NOLA Day One

Six months into it I didn’t really see any damage in Alabama. But as soon as I crossed over into Mississippi there was a big shrimp boat, The Sea Horse, next to the highway, at least half a mile from the nearest water. Driving across Mississippi there were signs of the hurricane, but not acres of devastation. Many of the highway signs had been destroyed, but interestingly, the billboards all seemed pristine. Already repaired or somehow miraculously missed? They were mostly for casinos so maybe God really does play dice.

Louisiana was a different story. Here there were no billboards, just twisted metal platforms. The trees, those that were not down, were twisted into tortuous positions. The glimpses of houses behind them didn’t seem too bad, though I had the feeling on seeing them that something was off somehow. Across Lake Ponchartrain sections of the cement guardrail were frequently missing. One long section looked new, but hastily and temporarily constructed. Once across the bridge there was a FEMA checkpoint. I’m not sure what they were checking; I didn’t even have to stop. Into St. Bernard Parrish, where I’ll be spending the week, it looks like I thought it would. Heaps of unrecognizable debris everywhere. Boats half sunk on both sides of the road. Shipping containers scattered across the landscape as far as you can see. There’s a big one right between the two sides of the road when you come in with a life-size crucifix attached to it. Jesus was not looking happy. No building seems more than half intact. None are habitable. Of course these are all right next to the water. Tomorrow I’ll be farther in and have a better idea.

There are signs of life though There’s a pretty good bit of traffic. A convoy of dump trucks, a couple of guys and a dog fishing. Somehow tellingly, the newest best looking thing is a homemade billboard held down with sandbags, advertising a lawyer – hablamos espanol.

I pull into the camp, I think it’s called Camp Premier, but I haven’t really confirmed that yet, past another security checkpoint. These guys are more sincere. They’re all in SWAT looking gear and official sounding. They check my ID, welcome me and tell me where to check in. WSI is written across their black baseball caps. I’m trying to figure out what branch of the government they represent. Water Safety Instructor is all I can come up with. I later find out that they are Wackenhut Security Incorporated. A private firm. My confidence goes up. With a name like Wackenhut…..

The camp is a big tent city. Mostly green military issue 15 man tents with cots. They are even air conditioned. I’m assigned to 16A. I duck my head in and it looks much like a college dorm room. Gear and clothes are strewn everywhere. Stuff is hanging from every free strap. I figure that these guys must have already been here for a week. Just then one of my roomies shows up. It turns out they are all from a small college in Ohio. The name escapes me at present. They arrived at 10:00 this morning. It is now 11:30. I’m the 15^th man in the tent. I do a quick count and come up with 14 cots. I count again. Same answer. I ask my roomie about it. “Oh, yeah, we gave one of the cots to some girls.” I set out cot hunting.

Now it’s 3:30. I’ve had lunch and been through the safety training. Most of it seemed to focus on brown recluse spiders. No, no one has ever been bitten here, nor even seen one as far as the trainer knows. But she’s heard of three people being bitten in her life and she has a really gruesome picture of some guy’s hand rotting. The best moment of the training comes when the lady (and I do feel sorry for her, she gives (at least in our case) and hour and a half spiel every hour and it’s stifling in the training tent), when the lady asks for the bravest person in the room to stand up. A couple of young college guys jump up, and surprisingly, a man of probably 70 or so. She immediately congratulates them all and assigns them the job of snake killer. She then does a whole bit about poisonous snakes and tells everyone if they see one get one of the snake killers to kill it. At which point the 70 year old (Bob Sullivan) jumps up and says “Lady I’m from Fairbanks, Alaska. I’ve never seen a snake in my life. I resign.”

Oh, and I almost forgot the most overwhelming impression of the camp. I’m on SPRING BREAK! I’ve never really been on Spring Break before. During college I always went on tour with the Furman Singers during spring break. Now at last, some 22 years later, here I am. It’s much like I imagined it, though no girls have gone wild so far. There are probably a 1000 college kids here. Undergraduates I mean. You may think I’m used to that being a professor. But you have to understand I only teach graduate students. I hardly ever see any undergraduates. And when I do it’s at a distance. Now I’m living with them. Woo Hoo! Oops, gotta go. My roomies are starting a big cribbage game. (Not really what I thought they would be doing but, hey this is my first spring break. Some of them are seniors.)