Message from the front lines
Armada of boats searches New Orleans for living, dead
Several airboat pilots have been taken for cleansing and treatment after falling into the floodwaters, which health officials say is laced with dangerous bacteria and pollutants.
Nick Cronin said his friend Jonathan "Ozzie" Osbourne, both of Port St. Lucie, Fla., fell into the polluted water Saturday, cutting himself and swallowing some of the tainted water. Osbourne had to be flown out in a medivac helicopter.
September 11, 2005
By BOB DART Cox News
NEW ORLEANS â A makeshift fleet of airboats, skiffs from state wildlife agencies, and assorted other craft searched for the living and dead Saturday in the murky, poisonous floodwaters of a slowly drying city.
Officials deployed cadaver-sniffing dogs and forensic specialists across New Orleans in the grisly task of collecting and identifying the bloated, decaying victims of hurricane Katrina.
Thousands of New Orleans residents remained in the city, despite a mandatory evacuation order.
"Not a day has gone by that we haven't taken somebody out," said Dale Dorman, an airboat enthusiast from Alpharetta, Ga. He said has been going out on searches for eight days and is "staying 'til it's done."
"There are houses where we know people are inside but they won't come to the door," said Dorman.
Airboats can skim across inches of water and even patches of pavement. They are well suited for the search for victims in the half of the city still covered with water, nearly two weeks after Katrina struck.
On Saturday, searchers took boats into Edgewood Park, a neighborhood of small frame houses near Interstate 10. Jumping on porches and breaking windows to peer inside, they sought any residents left behind. Afterward, they marked the houses with orange spray paint.
An "X" means the house has been checked; an arrow beside the "X" means that there are people living inside the house; an "X" with a "0" below means no casualties inside. And a number followed by "DB" indicates the toll of dead bodies found inside a house, explained airboat pilot Corey Sprague, 22, whose family owns an airboat tour business in Palm Beach County, Fla.
On Clover Street, where holes in the rooftops told tales of escape and where cars remained submerged in the dark, dirty waters, members of a search and rescue team from San Diego, Calif., went from home to home in a small boat with an outboard motor. They used axes and crowbars to break in and check for hurricane victims - dead or alive.
As they were on the front porch of one house, a dog appeared at an upstairs window where the panes were broken.
"We're not taking dogs," lamented the rescuer, who left some food for the pooch.
Most of the pilots of the airboats, often called "swamp buggies," are volunteers from the Everglades, and the bayous, marshes and other wetlands of the South
Sherald 1/8CQ3/8 and Craig Daniels, brothers from the southwestern Florida island of Chokoloskee, normally take tourists on Everglades nature tours.
They told of rescuing a holdout, an old man "way down on the other end of Canal Street" who had rejected evacuation pleas from early rescuers on airboats.
"I could tell he was a religious man," said Sherald. "He asked us to pray with him. I told him that it was no accident that we were there to pick him up. I told him that God had sent us. I really believe that. God had sent us."
"He asked us to leave him for an hour so he could gather his belongings," said Craig. "Then before we left, he prayed with us again."
The Daniels brothers had been watching the disaster coverage on TV on their little island â which means "old house" in the Seminole's Muskogee language - when they decided to hitch up their airboat on a trailer and head to New Orleans.
"I said 'this is it'," said Craig. "We can't watch this no more and not go help."
Police from around the country provide security on the boats.
On the Daniels brothers' boat, the guards were two women sheriff's deputies from Bernalillo County, N.M., who carried AR-15 rifles, the civilian version of the military's M-16 assault rifle.
A man who they helped rescue gave them brightly colored Mardi Gras beads to accessorize their black armored vests. During carnival week, such beads are customarily thrown from floats in parades, often by riders who ask women lining the route to "show your breasts" to get the beads.
"I didn't have to do that," said Deputy Theresa Sabaugh. "I earned them in a different way."
Dorman said his most memorable rescue was of an elderly couple that had been trapped six days in a single-story house flooded with several feet of water. They had stacked the bed on cans to keep dry, he said.
As Dorman took them out, the couple was amazed at the scene.
"They asked, 'Is the whole city like this?"' he recalled. "They didn't have a clue" of the extent of the destruction.
Dorman described himself as "semi-retired" after working in promotions for many years in auto racing and country music.
The water duty is not without dangers.
Nick Cronin said his friend Jonathan "Ozzie" Osbourne, both of Port St. Lucie, Fla., fell into the polluted water Saturday, cutting himself and swallowing some of the tainted water. Osbourne had to be flown out in a medivac helicopter.
Several airboat pilots have been taken for cleansing and treatment after falling into the floodwaters, which health officials say is laced with dangerous bacteria and pollutants.
It's a tough job, said Dick Douse, who owns an airboat tour business in West Palm Beach, Fla.
"It's sad to sit and see the bodies that we have," he explained. "It's a shame and it does bother me. But somebody's got to do it."
A corpse floated near Canal Street, just blocks from downtown and the French Quarter.
"We've got one down there tied off on a light pole," said an airboat pilot from the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Agency. The body, in rubber boots, dark pants and an orange shirt, was face up in the putrid green water.
The confirmed death toll in Louisiana stood at 154 people on Saturday and authorities expected it to rise significantly. But after the completion of an initial assessment of the city on Friday, officials predicted that the final toll here would be far less than a previous estimate of 10,000 or more dead.
The effort to drain the city was having apparent success in some neighborhoods. Near the Superdome, automobiles once submerged by the floodwaters were visible in about a foot of water.
Judging from the high water marks on the sides of buildings, the water had receded by three feet in some areas.
On Canal Street, what had been the launching point for airboats on Friday was dry pavement on Saturday. Trucks pulled boats on trailers several blocks farther from downtown to find water deep enough to float flat-bottomed crafts.
The information contained herein is the official information being provided by the Florida Airboat Association regarding events involving Hurricane Katrina and the evacuation/relief effort in Louisiana. Every attempt is being made to keep the information timely and accurate. If you have any questions, please email them to: <!-- e --><a href="mailto:Florida_Airboat_Assoc@usa.com">Florida_Airboat_Assoc@usa.com</a><!-- e --> or contact Lauren Brown or Phil Walters via email or phone. General questions and inquiries cannot be fielded here or on the responses lines.
It is to be specifically understood that:
Any action, travel or expenses incurred by, through or as a result of traveling to Louisiana, Mississippi or any other disaster area will be the sole responsibility of the individual. The Florida Airboat Association neither expresses nor implies any responsibility for the accuracy of the information contained herein or for any expense incurred by the individual who travels to the disaster zone as a result of that information. All distribution of information is for the sole purpose of keeping the recipient as accurately informed as possible. It is the recipient's sole responsibility to act upon that information in a responsible and prudent manner.
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