This'll take years to fix
Hi all, just got back Monday after spending 4 days and nights in New Orleans, Lake Charles, Houston, and all points in between.
We started in Baton Rouge, were assigned a abulance, a unit number, and told to wait.
No radios, we gave a dispatcher our cell numbers so they could try to contact us once we were in the field. 0230hrs., told to convoy 8 units to Lake Charles and standby. There is no electricity down here, very little running water, the only food is MRE's, and anything you bring with you. We have a copy of a credit card on a sheet of paper which at the bottom a notarized statement says that FEMA will pay for all diesel purchases on this account, that is if you can find some.
Transported 5 patients to Houston from various small towns and returned during the first 48 hrs.
Road conditions are horrible. There is no supposidly public traffic on the roads, no lights no signs, downed highlines, trees, autos, everywhere.
Couldn't take a shower the whole 4 days. Burn out of people working down here is rampant. Mostly young ones that got there Paramedic from a community college or something and haven't really seen or done anything remotely like this. It's really a battle zone.
Lots of Fire/medic types from New York, Penn., Wash. State., everywhere really.
One lighter story I'll tell ya'll.
Lots of folks down here that ain't from here and they've been here a long time. They were complaining mainly of the food situation.
So I told a group of em where I was camped that we would eat good tommarrow night. They were instantly courious. I told em not to worry that I wouldn't pull any kind of joke on em or nothin. I got a couple of guys in the 82nd Airborne with a Humvee to haul me down a road I had scoped out earlier in the day. After some coaxing and a promise they were included in the feast, they dropped me off at 1800hrs with my SL20 flashlight and a nice "government rifle". Boy, was the guy that gave me that nervous. Anyway, just before dark I popped a hog at about 50 yrds. A "wild hog" that is. I was hoping for a nice deer, but I'll take what I can get down here.
Cleaned and dressed it with my K-BAR, and had it in a trash bag before I called and my pick up arrived. Soaked that bad boy in salt and pepper and beer, with some tabasco hot sause thrown in to kill the wild taste. Cooked it over a 55 gallon drum with a make shift grate over the top. Well, the smell got around, and the meat didn't last long. Some officer type even asked me where the meat came from, (with his mouth full I might add), and I told him it was road kill. Wasn't a lie, I did pop him on a road.
Well they want me to come back on my next days off but I only agreed for the weekend not 4 days. I'll be bringing frozen deer meat and enough squirrel and mix to make em a big pot of squirrel gumbo this time though. This time the 82nd gave me a pass to put on my dash of my truck to get through the check points so I can haul everything I'll need.
After my next trip they may send a chopper to my house to pick me up.
All this asside though folks, its a friggin mess down here, really, and I couldn't guess at how long or what its going to take to set this back right again.
Bull