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Del Rio’s national park rangers
Published September 18, 2005
Crushing poverty accelerated to unfathomable need among evacuees from the drenched and devastated Gulf Coast when nearly all possessions, property and livelihood disappeared during Hurricane Katrina. Within the last few weeks, nine National Park Service employees from Val Verde County stepped up to the plate to face those needs.
Now, with one-fourth of the Amistad National Recreation Area workforce deployed to trouble spots in the southeast and out west, the pace for those left behind has both lengthened and quickened. But for seven rangers and one computer specialist scattered across Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Georgia and Oregon, the tempo is slowed only when they snag a few hours of sleep.
Rangers Matt Roberson and Brendon Voss and Information Tech Frank Webster are in New Orleans, La., Management Assistant Mark Morgan is in Atlanta, Ga., Ranger Lisa Evans is in Lafayette, La., Ranger Erich Robb is in the Dry Tortugas Islands, Ranger Bruce Malloy is in San Antonio, and Ranger Blake Trester is in Oregon. Superintendent’s Secretary Junetta Myers recently returned from Orlando, Fla.
Though some may be returning soon, the possibility is strong that others will be sent, according to Acting Chief Ranger Dennis Anderson.
“There’s just never been an incident of this magnitude. It’s so tragic and of such scope we’ve never seen before, that we just don’t know how long they’ll be out,” said Anderson, Monday.
Thursday, Roberson called the News-Herald, thanks to recently renewed cell phone service in the Louisiana deltalands. Sept. 3, Roberson and Voss arrived in Metairie, La., a suburb west of New Orleans, to safeguard the national repository of Gulf Coast oil and gas offshore drilling records, land leases, and minerals rights documents.
The critical records, computers and files were vulnerable until Roberson and Voss and two more National Park Service rangers, respectively from Padre Island National Seashore and Big Thicket National Preserve, Texas, arrived and set up crude living quarters in the hot, dark, sponge-wet atmosphere of the Minerals Management Service building.
When they arrived in Metairie, Roberson and Voss pioneered security without cell phones, electricity, or sewer service. For four days, the quartet of rangers worked in the dark with virtually no communication to an outside world.
“We found one room with backup power for an air conditioner to protect a computer, so we built up some little walls, and funneled some of that cool air so we could sleep a little better,” Roberson said.
Now, for 14 consecutive days, the rangers have worked 16-hour shifts during the hottest, most humid part of a New Orleans summer. “Sure starts to wear you out,” Roberson said.
He recalls the scenes along Interstate Highway 10 as Roberson and Voss approached New Orleans the day of their arrival. “We started seeing roads and bridges washed out all around Lake Ponchartrain. Once we were in town we saw a lot of abandoned cars, people walking along roadsides, pushing carts of their belongings, and pieces of houses and roofs scattered everywhere.”
The rangers brought their own supplies of water and MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), knowing that they would be responsible for their own survival for awhile.
“Now the National Guard is distributing water and MREs, and the MMS employees are bringing some fresh meals, and we’ve set up a little grill here, so we’re eating better,” Roberson said, adding that Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies are also providing fresh food.
The first morning of their perimeter and structure watch, Roberson and Voss spotted looters exiting a broken glass showroom window of a K-Mart store with which the MMS building shared parking. They apprehended two of the looters, and detained five children and a woman with them. The loot was not survival food or clothing for the families.
“All they had was electronics, DVDs and DVD players, things like that,” said Roberson. The children were a heartbreaking part of the picture, and were allowed to leave with the woman, but the two looters were taken to jail.
Roberson will bring home vivid, disturbing memories of the shattered urban landscape of New Orleans. “It’s kind of weird to be in an area like this with nothing but military vehicles, and food lines, no other traffic on the streets,” he said.
Chuckling, Roberson recalled one light-hearted encounter, emblematic perhaps of the Big Easy’s reputation. All around him in the city’s historic French Quarter were Humvees, helicopters constantly overhead, and emergency vehicles. “But we found one bar that stayed open. There was small table outside with a white tablecloth, and the owner was sitting there drinking champagne!”
Roberson expects to return to his post at the Pecos River Ranger station Monday, reunited with his wife, Shannon, who has been caring for the family’s dogs and one National Park Service tracking and controlled substance-sniffing German shepherd.
Frank Webster, Amistad National Recreation Area’s information technologist, won’t be coming home quite so soon, though he is clearly ready. Webster is working in an abandoned J.C. Penney Store with the Lone Star Incident Management Team, the key distribution point to all evacuee centers for MREs, provisions and water.
“The people around here have been great. They’ve been so appreciative, and grade-school kids have even been baking cookies, and bringing them in, just leaving them on the counter for us,” said Webster. “This kind of experience, hard as it is, makes you feel really good.” As of Saturday afternoon, Webster’s computer links have aided in the center’s distribution of 335 truckloads of water, 227 loads of MRE’s, and 264 trucks laden with ice.
Anderson said that Ranger Mark Morgan, the park’s management assistant, is deployed to the Atlanta-based Incident Command System base for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts. Morgan is working on computer systems for improved Federal Emergency Management Team response to the crisis.
Ranger Lisa Evans, Amistad’s education specialist, is in Lafayette, La., as part of a national Critical Incident Stress Management team. CISM “de-briefing” teams focus chiefly on emergency response personnel and their needs for emotional relief and support in the face of severe, often unrelenting traumas.
But, at some point, the debriefers need relief, and Evans will return soon, only to begin crash preparations for the now-popular October Archeology Fair at the Whitehead Memorial Museum.
Monday: More Del Rio NPS deployments to refugee sites, storms and fires
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