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

christmannemail5(baton).txt

I've finally posted some pictures we took on our recent return to New Orleans: http://dev.priorartisans.com/paul/katrina/katrina.html There are a couple of sections: a) The flooding in Old Metairie, a couple of blocks from our house b) The flooding in our neighborhood and at our house c) Our new house in Baton Rouge and the kids d) Pass Christian, Mississippi No words could adequately describe what I actually saw in Pass Christian. After his visit, my brother-in-law Trey reported that "the walls were blown out." I couldn't grasp what he meant until I saw it, and discovered he meant just what he said: there are large sections of walls that are just gone - the interior sheetrock is gone; the exterior siding is gone. Just the studs, and your outside the house looking in. Its all the more remarkable because standing in the front of the house, it looks fairly normal. Trees down, some debris - but overall, you're left with the impression that the house weathered the storm. Then you walk around the house (can't go in - because the front door won't open due to piles of debris inside, but you don't know that yet...) and from the back you see a *very* different sight. One type of disaster (flooding) and two very very different results: a fast surge of water in Pass Christian wreaked absolute havoc. Walls broken, furniture moved (there are lots of dings and scuffs and marks in the ceiling where as best we can guess, the floating refrigerator was banging), windows gone. The slow seeping in New Orleans leaves houses soaked, mildew and mold growing, but largely intact. We did receive good news yesterday from a friend who continues to live in our neighborhood. A short digression about him: His name is Ray Reggie. He was recently indicted by the feds for some shady dealings with the previous mayor of New Orleans, pled guilty and is awaiting sentencing, which could be up to 5 years. He decided to weather the storm in New Orleans (probably a questionable decision in hindsight), and lost his roof during the storm. I believe he then moved to a friends house to escape the weather and rode out the storm (Monday). On Tuesday, the flood waters started rising - so he went and moved his car. The waters kept rising, and he realized that some other neighbors (primarily elderly) were going to be in trouble, so he went to try and rescue them and get them out. He's apparently saved 26 people since - including (allegedly) one police boat trip where he was shooting back at snipers as they traveled down some roads to go snorkeling to save the baby of a girl who had to leave the baby behind while she swam out, because she couldn't swim well enough to carry her baby). He bought whatever boats he could find from whomever he could get them from (that's where we got the canoe and flatboats we used on our previous return), and has since remained in the neighborhood without power (his generators flooded last Wednesday and haven't worked since then). But he's now taken to patrolling the neighborhood, getting chummy with the National Guard, scaring off potential looters, of which there have been a few, and generally greasing the wheels to help people in our neighborhood get back in to retrieve stuff. I asked him yesterday what his background was - whether he was a National Guardsman in a former life, or a Navy Seal, and his reply was "No, I'm just a fat, out of shape, guy who was here." Anyway, Ray said that yesterday our whole neighborhood is dry. I was very pleasantly surprised - that means that in the span of about 5 days, somewhere around 8 feet of water has drained from our neighborhood - which is a hell of a lot more than we expected. Originally, the engineers were guessing 4-6 inches per day as they brought pumps back online. We happen to live 2 blocks from one of the biggest pumping stations in the city, so I knew we would drain quickly - but I didn't think it would be that quick. We're going back again on Saturday to begin cutting out sheetrock, and starting the first steps to alleviate water damage. Which brings me to a question: If anyone out there knows of a housing contractor who could spare some time to talk with me about what we should do to reduce damage to our house and prepare for rebuilding, please let me know. As you might expect, contractors are a bit busy right now, and we haven't been able to get in touch with the few that we do know. So any help along these lines would be greatly appreciated. For those of you who've asked about them: Renee is doing well. She went back to Oschner hospital in Jefferson Parish last Thursday, and is supposed to come out tomorrow - this time with her fiance - for another 5 day break.. The two of them will be living here in BR - I plan to welcome Mike with a big "ND 17 - UM 10" banner hung from the house - as he'd been talking a *lot* of smack in the weeks leading up to the game. Their wedding is still scheduled for December 3rd, but all plans are up in the air. They will get married, somewhere/somehow. Just don't ask where/how yet.... Noel's Aunt and her family are doing well. We visited them last weekend on our way to Pass Christian. Their neighborhood is slowly recovering - lots of tree clearing right now, and lots of "blue tarp roofs", as people begin repairing their houses. Noel's grandmother is staying in Gulfport right now, and is also well. They have power and all utilities, and even had a working gas station when we were there. So slowly but surely the area is rebuilding.

Citation Information:

Paul Christmann, " Fifth of 9 emails describing the Christmann family's Katrina story." Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, Object #36 (November 16 2005, 10:30 am)<http://www.hurricanearchive.org/object/36>