.) since we had to be at Avis for 8 o’clock the following morning….

Escape from New Orleans Part II-Sunday Morning & Afternoon, August 28th, 2005

I don’t think Brad or myself slept much Saturday night because, in spite of the massive amounts of alcohol we consumed, we still got up at 6:30 a.m. anxious to get a start on the day. I showered and got dressed, planned a route out of there on our good ole’ Rand McNally, and we left the Fairmont Hotel to get to Avis at 7:30 a.m. After standing in front of the hotel’s taxi stand for almost fifteen minutes, without a sign of a taxi anywhere, we decided to start walking the twenty or so blocks that it was up Canal Street to get to it. We found a cab more than halfway into our walk, and he drove us the rest of the way—to the completely locked up, boarded up Avis that had a sign in the window that read “Closed from Friday through Tuesday due to Hurricane Katrina. We will reopen on Wednesday, August 31st.” I think we both almost lost it at that point. We were enraged: How could the main call center reserve us a car, but not be aware that the dispatch center in New Orleans was closed since Friday? Considering the weather reports and the recommendations from the New Orleans local government and the governor of Louisiana, how could they not take additional measures to find out if the dispatch center was still open? Wouldn’t they figure that people would evacuate? And if the employees who ran that facility did evacuate early, wouldn’t they have to let the call center know? If we had known the day before that there was no hope of getting a car rental through Avis, or any of the other places we tried to get a rental car from, we would have tried harder to get a cab to take us to the Baton Rouge airport.

We returned to the hotel, in a complete panic, and called our parents again—who of course started to freak out. My favorite sentiment came from my father’s wife Janis, who told me “Find a cab to take you to Mississippi, and who cares? Sit on a corner in the rain and eat pudding for ten hours until we can come and get you!” More asinine words were never spoken. Our family’s felt that our only real option was staying in the hotel until the hurricane past; but they weren’t there, listening to the reports on television calling for a mandatory evacuation, but still not telling people how to get out of the city. The New Orleans and Louisiana government was not providing a means of transportation out for anyone who didn’t have a car to get out in. Brad and I were beside ourselves.

We couldn’t just sit in our hotel room and wait for the hurricane to blow us into oblivion; from what the reports on TV were saying, they predicted the eye of the hurricane to pass directly through downtown New Orleans, resulting in the French Quarter flooding and the water rising to twelve feet—literally if I stood on Brad’s shoulders, the water would still cover my head.

We left the hotel to find supplies—food and bottles of water, but also desperate to find a cab to get us the hell out of there. We walked through Bourbon Street—a boarded up ghost town with tourists like us, walking around, looking for water and food, and most importantly, a way out—but there was nothing. Even the street cars had stopped running. The entire time we were in New Orleans, there was not a single mention as to how the thousands of tourists and people without cars could find a way out. We began (not for the first time) comparing how the city of New York dealt with the tragedy of September 11th, and reminded one another of the housing the airlines and airports provided the tourists with while the planes were grounded in JFK and LaGuardia. We remembered that the subway ran just five hours after the planes hit and the World Trade Centers collapsed. We remembered that the subways and buses in New York City did not charge fares that day—or the next day either—in an effort to help people get to their families and loved ones. How could the city of New Orleans abandon its inhabitants (permanent residents and visitors) like this?

We found a cab driver near the French Market, and offered him $500 to take us to Baton Rouge—at first he agreed and then backed out. Frustrated, we walked back towards Canal Street where we found an open mini market, and stocked up on water, Power Bars, pretzels, cereal, and other snacks we thought we might need in the interim. We were amazed that in a time such as this, the market had the audacity to charge $8 for a thirteen-ounce box of cereal. The tourists around us had plenty of spare cash to spend, but I couldn't help but wonder what happened when the residents of the city--those not well-off were in need if they would find it as easy to stock up. It would not be the last time people would take advantage of the devastating situation for their own personal gain. Loaded down with our bags, we walked back to the hotel and began watching the news yet again. We decided to take our bags down to the lobby and hail ourselves a cab and go to the airport in New Orleans—if of course the cab driver wouldn’t take us to Baton Rouge. We wouldn’t check out of the hotel, just in case we couldn’t actually get a cab and had no place to go—the hotel was accommodating people that were already checked in, but would not let anyone check in any longer. We walked out of the hotel and we spotted a cab—Brad dropped the bags he was carrying, and ran over to him, asking him to get us out of there. He wouldn’t take us to Baton Rouge—he and his family lived across the river and he didn’t think he’d have enough time to get us to Baton Rouge and get back to the city to get back to his family. While he and Brad loaded up the bags, I ran inside and checked us out of the hotel.

Settled into the backseat of the cab, we looked out the window at the ensuing chaos—highways backed up, cars, people, and pets everywhere, and were just grateful that we were on our way to the airport. Our logic was that since Louis Armstrong airport was a good twenty-five miles from downtown New Orleans, and since we had the levies between us, we would be safer there—and in a better position to get out of the city if we were as far away from the French Quarter as possible. Since it was a fairly large airport (probably around the size of one of the terminals in JFK) and was a concrete structure, it was our safest bet for riding out the hurricane.

We arrived at the airport around 1:00 p.m.; it took us almost two hours to make what should be a twenty minute trip, and paid our cabbie the $50 fare he charged us—cheap all things considering (it’s normally $23 from anyplace in downtown New Orleans to the airport)—and prepared to settle in for the night. We choose a spot in the main atrium—under the big arched dome near the large hanging gargoyle, and I waited on line at Acme Oysters to get food—it was the only place open in the entire airport. The line at Acme was out the door—but I waited on it for forty-five minutes, because honestly—what choice did I have? I saw a cat in a carrier on one of the tables and began getting very disturbed—Where was its owner? But luckily, by the time I ordered food for Bradley and I—and picked up a few cold sandwiches because who knew how long it would be before we were able to get more food—the cat and its mystery owner were gone.

After eating our lunch—the first food that Brad and I had eaten all day—I sat by an electrical outlet on the floor to charge my cell phone and played solitaire to pass the time. At this point, cell service was still working, and I managed to call my family, Anna, Amy, and Ingrid before it got completely cut out. Brad and I were still fairly calm at this point—we felt that we had done all that we could up until this point and were as safe as we could possibly be—considering the circumstances. All we kept thinking about was when we’d be able to get out of there, and how when we finally did, we were going to spend the day in bed with our three kitties laying all over us…

Escape from New Orleans Part III-Sunday Night, August 28th, 2005

Late Sunday afternoon we began trying to get information from the Louis Armstrong airport security about what precautions the airport was planning on taking to ensure our safety—there were approximately 300 people (that we could see) who were stuck in the airport and waiting for flights out. I asked one security guard where we should stay because we’d heard rumors that they would be moving us soon. He told me that we should prepare to move upstairs—the floor where all of the airport administrative offices were—because they had thus far determined that would be the safest place. We prepared all of our things. Bradley luckily had the foresight to think of getting a luggage cart so we didn’t have to actually carry our luggage with us everywhere. We took the elevator upstairs, stepped and rolled past a bunch of people camped out directly in front of the elevator and heard a couple talking in what sounded like New York accents—music to our ears! At this point, the slow drawl of southerners was seriously starting to grate on our nerves. The couple told us that they were from Long Island, and we there for the girl’s birthday—we swapped what little information we had, and noticed another airport security guard walking past. I stopped him to make sure that we were actually supposed to be up there—of course, what the first guard told us was incorrect (this will become a pattern—trust me), and they actually wanted everyone to move downstairs in front of the airline check-in desks.

We moved again. This time we situated ourselves in the second half of the terminal, directly in front of Continental Airlines. The Long Island couple met us down there—Brad and I and Frannie and Pete (their names) decided that we couldn’t rely on anything that the New Orleans officials were saying, and that we were a little reassured that seasoned NYers were with us. We set up what was to be our first “house” using our luggage and large plastic bins they use to scan items through the luggage scanners, and tried to calm one another that everything was going to be okay.

Then we discovered that we had to move. Again. This was the third time they were moving us, and we were starting to get pissed: How could there be such complete lack of organization? Did it really take eight hours to determine what the safest part of the airport would be? Apparently so. We moved again, this time in between Southwest Airlines and United Airlines, directly in front of a wall of computer monitors normally used to tell flight arrival and departures. We set up out luggage cart, our plastic boxes, laid out Bradley’s garment bag as a cushion, used two large plastic bags Pete scored from some random guy outside and several pairs of pants as a layer between us and the floor. A woman that we met earlier and had taken pictures of me charging my phone and playing solitaire and then Brad and I playing Scrabble came by and shot some pictures of the four of us in our “house.” We tried to keep each other calm—we discovered that Frannie was twenty-three, and Pete was twenty-four. They couldn’t believe that we were thirty and thirty-one (flattery is nice—even in life and death situations), and we chatted a bit. I went to go and charge my phone (again) in the ladies’ bathroom—the only working outlet that we could find. At this point, we still had power, running clean water, the lights were working, cell phones were working, and we could use the pay phones in the airport to make collect calls and normal calls (if you had change or a calling card). Things weren’t that bad—obviously disorganized, but we still had hope of getting out of there on Tuesday.

Acme Oysters opened again around 8:00 p.m. to sell food, and we got rice and beans—with pork (which I didn’t eat and gave to Bradley to eat—I bought a grilled chicken salad earlier to ration, so I ate that). Brad spent $30 on the food—an outrageous price for the meager portion of slop that we received. They were obviously beginning to ration the food that they had and were worried about running out, but weren't telling us that. They also didn't have a problem charging everyone for the "food" they made us pay for.

Around 10:30 p.m. a group of people “in charge” came around asking for everyone’s name and city—they claimed that it was to figure out how much food they were going to need and rationing purposes; it was then that we began to realize that at least half of the people there were local, and that the local people were actually relatives of the airport security—which explained why they were the ones who received pillows, blankets, cots, hamburgers, and coolers filled with ice. The people that were literally stranded—like Brad and I, Frannie and Pete, and the hundreds of people that were stranded by their airlines from all over the country and Europe—had to fend for ourselves: We met people from San Francisco, Chicago, Florida, England, France, Italy—all over the world—all with the same stories we had—our flights were cancelled, we came to the airport because that was safer than staying in the hotels, and were just hoping to ride out the storm and get home as soon as possible. No one was helping us—the airport security and local sheriffs wouldn’t tell us anything, and often just shrugged and walked away without saying anything (if they even acknowledged that we were there). No announcements were being made—information was spread from person to person—and you couldn’t count on any of it; it was all heresy. We were literally on our own.

The four of us laid down to try and get some rest around midnight: The hurricane was supposed to hit sometime between 5:00 and 7:00 a.m. and we figured that there wasn’t much we could accomplish by staying awake the whole night. Sleep…hoping that when we woke up it would all just be a horrible bad dream…

Escape from New Orleans Part IV-Monday Morning and Afternoon, August 29th, 2005

Monday morning began by waking from our lucid sleep at 4:00 a.m. and realizing that the power had gone out—the lights, newscasts from the radios across the way, everything shut down. We were sitting in our makeshift “house” in complete darkness wondering what had happened. The storm just began to touch down—and the power was already gone. We sat there in the dark until the backup generators started to work—a little after 5:00 a.m.—when the worst of the hurricane was actually hitting us. I looked out the window at around 6 a.m. and saw nothing but sideways rain—it was so dark that it was impossible to tell what was going on outside—all you could hear were things hitting the airport terminal—the occasional loud bang, glass breaking, things falling. I imagined that it must have sounded similar to be in one of the London air raids during WWII. It sounded like the entire world was ripping apart. The worst of the storm subsided around 10:00 a.m.—it was still raining very heavily, but it was obvious that the winds died down, and we found out that the eye of the storm did not actually hit New Orleans; it had curved and hit Biloxi, Mississippi. The radio told us that St. Charles Avenue—one of the streets we had walked on Saturday sightseeing, and again yesterday looking for food and water—was under six feet of water.

At around 10:30 a.m., they began giving us breakfast—this time not charging. Breakfast consisted of a danish and bottle of water; we took the water, but neither of us had much of an appetite. Apparently they really were taking names when they came around last night to find out who was there and how much food and water was needed.

The tension in our “hanger”—what we were now calling the section of the airport we were staying in—was dejected and depressed. The lights in the hanger were dim—even during the day it was dark inside—and it contributed to everyone’s low spirits; it also kept everyone sleeping all day. Pete, Bradley, and I kept each other busy, chatting about nonsense—like the fact that both Pete and Bradley are long-time pro-wrestling fans, playing rummy with a deck of cards I bought on our honeymoon in Jamaica last year, and generally complaining about the complete lack of action that we were witnessing—while Frannie tried to escape the events around us by sleeping through most of the morning. Listening to the radio wasn’t helping (the people sitting across from us had a large DeWalt radio that was continuously running the entire time we were in the hanger—it was the way we got most of our information); it was obvious that the inefficiency we were witnessing on a small scale in the airport was also taking place across the entire city of New Orleans and the southern shore of Mississippi: We heard that National Guard soldiers were given permission to shoot any of the looters that were already trying to break in wherever they could to steal food and water—but the reports of rescue missions were few and far between. We did here that the Humane Society was already trying to rescue animals from shelters and bring them to higher ground, and also looking for animals stranded on rooftops. Since the four of us—myself, Bradley, Pete, and Frannie—are all animal lovers, this was a comfort because we had all expressed worry and concern about how the animals, helpless and at the mercy of the humans who took care of them, would get out. It was very disturbing that we didn’t hear more about people getting rescued. There was a call-in show on the radio, and we listened to over two hours of people calling in, begging for help, please come and get us, we’re stuck on the roof in the rain and have no food or water.

Brad and I walked outside around 1:30 p.m. and it was still raining—huge sheets of whitish blasting rain coming down in sheets at speeds of sixty to seventy miles an hour. We also saw several fire engines, at least five buses, and two trucks that looked as if they were power generators parked outside; the power generators had cords running from them into the hanger. This was apparently what the lights were being run on, and also the large fans that were now placed in the hanger (somewhat unfairly—because the majority of them were at the far left—if you were walking into the building from the outside—where most of the airport security and local sheriffs—were situated). At this point, they had one bathroom for each for men and women, to the right about seventy-five feet from where we were sitting. There was no running water, and periodically the very nice and patient bathroom attendants would manually flush out the very smelly and dirty toilets. The entire time we spent in the airport, it seemed like the bathroom attendants were the only people really working and not pompously walking back and forth importantly while nothing got accomplished. The attendants were also a good source of information, and it was from one of them that I discovered that they weren’t planning on opening the airport until the coming Sunday, September 4th. We were becoming frantic, and all the four of us could talk about was getting out of there. There wasn’t much we could do because it was still raining heavily, but we already knew that we really couldn’t rely on the airport people around us—it was obvious they were not as concerned as they should be, and we still got more blank stares than answers whenever one of us would ask them a direct question. We wanted out—but how?

Escape from New Orleans Part V—Monday Night: The Obnoxious New Yorker Surfaces, August 29th, 2005

Monday afternoon we went from dejected to angry. By 3:00 p.m. it had stopped raining, and the sun began peaking through the clouds. Pete, Frannie, Brad, and I all figured that since the worst of the storm was over—there were still some gusty winds, but no rain—New Orleans police, firefighters, and any National Guard already in the area would begin the rescue and repair mission in earnest; after all, that was what we had witnessed in NYC when the World Trade Center collapsed-there was mourning and devastation, but the people who had to take care of clearing the debris and rescuing people started literally as soon as the smoke cleared, mere hours after it happened. If it happened that way in NYC, it should happen that way in New Orleans, right? The federal government would step in, send troops, send medical supplies, food, and water, and things would start getting corrected immediately--right? Wrong. Nothing happened. It seemed like the entire city was paralyzed with the exception of the few National Guard that were already there (we heard the number was in the low hundreds—and impossibly small number considering the devastation that had occurred) and the local police and fire departments that slowly began mobilizing. The entire event, post hurricane, felt as though it were moving in slow motion.

I started to get worried—and then, like a true New Yorker, I got pissed-the four of us did. How dare the powers that be stand around and do nothing? While we were stranded in the airport, there were others far worse off than we were, and nothing was being done.

In the midst of our four-way bitchfest, Brad and I decided to call Jet Blue again to try and find out if they had any information about when the airport would be opened. When I got on the phone I found out that the flight scheduled to go out was in fact cancelled—but Marsha (the Jet Blue Customer Rep.) assured me that they would have us out by Friday. Friday?! I nearly lost it, but somehow managed to stop myself from screaming at her in frustration—(you can ask Brad—I was eerily calm on the phone). Instead I asked Marsha when they thought they would begin flying planes out again—and she replied that they had flights scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, but there were no seats available. I asked for a supervisor. At that point I wanted to know why, in the midst of one of the worst hurricanes in the history of New Orleans, Jet Blue—having cancelled all of their flights from Sunday morning on, and having not made any additional flights available prior to the hurricane (which would have made the most sense—we asked on Saturday when we got to the hotel--nothing was available), how they were justifying stranding all of their passengers who were now stuck because of those cancelled flights. The supervisor Penny hemmed and hawed, made excuses, apologized, made cooing noises as I calmly complained of the airlines utter disregard for the situation we were in (which I made a point of telling her I wasn't completely surprised about since that had been the standard response from nearly everyone we had spoken to who should have been able to help us—or at the very least give us reliable information), and she then put me on hold, came back, and somehow had miraculously put us on a Wednesday flight. Unbelievable. It astounded me how being nice was getting me nowhere, but being a bitch was working.

Our next move was to try and charge our cell phones—since the limited power in the airport was running on generators, the only outlets that were working were on the way to the working bathrooms—the ones with actual running water at the center of the terminal, right by the food place. There was a long hallway with four outlets that someone had plugged four power strips into—in an effort to make more outlets available. Since there were still only twenty outlets and hundreds of people, you had to wait in line, wait for the phones to finish charging, sit by your phone, and wait for it to finish (some people actually left their phones there, but I saw a random guy pick up a random phone—I saw a woman plug it in earlier—pick one up and try to place a call on it, so I wasn't taking any chances). The phones were taking a very long time to charge-probably because the airport was running on back-up generators instead of regular power. While waiting in line, I happened to notice some random guy sitting on the floor with a laptop in his lap. I was a little annoyed—until I realized that he wasn't just sitting on the floor trying to use his laptop, he and his buddies were busy watching Ocean's Twelve while the rest of us stood there waiting for outlets to become available. To add insult to injury, the idiot was charging his phone as well. So of course—being the obnoxious New Yorker that I am—I couldn't just keep my mouth shut. So I said, very loudly, "Nice that some people are enjoying a movie while there are people waiting on line to charge their phones so they can try to get in touch with their families." He tried to ignore me—so I went on: Apparently, people think that watching movies is a priority. Just because you're wearing dog tags doesn't stop you from being an asshole. The very funny ladies standing behind me started heckling him as well: "Go on girl—tell him what a asshole he is!" This went on for a few minutes—then stupid dog-tag wearing guy got up, unplugged his laptop, and left his phone to charge. I couldn't believe the gall. (I suppose it's like what Douglas has said—I'm a very sweet person, but you don't want to get on my bad side.)

The phones finally charged, we ate dinner while waiting for them (a not so great tuna sandwich-which was one of the first things I ate that day), and eventually, at around 8 p.m. went to find Pete and Frannie. They had gone to explore for a bit and came back informing us that there was a store open further down the road and that the parking garage lights were on, did we want to go check stuff out together? Since we had also found out that New Orleans had instilled marshal law, sticking together seemed like a good idea. We looked in the windows of the area to the far right of the terminal (if you were walking in from the outside) and saw that there was a makeshift dorm of some sort-a bunch of blow up mattresses, blankets, and pillows in offices where we had all seen airport security, local sheriffs, and Homeland Security officials walking back and forth from-at least some people were comfortable, even though it certainly wasn't us. We then walked down to the ground level and were able to observe the air traffic control tower—which did not have the roof torn off like someone had claimed. We also saw that one airstrip (at least) was not flooded, and that the runway lights were working and flashing. The structural damage to the parking garage was bad-the top roof had caved in a section, but other than that it looked fine-and the lights were working—all of the lights from the airport-from office lights on the third floor, to the parking garage lights, to the bottom floor lights where the baggage claim was, were all on and in working order. We looked around the bottom floor—noticed some minor flooding near one of the baggage claim areas, broken ceiling tiles, and some sections that looked like there were exposed electrical wires literally hanging from the ceiling—and nothing was blocked off. Nothing had been done to any of it either. (I'll post pictures in a separate blog—I have some good ones). We actually saw some airport workers hanging around, as though on a cigarette break. It was infuriating. Why wasn't anyone doing anything? Why not try to clean up the mess and try to get the airport up and running again. When asked, they just shrugged their shoulders-I don't know nothing about all that. Nice.

We did find a really nice lady named Maxine who ran a shipping business down on the first floor—out of everyone that we spoke to at the Louis Armstrong airport, she was the only one who helped us, and actually gave us information. She told us that the heads of the airport had already briefed personnel that the airport would not be open for several days—at least until Wednesday, more likely Thursday or Friday. They were still assessing damages, and if need be, the airport wouldn't be up and running until Sunday, September 4th. We tried to take the information in stride and not let it get us down. She also offered to give us boxes to sleep on—which we gratefully accepted. The four of us marched back up to our hanger, boxes in tow, trying to fend off the question of where we got them from the other people stuck in the airport (Maxine didn't have many more left she told us), and sat down to plan out the following day. It was then obvious that the airport wouldn't be running any time soon—we needed to figure out how to get out of there. Frannie and Pete decided that they were going to walk down the road to where the store was to try and get supplies and hopefully find out if anyone had seen any cabs or buses running—we were all running out of water, and the food situation was sketchy; it was clear that they were rationing because they were running out. Brad and I were going to check out the situation at the hotels across the way, and see if we could find a cab, or anyone local who would be willing to take us to Baton Rouge. We settled down for another night in our makeshift house, hopeful that the following day would bring good news.

Escape from New Orleans Part VI—Tuesday: The Emancipation! August 30th, 2005

Tuesday morning dawned, and we were all up before 7 a.m. We went to the bathroom with our bottles of water and did the best we could at washing ourselves—not an easy task, I can assure you. Everyone was seriously starting to smell, and the hanger itself smelled stale and dirty. Most of the people there hadn't showered since Sunday at least, some since Saturday.

The first thing we did was call the airline again—who still said that the flight was scheduled to go out on Wednesday. We weren't taking their word for it though, so as planned, the four of us split up to go and find a way out. Frannie and Pete headed over the bridge and down the road in one direction, we went the opposite way to the hotels where it looked like there might be a shuttle bus or something. Needless to say, after walking around for over two and a half hours, asking people if they had rooms in the hotels, if they knew someone willing to drive us to Baton Rouge—we'd pay them whatever they wanted—looking for car rental places, checking out the shuttle bus situation, looking for cabs where there were none—we went back. I called my mom, and began having a bit of a nervous breakdown. I begged her to come and get us--my father was trying to make excuses, (because among many reasons, he'd have to drive down with my mom--his estranged ex-wife) but after much begging to my father (and god only knows what my mom said to him when we weren't on the phone) they were coming—they were going to drive down to New Orleans and come find us. My dad is a retired NYC police officer, as well as retired U.S. Army, so if anyone would be able to get through to us, it would be him. I was supposed to call her back at 12:30 p.m. to find out where she was, and if she needed any more info. We ran into Maxine again on our way back from getting breakfast, and she told us that she had a meeting with the airport people again, and when she found out more news, she'd come and find us--she also told us about a place we'd be able to shower that only the airport workers were supposed to use, but she'd let us in. She really was a fantastic lady.

Brad and I were still feeling dejected—in spite of the fact that we knew my parents were going to come and get us, it still meant we were stuck in the airport for at least another day. We cleaned out and trashed one of our suitcases in an effort to get rid of stuff to carry and make some additional space in my mom's SUV (there was no way we could have my parent's drive all the way down there, and then leave Frannie and Pete there). As we finished up, we saw Pete walking towards us.

Get your shit and lets go, Pete said, We have a cab.
Are you serious? I asked him.
Yeah! Grab your shit!

We were off. We grabbed all our bags and began packing up the minivan cab. It turns out, while Pete and Frannie were standing on line (for two hours) waiting to get into the mini-mart (the store was only letting four people in at a time—they were afraid people would get out of control if they let everyone in all at once—I can't say that I blame them), Frannie spotted the cab. She sent Pete running across the street to grab the guy, and made him promise to drive them to Baton Rouge if they got him and his family he had with him groceries, he'd take us. They waited in line another hour, got the guy his groceries and a bottle of gin for good measure, went with him to drop off his family, and met us back at the airport.

While we were loading our bags, I couldn't believe the swarm of people that began trying to find out what was going on, if we had any more room, if the cab driver was coming back, etc. One airport security guy was trying to convince Frannie that the van was going to get stuck and we'd get looted—I looked at the guy, then at Frannie, and told her, We're going. The airport guy didn't look happy about that. Once in the van the cab driver told us he was charging us $100 each—and to be honest, at that point, we would have probably paid more than that—with the additional guy in the front seat, the cabbie would make $500 to drive us the 78 miles it took to get to Baton Rouge. Once we left we began talking about what was going on while we were getting out—we all agreed that the airport guy was trying to convince us not to go so he could take the cab himself. It was amazing how desperate the situation had made people. Pete had run back into the hanger to make sure we didn't leave anything there and saw that even though we had been gone for less than five minutes, people had already dismantled our "house" and took our cardboard. We were happy to be out of there and on our way to Baton Rouge!

Escape from New Orleans—Part VII: The Final Installment, August 30 th-August 31st, 2005

Our cab ride from the New Orleans Louis Armstrong airport to the one in Baton Rouge was eventful—we saw all sorts of damage from the hurricane—but also realized that our driver was half blind and dangerous. At one point, our sad little minivan cab drove up a very steep hill to go around a downed power line (all the while, I'm in the backseat yelling "Lean left, lean left!") and we thought we were all goners. That wasn't the half of it though—when we got to the top of the hill, we realized it wasn't just a hill, but an actual raised road and our driver figured it was a good place to continue our journey—“Just in case,” he told us. That was fine with us—until he started fumbling around for a cigarette and we saw a car coming towards us… “Car! Car! Car!” we yelled until he finally looked up, saw the car, and swerved out of the way. We also realized he didn’t know where he was going—he stopped to ask for directions at least four or five times, and spent the last hour of the ride there squinting up at the highway signs and cursing at people in Spanish.

One of the saddest and most disgusting things that I have ever seen also happened on our car ride—while we were driving down some random road, we saw a couple of young black teenaged guys trying to break into a convenience store—in my opinion, to get supplies—when a NO police car (white PO, of course) came out of nowhere, pulled up, chased them down, handcuffed one kid to a tree and started beating on the other kid. It made me want to vomit. We wanted to pull over, but the cab driver wouldn’t. It was sickening.

When we finally arrived in Baton Rouge we all breathed a sigh of relief—I know I wasn’t the only one who felt more scared for my life in the taxi than I did the entire time the hurricane was blowing around the airport. We soon realized that the Baton Rouge airport only flies out three airlines—and none of us had tickets booked on those airlines. We soon found out that tickets out of that airport on Delta were $539 per person—an insane amount of money (nice for airlines to try and rip you off as much as possible during a disaster situation). So renting a car seemed like the next best thing—we’d split the driving among four people, and figured it wouldn’t be that bad.

Brad and Pete rented the car from Hertz—one of the few companies that actually let you take the car out of state and return it elsewhere—and Brad said he wanted to hug the car rental lady when she finally handed him the keys to our enormous white Mercury Sable with leather seats. Compared to sleeping in the airport on cardboard, the car felt like a suite at The Ritz!

Once loaded into the car, we realized we were all starving—it had been days since any of us had really eaten well, so we headed over to Jack in the Box for burgers (or chicken sandwiches in my case), jalapeño poppers, and fries. I cannot explain how good that food was—and I am no fast food eater. It was like eating a gourmet meal.

Finally full, we set off. Pete took the first shift, and we got in the car very excited to be getting out of there. We soon realized that the car’s GPS was telling us to go back through New Orleans to get out of state—obviously that wasn’t going to happen—so I busted out my Rand McNally again, and plotted us a route home—through Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and finally—to New York.

Mississippi was a flat, hot, bug infested state full of corn fields and strange music—we actually heard “The Name Game” come on the radio (you know the song: “Anna-bana bo-bana, Fee-fi-fo-fana…”). I wouldn’t go back to that state if you paid me.

Tennessee was definitely the highlight of our road trip. We were driving through Memphis, so how could we not stop at Graceland? Unfortunately it took a good eight hours to get from Baton Rouge to Memphis, so we arrived shortly before midnight and took pictures in front of the gates and of Elvis’ planes. We stopped at IHOP and ate again (having last eaten at around 3:00 p.m.) and had another meal that I would not normally eat. Frannie took the next shift, and drove across Tennessee through the darkness. When we pulled over at a rest stop around 6:30 a.m., we couldn’t believe that we were still in Tennessee.

I was up next and drove us out of Tennessee at ridiculous speeds—at one point I was doing between 90 and 100 miles an hour. As a matter of fact, we were all driving pretty fast—Pete (who drives like Bradley) did a consistent 80 mph, and Frannie (who drives like I do) was also doing between 90 and 100 mph. As Pete said—if we got pulled over by a cop and they didn't believe where we were driving from and wouldn't let us off the hook (because if anyone should be entitled to speed a little, we figured it was us), he'd just tell them, "If you don't believe me, smell my f@#king ass!"

We drove over the Virginia state line around 8:30 a.m., and stopped at a Waffle House around 11 a.m. If you’ve never been to a Waffle House, you definitely need to check one out—they’re a hoot! They specialize in waffles, but also have crazy toppings on their home fries: You can get them covered—with cheese, diced—with tomatoes, smothered—with chili, capped—with mushrooms, chunked—with ham, topped—with onions, and peppered—with jalapeños. The boys were not allowed to get them smothered. In spite of our luxurious car, the air was starting to get a little stale and the last thing we needed was a bout of man-gas to kill us all.

Brad took over driving about half-way through Virginia around 1 p.m. In spite of the Red Bull I drank, I was getting sleepy. Virginia was definitely the longest drive time—we drove through it for a total of approximately ten hours—and when we finally crossed the Maryland state line at around 4 p.m., we were in the final stretch. We crossed into Staten Island over the Goethals’s Bridge around 8:00 p.m. and when we finally hit the Verrazano Bridge, we were all so damned happy to be home we could have cried. Frannie and Pete dropped us off at the JFK long-term parking airport (where we left our car), and they were taking the rental car back near Pete’s house…

By that point the only thing we could think of was finally walking into our house, seeing the cats, taking long, long showers, ordering a pizza, and sleeping in our own bed…now that is the meaning of true bliss…

Here are links to the blogs that have pictures:

NO The Final Installment (pictures of the roadtrip home)
(Scroll down to the end of this blog to see pictures)

New Orleans Louis Armstrong Airport

New Orleans Fun Pictures