“Western North Carolina is destroyed. Hell on earth. I spent last night chainsawing fallen logs on a mountain so people could get in. Before that we were hunting for survivors in (town) and delivering water to the fire department. Got a family out today…”
(media.greatawakening.win)
🏡 Helping Community 🏘️
A few thoughts on the aftermath of hurricanes from my experience being in New Orleans and Wayside, Mississippi the day after Katrina.
The federal and state response was a joke. Decisions and action has to be immediate and it's not the movies. FEMA is nowhere to be seen on the ground. They might be in a tent somewhere talking and pretending to be doing something, but lol.
Followed the walmart convoy in.
Walmart?
Yes, that company was more impressive than anything or anyone in that first 24 hours.
So much so, that many people were calling for Walmart to replace fema and call it wema.
The convoy was stationed just east of Beaumont, TX on Interstate I-10 on the shoulder before Katrina hit. Mile after mile of tractor trailers with Walmart emblazoned and many hired third party without.
Their goal was get 3 stores up and running. They had huge generators, circus tents, fuel truck, store merch and heavy equipment.
Trees blocking road?
No problem.
Pretty sure they had 2 Walmart in NO and 1 in Wayside operating their tent stores within 24 hours.
After that, I believe the first 24 hours of operation was dedicated to first responders, much of which Walmart gave away.
One of the biggest items was chainsaws and fuel.
Forgive me if my memory is faulty. Maybe someone that was also there can correct.
Anyway, the scariest most awful sight?
Was in Wayside and was turning around to go back to New Orleans and was not far from the ocean. Started doing the Uturn at a Texaco station that had been wiped out and noticed this mountain of debris at the base of a treeline
Got out of my truck to investigate and saw the bark had been stripped from the trees about 40 to 50 feet in the air and it dawned on me. That was the storm surge and the trees had their bark removed by the debris the surge was carrying.
Said a prayer for anyone that got caught in that and took off. Did take some pics, but not sure where they reside.
Wildest thing I saw and felt?
Driving around New Orleans with absolutely zero other cars or people. Felt like Charlton Heston in Omega Man and yes, once night fell, I was out of there! During the whole day, I saw maybe 2 National Guard humvees. They just blew by me.
Also heard some gun fire from time to time. Nothing too crazy.
There was a checkpoint manned by the military to get into the city within a couple of days.
I was given a gubmit issued piece of paper by a company that had me checking whether the roof over their data centers was intact.
My experience was never underestimate a hurricane and if in it's path, get out of its way.
Finally, the gubmit reacts poorly, even the military. Just too much needs to be done too fast.
Churches and Walmart were impressive, though. By the time churches were already handing out water, Red Cross advance field teams were just arriving to do assessment, lol.
What a clown show Red Cross was.
Anyway, just some thoughts I thought to share. Do not mind being corrected or given differing thoughts by others that were there in those first days.
Pretty sure I posted a story some years back about a Red Cross team I asked to help me unstuck an elderly couples car.
Long story, but the end result was 3 young early 20's Red Cross kids and they would not render assistance because they were "office admin and not field operators", lol.
Often think about those 3 yahoo's. 2 girls and 1 guy. In their forties now and probably have kids. Soon they will be the age of that elderly couple I got unstuck. Night was about to fall, but those kids had zero sense of care nor urgency.
I wasn't much older, but damn, had a great sense of urgency.
Sorry for typos. On cell phone with fat fingers.
Walmart gets a lot of criticism but when we had a severe storm in my rather rural part of East Texas, they responded just as you described. For at least two weeks they were the only lifeline. Remarkably they never raised prices and were always fully stocked. (Lowes was the other company that stepped up during that time.) Despite that being years ago, I still think about it when I hear criticism of them.
The Walmart response to Katrina was amazing. Had no idea they had a division dedicated to disaster response. Actually, had no idea any company did that.
They were ready to go before storm hit.
Guaranteed, Walmart has a convoy moving through the Helene path already.
Another thought.
Was in NO and MS that first week. My hotel was in Gulfport or Biloxi. Don't remember. A few weeks later brought my trailer down and stayed in Gulfport.
Anyway, I was only in NO during the day. Was definitely not safe at night. As sun was setting the frequency of gunfire increased and there was a choke point leaving town to the east.
Main highway bridge was destroyed, so had to take an alternate that was sketchy to traverse.
So, while still in my head, wrote up my inspection reports in town. Only place I felt safe to do that was at one of the disaster relief staging areas.
One day, this is still the first week after storm hit, had my truck parked between a church setup and a Red Cross tent.
The church spot had 2 tables. Left table was stacked with water bottles and right table was brown paper bags with lunch. Just to right of those brown paper bags was maybe 6 bibles.
Oh, they also had a sign with name of their church and state. Think it was North Carolina.
The setup was not in your face at all, yet a first responder walked up to my door, leaned in and said, "do they really need to be proselytizing"?
I just replied, "to be honest, been here over an hour and haven't seen them hand out a Bible yet. Just water and lunch. Think they are asking people if they would like a Bible, but being refused. Hardly proselytizing."
"Yeah, guess so", he replied then walked away.
It was at this moment someone walked out of the Red Cross tent over to the church tables, helped themselves to 2 bags and waters, then back to the tent.
Thought to myself, you have got to be kidding me. Those Red Cross turds are drinking and eating that churches relief supply, lol.
Was hungry and thirsty and came close to walking over there, but at end of the day, I was not a local, not a first responder.
A lot of people love to throw shade on churches, but those churches there after Katrina?
They were doing God's work and were a blessing for sure.
Good on them and bless em for it, but it's just good business. The only place in town to get anything and they have the resources to get in there and sell their stuff. Not raising their prices... well kudos for that kek
WOW
My husband was in Katrina with the NG fir a month. He said it sucked. Slept in a junior high locker room and later on in a church. I remember him calling me when he first got there and I could tell he was in shock. Said it looked like a bomb went off. The first wave had to shoot dogs because some had reverted to these wild pack animals. One night they watched a pack chase a donkey. Because it was so upsetting, when he was out on patrol, they started carrying big bags of kibble with them and would take a knife, tear the bag open and let them eat.
God bless him.
That makes sense about the dogs. No people, but a lot of animals left behind. Doesn't take long to go hungry. Heard those sporadic gun shots during the day and that would be a good explanation for it. Never sounded like a gun fight.
The gun fight sounds came later as the sun set.
I lived thru Katrina. My aunt and cousin both had their homes completely swept into the lakes - Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Catherine. Saw Oak trees uprooted where the top of the roof ball was taller than the two story house behind it. Trees twisted and snapped off like toothpicks. My husband and oldest son joined our neighbors using chainsaws and tractors to clear the road for local police and firefighters to have access to others in worse way. Parts of two of the three bridges connecting New Orleans to outside world had lost stretches of the bridges - unusable.
The dollar General in Bush La also just handed out the store's stock to us.