Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
Speaker 1: from con hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
Speaker 1: I want you to stay a while as I share
Speaker 1: my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented
Speaker 1: by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you
Speaker 1: the best outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some
Speaker 1: stories to share the hurricane. We're deviating from the format
Speaker 1: this week for something that I believe is more important.
Speaker 1: I'm still going to tell you a story, but that
Speaker 1: story is just about going to take up the whole episode.
Speaker 1: It's something that means a great deal to me and
Speaker 1: something that more or less came full circle after my
Speaker 1: job made me break a promise to myself from nearly
Speaker 1: twenty years ago. Parents talk about some things here that
Speaker 1: might have the little ones asking questions. Nothing graphic, y'all
Speaker 1: know me better than that, but it may bring up
Speaker 1: some questions, especially for our listeners that have been affected
Speaker 1: one way or another from Hurricane Helene. But that said,
Speaker 1: let's get to it. When I left New Orleans nineteen
Speaker 1: years ago, I swore i'd never go back. It had
Speaker 1: been my first trip to a place I'd only heard
Speaker 1: about prior to my arrival, and was a destination I'd
Speaker 1: intended on traveling to one day. After all, the food
Speaker 1: New Orleans is famous for is my favorite and in
Speaker 1: many respects very similar to what I've grown up eating myself.
Speaker 1: The folks there always seem to be having a good time,
Speaker 1: and good food and good times are what I've always
Speaker 1: been about, and not necessarily in that order. But this
Speaker 1: was different, and my being there had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with food or fun. Hurricane Katrina had ravaged Louisiana and
Speaker 1: a lot of the Gulf Coast in Mississippi. Was August
Speaker 1: of two thousand and five, and I was the SWAT
Speaker 1: Team commander of the Union County Sheriff's Department in Arkansas.
Speaker 1: Union County borders Louisiana, and we trained with the Union
Speaker 1: Parish Sheriff's Office team should any operations require us to
Speaker 1: cross the state line and vice versa, or to work
Speaker 1: in conjunction with them, Since we shared the small community
Speaker 1: of Junction City, a town that straddled the state line
Speaker 1: of Arkansas and Louisiana. Now only on a couple occasions
Speaker 1: prior to the hurricane. Did we ever see that training
Speaker 1: in preparation put to use. A couple of search warrants
Speaker 1: and low level manhunts of really in significance were what
Speaker 1: the joint operations consisted of until the hurricane. As we
Speaker 1: all set glued to the news. As the impending doom
Speaker 1: and gloom of the hurricane approached landfall, I received a
Speaker 1: call from my share a conversation with something like this
Speaker 1: Union Parish has requested us to be ready to assist
Speaker 1: him and the advent the storm stays on the projected levels.
Speaker 1: Of course, get the team advised, ready to deploy should
Speaker 1: that happen, and pack for a week with our team
Speaker 1: and support personnel and boats. We deployed nearly a dozen
Speaker 1: deputies to assist the Louisiana Sheriff's Association Hurricane Task Force
Speaker 1: in Operation Restore Order. We were assigned a designation southeast
Speaker 1: of Baton Rouge that would serve as a rally point
Speaker 1: and staging area where we would be briefed on where
Speaker 1: help was needed, what sets we brought in our overall
Speaker 1: capabilities to support security for search and rescue efforts that
Speaker 1: were still in the initial stages of planning and execution.
Speaker 1: All communication was limited to SAD phones and vehicle to
Speaker 1: vehicle communication on low band radios. Handheld radios were good
Speaker 1: only for short distances, and anything that relied upon the
Speaker 1: relay of a boosted signal from radio towers was useless.
Speaker 1: Either the power of those towers was off or the
Speaker 1: towers themselves were destroyed by the storm. And we arrived
Speaker 1: in Gonzales, Louisiana, to a mass of law enforcement, fire
Speaker 1: and medical services that filled up big fair grounds and
Speaker 1: exhibition center. It was beyond chaotic, lots of well intended
Speaker 1: people kind of standing around, ready to offer aid, with
Speaker 1: little or no clear direction of where to do it.
Speaker 1: That would lend itself to describe that there was no organizations,
Speaker 1: but it would be unfair to the preparedness of the
Speaker 1: plan and the people who were in charge of it.
Speaker 1: The simple truth was there was no way to have
Speaker 1: been prepared for what was happening. All communication had been
Speaker 1: cut off from South Louisiana to anywhere. Reports were all
Speaker 1: SAT phone dependent, and at that time the technology wasn't
Speaker 1: ten years old yet it was its use or even
Speaker 1: the need for it hadn't been a priority to anyone
Speaker 1: in the Sevilian sector. With a little direction from the
Speaker 1: stage in personnel, and gonzales I reached out to our
Speaker 1: sheriff back in Arkansas. He eventually made contact with the
Speaker 1: Jefferson Parish sheriff, where the offer of our services he
Speaker 1: gladly accepted. In less than eighteen hours after arriving in Louisiana,
Speaker 1: we had our first clear mission. We were headed to
Speaker 1: New Orleans and would link up with the Jefferson Parish
Speaker 1: Sheriff in the downtown staging area where they had set
Speaker 1: up a command post. The ride from gonzales to New
Speaker 1: Orleans would take you less than an hour. Today it
Speaker 1: was considerably longer due to the debris in the road.
Speaker 1: There were dead animals and fish of every kind imaginable
Speaker 1: scattered up and down the highway, Mud and marsh, grass, trees,
Speaker 1: parts of buildings, boats of every size, and vehicles littered
Speaker 1: the road and the landscape in every direction. There were
Speaker 1: huge tuna fish laying on the side of the road
Speaker 1: that one of the first highway exits coming into New Orleans.
Speaker 1: It was awful. The sights and the smells were sickening,
Speaker 1: and it was only going to get worse. And once
Speaker 1: we reported to the Sheriff's Department at the command post.
Speaker 1: We were immediately assigned to assist in restoring order to
Speaker 1: the areas where lawlessness and looting had become the norm.
Speaker 1: Got a little western at times, but things slowed down
Speaker 1: to the point after a day or two that we
Speaker 1: were signed tost secure the landing zone, where search and rescue,
Speaker 1: medical and supply helicopters were on a constant rotation bringing
Speaker 1: in survivors and adding people to the several thousand who
Speaker 1: were already sequestered beneath the overpass where the majority of
Speaker 1: my team was stationed. Now, if you saw or remember
Speaker 1: seeing on the news all the footage of the military
Speaker 1: and the Savilian helicopters operating adjacent to an overpass, the
Speaker 1: only place the press was allowed to be, that's where
Speaker 1: we were. There was a hopeless sea of humanity beneath us.
Speaker 1: The trauma and lost these people had just endeared was
Speaker 1: a scene out of nothing I'd ever witnessed or hope
Speaker 1: to see again. There was no bathrooms, no food, and
Speaker 1: nowhere to take them. There were busses supposedly on the way.
Speaker 1: By getting a bus into that area to evacuate them
Speaker 1: was taking a whole lot of time to coordinate. You
Speaker 1: have to remember that all the assets to do in
Speaker 1: an evacuation operation of that magnitude had just been washed
Speaker 1: away by the very thing that had these people standing
Speaker 1: below me. It was going to get a lot worse
Speaker 1: before it got any better. Darkness fell, The influx of
Speaker 1: evacuees began to subside somewhat, but it didn't stop, and
Speaker 1: there was still no way to get them out. The
Speaker 1: limited communication we had with those in charge was extremely vague.
Speaker 1: It wasn't purposefully in that way. There were just no
Speaker 1: clear answers what to do with what some estimates say
Speaker 1: was five thousand recently displaced hurricane survivors. Three people lost
Speaker 1: their lives during the thirty six hours we were stationed
Speaker 1: on that bridge, and this staging area was just one
Speaker 1: of many. Eventually, a convoy school buses arrived. People were
Speaker 1: methodically loaded on each one to the capacity, and they left. Eventually,
Speaker 1: so did we, and I wouldn't find out until weeks
Speaker 1: later that the majority of them would go to Houston, Texas.
Speaker 1: My team eventually regrouped after a few stress filled hours,
Speaker 1: and some of my men had been assigned to support
Speaker 1: different patrol elements and were scattered all over New Orleans.
Speaker 1: They were professionals, capable of doing any job to ask
Speaker 1: of them, but with no communication with them. My worry
Speaker 1: was not that they couldn't accomplish the task at hand.
Speaker 1: It was that I couldn't come to help them if
Speaker 1: they needed it. The department and their families had entrusted
Speaker 1: me to bring them all home safe once our mission
Speaker 1: was completed, and I didn't take that responsibility lightly. Now,
Speaker 1: through the Union Parish Sheriff and our sheriff back in Arkansas,
Speaker 1: we were tasked with supporting the Saint Tammany Parish Sheriff's
Speaker 1: Department in Slydale, Louisiana. We rolled northeast across Lake Ponsey
Speaker 1: train and linked up with deputies who arranged for us
Speaker 1: to have the first meal we'd had in about thirty
Speaker 1: six hours. We stayed in the Sheriff's department training facility.
Speaker 1: We all stayed together in one big classroom, sleeping on
Speaker 1: army cots and living out of our duffel bags. We
Speaker 1: started immediately after being sworn in. Half of us on
Speaker 1: twelve hour day shifts and the other half on nights.
Speaker 1: Each of us were assigned to general patrol as a
Speaker 1: ride along to supplement single deputy cars, two officers to
Speaker 1: the car. That's one thing for an area to be
Speaker 1: impacted by an unimaginable storm, but to deal with that
Speaker 1: on top of the escalation of looting and violent crimes
Speaker 1: was something I had never witnessed or hoped to see again.
Speaker 1: We after called, after call, the majority of them to
Speaker 1: night for the most despicable acts of ny humanity. People
Speaker 1: taking advantage of each other during the best of times
Speaker 1: is bad enough, but it's magnified when the suffering is
Speaker 1: as extreme as losing your home and your way of
Speaker 1: life and your family. I have no idea how many
Speaker 1: people we arrested for looting, but it was a lot.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, people we encountered carrying food items
Speaker 1: were allowed to continuer. Grocery store owners had been in
Speaker 1: contact with authorities and said the public had free range
Speaker 1: any store and it was first come, first served until
Speaker 1: all the edible food was gone. The storm serge that
Speaker 1: hit the slide El Louisiana was estimated to be twenty
Speaker 1: to twenty five feet deep, and the average height of
Speaker 1: a one story building is about fourteen feet. They don't
Speaker 1: take a math with is to imagine how bad that was.
Speaker 1: The amazing thing I witnessed above everything else were the
Speaker 1: people I was working with. Some deputies Want in particular
Speaker 1: that I was assigned to had lost his home. He'd
Speaker 1: evacuated his family further north in Louisiana to stay with relatives.
Speaker 1: A lot of other deputies did the same, and yet
Speaker 1: there they were at work with no idea what was
Speaker 1: going to happen next with their future. They slept there
Speaker 1: in that big converted classroom with the rest of us,
Speaker 1: the only difference being we had a home to go
Speaker 1: to after this was open and they didn't. There was
Speaker 1: dedicated a group of deputies as I have ever seen.
Speaker 1: A few of them only had the uniforms they were
Speaker 1: wearing and spars they kept at work for clothes. That
Speaker 1: was it. We stayed with them for the better part
Speaker 1: of a month before going back home to Arkansas, twelve
Speaker 1: hour shifts with no off days. Night before we left,
Speaker 1: they threw us a party. They scrounged up food from
Speaker 1: everywhere and cooked for us. Some of them didn't have homes,
Speaker 1: but they cooked for us in appreciation of our being
Speaker 1: there and helping. I've never forgotten that, and we'll always
Speaker 1: remember how the majority of those people who had little,
Speaker 1: if anything to give, gave most of all they had.
Speaker 1: Hurricane Katrina took the lives of one thousand, three hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety two people and displaced over a million. Over
Speaker 1: a third of those deaths were attributed to drowning, and
Speaker 1: a higher figure would claim the lives through disease. Later
Speaker 1: on, one hundred and thirty five people were as missing and
Speaker 1: have never been accounted for. They're just gone. Less than
Speaker 1: a month later, Hurricane Rita claimed the lives of one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty more down there. Now, as bad as
Speaker 1: I wanted to go home, I felt guilty for leaving.
Speaker 1: Order had been restored for the most part. But the
Speaker 1: men and women and we were working alongside were still there,
Speaker 1: dealing not only with their jobs as peace officers, but
Speaker 1: the losses they incurred from the storms as well. Now,
Speaker 1: nineteen years later, Hurricane Helene slammed the eastern US, and
Speaker 1: the cost in lives is well over two hundred, with
Speaker 1: many still missing and unaccounted for. But we have the
Speaker 1: ability to resolve and the will as Americans to stop
Speaker 1: what we're doing and help our brothers and sisters when
Speaker 1: they're in need, and there has been no greater need
Speaker 1: in recent times than right now. This is another defining
Speaker 1: American moment where we as individuals are presented an opportunity
Speaker 1: to set aside any differences and rally together with the
Speaker 1: focus of our free people, to choose to do the
Speaker 1: right thing and help those who need it most. Last
Speaker 1: week had me traveling too, and driving through New Orleans,
Speaker 1: the place I vowed to never see again. Well, I
Speaker 1: often think of those events nineteen years ago. I seldom
Speaker 1: speak about them, and I won't go into much more
Speaker 1: detail than I already have here, but it has been burdensome,
Speaker 1: to say the least. Driving through New Orleans on the
Speaker 1: way down to Venice last week bothered me more than
Speaker 1: I thought it would. I started recognizing buildings and features
Speaker 1: and seeing the contrast to what it had been to
Speaker 1: what it is now. The people there seemed resilient and strong,
Speaker 1: and the further we went toward Venice, the dynamic differences
Speaker 1: were standing. Homes and businesses had returned, and comparative photos
Speaker 1: of then and now wouldn't even be thought of as
Speaker 1: taken in the same place. As we drove back through
Speaker 1: New Orleans on the way home, round Callahan asked me
Speaker 1: if coming back had helped me. It definitely had, But
Speaker 1: what helped me the most was seeing and talking with
Speaker 1: the people who mark time and stories by saying that
Speaker 1: either happened before or after Katrina, and seeing the pride
Speaker 1: that they had in persevering and the memorialization of all
Speaker 1: that was lost. Now. I'm sure that it isn't the
Speaker 1: same as before Katrina, but seeing it seemingly thriving from
Speaker 1: the way it was when we left is me hope
Speaker 1: that the same could be done with what happened as
Speaker 1: a as a result of Helene. There are many organizations
Speaker 1: collecting money and distributing aid, and I encourage anyone who
Speaker 1: has the means to donate what you can. Five or
Speaker 1: ten dollars may not sound like a whole lot, but
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of them will add up pretty quick.
Speaker 1: As for me, I'm donating through the Gary Sonice Foundation
Speaker 1: Hurricane Relief Emergency Fund. Now, if you can't trust Lieutenant
Speaker 1: Dan to get the money where it's supposed to go,
Speaker 1: you can't trust anyone. Rie was going to post a
Speaker 1: link in the show description directly to that fund. If
Speaker 1: you're interested in checking it out. Keep those folks in
Speaker 1: your prayers. They need them, They need them all Until
Speaker 1: next week. This is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful.