Lake Harrison, Stuck Doors & Bird Calls
It's been two days and I haven't written anything. That's not because nothing's been going on. Quite the contrary. Things have been so busy that I haven't had the time to write. Let me fill you in on things.
First, most of the human rescuing efforts are over. Now comes the throng of frantic people who have left their pets in their homes, trying to get in touch with others to rescue them. Most of the shelters, even the regional ones, are overflowing with animals and there is no place to drop off rescued animals. Due to some sort of beauracratic snafu, some temporary drop-off areas and triage spots have been shut down. The larger animal groups (with the big bucks) seem to have blown in, and blown out. They showed up, got some airtime, rolled into local shelters, then disappeared, leaving a scattered group of individuals and small groups holding the ball.
One day, there's no crates to hold animals and tons of people ready to do rescues. The next day there's 200 animal crates and no people to do rescues. This would be more depressing than it seems have there not been literally thousands of animals secured from homes and neighborhoods who are now either in a shelter, or en route to some far off place. All-in-all, everyone's been working really hard to make sure "no pet is left behind."
We're not just talking about dogs and cats. I've seen people rescuing frogs, lizards and everything else. It's pretty weird to see someone calling in to see if someone can get their Iguana. Personally, I was hoping to do a rescue of an Amazon or a Macaw, but didn't get any bird calls. (ha ha, bird call, get it? Ok, it's lame)
The last two days have had us running around responding to directives to rescue this or that pet. Many times, we'd get to a house, only to find no pets, or we'd find pets that had so much food and water, they could last another month, or we'd find pets in outdoor areas where someone was apparently taking care of them, so you wonder whether you should leave them or pick them up. One problem is there is no central authority tracking the rescue calls, so you don't know if someone already went there and picked up the animals. We were instructed to leave a note indicating an animal was rescued and by whom, but many of the places we visited had no notes. Other places were impossible to get to, or to get in. Now that much of the water has subsided, doors and windows have warped and become one with the structure. Try prying open a door that's been submerged in water for a week, then baked in the hot sun. It seems some rescue crews have taken to knocking holes in walls to check houses -- it's easier than dislodging bloated doors.
Yesterday we did an epic run through Lakeview and Mid City. Lake Harrison Avenue is still happening, but if you can get through the myriad of checkpoints on Metairie Road, you can come around the back way via Marconi to get into higher areas of Lakeview. Canal Blvd at the railroad crossing is still underwater, but other areas are passable. Security is still real tight. We can't respond to requests to pick up things in friends and family's houses... it's still technically not allowed and I don't want to go through a checkpoint with a vehicle full of stuff and get into a bunch of trouble with the National Guard, who are checking people going out of, as well as into Orleans Parish. (But this should be comforting news for people who are concerned about looting -- we really haven't seen any indications of such from private residences) Generally-speaking, I think anyone with a house up high, or a two story number, will be able to retrieve a lot of their belongings. We didn't see as much mold as people seem to expect, but this is probably due to the toxic waters tending to kill anything they touch, but this could change in the next week as once submerged places now turn into humidors.
Much of City Park is now a swamp. Some of the pictures I took look half in color, half in black-and-white, as the floodwaters tended to turn everything grey. There's debris everywhere, but the initial reports of many of the old oak trees being decimated might be exaggerated. There's lots of tree damage, but there's just as many 100+ year old oaks still standing tall.
I put up some high-res pictures of the areas here:
http://www.mikeperrymedia.com/xib/20050914-kat/index.html
The other day power was restored to my house (Yay!) and we're once again with refrigeration and A/C. I can finally give my generator the break it needed. That little unit ran like a trooper almost continually for a few weeks. As far as I know there's still a boil order for water in Jefferson Parish, and they say there are many damaged sewerage lines, so the appearance of normalcy might not be the way it really is. People are warned to be cautious about using water facilities, and that there may be mingling between water and sewerage, or worse yet, you could flush a toilet and what goes down, might come back up.
Every day, East Jefferson is looking more and more normal. Kenner has a lot of businesses open and I suspect in the next week, most of Metairie will as well.
More later..
First, most of the human rescuing efforts are over. Now comes the throng of frantic people who have left their pets in their homes, trying to get in touch with others to rescue them. Most of the shelters, even the regional ones, are overflowing with animals and there is no place to drop off rescued animals. Due to some sort of beauracratic snafu, some temporary drop-off areas and triage spots have been shut down. The larger animal groups (with the big bucks) seem to have blown in, and blown out. They showed up, got some airtime, rolled into local shelters, then disappeared, leaving a scattered group of individuals and small groups holding the ball.
One day, there's no crates to hold animals and tons of people ready to do rescues. The next day there's 200 animal crates and no people to do rescues. This would be more depressing than it seems have there not been literally thousands of animals secured from homes and neighborhoods who are now either in a shelter, or en route to some far off place. All-in-all, everyone's been working really hard to make sure "no pet is left behind."
We're not just talking about dogs and cats. I've seen people rescuing frogs, lizards and everything else. It's pretty weird to see someone calling in to see if someone can get their Iguana. Personally, I was hoping to do a rescue of an Amazon or a Macaw, but didn't get any bird calls. (ha ha, bird call, get it? Ok, it's lame)
The last two days have had us running around responding to directives to rescue this or that pet. Many times, we'd get to a house, only to find no pets, or we'd find pets that had so much food and water, they could last another month, or we'd find pets in outdoor areas where someone was apparently taking care of them, so you wonder whether you should leave them or pick them up. One problem is there is no central authority tracking the rescue calls, so you don't know if someone already went there and picked up the animals. We were instructed to leave a note indicating an animal was rescued and by whom, but many of the places we visited had no notes. Other places were impossible to get to, or to get in. Now that much of the water has subsided, doors and windows have warped and become one with the structure. Try prying open a door that's been submerged in water for a week, then baked in the hot sun. It seems some rescue crews have taken to knocking holes in walls to check houses -- it's easier than dislodging bloated doors.
Yesterday we did an epic run through Lakeview and Mid City. Lake Harrison Avenue is still happening, but if you can get through the myriad of checkpoints on Metairie Road, you can come around the back way via Marconi to get into higher areas of Lakeview. Canal Blvd at the railroad crossing is still underwater, but other areas are passable. Security is still real tight. We can't respond to requests to pick up things in friends and family's houses... it's still technically not allowed and I don't want to go through a checkpoint with a vehicle full of stuff and get into a bunch of trouble with the National Guard, who are checking people going out of, as well as into Orleans Parish. (But this should be comforting news for people who are concerned about looting -- we really haven't seen any indications of such from private residences) Generally-speaking, I think anyone with a house up high, or a two story number, will be able to retrieve a lot of their belongings. We didn't see as much mold as people seem to expect, but this is probably due to the toxic waters tending to kill anything they touch, but this could change in the next week as once submerged places now turn into humidors.
Much of City Park is now a swamp. Some of the pictures I took look half in color, half in black-and-white, as the floodwaters tended to turn everything grey. There's debris everywhere, but the initial reports of many of the old oak trees being decimated might be exaggerated. There's lots of tree damage, but there's just as many 100+ year old oaks still standing tall.
I put up some high-res pictures of the areas here:
http://www.mikeperrymedia.com/xib/20050914-kat/index.html
The other day power was restored to my house (Yay!) and we're once again with refrigeration and A/C. I can finally give my generator the break it needed. That little unit ran like a trooper almost continually for a few weeks. As far as I know there's still a boil order for water in Jefferson Parish, and they say there are many damaged sewerage lines, so the appearance of normalcy might not be the way it really is. People are warned to be cautious about using water facilities, and that there may be mingling between water and sewerage, or worse yet, you could flush a toilet and what goes down, might come back up.
Every day, East Jefferson is looking more and more normal. Kenner has a lot of businesses open and I suspect in the next week, most of Metairie will as well.
More later..
posted by Wisdom at 10:20 AM
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