Indiana Section

Ken Herceg and his wife Kathy spent a week in September in New Orleans helping the national ASCE disaster team organize a headquarters to assist with the disaster relief following hurricane Katrina.

Ken, a structural engineer, worked with the Louisiana Section and the national ASCE team to assist with the assessment of damage and plan reconstruction. Kathy, a registered nurse, volunteered her services with the local health care agencies.

Ken sent a daily log back to the North Central Branch, an excerpt from which is quoted below.

Excerpt from Day 3:
Visualize the following:
You have just been told that you have 24 hours to leave your home. You are not allowed back in for two weeks. The power has been off that entire time.

All the meat, produce and shellfish in your refrigerator and/or freezer has oozed downward as a slimy, smelly liquid and saturated the insulation in your refrigerator with the most awful smell (don’t try buying a refrigerator in the next several months - 200,000+ will be needed here).

You are finally allowed to return after sleeping on Aunt Betsy’s floor for two weeks about 120 miles away and you find the rotten smelling refrigerator and lots of heavy wind damage to your house (there are few fences left in Metairie - Katrina blew them away) and half of the trees in your neighborhood gone.

After you bury the horrible smelling garbage from your refrigerator in the back yard (as the Parish officials told you to because garbage trucks are not regular yet) you get to pile the tree limbs 10 feet high on your curb lawn for pickup. THEN you get to sleep knowing that you are eating canned food for the next several weeks because refrigerators are going to be hard to come by (you are also worried whether or not your insurance company will pay for it).
 

AND THEY ARE THE LUCKY ONES!

This page last updated on: 09/21/2006