Christien Louviere

I wrote this a week ago, but I have had little chance to write and get online at will.  On top of everything I need to do personally, I am helping two companies get on their feet.  I will try to get this story finished ASAFP.  This is the weekend we tried to clean up:

Last night (Friday), I prepared for our 2nd return home since Katrina hit us.  I treated Friday night like I used to on soccer tournament weekends or before a big Saturday football game.  I always did things to clear my head and get focused on my next day’s job.

I came home from work in Hammond, sat down and drank a grape Propel.  I changed shorts and went on the balcony of Paul’s apartment.  I did my typical circuit workout of push-ups (70) and sit-ups (140).  It’s not much, but it gets my blood flowing and forces me to concentrate on finishing the task I started.  After, I picked up my towel that padded my knuckles from the ground and headed to the pool to stretch.  It was hard to cool down.  Even at 5pm, the temperature still reflected the high humidity of Southern LA.  After my cold shower, I sat down with a turkey sandwich and the movie Gladiator.  The story pumps me up on so many levels by tapping into several emotional wells.  After the movie, I picked up my Truman book and a Corona.  I read till the bottle was empty, called a woman I loved and then crashed.  The only thing I did different was drink a Corona instead of  a Gatorade.

My dad asked me to be ready at 630am to head to New Orleans.  He called to wake me up at 615am…game time.

Coming back to Baton Rouge after 5 hours of work was relieving and miserable at the same time.  I had that feeling I get when I go out of town and I feel as if I forgot to pack something.  The difference is that I had no idea when I’d be able to return home again.  With marital law, curfews and admittance restrictions, who knows?  I spent the drive home listening to 870 AM.  They have been the absolute best at covering this around the clock and being the communication between New Orleanians, officials and families.  Some of the people calling in are simply gut-wrenching.  So many people are just one person short of being with their full family.  I was two short (mom and dad) of being with my full family, but I knew they were safe.  I didn’t know when I’d see them again.  They were in AL and most roads through MS were blocked.  We pulled our three cars over about 20 miles from Baton Rouge to get gas.  All the stations in BR were completely blocked and had lines.  We paid about $2.60/gallon with no wait.  I-10 headed west to BR was relatively spacious.  Everyone and their brother was headed down to New Orleans to get in line for the Monday’s 6am entrance into Jefferson Parish.  When we passed the line on the way out, it was over 3 miles long according to my odometer.  I figured that translated into about a 4 hour wait.  It took us 45 minutes in a 1/2 mile line.

We stopped at a BBQ place 5 minutes from the office building that has become our new home.  I could feel the salt from the dried sweat all over my face.  My red Braves shirt had sweat rings on it.  My waist line on my khaki short was drenched.  I felt tired, gross and hungry.  It was about 4pm and we’d been up since 545 that morning.  We spent about 4 hours total on the road and 5 hours looting ourselves.  Lunch was decent and the 4 of us threw some laughs at one another.  I felt as thought the hardest part of our job had been completed.  We ate and headed to the building to unpack and make camp at our new residence.

Eva and Claudia (our maid that’s like family and her daughter) were there waiting to help us.  We moved everything out of the car in less than twenty minutes.  The faster we worked, then the faster we could sit/lie down.  After unpacking, I learned from Chenae that my parents were less than 10 minutes away from us.  I paced a little bit.  I tried to sit down but twitched my leg.  I began talking to Claudia about some things.  About two minutes later, I hear a horn down the vacant street.  I looked up and saw the green streak from my dad’s LS430 go by.  I kept talking to Claudia as I suddenly felt my urgency reduced.  Chenae, Chris and Caitlyn immediately went outside.  I was behind by about thirty seconds.  When I opened the door to the humidity, I saw Caitlyn wrapped in my dad’s arms.  My mom was hugging Chenae after just leaving Chris’ arms.  I headed towards my mom since her arms were open.  Before I got two feet, my dad threw his arms around my neck and pulled me in next to Caitlyn.

"God.  I’m so happy to see you.  I missed you so much.  It’s so good to see you.  You guys are everything to us," he said crying harder than I’d ever seen him cry.
I could feel our three bodies pushed tightly together.  I heard a father and his daughter sobbing.   I was screaming inside to just cry, but nothing came.  I have no idea why.  I never had trouble showing emotion before so I don’t know what happened. 
"Sorry I’m squeezing so hard," he sobbed and I caught a glimpse of his eyes under his disheveled sunglasses.
"I don’t care," I said.
"It’s alright," Caitlyn cried.
After leaving his grasps, I headed for my mom.  Not much was said because the hug said everything.  I’m pretty sure we exchanged ‘I love yous,’ but I’m not sure.  All I could think was, ‘please don’t let go.’
She tried to break away from me twice and each time I hugged harder.
"Thank you so much for taking care of them," my dad said to Chris as he gave him a 1/2 shake 1/2 hug.
"No problem," Chris said as he broke away seemingly unsure of how to react.

The relief was again indescribable.

We headed inside.  I was standing at the far side of the room when I turned and saw Eva’s 5’2 body collapse into my dad’s 6’3 frame.

"Mr. Ben…(she said a lot of Spanish that I didn’t understand)," Eva cried in his arms.
My dad said nothing and just cried and rubbed her back furiously.  He said absolutely nothing.  He knows very little Spanish and felt helpless for not being able to express his emotions verbally.  His physical emotion said everything.  I lost it.

My mom followed with deep embraces for each of them.  I have no idea what was said though due to the crying.  It’s a mute point because the physical said it all.

It was jam-packed emotions and I was happy just to be in the vicinity of them.

The rest of the night consisted of being with one another, visiting my brother, aunt/uncle/cousins and setting up living areas for everyone. 

My dad, friend Paul and me spent about 3 hours moving around the city and eating dinner.  I felt absolutely gross and almost completely exhausted.  I had 8 days of growth on my face on top of being dirty.  I just wanted a shower and a shave.  I told my family I would sleep at Paul’s to create more room for everyone. 

Paul and I headed for CVS, which took a while due to the increased traffic of BR.  CVS near LSU was the only store open at 1045 that night.  It took my twenty-five minutes to buy shampoo, conditioner, body wash, razor and shaving cream.  The line was pretty long.  Moreover, two freshman sorority girls had to buy two pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and other junk food.  They were freaking clueless.  They took their time, scrambled for cash and laughed about their idiocy.  I looked back down the line.  Everyone was well over 21 and looked to be exhausted and pissed.  They probably only wasted about two minutes of everyones’ time, but it felt so much longer at that point.

Around 1130, I got out of the shower and shaved.  My body was relaxed but ached.  I crashed around 1230 and woke up 12 hours later.  It was my first decent sleep in 10 days.

Survival Story
In case you ever get caught in an extended situation w/o electricity, here’s a survival tip.

Claudia (bilingual) and Eva decided not to evacuate.  My mom told them to stay at our house.  They did fine.  They filled the tubs with water prior to the storm and we had enough food in the pantry  They boiled water and used our backyard for the restroom. 

We hadn’t talked to them for about 4 days and were getting worried.  My family had no idea about the situation in our area because the news only covered downtown New Orleans.  There was absolutely no way to get in touch with them.  The landlines were down and we knew Claudia had no way to charge her phone or so we thought…

My dad received a call from Claudia on her cell.  She had stripped the wire from her wall charger and connected the wires to a 6V battery…simple but impressive.  She grabbed her mom  and took the Suburban with a full tank and the emergency money my dad kept in the house.  They headed for the office building in Baton Rouge with no problems.

We pulled the black Suburban up to my sister’s house.  Chris and I had to get out to remove two large tree limbs.  As she pulled onto the pavement, I could hear the trees and leaves crackle underneath the tires.  Many tree limbs covered the front yard, but we saw no structural damage to the roof.  I was still in awe of the damage in my immediate eye line.  Their mailbox had taken a ride down the street.  A stop sign across the street was near parallel to the ground.  Wires hung low and fallen branches weighed them down.  As we walked down the walkway to our house, two Chinooks flew over head.  I couldn’t see them, but I could hear that they were close.

Walking into the house was very odd.  We leave a disaster area inside where everything is seemingly as is when we left.  River Ridge had no water damage, so that is one major headache we didn’t have to deal with.  I opened the door expecting the feel of cool air on my sweaty skin caused from typical southern humidity.  I felt no such thing and caught whiff of a terrible smell.  Chenae and Chris began to empty out their closets and personal belongings.  I walked outside to survey the damage in the back and saw that a large tree limb had fallen on the roof and broke into three pieces.  One of the larger pieces was hanging literally by a limb on the gutter.  I removed it.  Fortunately, there was no damage done to the roof.   The basketball goal was tipped over as was every other one I saw in front yard driveways.

Caitlyn began to remove all the rotten food items from the fridge and freezer.  I did the same from the extra unit inside the garage.  With my surgeons gloves, I removed the spoiled meats from the freezer.  My nose was stopped up and I could still inhale the terrible fumes.  The texture was mushy and I could see random juices flowing from it.  I quickly made up my mind to just pick and toss things.  I had no further desire to look.  It was bad enough smelling it.  After a minute or two, I realized that one of the bags had a hole in it.  As soon as a picked it up, stale blood filled the freezer bottom.  It was quite disgusting.  I filled a whole garbage can with old food.  Then, I used literally 1/2 a bottle of Clorox Cleanup.  I didn’t clean it, but sprayed it.  While I was doing it, my sweat was mixing with the fumes from the Clorox.  It was not fun.  I wanted to open the garage door to circulate some air but couldn’t.  We agreed that it was not a good idea to keep any doors open for fear of looters. 

We kept all the doors locked, which became annoying as we made multiple trips to the SUV.  Each trip to the door requires thought.  You have to be prepared.  You are a prisoner in your own home.  Several factors are always in your mind and you have to train yourself, very quickly, to get in that mindset.  1) People are desperate at this time.  If you open your door at the wrong time, you could get shot or jumped or whatever.  2) You’re not supposed to be there, and police are told to shoot first and ask later.  It only takes one with a quick trigger finger.  3) Many have taken it amongst themselves to protect their neighborhood, so if they don’t know you might be in trouble.  Each of these things is something that you have to think about every time you leave the house.  Moreover, the way you act is impulsive and somewhat frantic.  Due to the above factors, we were moving things out of the house into the Suburban very quickly. In the back of my head, I knew Chris had a .44, but I thought, "Why?  Do we actually know how to use this on another human?"

I swear I felt like I was looting Chenae and Chris’ house.  I was walking out of the house with their TV and I hear choppers.  On one side, I saw a Blackhawk coming from the east and Dolphin from the north.  I don’t know much about flying levels for choppers but these boys were low.  I could clearly make out the heads in the pilot seats they were so low.  At that moment, I just thought damn they see us.  What will happen?  Are they looking for us?  What are they looking for?  We need to move faster.  All I saw in my head were pictures of war zones on the news.  It was like having the news in my head.

I ran through the house to see how much more I could help Chris and Chenae.  The sweat was dripping down pretty steadily.  It was began hard for me to hold heavier things because they’d slip against my sweaty hands.  I took a few bags of clothes out to the car and 2 Coast Guard choppers flew one behind the other.  The whole time I think ok we have to move faster, this place will be crazy tomorrow (the official day for residents to enter the parish) and less than 10 miles from here a city is underwater and almost 100% empty.

My House
We took the Suburban and Chenae’s black Envoy, that was left at the house during the storm, to my house.  I felt like an army that just made a stop for supplies and we were onto the next supply house.  As we surveyed the damage, we heard more choppers above.  We passed a few people that were driving by and they waived.  All I could think was that we better waive back or they’ll shoot. 

We turned the corner to the house to see two of our neighbors on the street.  It was good to see them.  I said hi and grabbed Caitlyn so we could get started on our house.  It was about 1030 and I wanted to get out before the major heat came at noon.  We walked in the backyard first and saw that a huge tree came completely uprooted and missed our house by less than 6 inches.  Our whole backyard, which was large had only one path out  due to the mammoth that fell.  It was simply amazing to see the tree uprooted and how it pushed the fence out over it out from the ground.

We made our way into the house and immediately the stench of old food hit us.  It wasn’t the normal smell I’m used to coming inside.  The house was hot and untouched.  It was so weird to see so much destruction outside and absolutely nothing wrong on the inside.  As I cleaned out my closets and room, I kept trying to switch on the lights forgetting that there was no electricity.  I did it several times strictly out of habit.  I didn’t feel the rush looting my own house as I did my sister’s.  I think it was because our house is on a hidden street and we also had two neighbors there.  There was no one except a few passer bys near their house.  I wanted to hurry though because of the heat.

My bed was laid out with three bags one for clothes, important papers and miscellaneous things.  It wasn’t hard to pick out what I needed and what I didn’t.  I moved swiftly.  Probably the most unimportant things I grabbed were a few DVDs and my PS2.  I put papers for the house I was supposed to close on the Monday when Katrina hit.  It seemed relatively pointless since I knew I wasn’t going to buy it.  I was excited about it and now it seemed completely irrelevant.

I got into my Camry and we left 3 cars fully packed.  The street were narrow with debris along all sides.  The combination of choppers and heavy machinery randomly passing in the streets to clean up reminded me of a defeated warzone.  It was completely surreal and the feeling is indescribable.  We went to look at the house I was going to buy on the way out.  I saw a tree on the street that had fallen on a transformer.  It split the pole like a toothpick and buried the transformer about 3 feet below the ground.  At that point, I realized the force that had come through as if I just had it screamed in my face.

Our houses were ok.  Our spirits were lifted because we knew our homes were still there.  A little relief, for the first time in 10 days, began to set in.  It was so hard fathoming not being able to return for months.  I had to force myself to realize that there was virtually no city outside our neck of the woods.  If I had to imagine what a thief feels like, today was my day to feel it.  I had successfully ripped two houses off and just had to get back to Baton Rouge to unload the goods.

I only wanted one more thing and that was to see my parents.  We headed back to Baton Rouge.  They were on their way to meet us…

Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday, we illegally went into Jefferson Parish to claim things such as clothes and picture albums.  All of a sudden I gained new perspective on what is really important.  My HDTV didn’t make the trip, but my passport and a few family photos did.  I would have written the following story sooner, but the past few days have consisted of working to get my dad’s business running again and helping my family to get life back to what is now considered normalcy.

I was up at 545 am with Caitlyn (16), Chenae (34) and my brother in law, Chris (33), to head to River Ridge (Jefferson Parish) to recover our belongings.  After an hour on a highway, we finally got to a line just outside LaPlace (15 miles from our destination).  We turned off to an alternate route on River Road, which runs alongside the levee.  After waiting in line for about thirty minutes, we finally go to the checkpoint.  The St. Charles Parish police were there only letting residents of that parish through because Jefferson and Orleans were closed. 

"We’re just getting in from Houston and are trying to go straight to our house in River Ridge so–," Chris was interrupted.
"Is River Ridge part of Jefferson Parish?" the officer asked.
"Yes," Chris replied.
"Jefferson Parish is closed."
"You can reenter at 630 tomorrow morning," another officer interjected.
"Make a U-turn here and go back out the way you came in," the first officer said.

We headed back to Hwy 61.  Instead of heading back to Baton Rouge, we took a right and got back in line for the checkpoint.  Chenae and Chris switched seats so she could drive.  We discussed our new plan.  My friend Amy lives in St. Charles Parish and had been at the house with her parents cleaning up.  I told Chenae to tell the officer that we were headed to her house to help.  I gave her the address.  Thirty minutes later, we arrived at the checkpoint.  Chris tried to hand Chenae our licenses in case the officer asked for them. 

"Put them away," she said.
"Why?"
"Because I waited in this line.  They can wait."
"Chenae, don’t offer any more information than they ask for," I said.
"I won’t I’m just going to say," she proceeded to tell me what she would say if asked certain questions.

I think Chris and I were thinking how cool it is to see adrenaline running through her veins.

"Where are you headed?"
"We’re headed to Ormond (St. Charles Parish) to help a family out."
"Can I see your license?"
"Sure," she said as Chris pretended to make a big deal out of digging through her purse.
"This address is not in St. Charles Parish.  I need some type of ID that says you have business there," he said calmly.
Chenae asked about several other types of ID just going in circles to waste his time in hope that he would just give in.
"Mam, you will have to find an alternative way to get to where you’re going," he said knowing good and well that every entry point was blocked off.
"Well, how do I get to an alternative route?"
They went back and forth for about fifteen seconds.  I was surprised that the officer didn’t get agitated because I’m sure he’d heard every excuse in the book at that point.
"Here’s an officer that will direct you where you need to go," he pointed to a State Trooper approaching us and then walked to the next car in line.
"He just wanted you to tell me how to get to Ormond," Chenae fibbed.
"Just take this road down and the officers there will point you in the direction," the trooper said.

We were headed right back down to River Road, but we were behind the checkpoint.  We had one more hurdle to get over and we thought we’d be home free.  We arrived at the River Road checkpoint for the second time and explained why we came from that direction and the officer waived us right through.  We felt like VIPs or something.  It reminded me a road James Bond had to get through.  We lied a little, but I guess you do what you have to do when you’re in true survival mode. 

We went to Amy’s house to let everyone use the bathroom and get the lowdown on how the area had been.  Amy’s dad had been there for two days already.  They had a huge generator and were able to use utilities.  Everyone went to the bathroom, since we knew that would be hard in our parish where there is nothing except natural gas and DSL for some reason.

Amy’s dad was out and about in Jefferson Parish checking on his business, so I called him to see what our best moves would be.  He told me stick to River Road, which led straight to our house, so we’d planned on that anyhow.  He told me there was an unmanned barricade at the parish line (divider of St. Charles and Jefferson parishes) and that I could just move it.  He said there were cops everywhere, but they were working and that no one would stop us.  He stressed not to stop for any car that was unmarked.  Also, he made sure that I had a gun and a chainsaw.  He urged me to leave my sisters at his house, but we really had no choice.  We had to get 2 more cars out of there so we needed drivers and my dad was stuck on AL with my mom.

We left Amy’s to head to Jefferson.  The road there was relatively uneventful other than a few jokes and talking about the things we needed to get out.  After twenty minutes divided between River Road and Jefferson Highway, we arrived in River Ridge.  The tree damage was just unbelievable.  The force that had been shown was awesome.  100 year old oaks that are famous down here had been uprooted and thrown on roofs.  Trees had been split like toothpicks.  There was no grass in any ones’ yard because it was all tree.  The roads were narrow because machines had come in and moved debris to the side so utility trucks could get through.  It was a ghost town.  It looked like an abandoned city you see in those old movies.  It reminded me of the various abandoned neighborhoods that Tom Cruise drove through in War of the Worlds.  The sun was bright and the surroundings were desolate.

We arrived at my sister’s house first…(getting long will continue in the next post)

katrina warzone

We just got into Baton Rouge.  We stopped in Lake Charles around 1230 last night at a casino to eat and sleep.  We were stuck in a parking lot on I-10 about 15 minutes before the state line for about an hour.  The state police finally moved the construction workers out of the way so traffic could flow.  It’s all so surreal.  We’re on the road with inflatable matresses, cash, a .45 and a .38.  It feels like a video game.  It’s my own personal version of (insert favorite 1st person shooter game here).  I like Quake.  The guns are just precautionary, but still; I’ve never picked a gun up before in real life except to hunt.

The six of us crashed hard last night.  I had to keep Wyatt (dog) in the Suburban all night.  I woke up early to spend time with him, then went inside to eat.   He’s been an excellent sport about all of this.  I walked outside to take care of the dog for a bit.  I talked to a family in the parking lot from New Orleans East.   They were about 12 people strong.  A guy named Lonny.  He is a welder on a marine ship.  I assume his house is under water as is my office, which is in the same area as his house.

We were discussing the obvious except he can’t find his dad.  He was so thankful to still be with his wife and kids.  He said it was rough on the kids being displaced in a casino for the past 6 days.  They run out of things to do fast and no one is thinking about gambling right now.  We agreed that Nagin’s passion is great and good to see him there, that Blanco is messing up and the national media is crap at covering the real deal down there.  He really voiced his disgust for the animals that were looting.  It’s completely overblown by the likes of CNN and Fox.  It only represents a small faction of the city.    His family is the complete opposite demographic of ours and I was happy we were able to talk because it’s nice to know that the majority of New Orleanians are on the same page.

His family is on their way to Memphis as ours is to Baton Rouge to plant some new seeds.  I wish him luck.  I hope he gets in touch with his father too.   

My family is starting over in Baton Rouge on Tuesday.  I think I may head to L.A. to stay with a friend and to job hunt for a few days.

I‘ve been trying for a few days now to put my thoughts down on paper.  Each time has proved too chaotic to do so.  Thousands of thoughts run into one another inside my head…nothing unusual about that for me. I love to write, so translating thoughts to paper has never been all that hard for me.   This time, however, they don’t make sense.  I’m dealing with unprecedented emotions.  My family is safe, but spread across three states.  I guess the uncertainty of knowing how/when I will see them again is more powerful than I had imagined.  I don’t know how to feel.  It’s like having  your heart broken for the first time.  You don’t know when the pain will end, and worse, you don’t have the slightest inclination of how to get rid of it.  I’ve never had a child, but I’d imagine it’s the extreme opposite of that joy.  I’ve come to appreciate the innocence of children even more in the past five days.  There are currently five children staying with us all under the age of nine.  They have no idea what is really going on or the magnitude of it.  It’s absolutely wonderful to watch them play without a care in the world.  I envy them.  My 2.5 year old niece, Sarah, has so much personality that she can light up a room with her unknowing cuteness.  It’s little smiles like that which add up to pieces of happiness in times like these.

I’m fortunate to have heeded the warning of my leaders to leave town, but I wonder if my emotions would be different if I could see the devastation first-hand.  The national news coverage was good at first, but now they are looking for stories so they are focusing on the bad.  FOX, CNN, MSNBC, etc.  They are all the same.  I know they have to make money, but the people of New Orleans and Mississippi are relying on them for accurate information.  We are able to hear WWL 870 AM all the way out in Livingston, Texas (after 730) and they are reporting actual stories and giving real, useful information.  The WWL-TV blog is great too.  The national news is failing at that for some reason. 

Someone else that is failing in my opinion are the leaders of the state and of the federal government.  Our Governor better wake up fast and realize that action needs to be taken and that people will hit survival mode.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  She waited to enforce martial law, now looters and violence are beginning to set into place.  I can’t believe that she thought everything would just ‘get along.’  The federal government is to blame too.  We have a chance to completely revamp the city of New Orleans.  The main parts of  downtown and the French Quarter will survive, so we have something to build on.  Get the damn military in here ASAFP!!  If we sent aid to another country or invaded another country, God knows we’d have the full force going over there.  It’s our country, so do it.  I appreciate the National Guard, but they have families here they need to take care of as well and do not have the manpower of the military.  Use martial law with local sheriffs and Marines.  Setup a base-camp in the middle of fucking Canal Street and get this city cleaned up!   The federal government was already helping with that by going after corrupt politicians in this state…namely the Morial family and Congressman Jefferson. 

The silver lining in this whole situation is that New Orleans had many
problems.  We have a unique opportunity to completely start with a
clean slate. New Orleans East was an eyesore and a waste of land because of that…redevelop it.  The public housing projects needed a makeover…redevelop them in the right areas.  The Louisiana Superdome needed a face lift or to be demolished…do it.  The interstate system has been very tardy in being updated…fix it.  The medical district is one of the best in the country, but the surrounding areas make it look like the worst…clean it up.  The racism white v. black and more importantly black v. black (80% of the population is black) was deplorable…work together.  The school board was wrecked and bankrupt beyond belief…fix it and give people a choice of public and private once more.  The city, as a whole, worked in sections and failed many times to improve (which is a microcosm of the state) itself watching places like Atlanta and Houston pass us right by…compromise.  Do we have real leaders that can make real decisions out there?  New Orleans was once a great place not only to visit but to live. This will be in history books one day as one of the biggest tragedies in U.S. history.  Let’s make the end result one of the greatest successes in U.S. history.   Force business, political and military institutions to one day use us as one of the prime examples of how to rebuild a proud city.  This is no time for fakes.  If you are, then step out of the way.  Leaders (Nagin, Landrieu, Lee, Jindal, Vitter and the community) make it happen!

katrina