Day 5 and 6- Sept 3 & 4 Pascagoula, MS

[Anonymous]

Day 5 Saturday September 3, 2005 Pascagoula, MS

Day five marked a turning point in the situation. The power came on in parts of the city. With power came another service- we finally had cell phone service again. Our campaign to distribute food and water continued, but we were starting to notice that fewer people needed our assistance. We were issued tetanus and diphtheria vaccines and were told to begin vaccinating rescue workers only, due to the limited supply. Many of us disobeyed that order, and gave the vaccines to anyone who looked as though they were at risk of infection.

The local stores like Wal-Mart, Dominoes and McDonalds began serving food again, albeit with limited menus. The employees of the ambulance service we were assisting began cooking meals. We were eating Cajun food for dinner at night.

One of them had brought in his satellite TV rig and we were able to watch an hour or so of TV in the evening. It was an unspoken rule that we watched anything but the news. I think we were all tired of hearing about hurricanes. Besides, we all quickly tired of seeing obvious lies from the media. I remember watching Forrest Gump one night, but I don’t remember which night.

I made an attempt to do my laundry by using several 5 gallon buckets as wash tubs and some hand soap. I hung them up in the hot afternoon sun to dry. While the brown wash water got rid of the smell, they certainly didn’t come clean.

After taking our brown showers, we went to bed and closed the book on another day.


Day 6 Sunday, September 4, 2005 Pascagoula, MS

We woke up early again and resumed handing out food and water. We were having problems getting people to accept it, as they already had plenty. It seems the National Guard was having better luck giving away food than we were. Simple math, really. By now, it looked as though there were nearly 1,000 of them in the area. They were everywhere. Guarding fuel lines, hospitals and food stores. Throwing food from long parades of trucks, with people on either side, arms out stretched to catch the food, they looked like Mardi Gras parades. The only thing missing was women baring their breasts for handouts.

We decided to try going out into the countryside instead. When we got there, most of the folks in the country had generators going, powering well pumps, and seemed to have food. We only gave out 6 cases of MRE’s in two hours. We wound up giving the food and water we had to the local volunteer fire department.

On the way back south to town, we found a Cracker Barrel Restaurant that was serving rescue personnel a chow line style meal of meatloaf and corn. It was a hot meal!!!

We then wound up standing in areas of the county vaccinating people for tetanus and diphtheria. This time, we were vaccinating the general public. In just under 4 hours, I shot 400 people. Overall, we used 1,000 vials of the vaccine, nearly 15,000 doses.

That evening, we were joined for dinner at the makeshift station we were staffing by EMT’s and Paramedics who had been pulled out of New Orleans. The stories they had to tell were horrific. The police were as bad as the looters in some cases. They were looting and shooting with almost total abandon. After this, I have little respect for the New Orleans Police. I will never again enter that city and trust my safety to those criminals with badges.

We heard stories of EMS personnel having to use firearms to protect themselves and their patients, and having to perform skills far beyond their level of training. EMT’s being ambushed by gun wielding gangbangers. Thugs highjacking trucks of medical and humanitarian supplies. Death and suffering. People dying, and not being able to do anything but move on and care for those who are salvageable. One EMT told us he had to climb a tree in his yard to get uniforms, so he could come in to work.

It sounded like things were a mess there. It was obvious that our operations were winding down in Mississippi and life was slowly returning to some semblance of normalcy. Things were bad here, damage was done and people had died, but it was obviously not as bad as had been reported. Rumors circulated that we were going to be reassigned to the west. We prepared to move, secured supplies and fuel and listened to rumors.

Pictures can be found at:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/sharpenu/my_photos

[x-y-no]

So far your account seems to mesh pretty well with the reporting I saw from the area and timeframe you are describing, so I wonder if you could elaborate some more on what were the "obvious lies from the media" that you saw?

[Anonymous]

For example, there was a preacher of a black church in Ocean Springs who was saying on CNN that he had not seen a single person from FEMA and he thought it was because he was in a black community.

Ironically, two of our units were less than 200 yards away, giving away food, water and vaccinating the public.

I personally didn't care if the people we were helping were black, yellow, white, green, purple, gay, straight, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Satanists, Bhuddist or Muslim. They were people. I come home and all I hear is how we were slow to help the black community.

I resent that. It is an insult to both my charachter AND my professionalism.

[Anonymous]

There was a second incident where a reporter (I think from MSNBC, not sure) was in the middle of talking about how the people were starving because no hepl had arrived. They had to shoot it twice.

Why?

Because someone walked by in the bacground with a coke in one hand and a sub sandwich in the other.

Sensationalism sells.

[x-y-no]

OK ...

I agree that's disgusting behavior on their part.