[StBernard] Wernicke: New Orleans flooded; St. Bernard drowned

[Westley Annis]

0Wernicke: New Orleans flooded; St. Bernard drowned


Previously I wrote about my long reluctance to read about the impact of
Hurricane Katrina, finding documentation of chronic pain to be, itself, too
painful. That changed this year with "City of Refuge," a fine novel about
New Orleans and the storm.

My latest find is "The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous," by Louisiana
native and former Wall Street Journal writer Ken Wells. Out in late 2008,
the book compellingly chronicles the even more devastating - and almost
forgotten, even at the time - impact of Katrina on St. Bernard Parish.

South and east of the infamous Lower Ninth Ward - the center of destruction
in the city - St. Bernard was before Katrina a bustling suburb of almost
70,000 people, also the rural home of fishermen, shrimpers, trappers and
oystermen with deep roots in Louisiana's cultural and ethnic history. It
includes Chalmette, the site of Andrew Jackson's famous victory over the
British in 1815.

Today its people are a genetic and cultural stew cooked over centuries of a
life lived close to the natural rhythms of the rich natural heritage of the
bays, bayous and marshes of South Louisiana.

St. Bernard was also, Wells writes, to many New Orleanians "what New Jersey
is to Manhattan - slightly declasse, an object of low-level derision." The
accent-heavy natives are called "Yats," as in that mainstay of New Orleans
colloquialisms, "Where y'at?"


Wells traces the story mainly through fishermen who survived the storm on
their boats. Despite being snugged tight into historically safe hurricane
holes, they lived through a horrific night and following day.

It's hard to describe what they saw. Suffice it to say one sight was a
shrimp boat tumbling end over end, driven by wind and the powerful storm
surge that simply washed over storm levees.

Despite being 15-20 miles inland from the Gulf, they watched what some
described as a "tidal wave" roar quickly off the horizon and swamp the
community around their harbor off the Violet Canal. It was a 15-foot wall of
brown, frothy water moving at an estimated 5-10 mph, smashing everything in
its path. It moved so fast that people trying to move their vehicles from
flooding parking lots at a shelter almost didn't make it back inside.

Many were veterans of a serious hurricane, Betsy, which flooded much of the
area in 1965. Homes rebuilt above the Betsy floodline - a line many people
felt simply couldn't be breached this far inland - were bulldozed by
Katrina's flood.

Later it was determined that they were hit by at least three floods: one
coming down from Lake Ponchartrain through the breach of the infamous
Industrial Canal; another rushing up the controversial shipping channel
between the Mississippi River and the Gulf, known locally as Mister Go, and
over it from Lake Borgne; and a third driven up the marshes and bayous from
the Gulf.

It would put much of St. Bernard Parish under 20 feet of water.

As a symbol of St. Bernard's utter subjugation by the natural power of
Katrina, the parish's emergency response officials ended up on the roof of a
municipal building, with little more than cell phones and flashlights.

With attention focused on New Orleans as news of the flooding spread, St.
Bernard was all but forgotten. In a desperate effort to get help, the parish
president used a fading cell phone to issue a desperate plea addressed to
President Bush on an Internet forum site.

"We have NO food, NO water, NO sanitation, NO power, and NO communication,"
he wrote. "We have no way to rescue or recover our citizens. ... I cannot
believe that in a country as sophisticated as the United States of America
that the leadership in the White House cannot somehow communicate with me
and the local government I represent."

He posted his cell phone number at the end of the message. But, Wells
writes, "it will be days yet before any agent of the federal - or state -
government phones him back."