The New Orleans Fire Department had been working for 8 days straight, unable to get home, or back to their families who had evacuated. When the call came from Chief Carr for Montgomery County Fire Fighters to go down for at least two weeks to help out, I knew it was something I had to do. We thought our mission would be to fight fire, we quickly found out it would be so much more.
An insane 38 hour drive in a convoy of fire apparatus, police and support vehicles made you want to say "enough, I want to go home now!", but as we pulled in to New Orleans we knew we had work to do. As we arrived at our home base, an evacuated nursing home, we were greeted with a hand painted sign that said in bold letters "WARNING, LOOTERS WILL BE SHOT!"
Were we in America anymore? No time for worries, we hit the ground running, establishing the first tour of duty to stand by for fire fighting operations. The other half of the group set up camp and began surveying the city for damage and accessibility, mapping areas of the city filled with debris and impassable water, charting it as it receded. Words and pictures could not describe what we saw.
Our daily trip into the city was surreal. We crossed over the Mississippi River on a deserted bridge. We would enter the city passing by the Convention Center strewn with garbage but no people. The streets of a normally bustling cosmopolitan city were empty except for heavily armed military and police. I had to remind myself that indeed I was still in America in the year 2005.
We did not fight much fire, there was none to fight, instead we took on a much more important mission. We became passionate about getting the Fire Department back on its feet. Scrub brushes in hand we were able to get 12 of the 25 heavily damaged fire houses open for use. We knew that when the fire fighters came back to work they needed to come back to a functioning fire house. This was one small piece of normalcy we could restore in their lives. Our off days were dedicated to the homes of fire fighters; doing whatever was needed to get the house livable again.
We all went down there thinking we would get to fight fire. Our work had little to do with fire; it had to do with humanity. It was humbling to be thanked by a guy whose life had just been devastated by Katrina. I will forever be changed by the sadness and joy I was witness to while in the great city of New Orleans. As much as I don't like her, Katrina gave me a gift I will carry with me for life.
More Essays
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- Captain Michael Leigh: Waveland, Mississippi
- Assistant Chief Mike Clemens: Gulfport, Mississippi
- Firefighter Katherine Draper: Waveland, Mississippi
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