Thanks to those who have emailed us & phoned because they know Carl is originally from New Orleans. We've spent over a week desperately searching websites & making numerous phone calls trying to check that family & friends are safe. It's been a nightmare as electricity & phone lines have been down, even now it can take 20 attempts or more to get through to a cell phone we know is up & running.
Daughters & granddaughter fine, still no electricity but thankfully not too much damage to their properties as they live off the coast in Mississippi. Sarah, a nurse, is working all hours in emergency at the hospital, they are totally inundated. Molly is looking after a fretful baby Catherine who is missing her mum & not liking the heat. Son in law was eventually contacted he's OK but business premises took a hit.
Carl's one Aunt & Uncle (early 80's) stayed in Pass Christian on Mississippi Gulf coast - which was at the centre of Katrinas hit. Newspapers & TV said & are still saying that no-one survived in Pass Christian. However they DID survive, house took one hell of a beating & was flooded but somehow they survived. Sadly, afterwards they were looking through the debris from their ruined verandas & his aunt got a slight cut which went septic & gave her extremely serious blood poisoning & now she's in hospital fighting for her life.
If that happens on the almost deserted pristine Gulf coast, just think of the damage possible in the polluted city of New Orleans & all its surrounding parishes.
Carl's dads' cousins (82 & 88) & pretty frail, weren't rescued until 6 days after the flooding, they were in one of the parishes around New Orleans - which was actually far worse hit than New Orleans Parish. They had over 9ft of water outside & were waiting for the floorboards to go through, the roof was long gone. Thankfully by that time they had almost cleared the Superdome & Convention Centre so they were taken straight to the airport & given no choice as to where they went - they ended up in Arkansas with just the clothes they were wearing & thankfully a credit card. They were terrified of going to the superdome as they had heard all that was going on there on a portable radio.
The short time they were at the airport & on the flight they were intimidated & felt really threatened. His aunt asked a young woman if she'd be kind enough to tie her shoelace as she was tripping up & she couldn't bend & got an absolutely foul mouthful of abuse. What is the world coming to when frail 80+ year olds get spoken to like that & intimidated?
Needless to say they got to the other side & couldn't face a shelter so they took a taxi to a hotel & are paying $80 a night. No discounted rates for evacuees. They even charged them $70 for a few phone calls - in the USA, to let a couple of the family know where they are. Thankfully they can afford this but many others don't have their resources.
We both could cry for them as they are so far away from anyone they know. They are slowly coming to the realisation that they may never be able to return to their home of at least 40 years, they know that they were lucky as their house was a higher elevation than their neighbours & friends, many of whom drowned. They will get taken in by family eventually but at the moment everyone in a safe area already has friend & family evacuees by galore.
Yes, they all should have evacuated, but they are elderly & they & their properties had survived Betsy & Camille. They thought Katrina would veer away at the last minute as many other hurricanes had done.
Carl's friend since he was a child Bill & another friend Scott & his wife evacuated Pass Christian & went to Picayune where they thought they would be safe. Apparently this was worse than New Orleans & we've been unable to contact anyone who has heard from any of them. We did manage once to get through to the cellphone but it wasn't Bill that answered & quite frankly the voice that answered scared me sh..less. I just hope they misrouted the call as I did dial it correctly.
We finally managed to speak to Jac, Carl's friend who is a voluntary policeman in Jefferson Parish & he had some totally horrendous tales to tell. His house is probably gone in Metairie but even though he is a volunteer in the next parish they won't let him into Metairie to check on his property. He said he's going to volunteer in Metairie also so at least he can see if it's there. He did have a boat business (now gone) but he managed to salvage a couple so he's been busy picking up survivors which are getting fewer & fewer as they are drowning before any rescuer can get to them. He said he's lost count of the number of bodies he's seen, they far outnumber the numbers of survivors.
He's really pi..ed off as all the help is going to the City & the attached parishes are getting no help whatsoever. Other parishes are far worse hit but the media are concentrating on a small area with 480,000 people & not many realise that the greater New Orleans area is much, much bigger with many more occupants. It's almost like London, concentrating on the square mile & forgetting the suburbs. The Canadians went into one badly hit parish (unasked - they just turned up) just 3 days after the hurricane. FEMA hasn't got there yet!
Our family has been very lucky, our friends we fear haven't fared that well. There are millions of people that are displaced and around half of them will have nothing to return to. They have lost everything. Tens of thousands have lost their lives.
Some of you know that we've had a very trying time these last 7 months, somehow this has put all our problems into perspective & it's made us realise how very, very fortunate we really are. At least we have always had the thought of eventually moving to Calis to sustain us.
Many in the Southern USA have lost their family, their friends, their homes & their livelihood. Some are too old to start again. The hurricane has brought out the worst in some people, there were gang wars going on in the Superdome (which was so damaged internally it will have to be torn down) - so Jac told us. Would our inner cities fare better? We'd all like to think so!
Linda & Carl
