Hurricane Katrina Remembered: Responding at the Superdome

This article originally appeared in the November 2005 issue of EMS World Magazine.

The Superdome: A Horrible Situation

By Marie Nordberg

When Bill Brown, former executive director of the National Registry of EMTs, left Ohio to attend the EMS EXPO and NAEMT annual meeting in New Orleans, he had no idea what awaited him before he returned home.

As the EXPO drew to a close on August 27, and the threat of a Category 5 hurricane prompted a citywide evacuation, Brown, who had been part of another hurricane evacuation a few years earlier, decided to stay behind and become part of the medical team at the Superdome.

When Brown arrived at the huge sports complex at 7 a.m. on Sunday, he found a lax incident command structure and a small team consisting of a medical director, someone from Homeland Security and a few nurses, who were “totally unprepared for the events they would face that day.” By the time the National Guard and a few other medical types arrived, the number of evacuees had reached nearly 1,000.

“Regardless of how many medical personnel showed up, there were more patients than we could take care of,” says Brown. “One fact that was overlooked by the media was that hundreds of the sickest and those with special needs were evacuated by bus to hospitals or out of town by late Sunday afternoon, before the storm even hit,” says Brown. “Everyone seemed to know the buses were coming, so I believe it was part of the city’s disaster response plan. It took most of the day to get them loaded, but we got them out.”

The earliest arrivals had been advised to bring three days’ worth of food and medical supplies with them, and most complied. But, people rescued from their homes after the storm arrived with nothing, says Brown. No insulin, no antihypertensive meds, no antiseizure or antipsychotic meds.

“They were all seeking medical care from our first aid station, and it wasn’t possible,” he says. “On top of that, we were combating heat, sewage and food and water rationing. For a while, people slept in the stadium seats, but when the roof blew off and soaked everything, they slept on the floor or anyplace they could find that was dry. It wasn’t sleep for comfort—this was a survival situation.

“We had about 20% auxiliary power for the whole building, so we could see to walk around, and we had power in the first aid station for people who needed electricity for their nebulizers. But there were no lights in the bathrooms. Just imagine nonworking toilets being used by hundreds of people. It was horrible, but there was no alternative.”

Brown faults the media for misrepresenting the thousands of well-behaved evacuees by focusing on the few who chose to act out.

“If 99 people were behaving and one was not, the TV cameras were on the one who wasn’t,” he says. “As a result, the people who were courageous, wonderful citizens were mislabeled because of the few.”
Brown and Acadian Ambulance’s Ray Bias were the first to arrive at the Superdome and among the last of their group to leave on Wednesday afternoon. By then, says Brown, they knew that 800 buses were staged outside the city while FEMA officials planned how to get them to the Superdome through flooded streets.

“It was a horrible experience,” says Brown. “I would advise any EMS worker who wants to volunteer that if you don’t have incredible mental stability and you can’t shake off an ugly sight—a horrible situation that devastates many people—never volunteer for a disaster—never. Unless you’re mentally very tough, it will haunt you for the rest of your life.”

But, when asked if he would do it again, Brown is quick to reply: “In a minute! This was the ultimate EMS experience—reaching out and lending a helping hand.”

Marie Nordberg previously served as associate editor for EMS World.

Shorthanded at the Superdome

By John Erich

The evacuees came by the thousands. The medical providers numbered fewer than 10.

“Initially, we didn’t have enough supplies,” recalls Stephanie Korzyk, a New York paramedic who stayed to help at the Superdome as Hurricane Katrina steamrolled into New Orleans. “All these asthma patients started coming in, and we didn’t have enough albuterol. Diabetics started coming in, and we didn’t have any insulin. There were a lot of people without their medications.”
And then the levees broke, and then came the flood victims. A young couple with a three-week-old plucked from their roof. A new mom and the five-day-old she’d birthed by c-section. People who’d trudged through chin-deep contaminated floodwaters.

Yes, things were as bad as you heard in the city’s primary shelter—the shelter to which those with special medical needs had been directed. They came—as did tens of thousands of others. Authorities segregated the special-needs patients; everyone else went into the general population. That was Korzyk’s patient base.

“There was a first aid room with a bed and a couple of benches,” she recalls. “There were maybe four ALS bags from the local ambulance agency to use. But initially there were no real medical supplies, and manpower was definitely insufficient.”

The worst-off evacuees had been removed to hospitals before and just after the storm, but those transports were interrupted first by hurricane, then by the rising waters. Once the flood paralyzed the city, confusion reigned.

“The rules were constantly changing as far as if we could send people and where,” Korzyk says. “When the water came up, the hospitals closed, and we kind of became the hospital. It was pretty chaotic.”
Additional supplies eventually arrived, and a DMAT from Arizona set up in an adjacent building and began taking some patients. But they weren’t much better equipped than those at the Dome. Improvisation became the rule, with tough calls to make and danger constantly simmering.

“We had one guy with a fractured wrist we splinted with cardboard,” Korzyk recalls. “A doctor showed up from somewhere, and we saw this one asthma-attack patient for a third time. The first time we almost had to intubate her, which would have been bad, because we had no vent or anything. By the third time she was in status asthmaticus, and the doctor said, ‘When you’re done treating her, just put her in a chair out in the hall. Whatever happens happens—we can’t use all our resources on one person.’ And she’s crying, saying ‘I don’t want to die.’

“We had addicts without their drugs, psychotic patients, homeless people—you name it. Some were telling us they had AIDS or hepatitis, but how many didn’t tell us? How many didn’t know? The garbage was piling up, the feces were piling up, the bathrooms were dark. There were a couple of gunshots while I was there. One gunshot wound to the arm, one to the back of a policeman’s head. One man who basically jumped to his death—split open his skull. Another guy was threatening to stick us with a needle.”

Korzyk got out by helicopter on Wednesday. Since arriving home, she’s wrestled with conflicting emotions. There’s a lot of horror to sort through, but also the salving knowledge that she was able to help others at their time of need.

“I’ve only begun to scratch the surface as far as integrating the whole experience,” she says. “I feel completely blessed that I was able to help with my skills, my presence and the human compassion those people needed so much. I’m going to be a lot stronger because of it. But at the same time, I’m dealing with the emotional toll, and that’s really, really affected me. So everything is really big right now—both the pluses and the minuses.”

John Erich is a senior editor for EMS World.