Interesting update from John in Louisiana
09-15-2005, 04:36 PM
#1
TECH Veteran
Thread Starter
iTrader: (5)
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 4,397
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Interesting update from John in Louisiana These are some postings from a different message board and phone calls we keep up on, lately we have had more time to talk by cell phone (I don't even want to know how many minutes he's had to rip through for this). Some of it is pretty interesting though he is now 14 hours on and 12 off rotation with less rescue and more organization. He got called the 29th to be there asap and arrived early the 31st. Not going into the politics, best saved for a Hooters or BBQ story telling 
Oh yeah, if anyone is like bored.... I have a ton of work I've been trying to get done round here. It didn't help jamming those staples in my hand but little stuff...a new starter in the Geo or helping move parts in the garage would be a *huge* help. I just got done baking brownies and chocolate chip cookies
He started a post this way:
08:00 1SEP - 02:00 2SEP 18 hours
06:00 2SEP - 02:00 3SEP 20 hours
06:00 3SEP - 03:30 4SEP 21.5 hours
06:00 4SEP - 02:00 5SEP 20 hours
06:00 5SEP - 04:30 6SEP 22.5 hours
07:00 6SEP - 05:30 8SEP 46.5 hours
10:00 8SEP - 20:00 8SEP 10 hours
We have had a lot to do, to few people to do it with, and time frames that are often quite litteraly life and death.
As soon as I got on the ground I was put on a helicopter to assist in the evacuation of LSU Hospital, 30 other helicopters all trying to land on the roof of the same parking garage, loading up patients and staff as quick as we could, taking everyone to triage at NO international airport and returning for more. As many birds were in the air around there it is amazing that the were no midair collisions. Everything was about evacuating the people.
When things finally slowed down a bit, we began working to help the state of louisianna to stand up again. We work until the days fires are put out, only to wake and find more fires. I'm not sure how I made it through that 46.5 hours, running on pure adrenaline I suppose. I went to sleep when I realized that I was no longer able to speak, or process coherent thoughts.
There are things from this that will stick with me from this. Like getting up the morning after evacuating LSU Hospital to find that there was blood on my pants, flying over the flooded areas of New Orleans, landing on an overpass to pick up an someone with the Army Corp of engineering and smelling the stink of death in the flood waters.
There are other things that will stick with me too, like the woman who somehow managed to track down my phone number and called to tell me that she was pregnant when she was picked up by a bus that I had dispatched, and that while on the way to Kentucky she had given birth to a beautiful baby girl. I have had the pleasure of working with great and dedicated people who give everything to these efforts. It is an amazing experience to have been here.
I also want to say thank you to honey, for without your love and support I am not certain I could do these things.
It is strange how, after days of running at mach two, mach one seems easy, and 14 hours a day feel like slacking off.
I fianlly got to take a break this evening, and I think I may wast it on sleeping.
Good night all.
From a post after one of his phone calls:
Remember, this is a man who just returned from a year in the stan, the most remote part.
He's been shot at on almost a daily basis. He's had to return fire. He's watched as air strikes took out groups of insurgents. He didn't bat an eye at any of that, its life there.
The phone call from last night was a totally different man.
"I've been on and off helicopers all day today looking at worst parts of the area...I think I'm going to cry...its pretty bad in places. But progress is being made and we are getting stuff done so there is an upside. For the short term here (20 hour shifts) I'll be busy trying to track the shelters here and capacity so we can get the busses off at the right places at the right time."
More of course was just for us.
The day before he spent evacuating a hospital and I caught sight of him on footage (he's been caught by a camera 4 times now, I think only I would recognize him). He says he tried to duck from cameras and *hates* Jeraldo "Please, don't listen to what that idiot says. He's such a sensationalist". Which is funny since Jeraldo went to his firebase in Afghanistan for "interviews" and we had that 10 minute free phone call where Merc said "If I hang up real quick its because he's headed this way...and I don't have a chair handy". He still feels the same way and makes sure there is a chair handy just in case.
Even though his family roots are in New Orleans and he visited almost annually that isn't what is affecting him. The family there is safe, their houses are gone but they hot-footed it to the vacation house north of the lake where it was safer. Odd enough the internet never went down in even the hardest hit areas. Everything else did including cell towers. Guess we are ushering in a new age no matter what we think about technology.
Later in the evening he called my cell and caught me on the road. I don't ususually answer but knew his ring-tone so pulled off the freeway.
He still had that shakey sound to his voice, he needed to hear me tell him they are making progress and there is no time to give in to hopelessness. Telling me they had driven all over New Orleans checking roads, running into people who were living on overpasses for days without anything, people stranded in their homes, the mess around the dome but hey! there were over *300* busses now ready to load people up and get them out with plenty more on the way.
For as much as they all wanted to stop and help they needed to relay which roads were passable for the busses - that was the priority at the time. It hurt him to have to do that yet again, I had to remind him that it would only be a few more hours and those very people would be on their way to Houston or a local shelter to get everything they needed; food, water, clothes, a cot.
I had to tell him his brother left yesterday to the Mississippi since he works for a company that helps contain oil spills in large bodies of water. Their center in the gulf coast was wiped out and the area is in need of oil spill containment and clean up. He said he would try to call his brother and hope they could maybe meet up at their uncles house after a couple of weeks of helping down there - both were told minimum two weeks but plan on three due to the training they have had which is specific to such disasters. His sister in Alaska may go down as well to help with patient administration under disaster situations. We haven't heard yet about her.
Guess it runs in the family.
He just called again, seems about the same time as last night or somewhere thereabouts.
Today he actually got the comptuer centers to dedicate two men to updating all the shelters, food distribution, busses etc where before they were saying "here, you take a shift then we'll find someone to take over later". This was part of his training and part of his demeanor - delgation with a bit of smooth talking and common sense. He's good at that too. Less stress though he did get 3 whole hours of sleep and hopes he can get 5 tonight.
He also saw Sean Penn. They were walking down a hall and he turned to one of the guys next to him.
John: "Is that....uh..Sean Penn?"
Matt: "Yeah, looks that way"
John: "Well I'm feeling kind of surley. If he is here to help then I got a list of things he can do!"
As John headed down the hall to where Penn was talking with soliders (no cameras, someone maybe his agent with him) he got pulled a dozen different directions each step he took. By the time he could make it back Penn was gone.
"I really had a bunch of stuff for him to do. What the heck is he doing here if he isn't going to help?"
We did laugh about that but make no bones - John would have put Penn to work!
I know whats keeping me busy tonight...aside from the dawg I rescued that was standing in the middle of the road totally confused with no tags. Its gonna be a looooooooong night.
Unfortunately the guy he worked so close with was hit by a semi truck who kept driving and left the scene - only to drive right to the op center. The truck driver said since he was just making one turn and the op center was right there, someone else would take care of Matt. After a full night of waiting at the ER Matt is on his way home with a bruised kidney, whiplash and some pretty good brusies all over. He's lucky and he knows it, when he saw the truck he ducked and scrunched up as much as he could so he wouldn't wind up dead.
The truck driver was arrested for a host of violations. He was lucky no one took a shot at him.
John is settling into coordinating operations of all kinds though on day 11 he did walk up to a reservist on the tarmac and this was in gest with a silly grin:
J "Do you have your gun with you?"
"What? Uh...why?"
J "No. Just do you have your gun on you?"
"Why"
J "No. Don't ask me why. Just do you have it on you?"
"No, I don't."
J "Dammit. I wanted to shoot myself in the head."
(Rervist laughing) "Well....I have a stapler..."
He is feeling better after some sleep and shorter shifts. There is much more about what they have done - I told him he needs to post that (on the other board) so people know how things are shaking out ever since they got there. After he gets home he has to take off again for 3 weeks on Oct 15th for the military disaster preparedness training (oh, the irony on that one) then he's home - provided no more hurricanes do the damage Katrina did.
Oh yeah, if anyone is like bored.... I have a ton of work I've been trying to get done round here. It didn't help jamming those staples in my hand but little stuff...a new starter in the Geo or helping move parts in the garage would be a *huge* help. I just got done baking brownies and chocolate chip cookies
He started a post this way:
08:00 1SEP - 02:00 2SEP 18 hours
06:00 2SEP - 02:00 3SEP 20 hours
06:00 3SEP - 03:30 4SEP 21.5 hours
06:00 4SEP - 02:00 5SEP 20 hours
06:00 5SEP - 04:30 6SEP 22.5 hours
07:00 6SEP - 05:30 8SEP 46.5 hours
10:00 8SEP - 20:00 8SEP 10 hours
We have had a lot to do, to few people to do it with, and time frames that are often quite litteraly life and death.
As soon as I got on the ground I was put on a helicopter to assist in the evacuation of LSU Hospital, 30 other helicopters all trying to land on the roof of the same parking garage, loading up patients and staff as quick as we could, taking everyone to triage at NO international airport and returning for more. As many birds were in the air around there it is amazing that the were no midair collisions. Everything was about evacuating the people.
When things finally slowed down a bit, we began working to help the state of louisianna to stand up again. We work until the days fires are put out, only to wake and find more fires. I'm not sure how I made it through that 46.5 hours, running on pure adrenaline I suppose. I went to sleep when I realized that I was no longer able to speak, or process coherent thoughts.
There are things from this that will stick with me from this. Like getting up the morning after evacuating LSU Hospital to find that there was blood on my pants, flying over the flooded areas of New Orleans, landing on an overpass to pick up an someone with the Army Corp of engineering and smelling the stink of death in the flood waters.
There are other things that will stick with me too, like the woman who somehow managed to track down my phone number and called to tell me that she was pregnant when she was picked up by a bus that I had dispatched, and that while on the way to Kentucky she had given birth to a beautiful baby girl. I have had the pleasure of working with great and dedicated people who give everything to these efforts. It is an amazing experience to have been here.
I also want to say thank you to honey, for without your love and support I am not certain I could do these things.
It is strange how, after days of running at mach two, mach one seems easy, and 14 hours a day feel like slacking off.
I fianlly got to take a break this evening, and I think I may wast it on sleeping.
Good night all.
From a post after one of his phone calls:
Remember, this is a man who just returned from a year in the stan, the most remote part.
He's been shot at on almost a daily basis. He's had to return fire. He's watched as air strikes took out groups of insurgents. He didn't bat an eye at any of that, its life there.
The phone call from last night was a totally different man.
"I've been on and off helicopers all day today looking at worst parts of the area...I think I'm going to cry...its pretty bad in places. But progress is being made and we are getting stuff done so there is an upside. For the short term here (20 hour shifts) I'll be busy trying to track the shelters here and capacity so we can get the busses off at the right places at the right time."
More of course was just for us.
The day before he spent evacuating a hospital and I caught sight of him on footage (he's been caught by a camera 4 times now, I think only I would recognize him). He says he tried to duck from cameras and *hates* Jeraldo "Please, don't listen to what that idiot says. He's such a sensationalist". Which is funny since Jeraldo went to his firebase in Afghanistan for "interviews" and we had that 10 minute free phone call where Merc said "If I hang up real quick its because he's headed this way...and I don't have a chair handy". He still feels the same way and makes sure there is a chair handy just in case.
Even though his family roots are in New Orleans and he visited almost annually that isn't what is affecting him. The family there is safe, their houses are gone but they hot-footed it to the vacation house north of the lake where it was safer. Odd enough the internet never went down in even the hardest hit areas. Everything else did including cell towers. Guess we are ushering in a new age no matter what we think about technology.
Later in the evening he called my cell and caught me on the road. I don't ususually answer but knew his ring-tone so pulled off the freeway.
He still had that shakey sound to his voice, he needed to hear me tell him they are making progress and there is no time to give in to hopelessness. Telling me they had driven all over New Orleans checking roads, running into people who were living on overpasses for days without anything, people stranded in their homes, the mess around the dome but hey! there were over *300* busses now ready to load people up and get them out with plenty more on the way.
For as much as they all wanted to stop and help they needed to relay which roads were passable for the busses - that was the priority at the time. It hurt him to have to do that yet again, I had to remind him that it would only be a few more hours and those very people would be on their way to Houston or a local shelter to get everything they needed; food, water, clothes, a cot.
I had to tell him his brother left yesterday to the Mississippi since he works for a company that helps contain oil spills in large bodies of water. Their center in the gulf coast was wiped out and the area is in need of oil spill containment and clean up. He said he would try to call his brother and hope they could maybe meet up at their uncles house after a couple of weeks of helping down there - both were told minimum two weeks but plan on three due to the training they have had which is specific to such disasters. His sister in Alaska may go down as well to help with patient administration under disaster situations. We haven't heard yet about her.
Guess it runs in the family.
He just called again, seems about the same time as last night or somewhere thereabouts.
Today he actually got the comptuer centers to dedicate two men to updating all the shelters, food distribution, busses etc where before they were saying "here, you take a shift then we'll find someone to take over later". This was part of his training and part of his demeanor - delgation with a bit of smooth talking and common sense. He's good at that too. Less stress though he did get 3 whole hours of sleep and hopes he can get 5 tonight.
He also saw Sean Penn. They were walking down a hall and he turned to one of the guys next to him.
John: "Is that....uh..Sean Penn?"
Matt: "Yeah, looks that way"
John: "Well I'm feeling kind of surley. If he is here to help then I got a list of things he can do!"
As John headed down the hall to where Penn was talking with soliders (no cameras, someone maybe his agent with him) he got pulled a dozen different directions each step he took. By the time he could make it back Penn was gone.
"I really had a bunch of stuff for him to do. What the heck is he doing here if he isn't going to help?"
We did laugh about that but make no bones - John would have put Penn to work!
I know whats keeping me busy tonight...aside from the dawg I rescued that was standing in the middle of the road totally confused with no tags. Its gonna be a looooooooong night.
Unfortunately the guy he worked so close with was hit by a semi truck who kept driving and left the scene - only to drive right to the op center. The truck driver said since he was just making one turn and the op center was right there, someone else would take care of Matt. After a full night of waiting at the ER Matt is on his way home with a bruised kidney, whiplash and some pretty good brusies all over. He's lucky and he knows it, when he saw the truck he ducked and scrunched up as much as he could so he wouldn't wind up dead.
The truck driver was arrested for a host of violations. He was lucky no one took a shot at him.
John is settling into coordinating operations of all kinds though on day 11 he did walk up to a reservist on the tarmac and this was in gest with a silly grin:
J "Do you have your gun with you?"
"What? Uh...why?"
J "No. Just do you have your gun on you?"
"Why"
J "No. Don't ask me why. Just do you have it on you?"
"No, I don't."
J "Dammit. I wanted to shoot myself in the head."
(Rervist laughing) "Well....I have a stapler..."
He is feeling better after some sleep and shorter shifts. There is much more about what they have done - I told him he needs to post that (on the other board) so people know how things are shaking out ever since they got there. After he gets home he has to take off again for 3 weeks on Oct 15th for the military disaster preparedness training (oh, the irony on that one) then he's home - provided no more hurricanes do the damage Katrina did.
09-15-2005, 04:42 PM
#2
TECH Veteran
Thread Starter
iTrader: (5)
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 4,397
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
This was Sean Penn 3 hours after John saw him.
Guess he should have stayed and worked John's list instead - they didn't put the plug in the boat before taking it out
09-15-2005, 05:10 PM
#3
Loves to change spark plugs
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Portland Oregon
Posts: 255
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I've wondered how he was doing. Both of you hang in there. Damn happy to know John is out there helping folks.
This will definitely be a mixed bag of emotions when it's over. Much sympathy for that.
-Jeff
This will definitely be a mixed bag of emotions when it's over. Much sympathy for that.
-Jeff
09-15-2005, 06:40 PM
#4
TECH Fanatic
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Monroe, Washington
Posts: 1,209
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I didn't realize he was in NO, I guess because the war is still going on in the east, I just figured he was over there..
My thoughts and Prayers are with him and everyone else that is involved in this tragedy. This is not going to be an easy one to get over.
I'm sorry to hear about his family's homes, but am glad that they are all ok. And I agree about Jeraldo, he's a freak...and it would have been funny if John could have bossed Sean Penn around..
Anyway, I hope he is able to get some 'real' rest soon and that he is able to come home soon! Tell him we said hi!
Oh and what other board are you talking about? Is this a private board, or can we go read it too?
My thoughts and Prayers are with him and everyone else that is involved in this tragedy. This is not going to be an easy one to get over.
I'm sorry to hear about his family's homes, but am glad that they are all ok. And I agree about Jeraldo, he's a freak...and it would have been funny if John could have bossed Sean Penn around..
Anyway, I hope he is able to get some 'real' rest soon and that he is able to come home soon! Tell him we said hi!
Oh and what other board are you talking about? Is this a private board, or can we go read it too?