The Great Deluge

by Douglas Brinkley

  Katrina had taken quite a toll on his congregation. Desperately, he tried to reach Demetriam Williams and family, the Simmonds and Trumble families, Elouise Washington, and Ernestine Carter. He was especially concerned about Diane Johnson, worried about her high blood pressure and sickle-cell anemia. Eventually, he reached her in Orlando, where, with the help of the Foundation of Hope, she had been evacuated to. Along with her husband and son, she had been bused to Lafayette, given medical attention at the Cajun Dome, and then shipped to Orlando. Pastor Gus Davies of the Northland A Church Distributed of Longwood, Florida, was looking after her; Walker was grateful. She was battered; sorrow had mummified her spirit. “She was still thankful to be alive,” Reverend Walker said. “Barely. She told me about her ordeal swimming through the attic, stuck at the Convention Center, the evacuation to Lafayette, life in the Cajun Dome.” He told her to come back to New Orleans, that Noah’s Ark Church was sunk but it would come back. He was setting up shop at Evening Star Missionary B.C. on Hickory Street, just a few blocks from the Mississippi River. He was now preaching in Pigeontown, where some of the Section 8ers who had looted Oak Street had lived.

  There will never be exact statistics about the damage and death toll inflicted by Katrina. Were a looter shot by the NOPD or an old man who died of a heart attack victims? But the rough ballpark statistics the State of Louisiana put out, not including the Mississippi-Alabama coast, are nevertheless illuminating. More than 200,000 homes were destroyed while another 45,000 were deemed unlivable. Add to that the 15,000 apartments washed away and you get the scope of the housing crisis. Even months after the storm, Louisiana had 400,000 displaced residents. Both St. Bernard Parish and Plaquemines Parish were 90 percent obliterated. The human death toll, while not comparable to the great Galveston hurricane of 1900, was still high at approximately 1,300 deaths. “So many people died of Katrina-related stresses,” Walker said. “Norman Robinson of WDSU properly started announcing these deaths as due to Katrina stresses.”47

  Because Diane Johnson’s Lower Ninth Ward home was uninhabitable, Walker was trying to find her a FEMA trailer. He visited her duplex on Tricou Street to report to her whether any of her belongings were salvageable. There was her Port-o-potty for handicapped people, two paintings, and, though missing wheels, her maroon Pronto electric wheelchair. The joystick was in fine shape. He also found a couple of photographs of her, cracked and mud-caked, but salvageable. He was about to call Diane in Orlando with the mixed news, then he got a telephone call. Johnson had just died. On her death certificate the cause was listed as pulmonary failure/high blood pressure.48 Her body was being shipped back to New Orleans for burial. “Katrina had overwhelmed her,” Walker recalled. “She couldn’t get her blood pressure regulated. And she was depressed. You can’t stay negative all the time; the stress will kill you.”49

  Reverend Walker and the Johnson family took solace in knowing that Diane was at one with Jesus at the time of her death. She was not an outcast or a castaway. She was pressed toward the Rock that was Jesus. Since childhood, sickle-cell anemia had been her thorn, but she used the ailment as a badge of honor. Like Paul, it made her humble. She understood that sometimes the worst enemies are within ourselves. Many of her Lower Ninth Ward friends were hatching conspiracy theories about the Industrial Canal breach. They said that white developers anxious for their land had dynamited the levee, just like they did back in 1927. A distant relative claimed that barge ING 4727 was purposely unleashed on the Lower Ninth Ward like a missile, the white power structure wanting to rid the area of “niggers.” Johnson nodded away conspiracy theories as the devil’s work. “Katrina was beyond us,” Johnson said in an interview from Orlando shortly before her death. “I’m too tired to worry about yesterday. I pray both in and out of season. I don’t let go of Jesus’ unchanging hand just because of a hurricane.” She loved everybody at Northland A Church Distributed, her church in Orlando, particularly Reverend Davies, who hailed from Sierre Leone and took special care of her. But Orlando was sterile to her compared with the kinetic Lower Ninth. She missed Soft and Sassy Beauty Salon, where once a month she had had her hair done. And she longed for vegetables from Pham Grocery, only a half-block from the house. She was given a new Pronto, but it wasn’t as smooth-running as her old one. But most of all she kept praying that the old oak tree across Tricou Street was standing tall like it always was. Indeed it was.

  When pressed to talk about Katrina and racism, Johnson shrugged it off. “We’ve been bamboozled,” she said. “But I’ve turned it over to Jesus.” Even as she was dying in Orlando—and it was clear Katrina had torn her health asunder—she never lost her faith. She kept talking to Reverend Walker about heaven, hoping to find it. At Noah’s Ark Church she had brushed up against the tassel of Jesus; now, in death, she would get to hug the son of the Maker. “An incredible lady” was how thirty-two-year-old Laura Young, a Northland A Church Distributed administrator, described her. “She said ‘thank you’ more than anybody else I’ve ever met.”50

  Reverend Walker presided over her funeral in Pigeontown at Evening Star Missionary Baptist Church. Her body lay in an open casket, with children coming up and rubbing her hair, touching her cheeks. She had on a light blue shirt, the kind you buy off the rack at Target for $3.99. Screams and groans and moans were heard. Handkerchiefs were placed over mouths and rubbed across foreheads. Popsicle-stick fans with Johnson’s picture on one side of the flapping cardboard were handed out. The local NAACP paid for them. A bad organist hammered out the chords of songs like “Amazing Grace” and “Since I Got Over.” A red rosary was placed around her neck. Nobody had blessed it. Because all her heirlooms had been washed away, there weren’t too many mementos to lay on her body. There was a stained photograph of her as a child. Like all children, she was a pure angel. And then there was a snapshot of her with her husband, Darryl, taken in one of those Woolworth’s camera booths in the 1960s. She lay in a silver coffin, with interesting moldings on the sides. Truth be told, however, it was the cheapest in the mortician’s catalog, just a step up from the pauper’s pine box. Her son, Willie, had picked it out. He was there in the little chapel, dressed in a blue cotton shirt, no necktie, screaming out in anguish. After the viewing, he fell to his knees in front of his mama’s body, trying to stop the coffin from being closed shut. There was heaving, sobbing, fanning, and organ pounding. A faint breeze, almost undetectable, came blowing through the back doors.

  When Reverend Walker took the podium, he was a pillar of strength. His beard was trimmed and an affirmative aura beamed from his infectious smile. Everybody who gathered for the funeral had two things in common: they loved Diane Johnson and they had survived Hurricane Katrina. This was no time to talk about the lethal ineptitude of Bush, Brown, Chertoff, Nagin, or Blanco. Instead of mourning Johnson’s death or Katrina bashing, Walker spoke of how lucky Diane Johnson was to be in heaven. No more chains. No more floodwater. No more sickness. No more post-Katrina stress. “She made it through her Katrina tribulations,” Walker intoned. “Her home may have been debris. Mud may have overwhelmed her household. Her wardrobe may have been lost in the flood. But she is now dressed in white robes, ready to meet the Maker. She is no longer a displaced person or refugee or shelter victim. She is now in a clean place, without dirty hands.”

  All of the congregation was in tears, fanning themselves. Many of Johnson’s family and friends had lost everything in the Great Deluge, but they somehow had managed to put on Sunday clothes for the memorial service. They weren’t in the diaspora anymore. They were home, in New Orleans, ready to start the rebuilding even if they were now living in Florida or Texas or Arizona or Massachusetts. Walker quoted powerful words from Revelation 7:14–17: “These are they which came of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any mor
e; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of water: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”

  Reverend Walker was trying to convey a message of endurance. Like drugs or alcohol or adultery or greed, Katrina had to be overcome. Recovery was in order. Assuaging guilt was necessary. If only he had made Diane Johnson leave that Saturday before the storm. If only Mayor Nagin had evacuated the poor and the sick. If only the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had constructed better levees. Such nagging thoughts weren’t going to bring her back. You couldn’t rebuild your new life on the back of the deluge. The new life began in forgiveness. Including forgiving yourself. “It’s over,” Reverend Walker said. “Hallelujah! Rejoice! It’s over. No more Katrina issues on this side of life.”

  Timeline

  All times are Central Standard Time.

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 27, 2005

  5:00 A.M. Hurricane Katrina is in the Gulf of Mexico, about 165 miles west of Key West, Florida, and 435 miles southeast of the Mississippi River Delta (24.4 N by 84.4W). It is gathering strength at a forward speed of just 7 mph. Winds are blowing steadily at 115 mph. Hurricane force winds can be felt 40 miles from the eye. Katrina is a Category 3 storm.

  9:00 A.M. Plaquemines and St. Charles parishes in Louisiana declare mandatory evacuation.

  10:00 A.M. FEMA director Michael Brown appears on CNN to encourage residents of southeastern Louisiana to leave as soon as possible for safety inland. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) issues a hurricane watch for metropolitan New Orleans and warns that Katrina could make landfall as a Category 5 storm.

  12:00 noon The Louisiana National Guard calls 4,000 troops into service, representing practically all available troops. Three thousand more of the state’s Guard soldiers are in Iraq, along with high-water vehicles and other heavy equipment.

  1:00 P.M. Airlines begin to close down operations at Louis Armstrong International Airport. Alabama governor Bob Riley orders evacuation of the southernmost areas of Mobile and Baldwin countries.

  1:30 P.M. Governor Kathleen Blanco and local officials go on television advising people to evacuate.

  4:00 P.M. Contra-flow plan goes into effect in southeast Louisiana, allowing traffic to move outward on nearly all lanes of the major highways in the vicinity. The NHC’s hurricane watch is extended as far east as the Alabama-Florida border.

  5:00 P.M. Governor Blanco and Mayor C. Ray Nagin appear at a press conference to warn residents of the storm. Nagin declares a state of emergency in New Orleans, but stops short of calling for a mandatory evacuation. Tulane University suspends orientation activities for the fall term, telling students and others to leave the region.

  7:25–8:00 P.M. Max Mayfield, director of the NHC, takes the initiative, calling officials in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi to warn them of the severity of the coming storm.

  10:00 P.M. The NHC raises the hurricane watch to a warning, predicting that the entire central Gulf Coast will be in danger.

  SUNDAY, AUGUST 28

  As of Sunday morning, the Coast Guard is at work closing ports and waterways in the hurricane’s predicted path. Personnel, vessels, and aircraft are positioned in staging areas to be ready for the aftermath of the storm.

  12:40 A.M. Katrina is rated a Category 4 hurricane.

  1:00 A.M. The eye of the hurricane is located in the Gulf, 310 miles south-southeast of the Mississippi River Delta (25.1 N by 86.8 W), gathering power as it crawls along at 8 mph.

  6:00 A.M. Hancock County, Mississippi’s westernmost coastal county, orders a mandatory evacuation for all residents.

  6:15 A.M. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that Katrina is now a Category 5 storm.

  7:00 A.M. Gulf Coast residents wake up to the news that Katrina is a Category 5 hurricane, with winds blowing steadily at 160 mph. The eye is located in the Gulf, 250 miles south-southeast of the Mississippi River Delta (25.7 N by 87.7 W), moving at 12 mph.

  8:00 A.M. The Superdome opens as a shelter of last resort. Jackson County, the easternmost coastal county in Mississippi, invokes mandatory evacuation orders for all residents south of U.S. Route 90 and in other low-lying areas.

  9:25 A.M. President George W. Bush calls Governor Blanco, advising that she and Mayor Nagin order a mandatory evacuation. Plans are in place to do so imminently.

  9:30 A.M. Mayor Nagin orders a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. The storm is due to come ashore in approximately fifteen hours.

  10:00 A.M. President Bush speaks with FEMA Director Michael Brown and Governors Kathleen Blanco (Louisiana), Haley Barbour (Mississippi), Jeb Bush (Florida), and Bob Riley (Alabama). Officials in Harrison County, Mississippi’s central coastal county, order mandatory evacuations for those in threatened zones.

  10:11 A.M. The National Weather Service issues a dire warning of the probable impact of Katrina: “Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks…perhaps longer.”

  11:00 A.M. Michael Brown arrives in Baton Rouge.

  3:00 P.M. Cars are leaving Greater New Orleans at the rate of 18,000 per hour. Even so, about 112,000 people in New Orleans do not own a car or have access to one.

  4:00 P.M. Highways remain clogged in the areas north and west of New Orleans. About 80 percent of the city’s population of 485,000 has evacuated, leaving about 100,000 people.

  4:15 P.M. President Bush, Michael Brown, and Michael Chertoff participate in an electronic briefing conducted by Max Mayfield, who warned of the danger of destruction and flooding in the wake of Katrina. Michael Brown also tried to prepare federal leaders for the magnitude of the coming disaster: “We’re going to need everything that we can possibly muster, not only in this state and in the region, but the nation, to respond to this event.” Both Bush and Chertoff will repeatedly claim during the week that they were taken by surprise by the damage wrought by the hurricane.

  4:40 P.M. The videoconference ends and top federal officials return to their own pursuits. Congressman Thomas Davis III (R-Virginia) later notes: “The president is still at his ranch, the vice president is still fly-fishing in Wyoming, the president’s chief of staff is in Maine. In retrospect, don’t you think it would have been better to pull together? They should have had better leadership. It is disengagement.”

  5:00 P.M. The first sign of the hurricane: rains from the outermost fringe begin to fall along the coast from southern Louisiana to Biloxi and Gulfport on the central Mississippi Coast.

  6:00 P.M. A curfew goes into effect in New Orleans. Approximately 10,000 people are in the Superdome; an unknown number are waiting in houses and other buildings all over the region. Seventeen of Mississippi’s twenty-seven casinos are closed. Many had shut their doors even earlier, at 2 A.M., to allow employees to evacuate.

  8:30 P.M. The last train to leave New Orleans before the hurricane departs with many empty cars.

  9:00 P.M. Rains from Katrina’s outer bands come down in New Orleans.

  10:30 P.M. The last of the people seeking refuge in the Superdome are searched and allowed in. Between 8,000 and 9,000 citizens are in the stands, about 600 are in a temporary medical facility. About 300 officials, medical workers, and staff members oversee the crowd, with security provided by 550 National Guard troops.

  MONDAY, AUGUST 29

  12:00 midnight The storm surge begins to press up onto Mississippi’s western coastline, with beachside residents in Waveland reporting a foot of water in their homes.

  2:00 A.M. The eye of the hurricane is passing 130 miles south-southeast of New Orleans (28.2 N by 89.6 W). Winds are blowing steadily at almost 155 mph. Katrina is a Category 4 storm, moving slowly at a rate of 12 mph. A slow-moving hurricane is much more destructive than one that passes quickly over inhabited areas.

  3:00 A.M. The 17th Street Canal begins to suffer a breach, according to National Guard reports.

  4:00 A.M. The eye of the hurricane is 90 miles south-southeast of New Orl
eans and 120 miles south-southwest of Biloxi (28.8 N by 89.6 W). Winds are blowing steadily at almost 150 mph. Katrina is a Category 4 storm. The storm surge begins to arrive at the central part of the Mississippi Coast.

  5:00 A.M. A civilian calls the Army Corps of Engineers to report that the 17th Street Canal is breached.

  5:15 A.M. Greater New Orleans loses electric power. At the Superdome, auxiliary generators provide dim light but no air-conditioning.

  5:20 A.M. The Biloxi/Gulfport Regional Airport records gusts of 78 mph, which indicate that hurricane-force winds have arrived, according to the National Weather Service.

  6:00 A.M. The eye of the hurricane is 70 miles south-southeast of New Orleans, between the mouth of the Mississippi River and Grand Isle. Rain is falling at the rate 1 inch per hour. All of southeastern Mississippi is pounded by the wind and rain. The storm is 95 miles south-southwest of Biloxi (29.1 N by 89.6 W). Winds are blowing steadily at almost 145 mph. Katrina is a Category 4 storm, with a forward speed of 15 mph. The National Weather Service station at the Biloxi Gulfport Airport is no longer functioning.

  6:10 A.M. The eye of Katrina makes its landfall near Buras, Louisiana, as a Category 4 hurricane. Pressure in the center of the storm is 920 mb, the third lowest for a hurricane at landfall.

  6:30 A.M. Buras has been destroyed. Nearly every building in lower Plaquemines Parish, which escorts the Mississippi River into the Gulf, is obliterated.

  7:00 A.M. High tide along the Mississippi Coast—but the water is still rising, as a result of the storm surge. U.S. Route 90—2 miles from the beachfront—is dotted with boats thrown ashore by the growing waves.

  7:10 A.M. The storm has reached Pascagoula, the biggest city along the eastern part of the Mississippi Coast; winds of 118 mph are recorded.