Some survivors opt to go it alone
NEW ORLEANS -- Clinging to the side staircase of her Basin Street apartment, a 92-year-old woman wailed continuously as her would-be rescuer jumped from an aluminum fishing boat, waded through waist-deep water, and implored the woman to leave her small home and seek shelter.
''It won't do no good if you die here," said John Bayer, a Baton Rouge welder who had volunteered to patrol the waterworld of New Orleans. ''It'll be six months before you get electricity. Please leave."
The woman, wearing a blue bandanna and matching pastel orange blouse and pants, shook her head vigorously. ''You tell them I'm going to hang in here," she said, wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. ''I have no locks on my doors. I ain't going. I'm not leaving my household."
Bayer rubbed her back gently, wished her luck, and scrambled back in the boat to look for more survivors in this poor neighborhood outside the French Quarter. As the boat pulled away, the woman did not move, a vacant stare on her face.
Yesterday, Bayer and a flotilla of eight boats holding about 40 volunteers and emergency workers continued the grim work of searching for the dying and isolated on the flooded city streets that now are contaminated canals. If New Orleans has turned the corner, as many officials pronounced yesterday, the corners of this underwater neighborhood show how much more needs to be done.
''These are people. These are human beings," said Dr. Walter Low, 64, a retired veterinarian from Baton Rouge who stood in the bow, a lookout in the 21-foot boat, with Bayer aboard and Low's son steering the outboard through a maze of submerged cars, poles, hydrants, and downed power lines.
One man trudged through the fuel-slicked soup while dragging a small plastic boat, a drenched rabbit sitting on a pile of clothing in the stern. Another man held a portable phone out his window, talking happily, apparently content to watch the almost incomprehensible drama playing out below his apartment. But there were plenty of signs of desperation, too: in the eyes of those who refused to leave, in the fear on the face of George Lucas, 71, as he left his home in a New Orleans project and sat trembling in the boat with his cane at his side.
''You got a whole lot of dead people," Lucas said. ''We were taking water out of here," he said, pointing to the lake outside his door, ''so we could flush our toilets."
Low's mission yesterday was to search a 5-square-block area for any survivors who wanted to leave their homes for dry, sanitary quarters. His son, Brian, steered the boat, his pistol handy, while two state corrections officers armed with an automatic rifle and a shotgun warily watched the devastated homes for snipers. In a small companion boat, a volunteer doctor from Kansas City, an emergency medical technician, an armed federal guard from Dallas, and a Baton Rouge lawyer eased their way into shallow passages that Low's vessel could not navigate.
Along St. Philip and Villere streets, down Claiborne and Basin, a 150-horsepower motor slowly propelled the 21-foot boat past rows of ravaged homes, the silence of the roadways punctuated by the roar of helicopters overhead and the occasional barking of a dog. But on nearly every street, haggard men walked alone through the dark, dirty water that sits stagnant. Low and Bayer would ask each of them whether he wanted a ride to a team of medics. Nearly all the men, many of them elderly, waved away the offer and trudged on to destinations known only to them. One old man sat alone on a porch. ''Hey, you want out?" Bayer yelled. ''No!" the man answered, barely audible. ''You sure?" Bayer responded. ''Positive!" the man said, fairly screaming the word.
Bayer shrugged and looked for another potential rescue.
During three hours of patrol in the morning, Low's boat picked up eight people. Nearly three times that number ignored or rebuffed the efforts of the floating rescue crew. After being checked for weapons and for obvious health concerns, the survivors in critical condition were taken to the New Orleans airport, now serving as a hospital. Those with less-serious medical needs were driven to a temporary shelter at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Those with no apparent medical needs were sent to other shelters.
An hour later, Low and Bayer returned to the elderly woman on Basin Street. She remained in the same position. ''Let the doc look at you, and we'll bring you back," Bayer said. ''I'm going to make out," she said. ''I appreciate what you did, but I'm going to hang on to what I have."
