CHALMETTE, La.–Just over a week ago, this was a small suburb of New Orleans. It had a Wal Mart, a thriving shrimping industry, and two large oil refineries. Now, the entire downtown shopping strip is under five feet of water. Suburban streets are rivers, stretching as far as the eye can see.
"They might have to change the city name to Atlantis," says Chris Schlechta, a volunteer firefighter who came in from Milwaukee to aid in the rescue efforts.
Schlechta and other rescuers are scrambling to find any survivors stranded by Hurricane Katrina, which drowned all of St. Bernard Parish, a county of 70,000 people. Outside help was slow to arrive in the parish, which had been almost completely cut off by floodwaters.
Finally, rescue workers are beginning to arrive and, one week after the hurricane, National Guard troops rolled in. Fortunately, the floodwaters are starting to recede, but more than half the parish remains submerged. The only way into many areas is still by metal-bottomed boats.
Schlechta's team is from a volunteer group called People & Paws Search & Rescue, which is normally a K-9 rescue team. But their search dogs are of little use in this marine environment. Instead, they brought boats. The team launches from a four-lane road near a refinery. Working in coordination with the local fire department, they're going house-to-house, trying to systematically determine if anybody is left alive.
It's a delicate operation. Roberta Boczkiewicz, a canine handler who is currently a stay-at-home mother, is piloting the boat. She has to navigate through an urban landscape of submerged street signs, downed power lines, and floating debris. Several times, she runs right over cars parked in peoples' driveways that are no longer visible beneath the murky water. At each house, she maneuvers right up to the front door to see if anyone is still inside. "I'll try to get close without wrecking their landscaping," says Boczkiewicz.
Unlike in New Orleans, where the worst flooding was caused by a break in the levees, St. Bernard was swamped by the storm surge from Katrina. Everywhere, the power of the storm is evident. As Boczkiewicz steers through one neighborhood, she passes a boat that is fully out of the water, only because it is suspended between two neighboring rooftops. Down the street, a camper has been thrown up onto another roof. And an ornate rocking chair is speared on a high tree branch.
After two hours of searching, the team has not found anyone, other than one abandoned dog watching the boat from a second-floor balcony. Most of the homes in this particular area have only one story–and the high-water mark is near the very top of the roofs.
"I'm going to take a wild guess and say that no one is still alive in this neighborhood," says Schlechta. "The water was just too high." They switch to just searching the two-story homes.
Finally, they find some survivors. But in what is an increasingly common problem for rescuers, they do not want to leave. Four residents are perched in the second-story windows of one sizable house. But the family insists on staying, despite the lack of electricity and running water, not to mention the high water for blocks on every side.
"We've got enough food for two weeks," says one man. "You be careful out there."
It's not clear, however, how many weeks-or months-will pass before the town can dry out. It's also not clear how much of the town will be left. After climbing onto the roof of one house to check for any survivors in the attic, Schlechta worries about the conditions. "Give these places another week and they'll start falling in on each other," says Schlechta. "The roof is already soft."
It is hardly a safe environment for residents or rescuers. Already, the fetid water is beginning to reek. Parts of town have been contaminated by leaking crude oil. The Wisconsin rescue team has a hot shower waiting for them up in Baton Rouge, where they are staying. "I was spraying my legs down with Lysol," says Boczkiewicz.
Local government officials are camped out in their central office, surrounded by blocks and blocks of flooded streets. Periodically, boats arrive to resupply them with food and water. Outside, St. Bernard's Emergency Preparedness Mobile Command Center sits disabled, submerged in six feet of murky water.
"They were ready," says Schlechta. "Just not for this kind of water."
