05-SEP-A-1

LABOR DAY AND BACK-TO-SCHOOL 2005, INTERRUPTED BY RAPID DEPLOYMENT TO A NATIONAL EMERGENCY INTO THE EYE OF THE STORM KATRINA’S AFTERMATH

  1. Index to the 05-Sep-A- series—Labor Day and Back-to-School, Interrupted by Rapid Deployment to a National Emergency into the eye of the Storm Katrina’s Aftermath.
  2. Labor day weekend near Derwood and environs: what might have started off as a sleepy holiday weekend in gorgeous Derwood weather, has turned into a technologic meltdown of every device, and plan, and real human problems in urgent array—and, now, a rapid deployment after frustrating  “hurry up and wait” is now replaced with rapid deployment by military aircraft to wind up on labor day not in a picnic, but in the heart of the whirlwind and the vestiges of the storm.
  3. A decision reached by one of my public health students who had accompanied me to DR/Haiti and the rationale for medical school.
  4.   I respond to the expanding disaster along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana/Mississippi as a volunteer from Maryland’s Emergency Medical Response Team.
  5. My message which I had attempted to send to alert friends that I would be abruptly AWOL—itself interrupted.
  6. Mobilization of the Emergency Response Team through Martins State Airport by military airlift to two-weeks’ volunteer medical service in the Louisiana Gulf Coast.
  7. Arrival through the Hurricane Katrina’s devastation to West Jefferson Parish on the canals and Mississippi’s west bank to relieve the beleaguered tearful staff of West Jefferson Hospital.
  8. A new day on the Louisiana Gulf C oast across the Mississippi River from flooded  New Orleans in Jefferson Parish, as we begin work in West Jefferson Hospital.
  9. Starting up a new “first day” from my night on a mattress on the floor of abandoned Meadowcrest Hospital ready for the news-promoted community clinics of operation lifeline in Jefferson Parish.
  10. The system grows in size and integration as this advance team experiments with this new  “wheel-like” invention.
  11. A new day and Clinic #3 at Lincoln Elementary School, Marrera Louisiana, where the Arkansas national Guard, fresh back from Iraq has asked to not be relieved in the guard duty from escorting us and securing our relief mission—as I remember also what is happening at Gainesville Florida on a day when Donald undergoes cardiac catheterization.
  12. News from Donald through the new cellphone tower boosters and attempt to get messages out through the FEMA command post at the Anne Arundel County Emergency Relief Mobile Unit generators parked inside our guarded martial law periphery as we set out on Day #4 in the Lincoln School Food/Water/Ice/Health Care Clinic.
  13. On a date of lasting significance in the history of American disasters, 9/11, we pause to remember that one date as we look at the one week that most of the survivors of Katrina have had to suffer.
  14. A full day with a re-enforced team caring for 112 patients, including a US Marshal whom I rehydrated and a number of patients who have memorable stories—and a few photos to forward to you.
  15. Entering our second full week of operations in “Operation Lifeline” in Lincoln Elementary “Clinic”, now electrified; our Arkansas infantry guard “goes home” after emotional “learning experience” about humanity, and an Islamic aid truck off-loads donations.
  16. A cold morning shower starts off the  “austere circumstances” of our day— hardly to be compared with many of those we will be seeing today, but most now have power and plumbing and no longer need the ice; Clinic drama: “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”—and that was before the storm!
  17. Today’s clinic had a gatekeeper filter, and prototypic patients “Norma” who relates to me the story of “Pineapple” while the “TAG Team” makes a flying visit with the brass generals and TV crews.
  18. Another abrupt 180* turn:I will be flying out on Sunday as originally planned, but then “Operation Lifeline” will be  “stood down” Wednesday even as replacements for us arrive tomorrow.
  19. Last clinic day, sporting the new “uniform” tee-shirt made up overnight by the Parish President and packing up, with a tour of the devastation of the surrounding area of New Orleans promised, but then cancelled because of gunfire from the projects surrounding our Meadowcrest Hospital.
  20. Departure message on my last night in New Orleans Jefferson Parish as the team changes over and the “Old Guard” who were here “ab initio” packs up, and I make my last visit to the MCCU and forward the Guardsman’s Poem “Volunteer Angels” and forward the photograph of Governor Ehrlich’s handshake sendoff when I departed form Martin State Air Base to which I will return tomorrow.
  21. Aloft in the droning of the C-130  “Pride of Baltimore” as I am strapped in my web seating for the three and a half hour return flight to Maryland after two full eventful weeks in the wake of Katrina.

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