I finally heard back from a dear friend of mine in New Orleans and he has survived. He let me know that he had written about some of his experiences during the fray and ........SHIT. Here is a sample and go read the whole thing.
We shelved any attitude we had about that action, preferring to check on my workplace just across the street. The good old Megastore was standing tall, unbreached and looking pretty damn good for it's trouble. That done, we ambled down Decatur St. to see if the tale of good food at Coop's was indeed true. The further we traveled down Decatur the more evident it became that the looting and destruction was worsening by the hour, faster and faster. You'd see other people with a crazed look in their eye, checking us out, seeing if we looked weak or in possession of something they might risk trouble over taking from us. We were almost to Coop's when we saw a friend’s house alive with activity, people coming and going. We peeked down the alleyway to his house to see that he and his family were indeed still there. The entire complex of 4 apartments had stayed through the storm there, some trapped in the city, some waiting for the right moment to make good their escape. There were children there, making the entire thing sad in a way, especially when you got a good look at the kids...
Their Mother had scrawled on their bellies, in crude Sharpie lettering:
IF YOU FIND ME CALL MY GRANDMA AT: (phone #)
snip
We heard some of the most unbelievable rumors that afternoon. Sharks free from the Aquarium downtown were swimming down Magazine St. An alligator, mad and thrashing, had bitten a cop on the flooded end of Canal St. The levees were going to burst everywhere, filling even the French Quarter with water... This made us laugh, only because we could not believe that people would buy into such spurious conjecture... We started to feel a bit safer, relax even; this was good. Until we saw the looters, running down the streets with bags full of things no one would need after a catastrophe. The Police, everywhere cruising, shaking us down visually, they don't want us here. They had no way of staying together, so they operated much like a gang, even scarier than they were anyway. More helicopters... This went off and on for a few hours until an old band mate of mine, Freddie, came stumbling down the street, Louisville slugger in hand, drunk out of his ever-loving mind. Almost falling down, he gave a hug and let me in on a secret:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=8543985&blogID=50947383&Mytoken=f36dd488-1bd6-4c7e-82fe-4c0dfc97a251
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