Over the loud speaker on Saturday morning at the EMS Expo Convention hall in New Orleans, came NAEMT President Ken Bouvier's voice stating we should start the immediate evacuation from the "Big Easy" now and the final banquet had been cancelled. I called Delta and moved my flight up. I felt secure to leave early Sunday morning. Katrina was several hundred miles offshore moving slowly at 11 mph and was due to hit New Orleans early Monday morning. On Saturday afternoon by the pool, the weather was warm, clear, and sunny with a light onshore breeze.
I had watched the weather late Friday night and saw the forecasters point out the potential direction of Hurricane Katrina and the unusual warm water between the hurricane and the state of Louisiana, which could reap havoc for a massive landfall if conditions worsened. I became nervous if the worst came about.
While some EMS Expo attendees left Saturday immediately, back in my room at the Hilton Riverside hotel appeared 3 pages of hurricane instructions, including that if I stayed, to fill the bathtub for drinking water. Saturday night, I was having dinner with conference friends in the French Quarter at a lovely spot, enjoying perhaps the last cup of seafood gumbo. A Delta agent called me to fly out even at an earlier time, at 5:20 a.m. Sunday. After dinner, we took a quick carriage ride around the French Quarter, and said so long to the city. We feared the upcoming devastation; however, I was impressed by the history and the beauty of the city on my first visit.
I left the Hilton Riverside at 2 a.m. by taxi, and when I got to the airport, Delta was nowhere to be found and had cancelled all flights. All Delta agents indicated the airport had closed, but almost all other carriers were flying out persons with aircraft. I immediately got a ticket with Northwest airlines for a 3 p.m. departure. Northwest then cancelled my afternoon flight Sunday. Several of us went on standby on the other AM NWA flights but with no luck; there were too many evacuees and not enough planes.
At 9:30 at the NW gate, I hollered, "I'm a paramedic and I'm heading north," so let
