Articles by Emily Gertz

Student journalists reflect on the New Orleans they once knew

As noted in today's Daily Grist (you do read the Daily Grist, don't you? Of course you do!), Fish and Wildlife Service staff are just getting to work assessing the ecological damage to two wildlife refuges near New Orleans: Bayou Sauvage and Big Branch Marsh.

I've never been to New Orleans or the Gulf Coast. I avoid places that might serve up more heat and humidity than I endure on the average August day in New York City; find blackened anything inedible; and own my heritage as a repressed Northeasterner who finds the whole Mardi-Gras-public-nekkidity-license-to-debauch thing a little scary.

But reading about places like Bayou Sauvage makes me really regret it. Below the fold, a description from some student journalists who attended the Society of Environmental Journalists' 2003 annual confab in New Orleans:

The Times-Picayune files another missive

The editors of the New Orleans Times-Picayune pulled no punches on the dismal federal response to Hurricane Katrina in their first open letter to President Bush on Sept. 4. Today, they've done it again, timing a new missive to the President's third post-Katrina visit to the area.

The takeaway: We're not going away, Mr. President. Commit to doing whatever it takes to rebuild our city better than it was before -- including restoration of Louisiana's coast and the Mississippi River.

Here's an excerpt, emphases mine:

A harrowing account

On Thursday last, a colleague forwarded a harrowing first person report from a doctor on the scene at the New Orleans airport -- sent to him in turn by a very good friend with 15 years of experience at other global ground zeros, who said that it rang true.

greetings from the new orleans airport

for those of you who don't know i am a member of the texas-4 disaster medical assistence team (DMAT). we are a part of FEMA. i joined a couple of months ago and my team was activated 11 days ago. for the past 8 days i have been living and working at the new orleans airport delivering medical care to the katrina hurricane survirors.

It was powerful, painful reading -- pulling back the veil even further on the reality of the New Orleans disaster.

let me start by saying that i am safe and after a very rough first week
am now better rested and fed

our team was the first to arrive at the airport and set up our field hospital. we watched our population grow from 30 dmat personal taking care of 6 patients and 2 security guards well to around 10,000 people in the first 15 hours. these people had had no food or water or security for several days and were tired, furstrated, sick, wet, and heart broken. people were brought in by trucks, busses, ambulances, school busses, cars, and helicopters

we recieved patients from hospitals, schools, homes, the entire remaining population of new orleans funneled through our doors. our little civilian team along with a couple of other dmat teams set up and ran THE biggest evacuation this country has ever seen

the numbers are absolutely staggering

I haven't spoken personally with Hemant Vankawala M.D., but got his okay via e-mail to repost his account. Other reporters apparently have met Dr. Vankawala -- as in this September 3 report by Jim Douglas of Dallas-Fort Worth WFAA-TV.

...at any given time there were at least 8-10 helo's offloading on the tarmac, filled with 10-40 survivors at a time, with 10 circling to land, it was a non-stop never ending process 24 hour a day operation. the cnn footage does not even begin to do it justice. the roar of rotar blades, the smell of jet A and the thousands of eyes looking at us for answers, for hope.

Read the whole thing in the extended entry -- largely unedited, because the seat-of-the-pants quality of the writing is part of its power.

FEMA director Michael Brown relieved of command

Looks like Brown's going down.