The Feathered Bone

by Julie Cantrell

  I think she means we have a family like the kind you see on TV. I asked her what kind of family she had, but she didn’t answer. So I taught her how to play charades.

  When the lights flicker back to full brightness and the air conditioner roars to life, the reception hall fills with laughter. Someone starts singing “This Little Light of Mine,” and another boosts spirits by yelling, “Clap it up!” Soon everyone joins in. As their voices rise, hopes rise too. Even Preacher and Beth are smiling.

  When the song ends, Preacher draws everyone’s attention to the front of the room. “There have been a lot of rumors about what’s going on down in New Orleans,” he says. “I know you’re worried and communication has been difficult. We’ve got this TV now, so hopefully we can get a better idea of what’s really happening.”

  The families hurry closer, and Preacher gets busy connecting the set. Carl helps, and together they find a way to tune in to a static feed of a public station.

  About a hundred of us gather, eager for news. When the images begin to flash across the screen, a stunned silence fills the room. A reporter narrates, and we piece together bits of information, slowly coming to terms with what has occurred.

  “Remember,” the reporter says, “Monday night we were all focused on the Mississippi coast, the strike zone. Everyone was saying we had dodged a bullet here in New Orleans. But when we woke up Tuesday morning, the streets were filled with water. It was as if we went to sleep on land and woke up at sea.”

  As the footage shows clips throughout the Crescent City, the refugees gasp and cover their mouths in shock. Some begin to cry.

  “The last two nights, the only lights have been from police cars and cameras. It’s become a dark, eerie place. We’ve heard gunshots and helicopters. Tension is beginning to build.”

  The anchor chimes in. “And no help has arrived?”

  “None. It’s hard to believe. The people here at the dome—they are not the looters. These are people who followed the rules, did as they were told, and have been waiting for nearly three days for help. It’s ninety-seven degrees with full-blown humidity. Sweltering heat. You can see, tensions are rising. People are afraid.”

  The camera shows countless refugees, each experiencing emotional extremes. Anger, fear, sadness, grief. The common expression is hopelessness. As Beth watches the screen, she wears the same sad eyes as the storm survivors.

  The reporter continues exposing us to truths too surreal to believe. “There are dead bodies being lined up in the street.”

  The camera shows images of corpses, some sitting in wheel-chairs, some lying in the gutter. Their faces have been covered with towels, sheets, ponchos. Any piece of cloth people have managed to salvage.

  “These are old people. Sick people. Babies.”

  The anchor says, “We’re told more than a hundred thousand people could be stuck in the city. What do they need right now?”

  “Water and food. Diapers and baby formula. Many of them need medication. And they need a way out of New Orleans. They need transportation, and they need somewhere to go. The trains all shut down before the storm. Buses aren’t running. No one seems to be coming to help. Just locals with their boats, pulling people from their homes. No one seems to be in charge.”

  As scenes flash across the screen, someone behind me yells, “The bridge!”

  “That’s I-10!” yells another. “Lake Pontchartrain.” Entire sections of the twin-span interstate have collapsed into the water.

  Beside me, a woman holds her head in her hands. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”

  “We’re showing footage from the helicopters now and it’s devastating. Not only the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where nothing remains at all, but in New Orleans, where the floods have caused significant damage. We’re talking an area the size of Great Britain. Destroyed.”

  The clips show children floating in old refrigerators, shirtless men pulling women from flooded houses, and elderly people walking neck-deep in filthy waters, some holding babies above their heads. One civilian rescuer says he just helped five children.

  “She ran out of oxygen,” he explains as the camera shows a woman’s body, stiff and swollen, in her bed. “They’ve been sitting in this house with their dead mother for nearly three days. None of them can swim.” He’s crying as the lens closes in on a boatload of shell-shocked children being carried away to dry land.

  “That’s Circle Food,” a woman near the TV says. The neighborhood grocery is shown with water at least halfway up the front door. “That’s not by the lake. It never floods. What is going on down there?”

  As the scenes continue, people call out recognizable locations, identifying landmarks in St. Bernard, the Lower Ninth Ward, and New Orleans East. All underwater.

  “There’s a lot of frustration. Fear. Rumors,” the reporter continues as the images are shown. “We’ve had a total breakdown in communication. Even city officials are unsure of the facts.”

  On-screen, people lean from upper-story windows waving string mops, flags, anything they can find. Those on rooftops also signal for help. Below them, locals boat from house to house, pulling survivors into pirogues, bateaus, and airboats before hauling them out to bridges and overpasses, anywhere they can wait for transport out of the city.

  “They’re calling us the Cajun Navy,” a local boatman says into the camera. “But I’m a veteran. Served twelve years in the US Navy. All over the world, helping everybody. And now we can’t help our own people?” His face reddens, and his voice gets loud. “You hear me, Mr. President? Call in some help. What are you waiting for? People are dying down here.”

  Thursday, September 1, 2005

  “They’re busing people to the River Center,” Beth says. “Who’s coming with us?”

  Ellie and I don’t hesitate to follow Beth and Preacher, but Carl doesn’t budge from his spot.

  “You coming?” Preacher asks Carl. “We could use two cars. Split up and cover more area.”

  “Of course,” he says. “I’m right behind you.” As soon as Preacher turns his back, Carl shoots me a hateful glare, but I ignore it and keep moving.

  It takes us more than an hour to drive from the church to the downtown performing arts center in Baton Rouge, a trip that should only take half as long. We arrive to find a scene unlike any I’ve ever witnessed. There’s a long line of charter buses, church vans, school buses, even RVs. They each wait their turn to drop the caravans of shell-shocked survivors at the designated entrance.

  “So many people,” Ellie says. “They all lost their homes?”

  Exhausted Red Cross volunteers seem as stressed as anyone. They do their best to keep things organized, checking in each person and striving to provide some sense of community for the displaced. They assign refugees from specific neighborhoods to camp together in various conference areas, a simple gesture of compassion that seems to be giving hope to those who arrive.

  A large board has been set up behind the registration table. It’s being used to track the locations of those who are seeking someone. We join a few distraught refugees who are carefully searching the board for names of their missing loved ones.

  A volunteer approaches us. “Are you here to help?”

  Preacher introduces himself by his occupation, and this causes the volunteer to retract. “I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t allow any religious groups inside the shelter. You’re welcome to help outside if you’d like. It’s policy.”

  Beth turns white. “We’re looking for our daughter!”

  I pull the volunteer to the side and explain the situation. Once he realizes why we are here, he apologizes profusely. “I’m sorry. We have rules. I had to turn away a group of nuns this morning. I’ll let you come in. Just don’t tell anybody you’re with a church.”

  Preacher waves it off, without offense, and shares more about Sarah. “Can we add our names to the board?”

  “Sure.” The volunteer looks to be in his seventies, and his tired e
yes suggest the stress is wearing on him too. He turns to Ellie. “Is Sarah your sister?”

  “No, sir. My friend.” She stares at the crowds. “What’s gonna happen to all these people?”

  “Good question,” he says with exasperation. Then he leaves us to our search.

  I tack Sarah’s flier on the board of missing people. Beth and Preacher add their contact information to the chart. Then we split up and begin searching for Sarah. Carl stays at the entrance, watching new arrivals. Ellie and I head to one of the conference rooms where people are given their own eight-foot square of America. “You see this?” a haggard man says to us while claiming his spot on the floor. “A blanket, a toothbrush, and the clothes on my back. That’s all I got to my name.”

  “Did you lose your home?” I ask. Ellie watches the exchange.

  “I lost it, all right. Had me one of them old wood homes. Sat up on cement pilings, you know? Down in Chalmette. Water come in, carrry my house away. Last time I saw it, it was bobbing like a fishing cork. Who knows where it ended up. Probably sitting in a cow pasture somewhere.”

  “Thank goodness you weren’t hurt.”

  “Yeah, boy. Take my house. Take everything. It’s just stuff. Never felt so happy to be alive. I tell you that. Only thing I can’t replace was my dog, Heisman. He was like my son.” The man’s eyes get watery and he looks away.

  “You’ll find him,” I say. “He’s probably sitting on the porch, in the middle of that pasture, wondering where you are.” This makes the man smile, and a few others around us too.

  I pass each person a flier and ask them to be on the lookout for Sarah. A couple people say they remember her kidnapping. Others nod. They do too.

  We continue this process from room to room, working our way through the massive complex. Some groups have written the name of their subdivision on a poster board and taped it to the door. Others have gathered according to town or ward, school, or church, anything that can give them a sense of home. Most people have only a blanket or a towel. There is a shortage of cots, but no one complains.

  Those coming out of shock are beginning to talk about their experiences. Others listen, blank-faced and numb.

  “I saw a dead cow. Twenty foot up in a tree,” one man says. “I’m not lying.”

  Another chimes in. “I believe you, man. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it. Until you live through it, you just can’t know.”

  An elderly woman nods, her dentures missing. “I been on this earth eighty-seven years, and I’ll tell you, that was the longest night of my life. Stuck in my attic,” she says. “All those snakes and nutria climbing in. I was thinking, God, what else you gonna throw at me? Survive the winds. The water. Still gotta survive the snakes?”

  “She’s not kidding,” the woman’s sister adds. “Worst part was, we could see boats all out there. But we couldn’t find a way to get to them.”

  One room at a time, Ellie and I distribute fliers and search for Sarah, hearing story after story of survival. By the time we make it to the main floor, it’s almost lunchtime. “One meal per ticket,” a volunteer says, walking down the long line to repeat the instructions.

  “What do you serve?” I ask him.

  “Depends,” he says. “For now, we’re passing out MREs, but we’ll serve three hot meals a day.”

  From the line, another man says, “We’re grateful for whatever we get.”

  Ellie and I make our way through the large space and into a smaller room. At the back, a middle-aged woman sits alone. She asks me if my phone is working. I let her try to reach her missing son, but it goes straight to his voicemail. Others ask for a turn, and we pass the phone around, hoping someone will hear good news. The fifth caller is an elderly lady whose arthritic fingers are bent at the knuckles. I help her dial the number. When her sister answers, we all cheer. It’s the first reunification for the room, and spirits are lifted.

  When she ends the call, she looks at Ellie and says, “See there? Never give up.”

  Friday, September 2, 2005

  As we crawl through the traffic, I turn up the local NPR station and listen carefully for updates. “Tens of thousands of refugees have fled to Baton Rouge and surrounding parishes,” the reporter announces. “The infrastructure can’t handle the numbers, and we’ve got LA-level traffic jams.” In typical NPR style, they add background sounds of car horns and diesel engines.

  Another journalist says, “Baton Rouge is about an hour west of New Orleans and has sometimes been referred to as its country cousin. Tell us about that city.”

  “The population of Baton Rouge was about 400,000 before Katrina. Latest estimates show as many as 250,000 evacuees have made it to this area, and let me tell you, people here are welcoming them with open arms. The response of the community has been overwhelming.”

  “In what way?”

  “We’ve seen people invite strangers into their homes. They have been volunteering at various shelters, helping with disaster cleanup, taking in pets. There’s been some chaos, but people here in Louisiana really are trying to look after their own.”

  “Have people been able to get into New Orleans to help?”

  “You have to understand, people here had no power. No Internet. Cell phones have been useless. Even radio coverage has been sporadic. They didn’t know what was going on down there. They weren’t able to see the news like people in the rest of the country. But despite all that, yes, many went to help. They were there on the ground, in their boats, leading man-to-man rescue operations.”

  “And now that the coast guard and others have taken charge?”

  “I just came from New Orleans. The streets are filled with Humvees. Restricted access getting in, but I’ll tell you, getting out was almost more difficult.”

  “How so?”

  “They’ve set up checkpoints. Before I could exit the disaster area, my vehicle and all my belongings were searched. Anything that could potentially carry disease had to be left there.”

  “Did you have to leave anything behind? In New Orleans?”

  “My backpack. A Styrofoam cooler. If it could hold bacteria, it had to stay. I admit, it was a tad disconcerting to see people in Hazmat suits after I’d been knee-deep in those floodwaters for days.”

  “I’ll bet!” The correspondent sounds as shocked as I am. “So the hundreds of thousands who have been able to get to Baton Rouge, where are all these people staying?” She wants details.

  “Everywhere,” the reporter says. “Universities. Churches. Some students at Southern have let their families move into their dorm rooms. School administrators seem to be turning a blind eye. What can they do? Every hotel room has been occupied. There are approximately five thousand people at the River Center.”

  “I’m assuming the surrounding towns are absorbing a lot of people too.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “What about the hospital patients? We’ve heard conflicting stories about available medical care in New Orleans.”

  “LSU has set up trauma and triage hubs, so the hospitals in New Orleans are sending patients here for treatment now. The university also set up a shelter in the Ag Center. They’re taking care of stranded pets.”

  “What about storm damage in that area?”

  “It wasn’t too bad in Baton Rouge. Just typical trees and roofs. Nothing these folks can’t handle.” Outside the car, the storm damage is exactly as the reporter describes. “Now that power is being restored, people who had evacuated are starting to see the news coverage. They are devastated. Many have tried to go home and have not been allowed in. People are beginning to realize this is no temporary situation.”

  “Surely they can’t keep occupying dorm rooms and hotel suites. Where will they stay long term?”

  “We are hearing that asked again and again.” Then he introduces a city official who discusses plans to bus people west to San Antonio and Houston, where he says many refugees have already found shelter. “There simply isn’t room here for all the people in n
eed,” says the politician. “This is a disaster of catastrophic proportions. We’ll be relocating people across the US and these could very likely be permanent relocations. Most of these people will be starting their lives over from scratch. With nothing. They thought they were leaving home for a day or two. Now they have no home to go back to at all.”

  The reporter takes over again. “In the meantime, locals are trying to get back to their normal routines, but there’s nothing normal right now about their city. Gas stations have sold out of fuel. Grocery store shelves are empty. It’s starting to sink in that Baton Rouge will never be the same.”

  Carl turns off the radio. “We’ll never get through this traffic.” We’ve been stalled for ten minutes at least. Beth and Preacher are a few cars ahead of us, trying to reach the next shelter. “You do realize how ridiculous this is, don’t you?”

  I lean my head against the window and sigh.

  Ellie speaks up from the backseat. “What if it were me instead of Sarah? Would it be ridiculous then?”

  This silences Carl for a minute. Then he looks in the rearview mirror with soft eyes and says kindly, “I’m glad it isn’t you.”

  Hello Sparrow,

  You found me! I have been praying ever since we left Chalmette. Miracle!

  Our old place got flooded real bad. We’ll stay here now, and I can stay in the house. As long as I keep behaving.

  The Lady told me, “It’s a good thing you weren’t locked in that shed when the levee broke. You’d be dead right now.”

  See? God got me out of that shed. And he’ll get me out of here too.

  I know people are sad about the hurricane. But Mom taught me to Be Grateful, Never Hateful. So here’s why I’m glad the storm came:

  1. Now I know that Ellie is safe at home.

  2. I don’t have to sleep in the shed anymore.

  3. No men have been to “visit” since the storm. NONE!