\"Email from EMT Recounts Initial Aftermath\"\r\n9-2-2005\r\nanonymously posted\r\n\r\nHi everyone,\r\n\r\nAs a few of you may have heard, I recently left my job as an EMT in Baltimore and moved to Austin, TX, to accept a James Michener fellowship in writing. Austin is about five hundred miles from New Orleans, so on Sunday evening, when I heard what the news was predicting about Hurricane Katrina, I packed my car and headed for New Orleans.\r\n\r\nI drove all night and got to the suburbs of the city around 11am Monday morning. The hurricane was still blowing and though the winds had slowed somewhat, the rain was sideways and visibility was almost nothing. Interstate 10 was blocked with downed streetlights, the roofs of homes, and every other kind of debris imaginable. It was like driving through a junkyard. Every so often a big piece of steel roofing would go skating across the interstate or down a side road. For the most part I was numb to it, but when the big debris started blowing I would tell myself: \"Stay alive, stay alive, stay alive.\"\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2005/09/4046.php>read the rest of the article</a>\r\n