The Needs Of The Many
"They made me proud to be part of their team and proud to be part of the U.S. military. They taught me when it comes right down to it, they don't need leadership. They are -- each and every one of them -- leaders in their own right. They are leaders with the willingness, the desire and the compassion to do the right thing without being told."
Lt. Col. Randy Coats, 333rd Training Squadron commander, Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi
Referring to the men and women of Keesler AFB, 730 of whom sheltered in horrible conditions for five long days during and after the passage of Hurricane Katrina. Many were rendered homeless themselves, but never-the-less they were the first out in the field to help in the recovery of the Gulf Coast.
"They were everywhere, shining flashlights. There were just thousands."
United States Coast Guard helicopter pilot Lt. Patrick Dill,
a resident of New Orleans who flew night time air rescue missions over the ravaged city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Foreword
On the morning of 29 August 2005, a Monday, the Gulf Coast of the United States was assaulted by a massive hurricane that scored a direct hit on the city of New Orleans, visiting death and destruction upon that metropolis on a scale never before seen. Mile after mile of homes and businesses were destroyed, entire neighborhoods and communities ceased to exist. The very next day the 17th Street Canal levees failed, and along with other failures elsewhere in the city, large portions of New Orleans were flooded to depths of twenty feet or more. A toxic brew of salt water, untreated sewage, petrochemicals and other hazardous materials from industry and oil production, garbage, and the decaying bodies of the dead overlay all that had been the city and it's population. Thousands had evacuated in advance of the storm, but thousands more had remained behind. The suffering endured by those who remained was beyond description. Civilization broke down. Gangs roamed the streets. Thousands came to the Super Dome, which was supposed to be a refugee center but in reality became a sort of horrible hot-house where, it seemed, survivors waited in vain for assistance, any form of help at all, from governments and agencies that had either perished altogether or had their response capability completely subjugated ...
This is a work of fiction inspired by the heroic and not-so-heroic deeds that the world witnessed following the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast of the United States. It is no way meant to portray a chronology of events or specific incidents. I was motivated to write something about Katrina by the scenes of disaster and the selfless giving that came out of them. As another author once wrote, It was the best of times, It was the worst of times.
All characters and most events in this story are fictional. There is a scene in this story that recounts the desperate activities of what was left of New Orleans' city government immediately following Hurricane Katrina. This scene is not fiction, although I have "bent" it just slightly to fit the genre and hide some detail. For the real story, written on 9 September 2005 by Christopher Rhoads of the Wall Street Journal, view the article here at Post-Gazette.Com. Or you can search for it at the Wall Street Journal, if you like, and pay $4.95 to get your personal copy.
This story and the characters of Joe Latrans, Annie Latrans, Tim Riggins, Janie Riggins, The Bitch, Numbers, Matt Barstock, Angie Rockwell, Lola Baker, Rick Carter, Randy Clarkson, Slam Whiteline, and Jerry Kitt are © The Silver Coyote, 2005
The image behind the text on this page is Katrina, bore-sighting New Orleans and the Mississippi coast, taken 1219 GMT (5:19 AM New Orleans local time), 28 August 2005 by the NOAA-15 satellite. At that particular moment she was a category 5 hurricane, with sustained winds in excess of 145 miles per hour and an eye pressure of 928 millibars.
The helicopters roared overhead, shattering the eerie silence of the morning as they skimmed above treetops devoid of leaves in the gray light of day. On this first day they were very few. Mostly they were brightly painted machines, red with black and white trim, others were smaller and less dynamic in appearance. As they days wore on their species would become as varied as their appearance: Bell, Hughes, Agusta, Enstrom, Robinson, Aerospatiale, Sikorsky. Some would carry easily recognizable insignia, some large registration numbers, some no markings at all. Some would be easily seen in their eye-catching paint schemes, some barely discernable against the clouds in their dull gray finish, others a flat olive drab color. They would all have one thing in common with these machines that plied the rough, soggy skies on that first day. All were crewed by furs who studied the surface below carefully, some using binoculars, some using telescopic video cameras, some using well-seasoned eyeballs.
They crisscrossed the bleak landscape slowly, a studious observer would soon discern a pattern to their movements. They were searching. At random intervals one would hover briefly, rotating slowly in mid-air while the crew stared at the surface below. On rare occasion, one of the larger helicopters would join it's smaller, hovering sibling, and a fur would deploy on a cable. Typically dressed in a bright orange or red jumpsuit and tethered by a full body harness, this fur would dangle below the whirling rotor blades of the larger aircraft and slowly drop towards the surface below. These furs had been up since well before dawn, like as not were soaking wet, and while already tired would be airborne working until dusk. Most of them didn't know that they themselves were already homeless.
Adrenaline coursed through each of them as the fur at the end of the cable wrapped first his reassuring arms, and then a harness, about another. Pilots and hoist operators cheered aloud as one more soul was plucked from the devastation below. Dozens had been recovered so far, hundreds still waited on roof tops, knee deep in water in emaciated neighborhoods, or stranded on top of automobiles. The rescues were brief compensation for their work. Everywhere floated the visual and olfactory reminders of the hundreds more who hadn't survived.
# # #
Matt Barstock hung up the phone, placing a paw to his forehead. This was going to hurt. He had never comped a charter in his life, but he had never been presented with this type of situation before. The sheer magnitude of the effort was enough, but the magnitude of the event precipitating the phone calls overshadowed everything.
The television had shown them all they needed to see. It was fast becoming the largest natural disaster in the history of the United States, not only in terms of financial loss but also in terms of scope and depth of calamity and loss of life. And the governments of the affected areas were stretched beyond any expected capacity to deal with the death and destruction that had befallen them. They were literally helpless, silenced and hobbled by a complete loss of infrastructure. No food. No water. No power. Little shelter. No communications. As one of Matt's friends, a retired full colonel, had commented wryly, "It's a Hell of a way to start a war, low on ammunition and out of gas."
"Angie!" he growled from his seat. "Get me some coffee!" He looked up briefly to see her glance curiously at him from the kitchen of her small condominium. He attempted a reassuring smile for her, but the best he could muster was a blank expression on his muzzle. He couldn't afford this. It could very well bankrupt his company. Yet he couldn't avoid the tugging on his heart, that silent voice in his gut screaming: "Do Something!"
Christ on a crutch, he groused silently. He'd have to throw in. His fellow operators, buddies since his days in the Air Force, had already committed resources. And truth be known it wasn't even the money that bothered him, it was the time. Nobody had any, least of all the furs who needed it most.
Matt picked up his phone again and dialed. After a moment his connection went through.
"This is Jerry."
"Jerry? Matt. Look buddy," the Labrador growled, "I've got no time for preamble. Can Numbers fly?"
"What?" The brown bear was taken aback by his boss' direct question.
"Numbers, Jerry. Can she fly?"
"Well…" There was so much to do. The entire cargo ramp was missing from the back of the C-130 in Intermountain's hangar at Port Columbus. Corrosion had required a complete disassembly of the ramp and it's power mechanism. Half the avionics were missing from the panel. The wing box mods were still under way. "A few days to get the ramp back in and pressure test the hull, get the avionics repaired and installed while that's on-going… the wing box…"
Matt grimaced. "I need a VFR load lifter by 0700, Jerry. Can you do it?"
"Tomorrow?!" the brown bear asked incredulously. "No. No way."
"I don't care if the ramp's not viable, or even there. Can she lift two short seagoing containers at five tons apiece and carry them to Louisiana?"
There was a slow exhalation in Matt's ear as Jerry realized what the call was about. "Holy God…" the bear muttered, thinking. Matt waited patiently as his master mechanic mumbled while tracing plans on his empty desktop with a claw. Presently he said "If I call in reinforcements and work all night we can have the wing ready to fly by sunup."
"Great!" Matt exulted.
"No ramp!" Jerry said shortly. "And only basic VFR avionics. No radar, no area navigation, and if you want GPS you'd better bring a portable." The bear smiled a bit in anticipation, his adrenaline already cranking up. "Are we airlifting for New Orleans?"
"Somebody has to," Jerry's boss replied. "Those furs down there just had the holy crap beat out of them. Those that are left alive have nothing, and the only way it'll get better is with large infusions of whatever any of us can throw at them, drop on them, or pass to them."
"Who's the charter for?"
"What charter?"
"Who hired us to fly the mission?"
Matt sighed. "Nobody did, Jerry. Some things a fur's just gotta do…"
The bear sat up suddenly in his chair. "We're comping this one?"
"Yeah."
"My God…" Jerry's mind was a sudden whirl of plans as realization sank in. "Don't worry about a thing, boss. I'll get as much as I can get done before sunup tomorrow, and I'll fly with you guys to keep her happy."
Matt Barstock smiled and scratched an ear. "Thanks, Jerry. I'll see you about 0500."
He was talking to dial tone. Jerry Kitt was already launching himself towards the C-130 waiting patiently in Intermountain's hangar.
# # #
One couldn't tell from the jumpsuit and helmet that covered him, but his crewmates knew that the fur at the end of the cable was a robust German Shepherd, a lieutenant junior grade in the United States Coast Guard. His right paw kept motioning slowly with the "up" signal as the hoist operator brought him back towards the machine hovering above the inundated neighborhood just northwest of the downtown area. It was a "Dolphin", an Aerospatiale HH-65, one of their own from what was left of Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans.
As the shepherd reached the end of his ascent and dangled just outside the open door of the helicopter his hoist operator, a chief petty officer, extended a paw to help him in. As he did so he noticed that the LTJG's boom mic was at an odd angle, quite away from his muzzle and therefore useless.
"Max, fix your boom mic, we can't hear you," the CPO said loudly into his own boom mic.
The dark gray visor of the shepherd's helmet simply stared at him for a moment, and then he pulled against the otter's paw as he hauled himself into the cabin. As the hoist operator disconnected his cable from the Shepherd's harness, the Shepherd removed his helmet and shook his head vigorously, back to the otter at the door.
The otter was surprised. They normally kept helmets on while the cabin door was open and they were engaged in rescue operations. It wasn't even the noon hour yet and already today they had airlifted seven furs over to "Louie", New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport, which was already fast becoming the hub of rescue air operations.
"Max, you OK?" the otter asked, and then suddenly realized that with his helmet off the Shepherd had no way of hearing him. The CPO removed his own helmet and, placing a paw on the back of the shepherd's left shoulder, leaned forward and spoke loudly into his ear.
"Max, you OK?"
The shepherd turned to face his crewmate, his friend. Tears streamed from his brown eyes, disappearing into the already soaked fur of his face and muzzle. Pain and sorrow etched his face. He was dripping wet from head to foot, he'd been working in chest deep water on their last drop. His jumpsuit reeked of oil, sewage, and salt water.
The otter, reacting to the expression on the LTJG's face, stepped back slightly as the shepherd replied in a choked, muffled voice "They're dead, all of them."
"What?"
"There were seven more in the house in addition to the two on the porch," the shepherd yelled hoarsely. "Five kids, two old furs. All dead."
The otter nodded. This was nothing new. They'd been marking homes by the dozens today, and had lost count of how many dead bodies they'd seen in the thirty-some hours since Katrina had tried to kill the Big Easy. He was puzzled by his friend's reaction, though. The shepherd was shook up. He had remained passive and professional up to now. They had spied many folks on porches, roof tops, even in trees. Some were alive, more were not. Many of the living could signal to them with their paws or signs, some were too hurt to move. The shepherd had worked methodically and effectively with all of them. 'Til now. There must be something else.
"What's up, Max? What happened?" the otter yelled above the roar of the turbines and the turning rotor blades.
The canine paused, swallowing once or twice. "The only room of the house that was still intact was the front room. They were all there," he replied. "They were placed there by the couple on the porch after they died. Some of injuries, some drowned, all dead." The shepherd's jaw worked silently as the tears slowed. "The mom and dad dressed them in the cleanest bed clothes they could find and covered them up, like they were going to sleep." He shook his head slowly, his eyes lowering as his gaze dropped to the deck of their helicopter, their little bit of portable civilization. "Then the husband and wife went out on the porch, sat in their favorite chairs, and ended it for themselves."
The otter's jaw dropped open in shock.
"Gunshots. One each to the head." The tears stopped as the expression on the LTJG's face hardened. "I guess they figured they had nothing left to live for."
Impulsively the otter embraced his friend, awkwardly only because of the bulky jumpsuits and harnesses they both wore. He could understand. The couple below had just been forced to stand by helplessly as Katrina had taken their home, their jobs, their parents, and their children away from them. They truly had lost everything. After a moment the CPO released his friend and picked up his helmet to put it on, watching as his friend did the same. As his earpads fit over his ears he could hear the pilot demanding to know what was happening.
"Let's RTB," the otter said into the aircraft intercom system, indicating that they should return to base. "We need a break."
They felt the cabin of the Dolphin tilt towards the west as the aircrew began to comply.
"No!" the shepherd's single command exploded in his ears. "We'll stay out here until we're down to fumes. Furs down there are counting on us," he went on with a more calm tone of voice. "Head that way, towards Spanish Fort," he said, pointing.
As the helicopter took up it's new heading the shepherd turned to the otter, his helmet's gray visor back in place, hiding his face. "Time enough for us to mourn later," he said gruffly, to himself. "We have work to do now."
# # #
In the center of the city, in a large hotel that was mostly vacant, the remnants of New Orleans' city government huddled in a conference room on the fourth floor. The hotel was better equipped with power and food than the city's own command post, so most of the city's top governing officials that hadn't evacuated had hunkered down with their families there to wait out the storm and try to initiate a response in the aftermath. Staff on hand included the Mayor, the Deputy Mayor, and the Chief of Police. These furs, and perhaps a dozen more, were what remained of city government in the wake of Katrina.
Nothing worked. As the storm came and went, leaving the city a complete shambles, they had watched as their resources slowly dried up. They were experiencing hurricane conditions twenty four hours before the eye of Katrina made landfall that Monday morning, and things had been going downhill ever since. The entire city was without power. The hotel had generators but a limited amount of fuel, so they were only run part time. Their food supply began to dwindle in the absence of means to reliably refrigerate and cook meals. There was, of course, no city water, even though the streets outside were ankle deep in it. A meager supply of bottled water was rationed to those present. A tornado had ripped away part of the hotel's roof. And there was no way to communicate with the outside world.
They slept on tables and on the floor in the sweaty, unventilated conference rooms. They figured the worst was over and that normalcy would soon begin to return. Outside, National Guard troops could occasionally be seen in the streets. Then the 17th Street Canal levee gave way on Tuesday. Within hours there was twelve feet of water around the hotel, and they were even more isolated. The government offices two blocks away were completely submerged.
What communications they were able to muster was only with paw-held police radios, and then only with other radio users in the near vicinity. The police and fire radio infrastructure had been destroyed along with everything else. Long range communications were impossible. Messages were relayed by furs on foot.
# # #
Like so much of the rest of America, Joe and Annie Latrans had been riveted to their television set that morning. The images and commentary on CNN were unbelievable, incomprehensible. An entire city appeared to have been laid waste, destroyed as surely as if someone had dropped bombs on it. But instead of shells and fire, water had killed New Orleans, walls of water by the acre-foot, in the billions of gallons.
The two canids sat silently, paw in paw, as the story began to unfold for them. Ears wilted as shock turned to grief when the first live airborne video began to come in. Bodies floated face down in the muck that almost completely submerged entire neighborhoods. Elsewhere survivors by the hundreds gathered on freeway overpasses, on roof tops, in taller buildings, wherever they could escape the toxic slime that was everywhere below. A horrible mixture of salt water, sewage, petroleum products, industrial chemicals, garbage, and decaying bodies covered much of the city, through which natural gas from broken mains percolated, looking for a spark. Already fires were burning in the port area, and the only viable weapon against fire was the fire boats in the harbor. The city was absolutely incapable of moving fire trucks through streets as much as twenty feet below the surface of the muck. They had no ability to dispatch those trucks even if they could get anywhere, and had no water pressure to fight fires with even if they could get a crew on scene.
It was an incongruously pleasant morning in Englewood. Their coyfox pups were in school, and Annie had decided to work from home to be near to paw when they arrived home. She was certain their little minds would be full of questions, and she and Joe both wanted to be there to answer them and help them understand what was happening in the Gulf Coast. Joe was between flights, Intermountain's number one C-130, The Bitch, was on the ramp at Centennial for some routine maintenance.
Annie flinched suddenly, causing Joe to turn his attention from the scenes on the television to her.
"My God," Annie said. "Jan's all alone. Tim's in Minneapolis on that job with the King Air."
Joe nodded. A corporate charter, Timmy had taken four executives from Denver to a high-level weekend getaway in eastern Minnesota. They were scheduled to return on Thursday, as Tim would be ferrying the executives around to various locations in the upper midwest on business for them today and Wednesday.
"She'll need some company. Let's ask her to come over," Annie said as she stood and headed towards the telephone in the kitchen. It began to ring before she got to it.
"Hello?"
Joe had turned his attention back to the TV images and was surprised to see Annie beside him a few moments later, holding the wireless phone out to him.
"Matt," she said. "I'll call Janie on my cell." She smiled briefly for him as he took the phone, and he winked at her.
"What's up, Matt?"
"You are," Matt greeted him. "At 0700 tomorrow morning. You're destination is New Orleans International, your cargo is loading tonight. Plan to be away from home for a few days."
"Who's the customer?" Joe asked as he rose from his chair and headed across the family room towards their office den. "Do we know what we're hauling?"
"Whatever relief supplies we can cram into The Bitch and get her off the ground with. I don't know who is providing the cargo, all I know is that we're taking it all down there."
Joe paused at his desk. "Don't know…?" He grabbed his flight case from beneath the desk and began to return to his family room. As he entered from the hallway he was surprised to see his wife greeting Janie Riggins at their door with a hug.
"You mean you don't know who's paying us?" he said into the phone.
Matt sighed in Joe's ear, and before Matt said a word Joe already understood that he had underestimated the size of his boss' heart. "Nobody is paying us, Joe. This one's on me."
Joe stopped in the middle of the room, his flight case in one paw. "In that case, Matt, the flight time is on me, too. I'll comp this right back at you, OK?" Joe was beginning to understand what was really happening, what was on his boss' mind. This was bigger than making a living. This meant more than providing for one's own family. The needs of the many, he recalled from an old movie, sometimes outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
Matt paused only briefly. "Thanks, Joe." Another pause. "Um, I've already got Randy lined up, he'll meet you at Centennial. Steve, Jerry, Slam and I are coming down from Port Columbus tomorrow morning in Numbers. I know Tim is busy up in Minnesota, can you get Lola off the Caravan to fly SIC for you in The Bitch?"
Lola Baker was currently flying solo runs in the Cessna Caravan to an oil exploration job in the high desert country of northeastern Arizona. She was scheduled to return later that morning. Joe was sure he could get her to fly second in command on the C-130. She would leap at the prospect of getting back into the transport.
"Yeah," Joe said, sitting on his sofa and rummaging in his case for a notepad and pen. "I'll call her." Finding something to write with, Joe began asking questions. "What's the protocol for arrival? Is Louie up and running?"
"Sort of," Matt replied. "They have little power and no radar services. Everything is VFR at this point. Center will hand you off to an approach controller, but from that point on it's advisories only and VFR all the way down. Nobody has ground borne radar in Louisiana, or Mississippi either, for that matter. In fact, as far west as Houston they're having problems with sequencing and traffic flow, so be prepared to be all over the charts for a bit trying to get in to the Gulf Coast."
Joe made some notations even as his other ear heard Annie and Janie moving into the kitchen, speaking in low voices. He heard coffee pouring into cups.
"What about fuel?"
"I'll take care of that. Carry enough for a round trip back to Centennial, but don't expect that. We may be on the line for a few days, depending on where the relief supplies are coming from." Joe scribbled another note.
"So you figure we ought to bring a change of clothes, huh?"
"I'd plan on at least a week away, Joe. Maybe more."
As Joe scribbled another note Matt cleared his throat briefly. "Ah… and one more thing, Joe."
"Yeah?"
"It's kind of wide open down there right now. Weird rumors are floating around about civil unrest and lawlessness." Matt paused, measuring his words. "Come prepared, Joe."
Joe blinked and sat back into the sofa cushions. "Are you telling us to fly armed, Matt?
"Let me put it this way," the Labrador replied. "Randy and Slam will be carrying military issue automatic weapons, their primary reason for being along is to defend the aircraft and it's cargo. If you want to carry defensive armament of your own I will not discourage that notion."
Joe nodded. "I hear that." Changing subjects he continued, "Will The Bitch be ready?"
"Yeah. I called Janie this morning. She's going to get in touch with Gunderson's and have them expedite the airframe inspection, and pass on the avionics testing until a more appropriate time. She should be coming by your place later today to hook up with you."
"She's already here, Matt."
"Good. She's got the detail about cargo. I'm trying to get some idea of what we'll be hauling and for who as the flights go on, I'll keep you posted as I can. Keep your Airinc company channel turned up, and monitor guard."
"We always do, boss," Joe replied. "See you sometime tomorrow, huh?"
Matt grinned, and Joe could hear it in his voice. The adventure was beginning. "Yeah. My apologies to Annie for taking you away from her."
Joe laughed briefly. "Thanks, I'll pass that on. Tell Angie we all said hello."
"Wilco, Joe. Safe trip."
"You too, boss," Joe said before hanging up.
# # #
And so it began. From the ramps of a multitude of airfields from points on the compass as divergent as Anchorage and Miami, Los Angeles and New York, aging airframes rose in power on what would become the largest civilian mercy mission this generation had yet seen. Everything from diapers and bottled water to electric generators and diesel fuel was loaded onto anything that could lift them into the air and speed them towards the Gulf Coast. Prayers were offered and control yolks caressed tenderly before ships took wing. Names like "Gooney Bird", "Herk", "Star Lizzard", "Super Sixty One", and "Iron Overcast" were passed around in the cabs of control towers and the dark confines of air route traffic control centers as these heavily laden machines waddled to the end of too-short runways and struggled into the air.
Twin-engined, piston powered DC-3s left over from the Second World War shared the same airways with jet-powered, four-engined C-141s and their giant younger brothers, the C-5s. In between flew an amazing assortment of aircraft including DC-6s, corporate turboprops, 707s, church-sponsored piston twins, C-130s, charter corporate jets, anything with a cargo deck that could move cargo quickly to those who needed it. Very few of their crews knew what conditions would await them, and none of them cared.
They all had a single destination, and no one on any flight deck knew it as anything but "Louie". Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport was sort of open for business. Located west of downtown New Orleans in a section of the city that had been spared the disastrous flooding that followed Katrina's passing of the central city, "Louie" was all alone, an island of semi-working infrastructure surrounded by miles and miles of devastation. They had a bit of power. They had a few furs working. But mostly what they had was clear skies and a dry runway. As soon as the military arrived in force the airport would become a military installation, but in those first hours after Katrina's passage it was sort of like an open city in war time, everyfur fending for himself.
First on scene was the United States Coast Guard, which immediately began rescue operations in the city as their own cargo planes began support and re-supply activities for the choppers themselves. Next came what was left of local law enforcement air operations, followed quickly by the National Guard, first from the home state but soon supplemented by Texas ANG. By the time the civilian response was under way the Air National Guard from many surrounding states were joining in.
Traffic volume at Louie began to ramp up quickly as the sun set on the Gulf Coast. Rescue and re-supply operations would quickly make Louie one of the busiest airports in the United States.
# # #
Things looked grim on the fourth floor of the Hyatt in downtown New Orleans. With an almost complete absence of communications of any form, what was left of the city government had very little real information to go on and no way to communicate their needs to the outside world. The Super Dome, only a few hundred yards away by an elevated causeway that was still above water line, was filling up rapidly, and the scene there was reported to be getting downright ugly in the absence of sanitary services, food, and medical aid.
Then a member of the city's Technology Team recalled an account he had recently established with a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider. This fur was able to find a single working network socket in the conference room the city had appropriated, and connected to it with his laptop computer. Suddenly they had a single, vital link to civilization.
The deputy mayor, who also happened to be the city's Chief Technology Officer, knew they were in deep trouble and absolutely had to get re-connected with the outside world. After hearing of his subordinate's discovery Wednesday night, and in the company of the Chief of Police and several other large furs, the Deputy Mayor / CTO borrowed a military Humvee and paid a visit to a nearby Home Depot. Their objective: any and all computer equipment that would allow them to construct a small network with which they might communicate to the outside world via that single VoIP connection.
First objective was a server, a computer system that would act as the go-between for the city and the rest of the world. Home Depot had one, the server they used to run the store's systems. The city needed it, and no one was around to ask, so a decision was made to "borrow" Home Depot's server. After assisting the Deputy Mayor in this endeavor by forcibly removing the server from it's equipment rack with his bare paws, the Chief alternately looked on and shooed away the many unauthorized looters that were in the streets. The "borrowing" was accomplished, and included armloads of phones, routers, printers, and FAX machines.
Now all the city government needed to do was assemble a communications network out of a pawful of used and stolen equipment with absolutely no outside engineering, design experience, or tech support, in the shell of a city that was largely without power.
# # #
Dawn was still an hour away when the furs gathered. A skunk, a coyote / shepherd hybrid, a red fox, a coyote / fox hybrid, and a mountain lion met in a hangar office on Centennial Airport in Denver. They were joined by two others, felines, one a burly American Shorthair, the other a refined looking Siamese.
The skunk was wearing camouflage fatigues, had an olive drab duffel bag over one shoulder, and cradled an AR-15 assault rifle in his right arm like a baby. The two hybrid canines were dressed similarly, wearing dark green flight suits with various pockets holding tools incidental to flight operations. The male of the two also had a pistol holstered at his right hip, the female a large tactical knife sheathed at her left hip. Large duffel bags and leather flight cases lay at each of their feet, each with a leather jacket on top of it. The red fox and the mountain lion were both dressed in civilian clothing, rather conservative in appearance to anyone who might know them.
"Roy Miklin," Janie Riggins said to the Shorthair, "let me introduce the air crew." She motioned to each fur in turn, and the big cat shook paws firmly with each as introductions were made. "Randy Clarkson, flight engineer and loadmaster. Lola Baker, pilot. Joe Latrans, aircraft commander." And then Janie smiled as she extended a paw towards the red fox, saying "And this is my best friend and Joe's wife, Annie Latrans."
"Pleased to meet you," Roy replied. Motioning towards his silent companion he added "This is my executive secretary, Theodore Lapp." The other feline nodded, smiling slightly as a chorus of soft hellos greeted him.
Having dispensed with the pleasantries, Roy got right to the point, addressing Randy. "You have two twenty foot seagoing containers. The forward one weighs eleven thousand, six hundred pounds and is mostly food stuffs and food preparation materials. No hazmats, no chemicals, no explosives."
Randy nodded, making notations on a small notepad.
"The second one," Roy continued, looking at a clipboard that Theodore Lapp handed him, "contains two palletized, transportable one hundred and twenty five kilowatt diesel generators, ten fifty five gallon drums of diesel fuel, and three electric fuel pumps." The fuel is secured in accordance with the criteria Mrs. Riggins gave me, and the container is vented. Total container weight is fifteen thousand eight hundred pounds." The cat looked up. "We secured the cargo, I expect you'll be wanting to double-check our work?"
Randy finished jotting some notes and then nodded, looking up. "Not that we don't trust you, it's just my duty to check everything out."
"No problem," Roy Miklin replied with a slight smile as he removed several sheets of paper from his clipboard. "Here's your manifest including the weight distribution numbers, material safety data sheets, and material declarations."
The skunk glanced briefly at the top page, noting the letterhead of a large corporation at the top of it. "Thanks," he muttered as he flipped quickly through the attached pages.
The Shorthair motioned to the door opening out onto the ramp and replied "Shall we?" As they moved off towards their work the rest of them overheard Roy ask "So who'd you serve with?"
The door was almost closed behind them, but they heard Randy reply "Marine Corps" well enough to hear the pride in his voice.
Joe looked at his wife. "We'd better get started too, Annie. I want to be airborne as soon as possible after those guys are done."
Lola cleared her throat briefly. "I've got a flight plan to file," she said in her slight southern drawl as she moved to cross the room to a desktop computer at a table. Seating herself, she began running an application to file and activate their flight plan to Louisiana, and was quickly absorbed in her work.
Janie looked at Theodore. "Do you have copies of the manifest for me?"
The feline smiled slightly and nodded, picking up a thin aluminum briefcase from the floor at his feet.
Janie took up a course roughly opposite to the one Lola had taken, motioning for Theodore to follow. "Let's put them in today's file then, shall we?" she asked brightly.
And just like that Joe and Annie were alone in the center of the large room for a few moments, just long enough to share a tender good bye before their tiny part of the mercy mission began.
Annie's ears drooped ever so slightly. "Do you have any idea when you'll be home?"
Joe's expression betrayed the excitement he felt, and he grinned slightly as his muzzle closed with Annie's for a kiss.
"No," he sighed presently. "But you can bet I'll come back to you just as soon as I can."
"Be safe, lover."
Joe nodded, his tail describing a half-wag as he shouldered his duffel and picked up his flight case. "Count on it, honey. No worries." He stared at her for a moment, and then added "I love you."
Another lingering kiss and he was gone, preflighting the massive transport on the ramp. As Annie watched the door closing behind her husband Lola scooted through it with a brief wave in her direction, running to catch up as best she could with her gear.
# # #
The mountain lion and her red fox friend watched as the big transport roared down the runway and thundered into the early morning sky. They silently observed the landing gear retracting into the fuselage as the plane climbed away, both of them reflecting that neither of them knew when they would see the plane, or it's crew, again.
Annie sighed briefly, staring at the faint smoke trails from the C-130's four Allison turbines. As the plane faded into the early morning haze her friend scooted a bit closer to her and wrapped an arm about her waist. Janie knew exactly what was going through Annie Latrans' mind. How many times had she herself stood on an airport ramp, watching her husband fly away?
The red fox and the mountain lion each turned their heads to face each other as Annie wrapped an arm about her best friend's waist. Neither spoke, words really weren't necessary. As the drone of the C-130's Allisons faded in the distance Annie sighed briefly and said "Let's go home and relieve Clark of my pups. I'll make both of you some breakfast, OK?"
"Sounds good to me," the mountain lion replied, her tail flicking expectantly.
The two separated as they turned towards the vehicle parking lot nearby. "You're staying with me tonight, right?"
Janie smiled. "Yes, Annie," she said in a small child's dutiful voice.
The red fox grinned at her as they approached her Cadillac. They always stayed together when their husbands were flying the line. If Joe wasn't home by the time Timmy returned from up north, Janie and Tim both would be staying at her home with she and her pups. Such were the ways of best friends.
Annie arched an eyebrow, looking over the roof of her car at Janie. "Tim will get your car when he gets home?"
"Yes, Mistress," Janie repeated, teasing. She ducked down, seating herself.
As she settled herself in the driver's seat the red fox rolled her eyes. "You need some coffee," she said with a giggle.
# # #
"Flaps up," Joe called, taking his eyes briefly away from the view outside to glance at his airspeed. They were climbing quickly, given their load. "One hundred and eighty five knots. After takeoff checklist." He pushed himself back slightly into his seat, trying to relax and settle in for the ride.
The coyote to his right moved her left paw from her lap over to the control pedestal between them, operating the flap lever. "Flaps coming up," she replied. She then pressed a few buttons on the flat panel display in the center of the instrument panel. A graphic display of the engine instruments reduced in size enough to scroll some text across the bottom of the screen, and she began to read from the text that appeared there.
"Engine bleed air valve switches?"
"Open," Joe replied after reaching up to the overhead panel with his right paw.
Lola pressed a button on the MFD panel and read from the screen. "Synchrophase master switch set to engine two."
Joe dropped his paw to a switch just below the throttles. "Engine two," he replied.
Lola touched the MFD again, and then some switches in the center of the panel before her. After a moment she stated "Landing light panel, off, hold. Taxi lights off."
"Copy," Joe replied.
Lola continued to mover her paw with certain familiarity about the panel in front of her, moving it to the bottom center of the panel and stating "Auxiliary hydraulic pump off."
"Check."
"Pressurization?"
Joe looked up and behind him to the far back corner of the panel above his head. "A/C auto press," he grunted as he returned his gaze to the outside world. "Check."
The coyote by his side grinned at him. "Underfloor heat?"
Once again Joe stretched to look above and behind him to the same panel. "Oof…" he grunted comically. "Checked, off."
Once again Lola used her left paw, this time to reach up and behind her head to the right rear corner of the same overhead panel. She looked up to the panel momentarily, and then said "Leading edge anti-ice checked off." She then sat back and called to the skunk behind her.
"Randy, can you check the radome anti-ice setting for me, please?"
Randy Clarkson looked up from his laptop computer and his flight support chores just long enough to look at a small sub-panel to the right of the navigators tiny work desk. "Checked off," he replied casually.
"Thank you," Lola replied. "After takeoff checks complete, commander" Lola intoned respectfully.
The coyote to her left grinned a bit as he winced slightly. He and Lola were developing a casual routine on the flight deck, each becoming more comfortable with and trusting in the other, allowing for some humor to be exchanged now and then. "After takeoff checks complete," Joe repeated. "Thank you, crew." Joe slowly swept the horizon with his gaze, from left wing to right side windows, and stopped when his gaze met that of his loadmaster. "Randy, did you log our liftoff time?"
"Yes sir," the skunk replied, looking forward to make eye contact with the pilot. "And all our flight plan data is in the system now, each of you can call it to your MFDs as required. "We filed for…"
"Intermountain seven oh one," a female voice interrupted from the radio receiver, "contact departure control on one three two point seven five, good morning."
Joe nodded, returning his attention to their direction of travel as Lola raised her right paw to her yolk and fingered her radio push-to-talk switch. "One three two point seven five for Intermountain seven oh one, thank you, good day," she said evenly. As Randy continued speaking she reached forward to change radio frequencies using the controls just below the multi-function display in the center panel.
"We'll be climbing to our filed altitude of twenty three thousand," Randy finished. "Denver Flight Service advises that we should expect significant deviations and delays by the time we get over eastern Texas, not only because of the storm but also because of traffic. Louisiana is a mess in the air, too."
Joe nodded again, facing the windshield in front of him. He'd expected as much.
"Good morning Denver Approach," Lola said into her boom mic. "Intermountain seven oh one is with you out of Centennial passing through seven thousand five hundred."
Joe listened as the approach controller replied to his co-pilot. "Good morning Intermountain seven oh one. Turn right to intercept the one four five degree radial of Denver VORTAC, cross Denver above nine thousand feet. Fly the Plains Three departure, Garden City transition, climb and maintain flight level two three zero."
As Joe adjusted the number one navigation radio per the controller's instructions and began a slow bank to the east Lola quickly scribbled some notes on a small notepad clipped to the control yolk in front of her. As she finished her notes she keyed her transmitter once again, reading back from her notes. "Intermountain seven oh one turning right to intercept the Denver one four five radial, cross Denver above nine thousand. Plains Three departure, Garden City transition, climb and maintain flight level two three zero."
"Thank you, seven oh one. Good luck."
Apparently word had reached the approach controllers of the nature of their mission. It didn't surprise them. Based on what Joe had relayed from Matt that morning, furs from all over the country were airlifting whatever they could lay their paws on and stuff into whatever airframe was convenient, and heading for the Gulf Coast. Lola smiled. In spite of the reason for this flight, and all the misery and suffering behind it, it was good to be in the air with her new crew. She looked across the flight deck at Joe Latrans and her smiled got ever so slightly bigger.
Yep, life was sweet.
# # #
Max Overholt was hanging by a cable about thirty feet below their HH-65 Dolphin, above the neighborhood just east of the 17th Street Canal. The stink of the muck that inundated the neighborhood below assailed his nostrils even in the rotor blast of the machine above him. He was giving paw signals for a slow descent even as he spoke with his friend Jeff, the CPO hoist operator above, and their flight crew via the ship intercom channel.
"Can you come west about fifty feet, Charlie?" Max pointed. "I see something on the roof of that blue house with white trim just northwest of us."
The hyena's calm voice sounded in Max's earpads. "Sure thing."
The Dolphin drifted a few yards to the northwest as the Shepherd studied a particular roof.
"It's a hole!" Max exclaimed. As they drew closer he added "I see furs inside the attic. Looks like they've managed to punch a small hole in their own roof."
"I've got it," the pilot replied. "Give me a moment to swing around into the wind…"
Suddenly there was a commotion on the intercom channel as the flight crew and the hoist operator all started talking at once, rapidly and with anxiety evident. Max heard all three make exclamations and ask things like "What was that?" or "Where'd that come from?"
"What's wrong?" the Shepherd dangling at the end of his cable asked. Suddenly, before anyone answered him, the pitch of the rotors overhead changed and the Dolphin zoomed skyward, accelerating away from the home they had been hovering over, heading south.
"Hey! What the Hell…?" Max began angrily.
"Shut up!" Jeff replied from the door of the helicopter. "We're taking small arms fire!"
Max was dumbfounded. "What?"
"Somebody's shooting at us, God dammit," Charlie exclaimed.
Without signaling for it, Max suddenly felt the hoist pulling him rapidly back towards the aircraft. The helicopter zoomed south towards Interstate 10. "Where are we going?"
"I'm gonna set down on that bridge there and check the bird over. We've got one hole in the port side cabin door, I want to make sure we don't have more."
Within seconds Max was pulling himself into the cabin. His friend Jeff immediately began to look carefully about the rest of the cabin after unhooking the cable from Max's harness.
"How's she look, Glass?" Charlie asked their co-pilot.
Kristal De La Croix was a hometown girl, a Nutria from down on the delta. She had been with the Coast Guard a short period of time, but was already making a name for herself as a qualified helicopter pilot. Twenty six years old, she wore a single silver bar on the collar of her uniform shirts and was universally known as "Glass" to her crewmates.
"Everything's staying in the green," the rodent replied assuredly. "I don't think anything important got hit."
The captain to her right replied gruffly. "Bastards. What do they think we're doing out here, trying to round them up for slaughter?" He made small inputs to the collective and cyclic of their machine, testing it's responsiveness. As his arms moved gently Glass caught a glint of light off the silver oak leaf on his shirt collar. "She feels well enough. Nothing sloppy," Captain Charles Dixon replied. He slowed their approach rate as the vacant freeway bridge loomed in their windscreen. Both ends of the bridge were submerged, it was a small concrete island in the middle of the slime lake that had been western New Orleans.
# # #
The government of the city of New Orleans had finally established and activated an Incident Command Center in the Hyatt. Equipment was hooked up and configured, and presently multiple phones were available for use on the single VoIP account. That was when the President called from aboard Air Force One, wanting to speak to the Mayor.
The Mayor would later recount his conversation with the President in a broadcast radio interview. "I told him we had an incredible crisis here and that his flying over in Air Force One does not do it justice," the mayor said.
Later in the interview, conducted over the single hotel VoIP link, the mayor pleaded with the Commander in Chief, with the country. "I need reinforcements, I need troops. I need 500 buses," he said.
The next morning a large and unruly crowd of furs advanced upon the hotel where the government was working. It was a newly formed street gang, the members of which signaled their belonging by ripping their shirts in a particular way, and they were making their way to the hotel via elevated superstructures that connected the Superdome to a shopping arcade, and thence to the hotel proper. The Deputy Mayor got word that this gang, estimated at 200 thugs, was moving on their Incident Command Center and the hotel, aware that the building and it's occupants still had some amounts of food and water left.
Around 10 o'clock that morning, the team evacuated its fourth-floor command post for the 27th floor of the hotel, abandoning virtually all of it's precious communications links with the outside world. The only equipment it brought along was a handful of cordless phones, which had a range of about 300 feet. On the 27th floor, where the mayor was staying, the phones worked only if the user hung over the balcony toward the atrium inside the building.
"This was when the last parts of the government were about to come undone," the Deputy Mayor would later recall. "It felt like the Alamo -- we were surrounded and had only short bursts of communication."
In a testament to furs of his calling, the Chief of Police and a few hardy companions held off the gang at the entrance to the hotel.
Concurrent with this, other members of the team were on the first floor, trying to prevent the rising flood waters from getting to the electronics equipment of the hotel itself, upon which their communications links depended. While the gang advanced, these furs were sandbagging around this critical equipment. While water did enter the room, the equipment was protected, and after the thugs were driven away it was confirmed that all the communications equipment was still operational.
Much later, when the cavalry started arriving in the form of huge infusions of federal monies and personnel and assistance from major corporations, a gentlefur from Unisys Corp. arrived to oversee construction of a proper wireless network in the hotel conference rooms and at the city government buildings. Among the many boxes of supplies and tools he brought to New Orleans were a few bottles of a most appreciated substance.
We have the necessary provisions," grinned the ex-Army Ranger as he passed out fifths of Wild Turkey. "These boys need it."
# # #
The crew of Intermountain seven oh one had been speechless as they rolled into taxiway B off runway 28 at New Orleans International. They had just overflown the worst scene of disaster any of them had ever witnessed as they had executed their visual approach over downtown New Orleans. The only commentary any of them had been able to offer came from Randy Clarkson, whos eyes had grown ever larger as he muttered "Jesus Christ" under his breath at random intervals. Even from several thousand feet up the degree of damage, the total and complete destruction of civilization, had been evident.
They were lead by a "follow me" truck towards what turned out to be the cargo ramp, and had been wedged in between a USAF C-5 and an unmarked DC-8. The airport was littered with aircraft of all types at the west end. Over towards the terminal on the east side they had seen helicopters galore, and masses of furs moving about. Unknown to them, this was Triage City.
The City at Louie was where the injured survivors were airlifted to. Here what few medical personnel could be found had been assembled to perform the thankless, ghastly work of deciding who lived and who didn't, of who could survive the transport to better facilities and who would not. Most of these furs had no idea what time it was, and none of the personnel on the ramp or in the terminal buildings could remember how long any of them had been working. Yet they would not stop, and as the helicopters kept landing and disgorging more and more casualties, they kept working. Those with lesser injuries were patched up and sent to one of the shelters or holding areas on the airport, those who were more seriously injured were tended right there in the open on the concrete ramp. The worst off were made as comfortable as possible, wept over briefly, and left to die. Such was the way of things at The City.
The crew was met at their aircraft by an armed ferret in military fatigues devoid of insignia.
"Stay with your aircraft, please," the fur cautioned as Joe exited the port side hatch.
The ferret's eyes widened as Randy followed the snout of his assault rifle off the transport and moved up next to his commander. The skunk had an odd, detached look on his face, totally out of synch with the blaze in his eyes.
"Everything alright, Joe?" he asked quietly.
Joe didn't reply directly. He addressed the ferret, who even as he began speaking was noticing the sidearm the coyote wore, and then the arrival of his co-pilot.
"You will need to wait..." The ferret stared at Lola for a moment. ".. to wait here while we process you. There are no facilities for crews here."
A squeal of tires precluded further conversation on the part of the ferret, signaling the approach of a drab, worn-looking Humvee with no top. It did, however, have a fifty caliber machine gun on a tripod in the bed, and a frazzled looking basset hound behind the wheel. The Humvee rolled to a stop, practically clipping the ferret's backside with it's passenger side mirror. Ignoring the ferret, the driver spoke across his vehicle directly to the pilots of the transport.
"You guys with Intermountain?"
Joe nodded warily to the hound in the Marine Corps combat utilities. Things were happening way too fast. "Yeah, that's us. Why?"
"Orders for ya." The hound produced an envelope as the ferret turned to his right and backed up a step. The envelope passed into the paws of the ferret, who in turn handed it to Randy as the skunk raised the muzzle of his rifle towards the sky and stepped forward to take it.
Before Randy could hand the envelope to Joe the basset continued. "We're gonna unload you guys as fast as possible. Your boss wants you to fly up to Oklahoma City, to Tinker, and pick up something there."
As Joe broke the seal on the envelope and Lola looked on quietly, Randy asked "Pick up what?"
"Dunno," the basset replied. "He said the airedales would be waiting up there for you, is all."
"Sweet," Joe muttered, reading the single sheet of paper he had unfolded in his paws.
"What is it?" Lola asked in a low voice, leaning into Joe's arm and looking across his chest to read for herself.
"Are you receiving our cargo?" Randy asked.
"Yep, I can sign for it," the basset replied.
"I'll get you the paperwork," Randy said slowly. He shouldered the rifle and then turned, disappearing into the C-130 behind them.
"Trucks," Joe muttered. Then he looked up at the military fur. "You want us to bring in some trucks?"
"Not me, brother," the hound replied. "Look, all I know is this: We need what's in your cargo bay. I've got no food or water to offer you in return, nor do I have any avgas or jet fuel. Our pumps are down and the trucks have long since been sucked dry. Everything that comes in on planes is shanghaied by the helicopter support crews. We don't ask for stuff from anyone, we just happily accept whatever you can bring to us. Anything."
That last word held a bit of a plea in it, and Joe suddenly realized that this fur, like everyone else around them, was doing everything he could and then some just to hold it together.
"There's a couple of big generators and some diesel fuel on board for you, and almost six tons of food and meal preparation gear."
The basset's eyes lit up, but his reply was interrupted by the roar of more approaching trucks. As Joe turned he could see Randy deploying the ramp, and the first six by six flatbed was already positioning itself to back up beneath the tail of their transport. They saw Randy motion to them, beckoning.
"I'll help out," Lola said quickly, and at Joe's nodded reply she scurried towards the rear of the aircraft.
As the truck noise subsided Joe looked carefully at the basset hound before him. The fur was middle aged, trim, but tired looking.
"What do you need, my friend?"
"Huh?"
"What do you need?" Joe repeated. "In two or three hours I'll be waist deep in civilization up in Oklahoma, but I bet I'll be back before dinner." Joe smiled. "Can I bring you anything?"
The basset hound nodded, a slow smile crossing his muzzle.
"Candy."
"Candy?"
"Yeah." A paw lifted towards the terminal. "See that building?" He watched as the coyote nodded. "There's almost three hundred little ones in there, ranging in age from toddlers to teen-agers." The basset stared at the pilot for a few moments. "Every one of 'em is lost. No parents. Not since Katrina."
Joe blinked.
"Bring me something for them." The hound motioned to the ferret, who silently took the passenger seat at his side as he put his Humvee in gear. Joe became aware of a distant screech, growing louder. "If I don't see ya, leave it with whoever is here on the ramp." The hound saluted.
Joe snapped to attention and returned the salute, saying "You got it." But the hound was already roaring away towards his next task, an ancient looking Convair turbojet in mottled white finish.
# # #
Across the country tired furs sighed in relief, sensing that the disaster was finally over. Some settled with loved ones far away from where home used to be. Others wrapped their paws around a drink and tried to forget what they had seen, smelled, and lived in the past few days. Still others returned to the scene and vowed to rebuild, and began in earnest to meet that self-assigned objective. And virtually everywhere furs held a new sense of life's value within them.
Politicians began to point fingers in earnest while state governments scrambled to send what help they could muster. Everyone got down to the business of finding homes for the displaced and beginning the recovery and reconstruction of the City of New Orleans. The Army Corps of Engineers patched levees and got pumps running, and the water levels in the devastated Wards and Parishes of southeastern Louisiana began to drop. Furs became cautiously optimistic, and the mood of the country began to slowly improve.
Half way around the world off the west coast of Africa, virtually unnoticed by anyfur in the United States, a tropical depression was forming. Those few furs who pay attention to these things named the small storm system Rita, and began to monitor her movement westward across the Atlantic Ocean.
Afterword
In June of 1944 the United States Coast Guard had sixty ships stationed off the coast of Normandy, France. Their primary task was to support the invasion of Fortress Europe by rescuing any Allied servicemen from the ocean during those first fateful, famous days. In all, the USCG rescued 1,438 men during the weeks of the Normandy invasion.
In the summer of 2005 the United States Coast Guard was the first branch of the US military to respond to Hurricane Katrina, launching from the wreckage of New Orleans itself. In the few days following the passage of Katrina the USCG rescued a total of approximately 33,500 souls. Of that number, about 19,000 came from flooded streets of New Orleans and it's surrounding neighborhoods, including 6,500 who were plucked from rooftops or highway overpasses by the dedicated air crews of Coast Guard helicopters.
About 3,000 Coast Guard personnel from across the nation responded to the Gulf Coast region, even as the agency saw its stations in Grand Isle, Venice and Gulfport, Mississippi, sustain heavy damage.
But the agency wasn't alone in the quest. New Orleans police and firefighters, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the National Guard and, later, the active duty military were in the streets and in the air. The first helicopters involved, however, belonged to the Louisiana National Guard's New Orleans-based 1st Battalion, 244th Aviation Regiment and the United States Coast Guard.