When Westbrook Fire Inspector Lt. Chuck Jarrett arrived in Louisiana with his New Hampshire Air National Guard Unit, he said it felt strange to be patrolling a town in the United States wearing full body armor and carrying an M-16 rifle.
Jarrett went to Louisiana for 10 days on Sept. 2 as part of the massive relief effort for Hurricane Katrina. His unit spent eight days in Franklinton, La., a town in Washington Parish, about three hours from New Orleans, supporting the town’s police force.
Jarrett first arrived at the New Orleans Naval Air Station, and his 13-man unit spent two days camping underneath a makeshift shelter next to the runway while waiting for orders. He said it wasn’t too bad camping out at night, but as the sun came out, the heat got bad.
After two days waiting with about 500 other soldiers, Jarrett said his unit left for the three-hour bus ride to Franklinton. Skirting New Orleans, Jarrett said he got a taste of the storm’s damage through the bus windows. He said he saw trees down all over the place as well as telephone poles snapped in half with wires snaking across the road.
Arriving in Franklinton, Jarrett said he saw more damage. He said it was very similar to what happened here during the ice storm in 1998. “There were just trees down everywhere,” he said. “Big, old trees that been there for generations were laying on top of houses or laying across the street.”
He said by the time they arrived in Franklinton, the town was beginning to pull itself back up and basic services were being restored. He said the town’s administration had asked for the military to come in and help back up existing law enforcement services while the town recovered.
After moving into temporary quarters in an area high school, Jarrett’s unit began patrolling the town. He said he never had any problems with anyone, and people seemed to be going about their business as normally as possible.
Jarrett said the town brought in the military strictly as a precaution. “There wasn’t rioting, but they didn’t want that to happen,” he said. “So they brought in a military presence to prevent that more than anything else. I think it made the townspeople feel better to have that presence.”
While in Franklinton, Jarrett said his unit helped protect the grocery store, which was operating under generator power, from looters. They also helped control crowds at the bank when it opened up on a limited basis.
“Ninety-five percent of the people we talked to were very happy we were there,” he said. “They thanked us for being there.” He said people were giving his unit treats like doughnuts and brownies to show their appreciation for coming to help. After eight days, the town told the military that it would be able to handle the situation on its own, and Jarrett’s unit was sent home.
While they had a fairly easy time of it in Franklinton, Jarrett said other units were not as lucky. He said several units in New Orleans ran out of food and water and an emergency convoy had to be dispatched to re-supply them.
Problems like that made Jarrett think that the crush of people flooding into the area simply overwhelmed the system. “We were arriving in masses and so quickly that we overwhelmed the logistical system,” he said.
Emergency management officials in Maine share Jarrett’s estimation of the situation. Rayna Leibowitz, chief of the Maine Emergency Management Authority Planning division, said typically her agency waits until there is a specific request before sending people down to help.
She said states in need of help would send out requests, and other state agencies, operating under a mutual assistance agreement will respond to those requests.
As Jarrett experienced in Louisiana, Leibowitz said the system breaks down when people start heading into an area without being specifically requested. In the case of Katrina, so many different agencies were looking for help, it was impossible to keep track of who and what was heading down there, and as a result, people were not getting the help they should.
Jarrett said he also thought the system got overwhelmed because of the sheer size of the disaster. “It was disorganized because it was so big, and nobody had ever run into something quite like this,” he said. “You had a lot of displaced people, and they weren’t sure what was needed first.”
One of the most important lessons that can be learned from Katrina, said Leibowitz, is that agencies need to wait for specific requests before going to a disaster area. “The concern we have is that people go in response to a need and they do good things through a formal process,” she said.
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