Re: OT: Me and Hurricane Katrina

Thanks for that Matt. That is one of the very best first hand accounts
I've heard and your emergency management pointers are something I will
try to remember.


On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 22:03:38 -0500, "Matt"
<porterdINVALID@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>(Cough!...gag!...spew!) Is this thing on?... Well for those of you who
>don't know or remember, I live in Hattiesburg MS a quick 90 minute drive
>north of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Looking at a map you can see we are on
>the highway that Katrina took when she came to visit a few weeks ago. Seems
>like only yesterday... mainly because my hometown STILL looks like a bomb
>went off! You can't imagine the damage this little storm caused. The
>television reports don't do it justice and distorted what was happening down
>here. Not all of us degenerated into madness like New Orleans, but we
>suffered similar levels of damage. Yes, my house got damaged; no it was not
>totaled. Two of my neighbors got much worse.
> My next door neighbor had a tree fall through her roof. It also smashed
>her less-than-one-year-old central air conditioner like a beer can. Her
>neighbor had a pine tree cut the back end of their house off. And that is
>how the most damage occurred in town. Trees just destroyed homes and
>businesses like crazy. Power poles were either broken in half like
>toothpicks or pulled out of the ground like Goliath picked them up and set
>them down. My house got a lot of shingle damage and got a ton of water in
>the front room. We have a bay window that protrudes from the back of the
>house and luckily that is where the most damage occurred on the roof. The
>water poured in as if we had installed a waterfall feature over our dining
>room table soaking the carpet underneath, but it was isolated there.
> During the storm, we made the decision to cover the hole after my wife
>ran out and saw where the damage was. I grabbed an old army tarp that the
>previous owner had left and that I could never quite part with. I ran
>outside and got a ladder and then had to take my t-shirt off because it was
>so soaked it was too heavy for me to move in. I climbed up on the ladder
>and started trying to lift the now soaked tarp while my wife stayed on the
>ground pushing it up to me and handing me nails. I managed to nail three
>nails (I had roofing nails from last year when I built my music building)
>before I had to give up and go inside. The tarp had a metal grommet with an
>old knotted rope on it and the wind blew it so that the grommet hit me in
>the head and the rope whipped the back of my neck. On top of that, the wind
>was blowing so hard that the rain felt like I was being sand blasted. It
>was like standing in a car wash. When we got inside my ears hurt. I was
>afraid Dawn and I were going to suffer permanent hearing damage. My 5 year
>old daughter was hysterical convinced that mommy and daddy were going to
>die. We calmed her down and it took two more times out in this hell to get
>that tarp up. I lost my favorite hat and found it on the other side of the
>house the next morning. Every tree we had was damaged in some significant
>way and the mess was substantial. A fifteen foot pine branch broken off in
>the pointed shape of a spear, was driven 18 inches into the ground. So deep
>in fact that I couldn't pull it out. I kept thinking if that had jammed
>into my chest while I was out there or worse yet my wife's. Thankfully none
>of the trees hit the house or the music building. My construction work
>actually survived unscratched. My house was a mess. Our power went out
>mid-day on Monday and was not restored until Thursday. Jesus, it was hot!
>The hurricane cooled everything off for about 12 hours and then the heat
>came back with a vengeance. We had no water for two days and all our food
>was ruined.
> We neighbors all gathered together at one man's house who had a
>generator and with an antenna we could get local news as the station had
>switched to generator power the night before. It was hard to fathom what
>had happened. The local news couldn't tell us much and ended up just
>spreading rumors because any info was better than nothing. They got better
>after a couple of days. I managed to find two generators and bought them
>after standing in a hellacious line only to discover I couldn't get gas. I
>actually waited in line for seven hours at a gas station only to get turned
>away empty handed. You would think that would have bothered me, but I was
>shaded and there was a breeze blowing and I had a book so it wasn't that
>bad.
> The scariest part for us was when my daughter got heat exhaustion. She
>was lethargic all day and when we were waiting in line for gas she started
>throwing up. By some miracle the gas station had power and I negotiated
>with the owner to let me get her inside in the A/C and drink apple juice and
>eat beef jerky. Otherwise, I don't know what we would do. I was in line
>with a doctor when getting the generator the day before and he told me that
>anyone with heat exhaustion or a heart attack or any such thing was toast.
>There was absolutely nothing anyone could do. We have two hospitals in town
>and they were in desperate shape. It is amazing how important water and
>power are. We consider ourselves incredibly lucky. Because we live behind
>Lowe's and Wal-Mart, our power was on soon after theirs'. The east side of
>town still doesn't have phone service and many of those people went without
>power for a couple of weeks. Many people had to literally be carved out of
>their house by the local chainsaw gangs because their trees had blocked them
>in. They were trapped in their own house.
> Gas was rationed and we were under curfew for two weeks. All this
>happened right in the middle of my busy band season compounding my
>difficulty. The farther north I go the more of a disconnect I notice.
>People just don't get it. They are sympathetic, but don't understand why we
>aren't back to normal like they are. I am sure that disconnect is felt by
>people farther south regarding us. One family of New Orleans musicians put
>on a show for the Red Cross in the same Wal-Mart parking lot they had been
>living in (in an RV) for two weeks. They were prepared to stay two more
>weeks, but were considering just moving to Hattiesburg as "everyone has been
>so nice to us". Hattiesburg has grown by fifteen thousand people overnight.
>A massive population explosion for our community. The schools were bursting
>at the seams before the hurricane, now I don't know how they are managing
>the inflow of new students. Even rural communities have refugees moving in.
> I spoke to one client last night from a very rural area. She went
>nineteen days without power and almost as long with a boil water notice as
>none of the water was safe to drink. Cable TV and internet for most people
>is still out. It will be October or November before they are restored. I
>am lucky. I have mine.
> The relief efforts are almost a bigger pain in the ass than the storm
>was. By the time I find out where the relief is, they close it and move it
>to a new location. I missed the free food stamps all together. Shame.
>That would have helped us a lot. I am literally scared to open my credit
>card bill. Everyone took either cash or credit card if they had power.
>That card bill is thick and my cash is getting thin! At least I still have
>a job.
> Today our insurance adjustor finally showed up and lo and behold... he
>was alright. He said I need a new roof and a new carpet. Woohoo! Now if
>he will make the check enough to actually cover the work needed... We are
>pretty distrusting of the insurance companies down here now. They were
>trying to low ball people right and left. My mom is only getting half a
>roof and nothing for the big water mark on her ceiling. That is a bunch of
>crap! Her neighbor up the street is only getting a quarter of a roof. WTF?
>How do you match that with the original? All adjustors are not equal it
>appears. They finally cleaned some of the rubbish on our street. Limbs and
>branches and leaves, etc. which have been sitting for a month. It rained
>for the first time yesterday. So we have a fire ban throughout the county.
>This stuff is just sitting there waiting for some idiot to throw his
>cigarette *** into a pile and make us look like a California forest fire.
>Ah well, things are getting better at least.
> Finally, here are some things I learned from this experience.
>1. You need water, food, shelter, and some plan for sewage even if it's
>just a shovel and some lye. Extra toilet paper ready to go. Store up stuff
>that can keep without being cool.
>2. You don't NEED ice unless you have medicine that requires it. You just
>need to change your work habits. Work in the morning, sleep in the noon,
>work in the late afternoon, go to bed at dark. Not fun, but it works.
>Water drinks the same with or without. Beer is a BAD idea. It just
>exaggerates people's anger and makes them do stupid things to each other.
>3. Flashlights, batteries, and gasoline are staples of life believe it or
>not. Have plenty.
>4. Guns and ammo are not really much help.
>5. Know your neighbors and make good friends with them. It is very hard to
>make it alone. It is much easier to make it with each other.
>6. Support National Public Radio. The idea that the private sector can
>take care of it all is just pure horse***! The ONLY radio we could get for
>over a week was NPR and they gave news and messages 24/7. We would have
>been in worse shape without them because every other station was flattened
>and had no back up provision. Also, support your local TV station. That
>was the only way we could see what happened around town and around the
>state. It is a bigger deal than I would have previously believed.
>7. Have a landline phone that does not require electric power. We had one
>cordless that plugged into the wall and one old fashioned 1970's push button
>phone. The cordless was useless, the other allowed us to find family and
>make sure they were okay and vice versa. Lots of people had phone service,
>but no working phone. I know one lady who didn't know if her son was dead
>or alive for over a week until he drove up to her driveway. He had no way
>to contact her.
>8. Satellite TV is better than cable. I had my satellite up and running
>pretty quickly. Some people in town STILL don't have cable. Comcast was
>not allowed to even work on their lines until after the electric company got
>all their grids up and running. Heck, Comcast didn't even have power for
>over a week and a half. No power, no service.
>9. Buy good insurance and know what it says. Cheaper is not always better,
>better is not always cheaper. Find out who pays out the most money with the
>least fuss the quickest. It matters. It really really matters. Get flood
>insurance whether you think you need it or not. Remember all those burning
>warehouses in New Orleans? I wonder how many of those "accidental" fires
>didn't have flood insurance and would have been a total loss had they not
>had an "accidental" fire.
>10. Have a reliable vehicle. If all else fails or things are not looking
>good. GET OUT!!! My best friend is in the National Guard and was on the
>coast before the hurricane. He said the dead bodies were lying around like
>driftwood. Men, women, and children killed by the storm and many washed out
>to sea. They should have left. Some could, some couldn't. I would rather
>be one who can.
> The only reason we stayed was because nobody evacuates from Hattiesburg.
>Everyone evacuates TO Hattiesburg. We had no idea of what was coming. Even
>Camille veterans were stunned. We were IMO also victims of the "little boy
>who cried wolf" syndrome. We were told by the media that every hurricane
>that came are direction was the big one and all of them petered out, hit
>elsewhere, or weren't that big a deal. When the big one really came, we
>just didn't believe it. We do now. I prepared for Rita like it was my last
>day on earth. All we got was a little rain. I don't care. I'll do it
>again.
>Anyway, I thought some of you might like a first person story about what is
>going on.
>
>Matt Porter
>(By the way, my drums are fine. Gigs are a little scarce right now, but
>that will come back I am sure.)
>

Keith Runfola
www.jazzdrummer.com
.