Day two. August 31, 2005

[Anonymous]

Day 2. August 31, 2005

We traveled from Tallahassee in a convoy that seemed to stretch to the horizon, the sun rising behind us. It seemed like the only vehicles on the road, besides our convoy, were truck loads of what were obviously relief supplies. Generators, food, water and fuel were just a few of the cargos we saw. We kept hearing reports of what our brothers were experiencing in the disaster area and I remember mentally urging them to hold on. Help is on the way, we are coming.

We stopped for fuel just short of the Florida border, I don’t remember the town’s name. It took us nearly 3 hours to fuel up. While waiting, we had subway deliver us over 200 subs. Most of us took this opportunity to take a nap. If there is one thing I have learned about his sort of thing, it is that you should sleep whenever you get a chance, because the next chance may be long in coming.

After the fuel stop, we separated the group into individual task forces to make movement easier. Ours consisted of about 40 ambulances and 5 command vehicles, along with a few support vehicles. We tried to cross Mobile bay. As we approached the bridge/tunnel area on I-10, it started to rain. Torrential, blinding rain. Traffic was backed up for 3 miles. The task force leader decided that we would drive in the emergency lane with our lights and sirens on.

As we passed the USS Alabama, we saw our first real storm damage. She appeared to be down at the waterline and had about a 2 degree list to port. Rumor had it that she was on the bottom, a victim of storm surge. As we went through the tunnel, it was down to one lane in each direction, as they were pumping water out of it. At the lowest point of the tunnel, water gushed from the storm drains. I have no idea if this was runoff, or if the tunnel was leaking.

After passing through the tunnel, storm damage became more visible. Houses had roof damage and tree limbs were all over the ground. The damage got progressively worse until we began seeing dead animals lining the road. At one point, I-10 was covered in water. The rain was still falling. About 20 miles from our destination, we could see that the east side of the highway was closed, as the bridge was out.

There were places where bulldozers were clearing debris out of the road. Large, 5 foot high piles of lumber stretched out on both sides of the highway for miles. Boats and motor vehicles lined the highway and were scattered through the country side, becoming a more frequent sight as we went on. I thing we saw about 100 vehicles and 30 boats (just a guess) along a 10 mile stretch of the highway.

We reached the John Stennis space center, located along the Pearl river, about 50 miles from New Orleans, just inside the Mississippi border. We could hear the units already engaged in operations talking on the radio, the chatter overlapping so that only occasional snippets made sense. They were talking about running low on supplies and ammunition, some saying that they had their hands full just trying to defend themselves from attack. As you can imagine, our nerves were raw and as tense as guitar strings.

We checked in to Stennis at around 5 pm and began to establish a base camp and command post, all the while surrounded by the 1,000 or so refugees that had sought refuge on the base. After eating our MRE’s, we were cleaned up with wet-naps and were told not to drink anything but bottled water. That advice would not help, as most of us had diarrhea within a few days anyway. Immodium was our friend.

We were given a choice of sleeping arrangements. We could sleep outside on the ground, or inside the office buildings that had no air conditioning, as the camp was on emergency power. Half went either way. I slept outside next to my truck, so that way the refugees would not try to steal our stuff. At this point, we only had enough supplies for ourselves, so we had to secure them.

Day three to follow.

[artist]

thanks for sharing and for your service.