Hurricane Katrina
from the Airport's Point of View
(click on any photo for a larger view)

Saturday, August 27, 2005
At 11:00AM the Airport activated it's EOC (Emergency Operations Center).  Hurricane Katrina was positioned southeast of New Orleans with wind speeds reaching 115MPH.  The notice was sent out to our essential personnel to secure their homes and property and report to work on Sunday morning.  Most were given instructions to plan to stay for the duration.  Little did many of our folks realize how long that would be.

Sunday, August 28, 2005
Katrina was upgraded to a Category 5 Hurricane with the Crescent City in its crosshairs.  At 9:30AM that morning, the Mayor of New Orleans called for a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans - an unprecedented action.  At 10:00AM on Sunday, Katrina had sustained winds at 175MPH.  This caused many of the air carriers to reevaluate their plans and cease operations.  The last passenger flight was Continental Airlines which departed at 4:30PM.  This would be the last scheduled passenger flight for 16 days.

At 6:40PM on Sunday, Louis Armstrong New Orleans International closed until further notice.  With hundreds of passengers already stranded at the airport, our population grew when residents from the surrounding area began to flee to the airport for shelter.  As night time approached we began to "batten down the hatches."  We moved all of the stranded people into the main ticket lobby away from any windows, skylights or glass doors.

Monday, August 29, 2005
As the storm approached, water began leaking into numerous areas of the building, and around 3:00AM fire alarms begin to get activated because they are shorting out from the leaking water and high humidity.  At 5:20AM on Monday the 29th of August we lost commercial power therefore loosing air conditioning and began operating on our back-up generators.  This would not be restored for several days.  The least of our worries for now.

Katrina made landfall along the Louisiana/Mississippi Boarder of the Gulf Coast at 5:35AM.  By 8:00AM the airport began to feel the brunt of the storm.  The canopy over the Departures ramp began to break apart.  Water was flooding the airfield from North Kenner.  The roof began to sustain damage with Concourse C getting the worst of it.  The passengers and evacuated residents are now being asked to move more towards the center of the main terminal for their safety.

By noon, the storm was gone with only light showers in the area.  The damage assessment begins.  Here's just a few pictures of the damage that Katrina caused:

Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Initially, the plan was to repair the damage as best as possible to resume some type of service. This would allow for the stranded passengers to leave the city.  Within hours these plans were drastically changed.  At 9:00AM the first helicopter arrived with evacuees from rooftops, hospitals, roadways, and anywhere there were people waving for help.  The situation became more dire as news of the levee breaks reached the Airport.

Many of the evacuees required medical assistance, so our limited Airport Rescue and Fire Fighters (ARFF) searched the stranded passengers for volunteer doctors or nurses.  We ended up with 31 people willing to help.  Most of these people were happy to have something to do.  We treated over 30 patients in 24 hours including one cardiac arrest and two pregnant evacuees.  We moved several of the airline air conditioning units up to the upper level ramp outside the triage area.  This brought the temperature down a little, but the rest of the terminal remained extremely hot (95+ degrees at best).

Early in the morning we took volunteers to help us perform a FOD walk on our north-south runway.  For those non-airport folks, FOD stands for Foreign Object Damage/Debris.  This means picking up any trash on the runways or taxiways that could get sucked into an engine and cause damage.  Once again, many of the volunteers were more than happy to help so they would have something to do.    At 2:00PM, the Airport opened the north-south runway for day operations only.

At 3:55PM American Airlines arrived with the first of many mercy flights - it was first commercial aircraft to land since Sunday evening.  They brought in some much needed food and water and left with them some employees, stranded American Airlines passengers, most of our volunteer medical team and any one else that wanted to get out of New Orleans.  Many of the airport employees put their families on the planes while they remained behind to assist in the relief efforts.  It's important to remember that many of these employees had just learned that their homes were under water - lots of water. 

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

U.S. Air Force photo illustration by Master Sgt. Lance Cheung

By 2:00AM, FEMA arrived to set up a temporary hospital in the West Terminal in front of Delta, Continental, and Jet Blue ticket counters.  At 9:00AM the Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) took over the triage area.  Southwest, Continental, Northwest, United and Delta all sent mercy flights, sustaining the staff and others that remained in the terminal until federal assistance arrived.  All of these flights also evacuated residents that had been continuously brought to the airport from homes, hospitals, the Superdome and the Convention Center.

At some point the helicopters began to arrive.  At first it was just a few:

And then they really began to arrive:

These operations continued for the next several days.  The helicopters were evacuating stranded people from various parts of the city including the Superdome, Convention Center, Interstate 10 pick-up points and off the tops of houses that were flooded.  We also began receiving some buses from various parts of the city.  These citizens were being triaged through the medical facility and then transported to other parts of the country, either by military or commercial flights.  Many were bound for the Astrodome in Houston and shelters in Baton Rouge, San Antonio and many many more cities. 

Here's a view from inside two of the larger military aircraft loaded with evacuees and some of the early commercial flights out of MSY: 

   
1st Lt Neil Senkowski      Master Sgt Lance Cheung

We evacuated over 27,000 people through our facilities with a very limited staff of NOAB employees, Federal employees, State employees and Local and Parish employees.  Much of the staff worked out of their normal capacity.  For example, our Deputy Director of Administration began manifesting evacuees and helping board flights with little or no experience as a ticket agent.  Most of the staff helped out any way they could.  Remember that some of our staff and already found out that their homes were flooded with up to nine feet of water, but continued to help.  Here's some snap shots of our folks:

Saturday, September 3, 2005
After Friday night, the 82nd Airborne and many other National Guard, Air Force, Army and other federal agencies had begun to secure the airport and assist with crowd control.  The mess that was left after the evacuees were flown out was unimaginable:

There was an amazing effort over the next several days to clean up the airport and continue evacuating New Orleanians out of the city.  A group of volunteers with orange shirts (www.prccompassion.org) began cleaning and never stopped.  They just showed up out of nowhere and began picking up trash. 

The US Forest service set up a major operation on the ramp between Concourses B and C.  They began feeding everyone and anyone who got in line.  The food was actually pretty good.  We were actually able to get three square meals a day after several days of getting small rations from our own concession company.  Military personnel supplemented our security staff with patrols around the perimeter and ramp areas.  They set up two trailers with hot water showers.  Soon after that the tents went up.  One was a dining facility and the other had bunks in it for sleeping.  This allowed much of our staff to grab a much needed nap. 

Over the next week and a half, we began the process of trying to resume commercial service.  The military and other operations were moved out of the east side of Concourse B and Concourse A.  This would allow normal commercial/passenger flights to operate out of the area between these two concourses.  The TSA began testing their equipment to screen passengers and baggage.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Northwest Airlines arrived with the first commercial flight since Sunday, August 28th.  It had very few passengers on it.  Most were relief workers/volunteers that had arrived to help.

For the next week our schedule began to grow with Delta, Continental, Southwest and American returning with limited service to the airport.  As of 9/21/05 we have 19 flights with more to come in the next couple of weeks.  While we are very pleased with this level of service, its a big difference from the 174 daily round-trips offered prior to Katrina.

Not too long ago, I received an e-mail addressing the rest of the country.  I'm not sure who wrote it, but the words seem to fit the feelings of many the residents from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast Region:

Dear America,

I suppose we should introduce ourselves: We're South Louisiana.

We have arrived on your doorstep on short notice and we apologize for that, but we never were much for waiting around for invitations. We're not much on formalities like that.

And we might be staying around your town for a while, enrolling in your schools and looking for jobs, so we wanted to tell you a few things about us. We know you didn't ask for this and neither did we, so we're just going to have to make the best of it.

First of all, we thank you. For your money, your water, your food, your prayers, your boats and buses and the men and women of your National Guards, fire departments, hospitals and everyone else who has come to our rescue.

We're a fiercely proud and independent people, and we don't cotton much to outside interference, but we're not ashamed to accept help when we need it.  And right now, we need it.

Just don't get carried away. For instance, once we get around to fishing again, don't try to tell us what kind of lures work best in your waters. We're not going to listen. We're stubborn that way.

You probably already know that we talk funny and listen to strange music and eat things you'd probably hire an exterminator to get out of your yard. We dance even if there's no radio. We drink at funerals. We talk too much and laugh too loud and live too large and, frankly, we're suspicious of those who don't. We put Tabasco on stuff without tasting it first.

But we'll try not to judge you while we're in your town.

Everybody loves their home, we know that. But we love South Louisiana with a ferocity that borders on the pathological. Sometimes we bury our dead in LSU sweatshirts.

Often we don't make sense. You may wonder why, for instance - if we could only carry one small bag of belongings with us on our journey to your state - why in God's name did we bring a pair of shrimp boots? We can't really explain that. It is what it is.

You've probably heard that many of us stayed behind. As bad as it is, many of us cannot fathom a life outside of our border, out in that place we call Elsewhere.

The only way you could understand that is if you have been there, and so many of you have. So you realize that when you strip away all the craziness and bars and parades and music and architecture and all that hooey, really, the best thing about where we come from is us.

We are what made this place a national treasure. We're good people. And don't be afraid to ask us how to pronounce our names. It happens all the time.

When you meet us now and you look into our eyes, you will see the saddest story ever told. Our hearts are broken into a thousand pieces.

But don't pity us. We're going to make it. We're resilient. After all, we've been rooting for the Saints for 35 years. That's got to count for something.

OK, maybe something else you should know is that we make jokes at inappropriate times. But what the hell.

And one more thing: In our part of the country, we're used to having visitors. It's our way of life. So when all this is over and we move back home, we will repay to you the hospitality and generosity of spirit you offer to us in this season of our despair.

That is our promise. That is our faith.

Thank you,
South Louisiana