Ep. 262: This Country Life - The Hurricane

stories to share the hurricane. We're deviating from the format this week for something that I believe is more important. I'm still going to tell you a story, but that story is just about going to take up the whole episode. It's something that means a great deal to me and something that more or less came full circle after my job made me break a promise to myself from nearly twenty years ago. Parents talk about some things here that

might have the little ones asking questions. Nothing graphic, y'all know me better than that, but it may bring up some questions, especially for our listeners that have been affected one way or another from Hurricane Helene. But that said, let's get to it. When I left New Orleans nineteen years ago, I swore i'd never go back. It had been my first trip to a place I'd only heard about prior to my arrival, and was a destination I'd

intended on traveling to one day. After all, the food New Orleans is famous for is my favorite and in many respects very similar to what I've grown up eating myself. The folks there always seem to be having a good time, and good food and good times are what I've always been about, and not necessarily in that order. But this was different, and my being there had nothing to do with food or fun. Hurricane Katrina had ravaged Louisiana and

a lot of the Gulf Coast in Mississippi. Was August of two thousand and five, and I was the SWAT Team commander of the Union County Sheriff's Department in Arkansas. Union County borders Louisiana, and we trained with the Union Parish Sheriff's Office team should any operations require us to cross the state line and vice versa, or to work in conjunction with them, Since we shared the small community of Junction City, a town that straddled the state line

of Arkansas and Louisiana. Now only on a couple occasions prior to the hurricane. Did we ever see that training in preparation put to use. A couple of search warrants and low level manhunts of really in significance were what the joint operations consisted of until the hurricane. As we

all set glued to the news. As the impending doom and gloom of the hurricane approached landfall, I received a call from my share a conversation with something like this Union Parish has requested us to be ready to assist him and the advent the storm stays on the projected levels. Of course, get the team advised, ready to deploy should that happen, and pack for a week with our team

and support personnel and boats. We deployed nearly a dozen deputies to assist the Louisiana Sheriff's Association Hurricane Task Force in Operation Restore Order. We were assigned a designation southeast of Baton Rouge that would serve as a rally point and staging area where we would be briefed on where help was needed, what sets we brought in our overall capabilities to support security for search and rescue efforts that were still in the initial stages of planning and execution.

All communication was limited to SAD phones and vehicle to vehicle communication on low band radios. Handheld radios were good only for short distances, and anything that relied upon the relay of a boosted signal from radio towers was useless. Either the power of those towers was off or the towers themselves were destroyed by the storm. And we arrived in Gonzales, Louisiana, to a mass of law enforcement, fire and medical services that filled up big fair grounds and

exhibition center. It was beyond chaotic, lots of well intended people kind of standing around, ready to offer aid, with little or no clear direction of where to do it. That would lend itself to describe that there was no organizations, but it would be unfair to the preparedness of the plan and the people who were in charge of it. The simple truth was there was no way to have been prepared for what was happening. All communication had been

cut off from South Louisiana to anywhere. Reports were all SAT phone dependent, and at that time the technology wasn't ten years old yet it was its use or even the need for it hadn't been a priority to anyone in the Sevilian sector. With a little direction from the stage in personnel, and gonzales I reached out to our sheriff back in Arkansas. He eventually made contact with the Jefferson Parish sheriff, where the offer of our services he

gladly accepted. In less than eighteen hours after arriving in Louisiana, we had our first clear mission. We were headed to New Orleans and would link up with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff in the downtown staging area where they had set up a command post. The ride from gonzales to New Orleans would take you less than an hour. Today it was considerably longer due to the debris in the road.

There were dead animals and fish of every kind imaginable scattered up and down the highway, Mud and marsh, grass, trees, parts of buildings, boats of every size, and vehicles littered the road and the landscape in every direction. There were huge tuna fish laying on the side of the road that one of the first highway exits coming into New Orleans. It was awful. The sights and the smells were sickening,

and it was only going to get worse. And once we reported to the Sheriff's Department at the command post. We were immediately assigned to assist in restoring order to the areas where lawlessness and looting had become the norm.

Got a little western at times, but things slowed down to the point after a day or two that we were signed tost secure the landing zone, where search and rescue, medical and supply helicopters were on a constant rotation bringing in survivors and adding people to the several thousand who were already sequestered beneath the overpass where the majority of

my team was stationed. Now, if you saw or remember seeing on the news all the footage of the military and the Savilian helicopters operating adjacent to an overpass, the only place the press was allowed to be, that's where we were. There was a hopeless sea of humanity beneath us. The trauma and lost these people had just endeared was a scene out of nothing I'd ever witnessed or hope to see again. There was no bathrooms, no food, and nowhere to take them. There were busses supposedly on the way.

By getting a bus into that area to evacuate them was taking a whole lot of time to coordinate. You have to remember that all the assets to do in an evacuation operation of that magnitude had just been washed away by the very thing that had these people standing below me. It was going to get a lot worse before it got any better. Darkness fell, The influx of evacuees began to subside somewhat, but it didn't stop, and

there was still no way to get them out. The limited communication we had with those in charge was extremely vague. It wasn't purposefully in that way. There were just no clear answers what to do with what some estimates say was five thousand recently displaced hurricane survivors. Three people lost their lives during the thirty six hours we were stationed on that bridge, and this staging area was just one of many. Eventually, a convoy school buses arrived. People were

methodically loaded on each one to the capacity, and they left. Eventually, so did we, and I wouldn't find out until weeks later that the majority of them would go to Houston, Texas. My team eventually regrouped after a few stress filled hours, and some of my men had been assigned to support different patrol elements and were scattered all over New Orleans. They were professionals, capable of doing any job to ask

of them, but with no communication with them. My worry was not that they couldn't accomplish the task at hand. It was that I couldn't come to help them if they needed it. The department and their families had entrusted me to bring them all home safe once our mission was completed, and I didn't take that responsibility lightly. Now, through the Union Parish Sheriff and our sheriff back in Arkansas, we were tasked with supporting the Saint Tammany Parish Sheriff's

Department in Slydale, Louisiana. We rolled northeast across Lake Ponsey train and linked up with deputies who arranged for us to have the first meal we'd had in about thirty six hours. We stayed in the Sheriff's department training facility. We all stayed together in one big classroom, sleeping on army cots and living out of our duffel bags. We started immediately after being sworn in. Half of us on twelve hour day shifts and the other half on nights.

Each of us were assigned to general patrol as a ride along to supplement single deputy cars, two officers to the car. That's one thing for an area to be impacted by an unimaginable storm, but to deal with that on top of the escalation of looting and violent crimes was something I had never witnessed or hoped to see again. We after called, after call, the majority of them to

night for the most despicable acts of ny humanity. People taking advantage of each other during the best of times is bad enough, but it's magnified when the suffering is as extreme as losing your home and your way of life and your family. I have no idea how many people we arrested for looting, but it was a lot. On the other hand, people we encountered carrying food items

were allowed to continuer. Grocery store owners had been in contact with authorities and said the public had free range any store and it was first come, first served until all the edible food was gone. The storm serge that hit the slide El Louisiana was estimated to be twenty to twenty five feet deep, and the average height of a one story building is about fourteen feet. They don't take a math with is to imagine how bad that was. The amazing thing I witnessed above everything else were the

people I was working with. Some deputies Want in particular that I was assigned to had lost his home. He'd evacuated his family further north in Louisiana to stay with relatives. A lot of other deputies did the same, and yet there they were at work with no idea what was going to happen next with their future. They slept there in that big converted classroom with the rest of us, the only difference being we had a home to go

to after this was open and they didn't. There was dedicated a group of deputies as I have ever seen. A few of them only had the uniforms they were wearing and spars they kept at work for clothes. That was it. We stayed with them for the better part of a month before going back home to Arkansas, twelve hour shifts with no off days. Night before we left, they threw us a party. They scrounged up food from

everywhere and cooked for us. Some of them didn't have homes, but they cooked for us in appreciation of our being there and helping. I've never forgotten that, and we'll always remember how the majority of those people who had little, if anything to give, gave most of all they had. Hurricane Katrina took the lives of one thousand, three hundred and ninety two people and displaced over a million. Over a third of those deaths were attributed to drowning, and

a higher figure would claim the lives through disease. Later on, one hundred and thirty five people were as missing and have never been accounted for. They're just gone. Less than a month later, Hurricane Rita claimed the lives of one hundred and twenty more down there. Now, as bad as I wanted to go home, I felt guilty for leaving.

Order had been restored for the most part. But the men and women and we were working alongside were still there, dealing not only with their jobs as peace officers, but the losses they incurred from the storms as well. Now, nineteen years later, Hurricane Helene slammed the eastern US, and the cost in lives is well over two hundred, with

many still missing and unaccounted for. But we have the ability to resolve and the will as Americans to stop what we're doing and help our brothers and sisters when they're in need, and there has been no greater need in recent times than right now. This is another defining American moment where we as individuals are presented an opportunity to set aside any differences and rally together with the focus of our free people, to choose to do the

right thing and help those who need it most. Last week had me traveling too, and driving through New Orleans, the place I vowed to never see again. Well, I often think of those events nineteen years ago. I seldom speak about them, and I won't go into much more detail than I already have here, but it has been burdensome, to say the least. Driving through New Orleans on the way down to Venice last week bothered me more than

I thought it would. I started recognizing buildings and features and seeing the contrast to what it had been to what it is now. The people there seemed resilient and strong, and the further we went toward Venice, the dynamic differences were standing. Homes and businesses had returned, and comparative photos of then and now wouldn't even be thought of as taken in the same place. As we drove back through New Orleans on the way home, round Callahan asked me

if coming back had helped me. It definitely had, But what helped me the most was seeing and talking with the people who mark time and stories by saying that either happened before or after Katrina, and seeing the pride that they had in persevering and the memorialization of all that was lost. Now. I'm sure that it isn't the same as before Katrina, but seeing it seemingly thriving from the way it was when we left is me hope that the same could be done with what happened as

a as a result of Helene. There are many organizations collecting money and distributing aid, and I encourage anyone who has the means to donate what you can. Five or ten dollars may not sound like a whole lot, but a whole bunch of them will add up pretty quick. As for me, I'm donating through the Gary Sonice Foundation Hurricane Relief Emergency Fund. Now, if you can't trust Lieutenant Dan to get the money where it's supposed to go, you can't trust anyone. Rie was going to post a

link in the show description directly to that fund. If you're interested in checking it out. Keep those folks in your prayers. They need them, They need them all Until next week. This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful.