Second of 9 emails describing the Christmann family's Katrina story

christmannemail2.txt

To all who have inquired about us over the last few days, I wanted to pass along some extremely exciting news that we received last night: Noel's sister is getting out of New Orleans! Possibly as early as tomorrow morning, replacement doctors are coming to the hospital, and Renee along with several other doctors who have been working nearly nonstop in these unbelievable circumstances will be convoying out. I think Renee is going to Birmhingham first for a little R&R with one of her best friends. She'll hopefully be joining us either here in Destin, or in Baton Rouge next week. I'm anxious to hear her stories about working in the sole functioning hospital in the stricken area. Over the phone she has described the sadness of having to close and lock their doors while the National Guard dropped refugees rescued from rooftops outside. The hospital was quite concerned about an influx of patients straining their already thin supplies; they had no national guard available to contain any type of riot, so they didn't want to try to bring insufficient food to the developing crowd. Finally, some doctors did go out and find the seriously injured and bring them in for treatment, but they continued to keep the hospital doors locked. What a difficult situation for a group of people (doctors, nurses, everyone) used to trying to *help* people. The hospital was hoping to have their electricity restored today. If they do, that has to qualify as a miracle of the first order, given the state of the city. I imagine that since its the only functioning hospital, the utility company is focusing lots of efforts on keeping it running. The hospital is located very near the Mississippi River. So, while they have not had running *drinking* water since this tragedy started, they do have a well to pull water from the river. So they have continued to have the ability to shower and flush toilets. Yesterday, I listened to a radio report from the president of St. Charles Parish (for those of you who don't already know, a "Parish" in New Orleans is about the equivalent of a county for the rest of normal America). They are the 2nd parish west of New Orleans, about 20-30 miles west of downtown. While he reported that they have almost entirely restored sewer and running water, they had not restored electricity. Then he described how they were starting to receive refugees who had walked the highways from New Orleans. He said, then, in effect: "You think of electricity as an essential requirement. And then you meet people who walk 40 miles for a bottle of water." We are more and more convinced that our house has water. C'est la vie. We've been scouring unbelievably clear satellite images hosted at http://www.noaa.gov, but thus far have not found our house. We have found Noel's parents house in Pass Christian, MS. That was another success! Its standing; it appears there may be a tree down on it, and the boat that we had carefull parked and stowed right next to the house on a trailer was obviously dislodged and moved - which means the storm surge pushed enough water into the house to float the boat and trailer parked right next door. C'est la vie. We have housing arranged in Baton Rouge (where we'll be living with my in-laws), and are now looking into schooling options for the kids. Carrie's school is part of a nationwide network of Sacred Heart schools, and there is another one located in Lafayette, Louisiana, about an hour west of Baton Rouge. We may send her there, working out bussing with several other families who will also be in Baton Rouge. We are also exploring coed Catholic schools in Baton Rouge itself. Right now, the kids are excited about the chance to go to school together (they are both normally in single-sex schools). Yesterday, we told the kids that we weren't going back to New Orleans any time soon, and that they would be in school elsewhere. We told Carrie first, and she ran off to sit by herself and cry. Absolutely broke my heart as I peeked into her room and saw her hugging and crying and talking to her one stuffed animal that we brought. We then told Robert, and he also started crying and ran off to the bedroom. And then we watched as Carrie put on a happy face, sat down next to Robert and tried to explain to him why it wasn't so bad, and how much fun they might have. Both kids have been great. Baton Rouge will be another interesting experiment, as a city of 300,000 grows to 500,000 or more in the span of a month. Housing and office space are at an absolute premium, and I watched my father-in-law on the phone yesterday having to sign long term leases for office space for his law firm without being able to read them completely, or discuss fully with the rest of his partners, because other law firms were trying to get the same space. Thanks again for hearing me out. It helps me to type and remember many of the good things that are happening to us here.

Citation Information:

Paul Christmann, "Second of 9 emails describing the Christmann family's Katrina story." Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, Object #33 (November 16 2005, 10:24 am)<http://www.hurricanearchive.org/object/33>