Traveling to the heart of devastation

It was about 10 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 31 ““ two days
after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast ““ when my dad started
hastily throwing food, water, blankets and gear into the van. He
decided to drive to New Orleans when he found out my sister, Robin,
along with seven friends, two cats and three dogs, was stuck in the
French Quarter of New Orleans. With the news reporting crime and
chaos, my dad couldn’t stand to wait around.

To me it was crazy and rash, but I couldn’t let him drive
1,800 miles from San Diego alone.

So I grabbed some coffee and a camera and prepared for an
adventure, hoping to get a few good shots in New Orleans and make
it back in time to shoot the UCLA v. San Diego State football
season-opener three days later.

As we headed to Louisiana and got the news of gun looting,
carjackings and the eventual retreat of search-and-rescue forces,
my hopes of carrying out our plan to save Robin, take some
photographs, and go home began to fade.

I should have known better, but then again, nobody really knew
what was going on. Robin could communicate with us via a land-line
phone, so we kept her updated with what news we could get over the
few Texas radio stations. She let us know what was really going on
where she was.

“NYPD came to the door and asked if we had any
guns,” Robin said on Friday. “And when John said
“˜Absolutely not, sir,’ the officer said, “˜Well
you better get some.’ When an officer tells you to illegally
get guns, you know everything is not cool.”

Thirty hours after leaving San Diego, we were stopped by police
within 10 miles of New Orleans on Friday morning. It was too
dangerous to enter ““ not because of the flooding,
destruction, fires or disease, but because of people.

We went from FEMA to the Red Cross, to the Navy base, and no one
could help us get in.

One of the more exiting parts of the trip was experiencing
first-hand not only events being covered nationwide, but also more
personal grassroots activism. National Katrina coverage was so
focused on the flooded and disheveled New Orleans that many stories
were left untold.

At Louisiana State University, for example, the basketball
stadium had been transformed into a medical triage center, lined
with cots and swarming with nurses, doctors and displaced refugees
who have nothing but their lives to cling to.

We stayed long enough to see refugees pour out of a privately
owned semi-truck that must have carried more than 100 people
standing the 60 miles from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. The truck
looked to be driven by a civilian volunteer.

Robin was finally rescued by an Arkansas family who managed to
bypass security by taking backroads. When we finally met up in
Baton Rouge, she and the rest of her crew were eating home-cooked
Southern barbecue and being pampered by people who had been
strangers minutes before.

After eight days in fear without electricity, running water, or
much hope of escape, Robin was happy to find home again, and I was
relieved we all made it back together.