Hurricane Katrina, the chase that almost killed me several times. Hurricane chasing is very dangerous and after Hurricane Dennis, I was out sick for a month with Mono and then Walking Pneumonia. When you watch the DVD and hear me coughing, it is because I was still very sick and chasing Katrina while still recovering from Pneumonia.

I started out this hurricane intercept in New Orleans with plans to head east towards Mobile, AL on Thursday August 25th, but as Friday came and went, it looked as New Orleans was going to be the target after all. Below is the National Hurricane Center track as of Saturday Morning. I was flying right into the path of this monster. 

As Saturday turned into Sunday, I shot a lot of pre Hurricane Katrina evacuation footage for The Weather Channel while scouting out locations and my own evacuation routes in case the Levee did fail and the pumps failed. My hope's and prayer's were for Katrina to weaken and shift to the east by 100 miles to spare New Orleans and hit near my first target, Mobile to Pensacola Florida. Not that I have anything against that part of the country but has already seen several major storms so the damage has been done to that area.

By Sunday afternoon, it looked like the worst case scenario and New Orleans was going to take a direct or near direct hit and would be destroyed.

While other hurricane chasers were going for the worst winds and everyone was avoiding New Orleans because of the flooding, I stayed for Hurricane Katrina and the flooding and the story that it was going to make. After Hurricane Ivan, I did not want to cross any large bridges that could be washed out and end up cutting me off from going home alive. It was a long shot to stay in New Orleans because the storm could have missed New Orleans all together and I would have had wasted all my time and effort for nada, but my gut feeling told me to stay.

Saturday night I went down to the famous Bourbon Street to possibly document the last night on the town, ever! People were in a carefree mood. Nobody seemed to care what was happening or that the hand of god was about to come down on the big easy. When people asked me what I was doing with the video camera, I told them I was filming the last night on the town because it looked as if the town was going to die in 36 hours. Some people thought I was on drugs, while others stopped to tell me their story about being trapped there because the airlines canceled their flights and or shut down operations and they had nowhere else to go. 

As the time passed and it was now Sunday evening, I was even starting to ask myself "What The Hell Are You Doing, Your Going To Die!" But I knew I had a job to do and there were a lot of people counting on me to get the footage back in Atlanta since TWC pulled their crews out of the city. I did take one last trip into downtown to shoot some of the last footage of the French Quarter. 

While I was out shooting all the hurricane Katrina video I did not pay attention to the human toll. I had a job to do and focused on my work at the time, not what was going to happen in the following days. As I drove to Houston on Tuesday night to get on a flight home the following morning so I could just get out of the area that was getting too dangerous I had time to reflect on what I just lived through. 

It started to hit me pretty hard as I was back out seeing what happened before I went home with seeing all the devastation. When I was filming the aftermath of the people being rescued, I had no other way to describe what I saw other then to call people Refugees like they just came out of a city that was just bombed.

What really hit home for me is when you watch the video of the destruction in downtown New Orleans, you see a guy come up to me and ask for help. I shut the camera off because I did not know if he was mad at me filming him in case he was a looter since New Orleans has a high crime rate and I was still very sick.

He said he was in his home and it was just flooded and he lived on the second floor of an apartment building by the lake and he thought the levee broke. As soon as I heard that I took my friend Blake Michaelski's advice to get out if water starts to rise, and I did. I went through a lot of flooded streets and barely made it back to the hotel as the water rapidly flooded the city. 

On my last day in New Orleans and Kenner, I went back on Interstate 10, to a spot where I was just a few days before get on the Interstate but now it is where they were doing evacuation and search and rescue ground operations. They were launching the boats at the Interstate 610 and 10 split on the west side of town, and the area looked more like a Mississippi river boat launch then an interstate.

It was now under water, not just a few feet, it was now a lake. I saw the top of a car that was under water but could barely make it out because it had several feet of water on top of it. The only way I could really see it was the sun was out. The looks on the faces of the people when they got off the rescue boats and were walking to the aide station to check in and get checked out before being trucked over to a shelter was heart breaking. I had to remind myself that I just film the news, I don't make it happen. 

I did not film anyone that was in no shape to get out on their own for health reasons such as the elderly or sick. While talking to some guys from the Coast Guard when a boat came in with some people on board. There was one old lady with an air tank that they rescued and I pointed the camera up. He asked if I was going to film that and I told him no because she looked like she had no choice in the matter and was trapped there. Its the able bodied people that would not leave their pets behind or the ones who just did not take it serious who then needed to be rescued that I filmed. 

As for being a little cold and focusing on the chase and seeing a powerful storm, yeah I was there for the storm and get in for the storm then get out after it and never see the people for the most part whose lives are ripped apart. Get in when the police take shelter and tell us good luck we will see you on the other side then get out when they lock the area down.

It's when you see hundreds of people waiting under a bridge in the shade for a fleet of school buses to take them to a shelter because they just lost everything, that's when it really hits you that there is a major human factor and its not just all about seeing the power of the storm. There were more people waiting at one pick up area that lost everything then were affected by tornadoes all year long in 2005.

So does it impact me? Yes, yes it does but I also have a job to do and I know that there is not much if anything I can do for them except take their names and phone numbers of people that they wanted me to call to tell them they are alive so their loved ones won't worry as much until they heard from them.

After finishing up the last video shoot a man and his dog were looking pretty bad from being out in the heat. He asked me if he could bum a ride and told me he needed to go to his moms house by the airport. I packed up my gear in the back seat and they got in and I brought him across town and gave him some food. He was very happy for the ride but nothing could beat the look on his face when he got to his moms house and found that 99 percent of it was perfect. Just some debris in the yard, but the trees were still standing, the windows were there and he now had a place to stay since his house was under water.

The best part, he found that his parents left a van in the garage and the gas tank was full. He was able to leave the area and get some food and rest. I would hate to think about what would have happened to him if he had to walk to his parents home in the heat and flooding.

You can't save everyone but at least if you can, you can help someone.

To view the photos I took during the Hurricane Katrina chase, they are located in my photo gallery section at the link below.

http://www.lightningboy.net/content/hurricane-katrina-new-orleans-photo-album

To watch all the footage that I shot during Hurricane Katrina, you have to go to www.bnvn.com and click on the Hurricane Katrina section.