This is long but worth reading - it’s from a friend who talks to the guy in question on the ’net - Scott I want to get this all out to everyone (before I forget details) so please excuse my not writing to everyone who wrote to me individually. Candy and I are back in sweet Mena, Arkansas after a 12 hour drive from New Orleans last night. We are well (apart from odd rashes and scratches (we are off to get checked out today) and even have our Lab/Bassethound, Della. I am feeling a little guilty in that we haven’t lost anything! Anyway, Candy is a nurse in a seniors’ residence in the French Quarter (Maison Hospitaliere) and she said on Sunday that she would be going into work as usual. I said that I would go too, as they were bound to need help. Luckily we had my old farm truck (’85 Ford F150) Got to the Maison, where, surprisingly, all the staff had arrived too. There were 67 residents, and 27 staff including the Administrator. I had a bedside 22 automatic which I had put in my bag ‘just in case - you never know etc’.. Of the residents, about half are ambulatory and rational, the remainder a mixture ranging from tube feeders to altzheimers. Katrina came and went. Some damage to shutters, rooftiles- nothing serious but we kept working to make sure residents were happy and felt secure. Generator came on to emergency lighting and any life support systems. Admin got on phone Tuesday am to arrange transport out. We told residents that busses would be here in 6 hours. I went out to make contact with anyone who could help with the Hospialiere evac. I found that our bit of New Orleans was dry and relatively damage free. Plenty of Police about, all preening for the newsmen who had descended like flies on a corpsee, but none had any authority to help, nor could contact those who could make a decision. The kitchen worked on gas, and kept supplying three squares per person daily. The deep freeze was also on emergency power. I checked diesel and we had one and a half 55 gals total. Enough for four days. The Maison occupies nearly an entire block of the quarter and is nearly 150 years old. Was opened for ‘the widows of sea captains’, but now is unisex and cares for medicare patients too. The only part of the block not owned, is a semi-derelict building which staff called ‘the Crack House’. The wall separating them from us was blown down. The deputy head nurse had a .38 and I had the .22 (which was nice). Phone lines worked, although cell phones didn’t. Air conditioning didn’t work either. Before the storm, the danger was going to be from the roof, so all patients were brought downstairs. After the storm, we got information that their was going to be 12’ of flood water, so (even tho the lifts had ceased) we got everyone upstairs. The critical patients were upstairs anyway. When it became clear that there wasn’t to be flooding in the quarter, and that transport was imminent, we moved most people back down again. They sat in their wheelchairs in rows, waiting for evacuation. On Tuesday afternoon the Administrator found that the busses he had arranged weren’t coming. No one knew why. So he began to find some more. This he did (from Shreveport) some seven hours away. We told the residents who were getting uncomfortable and uneasy. Those that had their own rooms, were asked to sleep in them and all to get some rest. Took the Admin to a home in St Charles Ave to rescue his Burmese cat. Waded ther last 4 blocks throughwater up to knee high. I remembered afterwards that these were the only shoes I had. The truck pulled out larger trees, and rode over smaller brush and debris, and only stopped when water reached floorpan. I acted as a kind of security and song and dance man, my aim was to keep confused and worried residents happy and amused and informed. When I found a stranger tapping out wiring, I told him to leave (at gunpoint) and that if he, or anyone from the crack-house stepped foot on our property again, I w