by Jenni Ogden
I forced a smile as the little bubble of buoyancy in my chest fizzled to nothing. “I’d love to help for as long as you need me. I’ll have to at least check on some of my patients tomorrow.”
That evening after I’d given up trying to get through to Adam, I went with Stork to the staffroom. I leaned back on the sagging old couch in the crowded room, and looked about at the disheveled, exhausted people around me who even now, in the midst of the chaos and tragedy of Katrina, were still excited about their work and at one in their mission to see their hospital through this. Closing my eyes, I visualized a tap deep inside me opening and letting out a trickle of warm honey, filling me up. Oh, how I needed to get back to my own life—not only to Adam and two back-to-normal kids, but to my patients, my theater, and my colleagues as well.
Once the tired doctors and nurses had expended their excess adrenalin, they wandered off, presumably to wherever they had managed to find a bed, couch, or a mattress on a floor. As Stork and I began our trek to Stork’s sixth floor office in the Napoleon Medical Plaza Building, where earlier that day Stork had hauled in a second mattress, I asked him if he’d mind a quick detour to the ICU corridor so I could check on a patient. Stork shook his head, then grinned. “What was I thinking, that you’d have gotten slack with age?” Using head torches, we wove through the hot, smelly passageways and stairwells, trying not to step on the bodies lying, trying to sleep, in every space that was not littered with glass and other debris.
Finally we reached the makeshift ICU. It was dimly lit by the ceiling lights powered by the big generator systems, and it seemed strangely quiet without the babble of voices, in spite of the cacophony of noises made by the ventilators and monitors. A nurse was sitting reading at a small desk at the end nearest us, her dark skin glowing in the light from her headlamp. She jumped when we appeared beside her, but calmed quickly when she saw the long frame of Stork, clearly a familiar sight.
“I thought you might be looters,” she whispered. “We’ve been warned to be on the lookout, especially where we have lots of drugs, like here.”
“Sorry, June,” Stork said. “It’s spooky in here. Shouldn’t you have someone else with you?”
“I do. There’s a junior resident on as well, but she’s gone off for a break.”
“This is Georgia Grayson,” said Stork, as I moved into the halo of light. “She’s a neurosurgeon visiting from England, and she’s been helping out on the ICU today. She wants to check on a patient before we get some sleep.”
“Hi, Dr. Grayson.” June sounded a little shy. “I’ve been hearing about how wonderful you’ve been from Pauline. She’s on again tonight.”
“She’s doing an amazing job,” I said, smiling at her. “She needed a sleep though. Is she OK?”
“She says she’s fine now; well as fine as anyone is in this situation.”
“Is it all right if I check on Mrs. Leaumont? I won’t wake her if she’s sleeping.”
“Of course you can. She had a visitor; her son I believe. He left about an hour ago. But she’s much better. Her oxygen saturation is up to ninety-five percent and she’s breathing more easily.”
“That’s a relief.” I looked at Stork. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”
“Take your time; I’ll keep June company for a bit.” He parked himself on the corner of her desk.
I reached Savannah’s bed and looked down on her sleeping face. As June had said, she was breathing steadily, although she still had her oxygen connected. In the dim light she looked younger, and I could almost see the striking woman of seventeen years ago, entertaining me in her elegant Garden District mansion. I swallowed as Danny came, unbidden, into my mind. How bizarre it all was, Danny’s grandmother here under my care. She’ll come through this, Danny, I promise.
Giving myself a metaphorical shake, I went a little further down the corridor, searching for another patient amongst the ghostly shapes. I finally found her bed, moved further along from where I had last seen it. Janet was lying quietly, her sheet pushed off her hot body and a damp facecloth on her forehead, but her eyes were wide open. When she saw me, she managed a wobbly smile.
“Hullo, Janet. Why aren’t you asleep?”
“I was lying here dreaming about my baby.” Janet’s eyes watered.
“Is she OK?” I asked, alarmed.
“She’s absolutely perfect. The nurse brought her to me to feed for the very first time this evening.” Janet’s tears were flowing freely now, and for the second time that night I swallowed a lump in my throat.
“That’s wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. I hope I can see her tomorrow.”
“Oh, yes you can. I can’t wait to see her again, but they said she’d be better off in Obstetrics tonight.”
“I’m sure they’re right,” I said, looking around the crowded space. “And you should take the opportunity to get some sleep as well. I’ll ask the nurse to bring you a sleeping pill.”
“Thanks. I know I’ll dream about her anyway.”
“And the sooner you get to sleep, the sooner the morning will come.” I smiled as I remembered how often Adam and I had said that to our children before a special day. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“OK. And doctor?”
“What is it?”
“Thank you.”
“It’s a pleasure, Janet.” I moved quietly away, and got my emotions back in line by the time I reached Stork.
We set off for the hike across the enclosed catwalk to Stork’s office. Stork gave me a towel and a toothbrush he had thoughtfully commandeered from the hospital stores, and in the women’s bathroom I brushed my teeth vigorously and wiped my body all over, using clean, cold water from one of the full buckets that had been put in there, in preparation for Katrina’s havoc. Returning to Stork’s office, I discovered that even a mattress, pillow, and sheet on a cramped floor could feel luxurious, and within minutes I was asleep.
Waking around five-thirty, I sat up and stretched my stiff, aching body. Stork was still deeply asleep on the other mattress, squashed into the small floor space. I peered out the window at the mess left by the floodwaters below, but the street looked dry. The new sun was coloring the tops of the trees still standing, promising a blue day after the nightmare of Katrina.
The cleanup would be a massive task. Surely they would want me to stay and help? I’d beg, if I had to. Lara had seemed happy enough, keen in fact, for me to help out. Goodness only knows how long it would take for all the hospital services to be restored, and evacuating all the patients to fully functioning hospitals would be a logistics nightmare. Well, it would be if something like this happened in our London hospital. Hopefully I’d be able to do something useful. I flexed my neck and rotated my shoulders, releasing the tension in my tired muscles. I could feel a big smile creasing my cheeks—those muscles hadn’t been used too often lately. Sad that it had to be in this horrific situation, but at least New Orleans had not been as devastated as predicted. And I was damn well entitled to this unfamiliar warming glow of satisfaction, back doing what I loved after so long away.
As I stepped over Stork on my way to the door, intending to perform at least minimal ablutions in the bathroom, Stork opened bleary eyes. “Mornin’, Georgia.” His voice was hoarse with sleep.
“Oops, didn’t mean to wake you. I was just off to the bathroom.”
Stork yawned hugely. “Man, I’ll be glad to get back to my own bed tonight. How’s it looking outside?”
“Lovely day so far. Should help the cleanup. Let’s hope there’s food somewhere. I’m ravenous.”
Twenty minutes later, in the makeshift kitchen on the fourth floor, we queued behind a straggle of amazingly cheerful people, presumably relieved that they had survived the storm, and keen to get back to see how their own homes had fared. We were rewarded with a Styrofoam cup filled with grits, scrambled eggs and a sausage. As we stood to one side savoring the strange mixture, one of the residents I had met the previous evening came over to us, looking worried.
“Hi, man, what’s up?” asked Stork.
“I’ve been trying to drive to my house, but couldn’t get far. There’s a torrent of water rushing across Claiborne Avenue, and the water is rising all over. I think one of the levees must have broken.”
At that moment a man came hurtling through the door behind them, screaming hysterically. “We’re flooding. All the levees have broken and there’s only one way out of the city. We’re all going to drown.”
The security guard rushed to reassure him, but the crowd shifted uncomfortably, voices rising anxiously as parents hustled their children back through the door.
“Jumping catfish, that’s all we need,” Stork said. “Let’s go to the Admin Centre and see what they know.”
When the three of us reached the emergency command center, a number of disaster team members were already gathered around the enormous conference table. We soon learned that there were reports coming through about multiple breaks in the levees. The entire city was likely to be flooded, with water unable to escape from the low-lying city. Memorial had been sheltering more than two thousand people who would now have to be evacuated as soon as possible, before the roads became impassable. Once the street outside the parking building flooded, it would become impossible to drive out of the garage.
The biggest worry was that the hospital generators would fail if the water got too high, and if that happened the hospital would plunge into darkness and we would lose all the elevators and refrigerators. The ICU equipment now running on generators and batteries wouldn’t hold out for long, so getting the ICU patients evacuated was a priority.
It was decided to use a triage system to evacuate the sickest patients first, with the ‘Do not resuscitate’ patients given the lowest priority. How the evacuation was going to happen wasn’t clear, but a contingent of the National Guard was sheltering in the hospital, and presumably would be able to get the patients out by road.
The next few hours passed in a rush of adrenalin as Patrick and I, along with two nurses, listed the ICU patients in order of priority, getting together their charts, MRIs and X-rays, and pushing their beds into some sort of ranking system in the corridor. Worried family members assisted our efforts, fanning patients and wiping them with wet facecloths, trying to keep them hydrated and calm as the heat soared above one hundred degrees. Every so often, someone would appear with more dire news of flooding. By eleven that morning the streets around the hospital were filling up with water, and by one o’clock they were impassable. No one could get out of the garage now, and evacuation was dependent on boats and helicopters that would have to operate from a rusty helipad on the roof that hadn’t been used for fifteen years.
Chapter 18
It was mid-morning when Stork appeared and pulled me over to the vacant nurses’ desk. His face was gray, and I could see the anguish in his eyes. The same fear was haunting me. Without thinking I put a hand up to his cheek. “How are you coping?”
“I’m worried about Marcie and the kids. There are shocking reports coming through about Park Plaza hotel. Apparently it’s badly flooded. I’m trying to organize a way to get them out of there.”
“How are you going to get there if the flooding is too high?” My heart was racing.
“A security guard mate of mine is calling in some favors with some guys who are motoring around picking up people struggling to get through the water. It’s rising fast. They promised that they’d do their best to get back to the hospital after they’ve dropped off the people they already had in their boat—god knows where they dump them, somewhere out of the floods where they can bake in the sun with thousands of others waiting for buses to get them out of this monster disaster. Our lot will be better off here. They’ll give me a lift to as near as they can get to Park Plaza. I could have a go at getting there on my own two pins, and I will if they don’t show up. But this way will be faster and I’m praying that they might return and pick Marcie and the kids up and bring them back here.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Thanks sweetie, but no. You’re needed here. I’ll be fine. I’ll bring ‘em all back before you can say stone the crows. Don’t worry about Lara, she’s her mother’s daughter, and to top that, she’s got red hair.” His lips wobbled into a tired grin.
“I’m coming. Give me a minute to tell Patrick. He’ll have to manage without me for a couple of hours.”
“You never did take any notice of your betters. I hope you can swim.”
We had to wait in the lobby for about half an hour before the boat returned, already with four wet and frightened people huddled in the back. We climbed in and the guy on the outboard puttered through the filthy water, out into the steaming sun, and into Clara Street. The water stank of gasoline and sewage, and everywhere I looked there were people hanging for dear life onto bits of wood or iron roofing piled high with their belongings. Boats stuffed full of people were ignoring cries for help, and broken power lines were all over the place, almost certainly alive. Three times we slowed and the other boat man and Stork dragged people over the side. There was no way I could assess them to see if they needed urgent medical attention, but they seemed OK. One of them was even laughing—hysterically or with perfectly understandable relief, I couldn’t tell. It took a lifetime to get to the Park Plaza hotel—via a route unrecognizable to me until we were halfway along the choppy river that was Canal Street. The boat sidled up to the towering buildings and the boatman handed Stork a coil of green rope he’d hauled out from under the seat. “This is your stop. Take this and tie your family together before you try wading through this shit,” he said. “There are some nasty currents, and if you get separated it will be a bugger to find each other.”
“You couldn’t hang around a bit could you? We might find them straight away,” I said, almost getting on my knees.
“Sorry, hon. If we can we’ll cruise back this way after we drop the next load off, but you’re gonna be a while in there.”
“Thanks Joe. You’re a good man,” Stork said, grabbing my hand as I wobbled to my feet. “We’ll wade back if we don’t see you, so don’t worry too much. Thanks for the rope.”
The water was up past my waist and we slogged towards what I had now realized was the main entrance to the Park Plaza. Stork grabbed my hand again and we pushed towards the doors. They were closed tight and we shoved our faces to the glass and peered inside. It was dark but there was enough light coming in the windows and door to see that it was deep in water, furniture floating aimlessly about, no people in sight. We pushed and pulled on the doors but with the floodwaters on both sides we had no hope of getting them open wide enough to squeeze through. We waded along the front of the hotel and around the side, and looking up saw people hanging out windows, their screams and shouts lost in the noise of motorboats and helicopters. Stork pointed to a window no more than twelve feet above us, its black center framed by broken glass. A brilliant green creeper snaked up the wall of the building, its leaves shining in the sun.
“I can get up there.” Stork looked around. “Find something solid that I can use to smash away that glass near the sill.”
“Then what will we do? How will we ever find them in there?” I was cold with terror.
“Ah, this will do the trick.” He held up a piece of wood about eighteen inches long and bashed it against the wall. “Not rotten, anyway.” He stuck the wood in the band of his sodden khaki pants, draped the coil of rope across his chest, and grabbed the creeper. I could see him fumbling around under the water with his feet, trying to get a foothold. “You stay here and I’ll find them and we’ll get back out this window. Easy.”
“I’m coming too.”
“You have a very small vocabulary, Georgia. You’d be more help staying here. They’ll need a hand to get down from the window.”
“Get up there and I’ll follow.”
It wasn’t hard to find footholds on the creeper and Stork had done a good job smashing and flattening the glass. He hauled me i
n and I felt a sharp pain as my diaphragm scraped across the remains of the glass. I looked down at my ripped T-shirt, a small ooze of blood spreading out from a graze beneath it. “Oops, sorry,” Stork said, then grinned. “Your first war wound.”
We were in a bedroom. The floor was squelchy but not flooded. We switched on our head torches and pushed open a door into a black corridor. I checked the door number: 104. I needed to get to 402. Although surely Lara would be with Marcie? We could hear muffled shouts and helicopters, but the corridor was silent, too silent. We found a door with EXIT STAIRS marked on it.
“What was Marcie’s room number?” I said. My voice was swallowed by the walls.
“515,” Stork said. “Let’s get up these stairs and find your room first. If they’re not there or in 515, then we’ll think again.”
The corridor outside the stairs on Level 4 was spookily quiet given that there must have been fifty people sitting and lying on the floor in the dark. A few circles of light shone here and there and one girl I nearly tripped over was reading a book by the light of her weak torch.
“Lara,” I yelled. “Lara Grayson?” A few people looked up and a baby began to cry. I’d probably woken the poor little thing. We pushed our way to 402 and found the door hanging partly open. I shoved it and the light hit me as I looked inside. The window was smashed, and the carpet saturated and littered with glass and leaves and even branches. I could see my suitcase in the corner, but not Lara’s. Stork spoke over my shoulder. “She’ll be with Marcie. Let’s get to Level 5.”
There were more people in the Level 5 corridor, and when we found the door with 515 on it, there they were, all four of them, sitting and lying on the Queen bed that had been shoved as far away from the smashed window as possible. Isabelle was the first to move, and nearly knocked her father flying. And then Lara was in my arms and we were both crying like babies.
