A Time To Mourn ...

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; --Ecclesiastes 3:4 ... Yesterday was precisely three years to the day since Hurricane Katrina unleashed her merciless fury on New Orleans and other parts of the south, and the first levee failed ... adding insult to injury, this monumental storm was then followed by Hurricane Rita ... also yesterday, Hurricane Gustav began bearing down on the Gulf Coast with it's own designs set on destruction ... I decided to write something as a reminder of that awful time in America's history, so I began a bit of research to refresh my memory as to the facts of those tragic days ... my intentions were to revisit some of the more horrendous occurrences which accompanied Hurricane Katrina, including the mismanagement of evacuations before the storm's arrival, the tardy response by FEMA as to relief and recovery efforts afterward and events pertaining to the personal and human aspects of this disaster ... I had quite a story all ready to post, but one atrocious, unspeakable incident kept dominating my thoughts until I found myself just sitting there in the stillness ... mind gone blank ... tears streaming down my face ... I felt so sad ... so empty ... so inadequate ... then anger ... anger I'm not quite sure where to direct ... so I discarded my contrived and well-thought-out story ... and am left with the following ... I apologize for the unpleasantness ... there's neither baseball banter, nor any mention of Lamar's endless mishaps ... just the cold, stark reality of one of America's darkest days ... a time to mourn ... As Katrina marched forward, folks who were capable of escaping the coming waves of destruction had either done so, or were rapidly in the process of fleeing to safer grounds ... weather forecasters and disaster preparedness officials had for decades warned those who held the responsibilities of evacuating citizens from these areas of the immense challenges associated with the type of logistic endeavor a major storm such as Katrina would entail if it were to ever strike, and that most likely it would strike sometime in the future ... many folks were completely dependent on others as it related to their individual safety and well-being, their very existence ... Within the dark halls of St. Rita's Nursing Home, located in St. Bernard Parish, enfeebled residents sat there in wheelchairs or lay in beds unaware of the approaching danger, and completely dependent on those who had been entrusted with their total safety and care, their very existence ... three other similar facilities in that area had long before been evacuated ... however, for whatever reason, supposedly monetary concerns, owners Salvador and Mabel Mangano refused to evacuate St. Rita's until, and unless, they were mandatorily forced to do so by local, government officials ... tragically that order never came ... I could never imagine the sheer terror and suffering those dear, helpless people experienced as that deadly water began pouring unimpeded into their rooms ... scientists are still analyzing why St. Bernard flooded so severely. The best guess is that the parish was hit with a storm surge from Lake Borgne, which is open to the Gulf of Mexico, and the breaching of three of the four levees that protect the parish from the sea. "We were like in a sinking ship," said Gene Alonzo, a retired fisherman who stayed at St. Rita's to be with his disabled brother, Carlos, a resident. "I never did see water come up like that." Within 20 minutes, the water inside rose almost to the ceiling and nearly three dozen residents were drowning, some in their beds. Alonzo recalls the floodwater flowing from the direction of the lake, a few miles north of St. Rita's ... Trishka Stevens, Jodi Hanson's grandmother, said that when the water burst into the building, it cascaded through air-conditioning vents "like Niagra Falls." Stevens, 75, who had not walked in five years, was in her bed in Room 407 as water rose around her. "It was up to my chin," she said. In the pandemonium that followed, nurses and aides waded and then swam through the halls, unhooking the straps that held the wheelchair-bound upright and pushing them onto mattresses. They then shoved the mattresses outside so the evacuees could be taken to higher ground by boat. Alonzo, 55, said he put his 52-year-old brother onto a mattress, then grabbed Carlos' roommate, Harold Kurz. Alonzo recounts the frantic effort by nurses and others to save as many as possible: "You can't get out a door, so they're kicking out windows to float the residents out on mattresses to put them on the roof. In every room, people were hollering. They were screaming like somebody was murdering them (and) ... for God to help them. It was a horror scene." ... a time to mourn ... Stevens was saved by Steve Snyder, 29, an offshore oil rig worker who had motored past St. Rita's in a boat while fleeing his own flooded house nearby. By then, Snyder said, rescuers at St. Rita's were chopping holes in the roof to pull out residents who were floating just below the ceiling. Snyder added that he and his brother-in-law swam from room to room, searching for survivors. They gave up, he said, when "we just didn't hear no more screaming, no more people calling for help." ... a time to mourn ... No, I'm not sure where to direct my anger, but one thing is for certain, I never imagined that a scene such as that described above would ever happen in America ... never in America ... but it did ... in addition to folks sitting on rooftops and bridges, and beneath overpasses for days waiting on someone to help them ... no water ... no food ... no medical care ... no shelter ... nothing ... an absolute disgrace and shame ... dead, bloated bodies openly lying on public streets and propped up in chairs for days ... our elected leaders failed us from the local level all the way up to the White House where the fellow resides that calls himself "the decider" ... shame on them all ... no, we can't depend on government for everything, but can we rely on those who have supposedly asked for positions of responsibility where America's public safety hinges on their actions, or lack thereof? ... it's their job, it's their duty, they're obligated to do better ... had St. Rita's made any attempt whatsoever to evacuate those unfortunate people from that deathtrap, one nine-passenger van for a 100-bed facility was hardly a sufficient or realistic evacuation plan ... It appears that things are moving much better as far evacuation and preparedness is concerned with the impending threat of Hurricane Gustav's projected arrival ... let's hope so ... let's make damn sure that never again in America will 35 helpless people be discovered abandoned and drowned in their beds, for any reason ... never again in America will dozens of helpless people need to escape drowning by floating on mattresses covered with plastic ... never again in America will we see the dead lying in the streets and byways like common garbage for days on end ... never again in America will we see people sitting for days on end waiting for someone to offer them a helping hand ... a blanket ... a sandwich ... or a drink of clean water ... God bless those few courageous souls who risked their own lives to save those who could not save themselves ... a crown of righteousness awaits them ... for others, disgrace ... a time to mourn ... --sja