Editor's Note -- The firefighter interviewed in this story is not related to Firehouse.com Executive Editor Pete Matthews, who returned to New Orleans this week to capture memories about Katrina.
From the time he entered the New Orleans Fire Department as a recruit, until he graduated from the academy, he gained a lot of knowledge. But lost everything he owned. He also logged thousands of miles of driving.
Just four weeks into his rookie class, Kenneth “Push Up” Matthews was told by instructors that they wouldn’t evacuate the city, but stay to help responders with a variety of tasks.
As the severity of the storm of the storm grew, things changed.
“They decided that we could take care of our families and they asked us to leave the city.”
“I packed up my two cats, and picked up a friend who wanted to stay and told him ‘I think you want to go.’” They drove to Houston and stayed at a hotel with his family who left evacuated a day earlier.
It was the next day when they saw the coverage on TV that the realized the devastation, and Matthews said, the hotels started to raise their prices.
He left the hotel and stayed with his friend’s family in Houston for a couple of days until he called his father in Atlanta. His father told him to move to Atlanta where he would have a job doing plaster work.
Just a few days after he arrived in Atlanta, a chief from the New Orleans Fire Department called, “Hey Push Up, we would like you to finish your training,” the chief told him. “We’ve been able to contact nine of you and want you to go to Shreveport for training.”
Shreveport, about 300 miles away, had a recruit class underway when they reached out to New Orleans fire officials to offer assistance.
“I told him ‘Chief, I’ve got to call you back. I’ve got my two cats and that’s all I’ve got left and I’ve already got a job.’’
“When I hung up, my grandma cussed me out and told me to leave the damn cats.”
He phoned the chief and asked about bringing the cats. When he found out he could bring them to Shreveport, he packed up and returned to training.
When they arrived at the former fire station where the New Orleans recruits would stay, he was shown to his room—the captain’s office—so his cats would have someplace to live.
He said the recruit class, which started on Sept. 17, was arduous. “They didn’t cut us any slack even though we’re from Katrina,” he chuckled.
"It was real regimented...shine your boots. I appreciated it, it was really good training," Matthews said.
Like other public safety officials, the recruits had the chance to return to the city to visit their property and assess the damage. The group drove down from Shreveport.
“So I kicked in a couple of family doors and they were was just nothing left. There was just nothing to salvage.”
That’s when he learned that five family members passed away during the hurricane.
The group graduated alongside Shreveport Recruit Class 49 on Nov. 17.
Eight of the nine recruits are still with the department.
His first assignment was Engine 27, one of the busiest stations in the city.
When asked about what his first calls were, he responded “Fire. Fire. A lot of people were burning homes...and we were still responding to violence and shootings.”
He was interviewed at Engine 27 this week, the station where he worked his first shift.
“I always wanted to work in this area because I grew up in this area. It’s wild and crazy.”
Looking back on his experience 10 years ago, he said, “It was one of those things like ‘what’s next?’ It was to the point where nothing could surprise me.”
“I think the shock and awe to me was how the city was such a vibrant city, always people on corners and then it was so dead.”
“All the heresy that the city would never come back…now, it’s awesome. You just see everything that people would say would not happen, they’re happening.”
