Reporter's Notebook: Katrina's Aftermath From the Ground
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 2, 2005 — -- It was early Sunday afternoon. Just hours before the first rain bands of Hurricane Katrina would arrive. The humid Southern day had begun with perfect sunshine, but as the hours passed the sky was clouding over.
As we drove through the streets of New Orleans, signs of Katrina's arrival were everywhere. Quiet rows of boarded-up houses; family cars being hurriedly packed by those who decided to join the exodus at the last possible minute; lines at gas stations. We stopped to capture all of this for our story that would lead Sunday's "World News Tonight."
As we headed to the now-infamous levees for some final shots of the waters lapping against their banks, we passed through a poor black neighborhood. My eyes caught an image that seized my attention.
"We've got to stop and turn around," I said to cameraman Dan Holdren, who was behind the wheel. Next to a bus stop a frail elderly black woman sat in a wheelchair with a suitcase beside her. She looked as alone in the world as anyone I've ever seen.
In a heavy Southern drawl, Bobbi Sanchez told me she was waiting for a bus to take her to a shelter. "You're gonna die if you don't go," she told me, her glassy eyes looking directly at me. "It's true."
Another elderly woman walked over to greet us. Sanchez was not there alone. Her sister, Lois Bass, was accompanying her on this exodus. They were heeding the mayor's call to evacuate New Orleans. But like so many of the city's black people they did not have the means to drive out of town or pay for a bus ticket or rent a hotel room on their fixed incomes -- Sanchez lives on her disability benefit, Bass lives on Social Security. So they waited for the bus.
I have been thinking a lot about Sanchez and Bass these last few days. When I left them on Sunday I wished them safe passage and assumed they would be taken to the safety of the Superdome, New Orleans' shelter of last resort for those who simply couldn't afford to leave town.
When the worst of Katrina arrived in New Orleans in the early dawn hours of Monday morning we were confined to our hotel. The power went out at sunrise as Katrina's winds lashed the city. Amazingly, the hotel's Internet connection still worked, as did our cell phones. With power from the hotel generator we scrambled to transmit by video phone and Sightspeed, a crude form of Internet transmission that ultimately triumphed.
