Hurricane Katrina oral history

KATRINA 1 0 - Y E A R

A N N I V E R S A R Y

T H E G UA R D ’ S F I N E S T H O U R , I N S O L D I E R S ’ OW N WO R D S

Vol 12 | Issue 4

LEGACY

KATRINA M E M O R I E S

F R O M

T H E

F R O N T

Ten years ago in August, in a time of national crisis, the Guard embarked on its greatest domestic mission. Here, in their own words, are reflections from a few of the Soldiers who witnessed—and made—history.

BY MATT CROSSMAN

t covered an area the size of Great Britain.

Whipped up winds upon landfall that reached 125 mph. Produced waves three stories high. Plunged 80 percent of New Orleans under water. Destroyed property at an estimated cost of $80 billion. Knocked out power in 3 million homes across eight states. Forced nearly 1.2 million residents to evacuate. Left 600,000 families homeless for a month. And took more than 1,800 lives.

On Aug. 25, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast and became arguably the worst natural disaster America has seen. Other storms have been deadlier. But none had the impact of Katrina in scope, complexity and human suffering. By one scientific measure that quantifies the energy of a storm, Katrina generated nearly twice the energy as the atomic bomb at Hiroshima.

Let the pundits debate politicians’ decisions that complicated the initial response efforts. But one thing is undisputed: The skills, resourcefulness, dedication and bravery of National Guard troops saved and comforted Americans by the multitudes.

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After the levees broke in New Orleans, stranded residents fled to rooftops to escape the flooding and relied on Guard Soldiers in helicopters to pull them out.

PHOTO BY DAVID J. PHILLIP/AP IMAGES

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UN DER TH E DOM E More than 50,000 Soldiers and Airmen, coming from every U.S. state and territory, contributed to the rescue, relief and recovery efforts. It was the largest military response to a domestic event in the nation’s history—and came at a time when nearly 80,000 Guard troops were already deployed overseas.

Lieutenant General (Ret.) H. Steven Blum, then-chief of the National Guard Bureau, promised two things to President George W. Bush: “We’ll give you whatever you need,” and, “We’re here for as long as you need us.”

And the Guard delivered. Troops came by foot, truck, boat and helicopter. They were in the Superdome in New Orleans. On the streets of Gulfport, MS. In the skies over the coastline. They fed and sheltered victims; rescued the stranded; and tended to the infirm.

They transported people and provisions; generated power; pumped out water; and removed debris. They quieted civil unrest; directed traffic; sandbagged properties; facilitated communication; and more. The Guard moved over 18,000 tons of supplies. The Air Guard airlifted more than 88,000 people to safety. The Army Guard, at times going house to house, saved more than 17,000.

On this 10-year anniversary of that historic mission, there are sure to be thousands of stories told by Katrina veterans. Here’s a selection of Soldiers representing different perspectives and response sites. (Their ranks and duties at that time are in parentheses.) Separately, they recall the horror, the amazement, the humanity and the pride. Together, they capture a few unforgettable moments from the Guard’s finest hour.

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hen then-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered the evacuation of the city and labeled the Superdome as a “shelter of last resort,” the National Guard was there to support. Soldiers helped deliver 43,776 meals ready to eat (MREs) and 90,000 liters of water on Sunday, Aug. 28, hours before the storm hit early Monday. When Katrina finally swept the city, it breached 50 major levees. The resulting flooding contributed to further destruction and confusion. But nobody could have known that massive flooding would lead to the population at the Superdome growing from 10,000 to 35,000 and that the power and water would stop working. Still, the presence of the Guard kept a bad and desperate situation from turning ugly.

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major ebony carter (then a second lieutenant and commander of A Company, 527th Engineer Battalion, 225th Engineer Brigade, Louisiana National Guard) We got to the Superdome. I slept through the beginning of the storm. Then one of my guys came in and said, “It’s ripping off the roof, I hope we’re going to be OK.” Ripping off the top of the Dome? What is happening out there?

Left: Residents wait to be evacuated from New Orleans’ Superdome on Sept. 1, 2005.

Below: A Soldier from the Louisiana Guard’s Medical Command aids survivors.

major lydia jensen (first lieutenant working in the operations center, Louisiana National Guard) We were standing on the porch of Jackson Barracks [the Louisiana National Guard headquarters, near one of the levees that broke], watching the water rise. We took canoes and boats to the levee of the Mississippi River. We caught helicopters there and took them to the Superdome. You’re passing all these very large homes that are hundreds of years old. You know everybody who lives in them. The cars were under water. sergeant first class seth roy (specialist, 1st Battalion, 148th Infantry Regiment, Ohio National Guard) We flew into New Orleans, and you could see that the city was under water. The streets were no longer streets. There were fires in buildings. There was smoke rising from the city. jensen I’ve been to the Superdome a million times, but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen people evacuated into the dome. It was a very odd experience. carter There were so many different kinds of people that were coming in that I knew we weren’t necessarily equipped or prepared to care for. You had the deaf, you had people with mental illnesses, we had very small children, we had pregnant women, we had very elderly people, we had homeless people. We started getting lines of people who were coming. They

This story contains material from the book In Katrina’s Wake: The National Guard on the Gulf Coast 2005, by William B. Boehm, Renee Hylton and Major Thomas W. Mehl, and from other National Guard Bureau sources.

PHOTOS BY NASA/GSFC, JEFF SCHMALTZ, MODIS RAPID RESPONSE TEAM; PHOTO BY DAVID J. PHILLIP/AP IMAGES

PHOTO FROM LOUISIANA NATIONAL GUARD

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were carrying garbage bags full of their stuff. Everybody was soaking wet. And the water kept rising.

Left: Soldiers of the 832nd Medical Company hoist a survivor from an apartment building surrounded by floodwater.

roy Within 20 minutes of being on the ground, my squad went into the Dome to get a feel for what was going on and [to] establish our presence. [We told] people, “Hey, we’re here to get you guys some help and get you guys out of here.” It was pure chaos. The Dome was a mess. There [were] a ton of issues with the power being off and the water being shut off. The restrooms were overflowing. carter Our days were just 90 miles an hour from the minute you put your boots on the ground until the next morning. colonel ed bush (major, public affairs officer, Louisiana National Guard) In the middle of all of that chaos and all of that trash, I came across a father. He had his three kids.

They were young—maybe 3, 5 and 7. In the pile of stuff they had brought with them to the Superdome, he had brought a handful of children’s books. He had [the kids] on his lap [and] was reading to them. To see that scene, in the middle of quite frankly one of the most horrific places in the United States at that time, I will never forget it. I have a picture of it, and it will bring me to tears when I talk about it.

chief warrant officer 5 reggie l. lane (chief warrant officer 3, Blackhawk pilot, 1st Battalion, 244th Assault Helicopter Battalion, Louisiana National Guard) There had to be close to 300 helicopters in the air over New Orleans. I don’t understand how we didn’t run into each other. I couldn’t tell you how many roofs of houses I put the wheels of my helicopter on—in the 20s, maybe 30s. Some of them were peaked roofs. Some were flat roofs.

Above: Members of the Guard hand out MREs to some of the thousands of displaced residents at the Superdome, a last-resort shelter, on Aug. 28, 2005. Officials called for a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, but many residents remained in the city.

chief warrant officer 4 phillip morgan (chief warrant officer 2, 812th Medical Company, Louisiana National Guard) My wife had gotten information that [her cousin, Peter Becnel] was [at an apartment building he owned]. She gave me an address.

dismiss him. Not because I didn’t want to help [but] because there was so much going on. I said, “Sir, please stop one of the other Soldiers. They’d be happy to help you.” He said, “Ma’am, I don’t think you understand. I have been with her all my life. She is all that I have.” He wasn’t worried about his house. He wasn’t worried about things he had lost. He was standing there with a black trash bag, and he was holding all that he had left, and he was looking for his wife. I went with him. We did not find her, at least not with me. He said, “Thank you so much for taking the time to look with me.” That has always stayed with me.

You learn sometimes the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.

peter becnel (civilian) I had just purchased this building as a six-plex. My wife and I had just gotten married. We had spent every last dollar we had four days before Katrina. So we decided to stay.

Three days went by. We watched the waters rise. By the time [the National Guard] got there, it was already three feet up into the house.

We had a paraplegic man in the house. He had a broken arm. He was pretty helpless. He had been lying in the water for two days by the time we got him. That was my main concern. [He] didn’t have a basket. They finally got him out on a boat. morgan We ended up pulling 13 people out of there. It’s really hard to hoist because we would run out of fuel. We could pull two or three people at a time; then we had to go make a fuel run.

jensen The children were restless, and the parents were tired. When we found out what group was on the next flight, I’d stay with them. We would talk or play. I wanted to relax the children and let them know that even though we were Soldiers walking around with weapons, we were still their friends.

carter There was a little boy. For whatever reason, he decided he wanted to be attached to me. So whatever I was doing, he was three steps behind me. He had nobody. He couldn’t find his mom or his grandmother. So he just stayed close, whatever I was doing. I do not remember his name. I always think about him. I saw him on the news months and months after. Once we got buses into the city to bus people out, he was one of the kids at the shelter in Baton Rouge. jensen I worked with aviation and helped evacuate people from the Dome. First we evacuated medical patients. If there was a family of people, we didn’t separate them. We had no computers, no way to scan IDs. I would write down their first name, last name, keep track of how many people were in their party and what street they lived on. I kept track of who went on what flights, because God forbid if there was a mishap, we had to know who was on what flight. I did that for probably three or four days. carter There was an older gentleman in his 60s or 70s.

He stopped me and said, “Ma’am, I’m looking for my wife.

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becnel I really appreciate [him] yanking us out. They were very professional. They pulled us out like heroes would. They came in and static-lined us out.

You’re holding onto [the Soldier]. You hug all the way up. I can’t even express my appreciation.

Honestly, tears come to my eyes thinking of what could have happened if he didn’t pull us out. There were roving gangs with guns walking down the street. It was totally [like the] Wild West.

roy There were a lot of good people who were there.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of people who had lost a lot or were faced with some really hard times. I can’t say that some of the people were having their best day. A lot of people were in a bad way, and they were letting us know about it. But we had to keep on pushing. We understand the situation, and it’s horrible, but we’ve got to get you out of here before it gets any worse. colonel pete schneider (lieutenant colonel, public affairs officer and commander of Task Force Gator, which provided security, Louisiana National Guard) The misnomer about the Superdome was [that there were] all these murders and killings. It just didn’t happen. And the reason it didn’t happen is the National Guard was there. We were there before the people started showing up. We had enough food and water there. It wasn’t pretty, but the reason you didn’t have loss of life at the Dome was because of the Guard. The job those Soldiers, Airmen and medics did at the Superdome saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives. bush I’ve deployed overseas twice. I’ve been to Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. My Hurricane Katrina duty remains the most emotional and traumatic experience.

PHOTO BY ERIC GAY/AP IMAGES; PHOTO FROM COL ED BUSH

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Guard helicopters used in rescue operations

F RO M THE SKIES obody had ever seen anything like it, not even in war zones. For days on end, hundreds of helicopters flew over New Orleans. Pilots and their crew chiefs plucked people from rooftops and attics, even interstates.

They flew them to hospitals and the Superdome (until it got too crowded) and sites where buses took them out of the region. Limited communication meant pilots had to be very careful. They developed shorthand phrases.

“There’s good work” at a particular place meant that there were lots of people to rescue there.

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PHOTO FROM WISCONSIN NATIONAL GUARD

lane There was one time in particular. My crew chief, [Sergeant First Class] Charles Robertson, rigged a harness out of rope that tethered him to the aircraft so he could move around. [On] this one roof, they [had] put [out] a “help” sign. I couldn’t land there. There were wires all around us. I had to land on the edge and hang the wheel over. There were three or four people up there.

Robertson gets out and comes back and says, “Sir, there are six or seven more people downstairs.”

I’m sitting there holding it on the edge. He’s bringing them up through this hole in the roof.

They start loading up. He clicks back on the intercom and says “Everyone’s on board.” I start to take off, and I hear all the girls in the back screaming. I freeze for a second, probably at a five or six feet hover. I hear, “Sir, I’m still outside!” He was hanging from the rope. He said everybody was in. I thought he meant everybody was in. So I bring it back down so he can get in. He likes to call that incident, “the dope on the rope.”

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ON TH E STR EETS Above: Washington Army National Guard PFC Elonda Lane stands watch at the northern portion of the Ninth Ward in New Orleans in October 2005.

The Ninth Ward was one of the hardest hit from Katrina when the levee broke. Left: SGT Ricky Wheelington, left, holds Tyrone Allen, 2, as he arrives for shelter at the Superdome on Aug. 31.

he water that poured into New Orleans when the levees broke destroyed entire neighborhoods. Where houses remained, Soldiers found whatever floatation devices they could and started the bleak process of going door to door, hoping to find survivors and dreading finding victims. Katrina damaged approximately 93,800 occupied housing units in New Orleans alone. The work hit all of the Soldiers’ senses. The smell overpowered them. The images still haunt them.

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roy (after clearing the Superdome, he re-missioned to Lake Pontchartrain, LA) We ended up getting a bunch of neoprene waders.

We [waded] through the streets in chest deep water. Everything in that water was dead. My biggest fear was I would step on a manhole whose cover had floated off and just disappear.

Below: Commodity distribution. Right: A Humvee traverses floodwater surrounding the Superdome in September.

sergeant first class matt berlin (specialist, A Company, 1/148th, Ohio National Guard) One night one of our jobs was to prevent remains from being eaten by animals—until FEMA could come along and take them to mortuary affairs, to make sure they were recovered and identified so they could be turned over to the family and have a proper burial. It was pretty bad. We covered [the body] with a poncho, pulled back, stayed there all night and made sure nothing happened.

“ … I JUST CUT [MY UNIFORM] OFF AND BURNED IT THE NEXT DAY.”

major christopher call (captain and commander, B Company, 1/148th, Ohio National Guard) The smell was, I don’t even know. It was like seaweed, sulfur and death.

— SFC Seth Roy

the seat with a .22 rifle pointed out the window. He was casing the joint to see what kind of security we had. I remember thinking, I don’t know who else is with him, but I have a rifle that I’ve never fired. I hope and pray this guy doesn’t do anything. On deployment, you go into it expecting certain things. Going down for a relief effort in your own country, the last thing you ever expect is to have those thoughts go through your head. He drove by two or three times and never came back.

roy For the most part, day to day, I would go from house to house, opening doors, seeing if there’s anybody in there … then going to the next place, hoping [to] find somebody alive. In the houses, I think it was once or twice that we found people that didn’t get out of the first floor. Every once in a while, we’d see some deceased just floating, that weren’t in a house at all. It was horrible.

roy You can’t imagine the heat, and the bugs, and the smell, and the filth. On our best day, we had a bag of water to shower with and maybe a five-gallon cooler to wash our clothes. I took a uniform and washed it as best I could. I considered it my clean uniform. We flew out on a refueler jet. When I arrived I thought I was wearing my clean uniform. My wife picked me up. She’s like, “You have to change immediately.” I think I just cut it off and burned it the next day.

first sergeant kevin hartman (specialist, public affairs officer, Oregon National Guard) I got put on guard duty at our compound. I got handed an M4. I had never fired this M4 before.

We’re kind of close to the hospital. You [could] hear it at night being ransacked—looters going through looking for prescription drugs or whatever they can get their hands on. This Civic drove by; I think twice. There was this guy in 54 GX VOL. 12 // ISSUE 4

PHOTO FROM LOUISIANA NATIONAL GUARD; PHOTO BY SSG JACOB N. BAILEY

lieutenant colonel keith rapp (captain, 113th Field Artillery Regiment, North Carolina National Guard) There were about three suicides in the law enforcement community. They had been going for 18 or 20 hours a day. We fell in with the law enforcement officers [in Tangipahoa Parish]. We established and helped provide security for PHOTO BY DON RYAN/AP IMAGES; PHOTO BY MELISSA PHILLIP/AP IMAGES/HOUSTON CHRONICLE

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food and sundry item distribution centers. That got a little hairy there for a while. Everybody was in need, and there were thousands of people standing in line all day in that sweltering heat. hartman Every once in a while, we’d see what looked like the outline of a person because their body had killed all the grass it was on. roy I had a cellphone that worked for some reason. I racked up a lot of minutes letting civilians call their families to let them know they’re OK. brigadier general ken beard (colonel and commander, 113th Field Artillery Brigade, North Carolina National Guard) We had plumbers and electricians and state government [employees] as part of the emergency management system.

The nice part about the Guard is we bring all of that to the table. gordon burgess (civilian, president, Tangipahoa Parish, Amite, LA) We are very, very grateful that we had the National Guard working with us. I can’t say enough about the National Guard. Whatever needed to be done, we were able to get it done. beard That’s what our Soldiers live for. They fully understood that was their mission. They willingly accepted everything we asked them to do. It’s what we do. It’s why those Soldiers put the uniform on and why they train so hard to be able to execute the mission. It’s one of the most satisfying experiences I’ve been a part of.

ON TH E M I S S I S S I PPI C OA S T s Colonel Lee Smithson, director of military support for the Mississippi National Guard, recalls, Katrina “was one storm with two outcomes.” In New Orleans, the flooding kept Citizen-Soldiers and other aid workers focused on search and rescue missions. In Mississippi, Soldiers helped clean roadways and supplied stranded civilians with water, food and medication.

While the storm affected the entire state, the communities closest to the Gulf—Bay St. Louis, Biloxi, Gulfport and areas throughout Harrison County—were hit particularly hard. Gov. Haley Barbour declared a state of emergency. The storm had destroyed the state’s entire 80-mile coastline. At the peak of the response, more than 15,000 Guard troops deployed to the state.

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colonel lee smithson (lieutenant colonel, operations officer and director of military support to civil authorities, Joint Force Headquarters, Mississippi National Guard) I took my team, along with folks from the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, Mississippi Highway Patrol, Mississippi Health Department and 150 military police and 150 Soldiers, to Camp Shelby, which is about 70 miles from the coast. We deployed down there on Sunday, Aug. 28. It [was] our plan that we wouldn’t ride the storm out on the coast because we could become casualties in [the] Category 5 storm. command sergeant major darrell masterson (master sergeant, 112th Military Police Battalion, Mississippi National Guard) We had pretty strong winds at Camp Shelby. One image I remember is a dumpster running down the street at about 30 mph. We were in cinder block buildings, and the rain was coming through on the inside.

chris west (former field editor,

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GX, and current partner of iostudio, GX’s publisher) Two days after Katrina made landfall, I left for my first GX deployment, covering a National Guard unit conducting relief missions in Gulf Shores, AL. I spent the first day trying to punch through the devastation to reach their last known location, but the situation was pure chaos. I had no communications, limited supplies and was quickly running out of daylight.

As the sun was setting, I finally rolled into town and saw a young Guard Soldier calmly directing traffic by flashlight. In that moment, as bad as things were, I felt everything would be all right.

Guard Soldiers were on the ground and the situation was under control.

The relief I felt in seeing that young man doing his duty was overwhelming. I could only imagine how much more profound it must have been for the people who had lived through

the hurricane. It was just one man, but he, along with the Soldiers who stood behind him, represented law, order and the promise that the rest of the country hadn’t forgotten them.

I had always admired Guard Soldiers, but when I saw that Soldier my admiration instantly transformed from an abstract notion to a heartfelt appreciation for anyone willing to put on the uniform and commit to making the world a better place.

captain william carraway (specialist, 108th Cavalry Regiment, Georgia National Guard) You could already see trees knocked down for hundreds of miles before we got to the coast. As we were driving south, it was a constant increase in damage as we were going along. There was an increasing sense of foreboding. smithson When we got to Gulfport, my operations center—which was at the Air Guard base, which had survived Hurricane Camille [a Category 5 hurricane in 1969] and been reinforced over the years—we opened the door, and I looked up and saw stars, because the roof had been blown off. We didn’t have an operations center. No phones, no Internet, no maps. That’s how my night started, and it didn’t get any better for a while. berlin We flew into [Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport]. We didn’t get there until 03. There were hundreds of Soldiers there.

We got there last, so we kind of tiptoed in. The only place that wasn’t being slept in at the time was the sauna. So my platoon hunkered down in the sauna. We just kind of laid down on the benches, put our heads on our rucksacks and tried to get some rest. call We pulled into a National Guard armory in Lumberton, MS. We get off the bus, and there [was] a guy in a pickup truck, probably in his 60s. He PHOTO BY ROB CARR/AP IMAGES; PHOTO BY 2LT MURRAY B. SHUGARS

said, “Thank you for coming; we appreciate you guys being here.” And he started unloading stuff from his truck to give to us—fruit, food water and this and that. I said, “We’re here to help you, not the other way around.” masterson We would start at the coast and drive, and for the first 10 miles, it was just completely a debris field. You would see I-beams from buildings that were just wrapped around trees—things you wouldn’t believe.

Top: Rhonda Braden walks through the destruction in her childhood neighborhood at Long Beach, MS, on Aug. 31, 2005.

Above: Track hoe operator SGT Dolphus “Buster” Carter (left) and SGT Jamie Peters, both with Mississippi Guard’s B Company, 890th Engineer Battalion, clear public land in Biloxi as part of the coastal clean-up operations after the storm.

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call I remember walking around a bank. [It] was completely gone. All that was left was the vault. It was just twisted steel. You couldn’t fathom it in your mind.

BEYOND THE BAYOU

carraway It was like you wiped your hand across a dry-erase board, and everything that had been there was gone. You’d just see random items strewn about. I noticed pianos. I would see random masses of destruction—and an upright piano. I probably saw eight or 12.

The vast majority of the Guard’s response to Katrina took place in Mississippi and Louisiana, but other states needed help from their CitizenSoldiers, too.

call I remember seeing a boat in a tree [and] thinking, There’s no way that boat floated into that area. The trees were too dense. The only way that boat could have gotten there is over the top of the trees. So water was up that high. The water went away and the boat got stuck. It’s just mind-boggling. carraway As we went along door to door, very rapidly we found that there were a lot of elderly, retired folks.

There were a lot of prescriptions they had that were low or running out, or needed refrigeration, like insulin. A lot of [our work] ended up being how [to] ensure we can get these folks their meds, and at least be able to have some kind of follow-up. call We drove around Bay St. Louis, [MS], and made sure people had ice and water. You just saw the devastation down there. It was just slabs. It was like nuclear war destruction. smithson You just had to trust the [Guard] units that were in the counties operating to do what was right without additional guidance. … They all did great. When the bipartisan commission released its report on Hurricane Katrina and called it a failure of initiative, I was very offended. We had more initiative than we knew what to do with. It was a failure of imagination. We failed to imagine that a storm could occupy 90,000 square miles. That’s a storm the size of Texas. Even though there’s been criticism for a lack of communication and a lack of planning for a catastrophic response—and that is true—at the end of the day, the Guard Soldiers did an incredible job.

In between working back-to-back shifts in the relief efforts after Katrina, Soldiers find rest wherever they can—some on cots or in their vehicles, and some even in sauna tanning beds.

no cellphone coverage, but people could get some text messages out. As a last-ditch effort, she sent a text to a woman she had gone to church with a long, long time ago in Jackson. Her text said, “My family and I are trapped in this attic. We can’t get out. We don’t think we’re going to live very much longer.” The woman got the text, sent it to a friend and said, “Who do we know on the coast?” The word went out. Clyde got the text message from his wife.

He gave it to me. I gave it to the Harrison County EOC [emergency operations center]. They sent some firefighters in, and they got the family out. They were probably hours away from dying, because it was over 100 degrees in that attic. How that happened, still, to this day, amazes me.

masterson There were several people pulled out of debris fields. Some of the duties we had, unfortunately, were to discover the bodies.

carraway We pulled up to a house that had a gigantic tree completely through the middle of it. There was a little old lady sitting on the front porch. She had a little cooler up there. It’s 95 [or] 100 degrees. I asked her, “Ma’am is there anything we can do for you?” She said, “No, I don’t need anything; I’m blessed. But would you like a Coke?”

She had a cooler. She didn’t have a lot of ice. But she had two Cokes, and she offered me one of them. Here she is, with a tree through her house, obviously lost everything, but she hasn’t lost hope. She’s offering me half of what she has left in the world. I think that’s why we were able to keep going so much. The people were good people. In all of the worst of nature, we saw the best of humanity.

smithson My logistics guy was a civilian. His name was Clyde Reeves. He got a text from his wife, who had gotten a call from a member of their church, who had gotten a phone call from someone else, who had gotten a text from a woman who said she and her family were trapped in an attic. Her battery was dying on her cellphone. There was

call One of my Soldiers came upon a woman who was sifting through the wreckage of what used to be her house. She came over and handed him a tattered American flag. She asked him to take it and care for it, since she had nowhere to display it from. It was a pretty emotional moment for him and the woman.

carraway People would have nothing—no power, no ice, no water. But almost universally they’d say, “No, we’re doing fine, but go check on these folks.”

On Aug. 26, the state activated nearly 1,000 troops. The next day, some of them distributed ice and other goods at a distribution point set up at Homestead-Miami Speedway, south of Miami.

ALABAMA

On Aug. 28, Gov. Bob Riley declared a state of emergency and activated 181 Soldiers, sending them to Mobile and Baldwin counties, both of which are along the Gulf Coast.

Soldiers pre-positioned equipment and sandbags in advance of the storm’s arrival. In Mobile, the Guard activated its Emergency Operations Center.

WHERE THEY ARE NOW Brigadier General Ken Beard

Assistant adjutant general, North Carolina National Guard

Peter Becnel

ARKANSAS

On Aug. 29, Gov. Mike Huckabee ordered Guard troops to open a readiness center in Monticello in southeastern Arkansas and furnish it with 100 cots and blankets. They did the same thing at a high school in Lake Village, just across the border from Mississippi.

Civilian who has since made a documentary about Hurricane Katrina called Reasons to Stay that premieres in October 2015

Sergeant First Class Matt Berlin

Full-time readiness NCO, 1/148th, Ohio National Guard

Gordon Burgess

Civilian, President, Tangipahoa Parish, Amite, LA

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Mississippi counties—all of them—that were declared disaster areas

“ YOU JUST SAW THE DEVASTATION DOWN THERE. IT WAS JUST SLABS. IT WAS LIKE NUCLEAR WAR DESTRUCTION.” — MAJ Christopher Call

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FLORIDA

PHOTO FROM LOUISIANA NATIONAL GUARD

Colonel Ed Bush

Director, Reintegration Office, Louisiana National Guard

Major Christopher Call

carraway We didn’t have any maps of the area. I bought a couple and I had them distributed. I remember at one point there was a pickup truck that had been pushed into a house. It was sitting on its side. In the windshield, right in the front, was a book of maps of Mississippi. I was thinking to myself, I could break the windshield and get the maps. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The truck was destroyed. I’m sitting there in I don’t know how many miles of absolute destruction, and I couldn’t bring myself to break a windshield to get a map I could use.

We don’t lose our humanity, I guess. masterson We just had to reassure people. Every patrol we sent out, we ensured they had water, they had food. We would stop at every household that we saw people [and] reassure them, “Hey, if you need us, all you have to do is walk to the end of this road.” I think that’s one of the biggest things we would ever achieve in the Guard: reassuring the public, Hey, the Guard’s here, we’re never going to leave you. carraway I worked at a POD—a point of distribution. In eight hours, we distributed 12 tons of ice, 10 tons of water, and we handed out 32 tons of food and supplied 4,000 vehicles. And that’s from one point of distribution. [We were] just nine cavalrymen. You can imagine, if nine of us are doing it at one POD, the sheer amount of work being done across the spectrum of the relief effort.

call The town threw us a shrimp boil.

They brought all these people up and boiled shrimp and corn and everything you could think of. It was also the day that Ohio State played Texas in football. We got to watch it in the church, because they set up a generator and a projector and got a satellite dish. Their spirit and their ability to deal with what they were dealing with and still be good human beings and taking care of everybody—that was pretty amazing. smithson It was a very, very Herculean effort by all these Soldiers who were down there and did absolutely phenomenal jobs.

There was no rank. There was no “officers don’t do that kind of work.” It was, “see what needs to be done and do it.” It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But it’s really one of my greatest accomplishments of my career. 1

Training officer, 371st Sustainment Brigade (Infantry), Ohio National Guard

Captain William Carraway

Public affairs officer and military historian, 161st Military History Detachment, Georgia Department of Defense

Major Ebony Carter

Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Louisiana National Guard

First Sergeant Kevin Hartman

Public Affairs Officer, Oregon National Guard

Major Lydia Jensen

Branch chief, Office of the Chief of the National Guard Bureau/National Guard Joint Staff and Army Contracting Offices, Washington, D.C.

Chief Warrant Officer 5 Reggie L. Lane

Commander, Detachment 38, Operational Support Airlift Command, Louisiana National Guard

Command Sergeant Major Darrell Masterson

112th Military Police Battalion, Mississippi National Guard

Chief Warrant Officer 4 Phillip Morgan

C Company, 1/114th Aviation Regiment, Louisiana National Guard

Lieutenant Colonel Keith Rapp

70,000

Survivors from Katrina-damaged communities who were relocated across the country from California to Maine—the largest population dispersal after a single event in U.S. history, according to the National Guard Bureau.

Commander, 230th Brigade Support Battalion, North Carolina National Guard

Sergeant First Class Seth Roy

Full-time Readiness NCO, C Company, 1/148th, Ohio National Guard

Colonel Pete Schneider

Public affairs officer, Louisiana National Guard

Colonel Lee Smithson

Operations officer and director of military support to civil authorities, Joint Force Headquarters, Mississippi National Guard

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