05-SEP-A-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
September 16, 2005
What a difference another day makes! The newly arrived General Lucas of the Maryland Defense Force announced this morning that the Jefferson Parish President was very proud of all that our volunteer team had done in setting up and running Operation Lifeline, and thanked us all for our services. We were aware that most of the members would be leaving on Saturday, and I was abruptly said to be on the Sunday flight which has once again been restored to Sunday and not postponed as it was said to be earlier on Monday or Tuesday. Further, the group of 82 volunteers which are supposed to be our replacements are NOT going to get on a bus and coming down by road but will be flying in on two C-130’s on Saturday, the turnaround being the flights that take most of the people out tomorrow (three fourths of our Bravo Team for example) and they will have a very short stay. The Parish President will be holding a party for them on Wednesday night so as to thank them, and they will be able to say “We were here in the aftermath of Katrina—and also in the aftermath of the rescue and recovery response, since the news is “Operation Lifeline will be ’Stood Down’ on Wednesday!” Apparently, Jefferson Parish will be re-opened for business on Monday, and the competing we offer to any established clinics or offices is annoying to some of the locals who might be coming back to get back into business as usual—after all it is hard to compete with volunteer expertise who are free and passing out free prescriptions as well. So, the new crew will have only a couple of days in service, and that will be to take down the entire system we have set up.
That means I was not only here early and in the right time, it way also the only time for what unique resource we had provided. The rapidly mobilized first response to the needy devastated community is now fully matured to have worked itself out of a job. The Army Corps of Engineers is coming by to check out the school and what further resources it needs to get back into operation, and the overall plan is to get the community back into action with its own police force, rather than the law enforcement of the US Marshals which have taken over form the martial law under which the National Guard troops have stabilized the area since the storm. Apparently, as was told me by Ryan Hebert, my local resident Yale Medical Student, who is going to Algiers to see his grandmother's home this afternoon, the West Bank of the Mississippi had damage form the Hurricane, but no damage form the flooding; but the principle losses were form the looting of unattended and unguarded properties left by the evacuated residents making it a perfectly lawless free for all as in the projections of the “Leviathan” by Hobbes. Most of my patients have not been so much devastated by the Hurricane as plundered by the predators that have been feeding off form them before and after the storm. I have seen Hurricane Damage, I have seen Flood Damage, but the one that has set back most of the poor folk I have been dealing with is the pillaging of the plunderers.
I have had interesting visitors today. Included among hat number is the Two-Star Major Genral Don Morrow, who came by and asked me to pose with him and send him a picture as he made a rapid tour. He is the top commander of the Arkansas National Guard and Air Guard, and the ultimate boss of each of the platoons of my Arkansas guards as they came through. He was making a very quick tour to say he had seen all the sites where his troops had been at work.
Yesterday the same kind of hurry-up visit had occurred in Lincoln Elementary by the TAG—The Adjuvant General—of the Maryland Defense Force, and in the process of their quick trip well covered by Baltimore media in still and TV coverage, the same team would be flying back immediately by their own planes and as they left the General’s aid came to me and presented me with the “Maryland Emergency Service Ribbon” which goes into the bar and bracket in a holder, (if I had one) on my uniform (if I wore one) as I am promoted a rank to Colonel of the Maryland Defense Force (if I agreed to stay in the volunteer group of unarmed quasi-military.). I would have expected I might fill quite a few of these “holders” on a uniform by now if I only they did not mind that they came form multiple different nations for differing kinds of Emergency Services!
I also received tow special visitors today. As good as their word, I got a visit from the two special agents from the US Marshals whom I had seen earlier last week. On his first day in being assigned here as US Marshall with all the firepower and full authorization as the law enforcement of the region, Kenneth Staub fell ill. I had hydrated him up with a lot of IV fluids and helped him push some oral fluids as well, and he recovered completely within the next day as predicted. He had come here with his other agent, Katrina (Yes, that is her real name, and she is looking for the Tee-Shirts that say “I survived Katrina!”) had stayed here and we had talked a bit while he was getting treated. They both live in Florida, she in Orlando and he in Jacksonville, but he was born here and graduated from LSU with a degree in finance before he had gone to Washington DC to work in the US Marshall’s office, volunteering to come over to help his home town. Now, he came back to say thanks. I told him some of the stories about the patients and opened up the laptop to show them pictures of the cases and included one of him. They are eager to get some of the stories and a few of the pictures and I will see what I can do in making that possible through the MCCU. They invited me over to their quarters where they have almost a hundred agents in a central location and to enjoy a gumbo and jambalaya—which our neighborhood cook was cooking up for us with the contributions we had given her right here. I would like to go off the site with him and wanted to try to take him up on it, but I am quarantined on the property, but they could hardly object to me going off the premises accompanied by two heavily armed US Marshals—and I will wait to see and make a call later when I seem to be “short” already, and heading out soon—almost abruptly. I will be one of only a couple veterans to remain tomorrow, and then will do the packing up on Sunday to ship out at---well, you know there will be a rapid call and a whole series of “hurry up and waits”—that is a sure thing according to my altogether adequate estimate of military precision here.
The “alpha team” was the first shut down at the Ames School—since they seemed to have a limited mission with respect to patents and had time enough to spend on a wedding ceremony (the framed picture of the formal bridal party was displayed on the bus as we left today) and major crises dealing with such important issues as uncontrolled dognapping. They are packed out and the site is shut down. Ours is a successful clinic and we will continue operations up to the end on Wednesday, and then the Parish President is going to personally thank those who remain after their arduous three days of service packing it up in a party at the Meadowcrest Hospital—as opposed to other rooftop parties that seem to be continuing every night with a Tiki Room and Bar and projected digital movies. I have dropped in and consumed less that about 1% of what apparently has been going down among the troops and health care personnel who seem to live for nightly parties after rather moor boring days. My nights have been spent downloading photos and stories in text form to send back to you, but I have walked up to the roof to see that this really is an army base with all the requirements, perhaps excepting a golf course. Happy Hour and poo-poos ala Hawaii (as I had learned in my stays at Tripler—are the order of the day—daily. So, with food and drink in overabundance now, and exercise in short supply, it is no wonder that the young and supposedly fit force looks like it does and would likely be candidates for the only operation that Roy Smoot of Havre d’ Grace does—the obesity surgery on super fat folks.
The end of the day brought a flurry of patents including one who fit the description of an ideal candidate for the morbidly obese operation who had fallen while across the street on her way to see us. We sent our team across the street with the Army escort and managed to push and pull heir across, and pop an IV into her and transfer her to West Jefferson hospital. At the same time I had an infected spider bite on a leg, and the fellow needed an abscess drained. I set it all up then told Ryan Hebert, the Yale Medical student to put on the gloves to do the I & D under direction , thereby supervising his first operation on a neighbor in the area he had first grown up.
Tonight will be an augmented “beach party scene” on the Hospital roof, since the majority of the team will be “rotating out” tomorrow, the advance guard in retreat form the first response group of the Maryland Defense Force—leaving me as one of the Old Guard—but not for long. I will send you a couple of the photos of the parting scenes of today and the meetings, greetings, and partings, as Operation Lifeline itself is now, also, “Short.”