Reporter's Notebook on Katrina

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Fri, 16 Sep 2005 16:52:04 -0700 (PDT)

Reporter's Notebook on Katrina

 

 

 

 

 

Reporter's Notebook on Katrina

 

Katrina from bad, to worse, to inconceivable

`Had I not seen it, I wouldn't have believed it'

 

 

 

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK

By Martin Savidge

Correspondent

NBC News

Updated: 2:06 p.m. ET Sept. 16, 2005

 

 

NEW ORLEANS - I love New Orleans. I always have.

 

Now of course things are not so easy in the Big Easy.

 

When I checked into my downtown hotel the Saturday

before Katrina struck, I remember asking the guy

behind the counter if the hotel had an emergency

generator. He seemed surprised by the question.

 

I pointed out since the lobby of the hotel started on

the 11th floor, he'd be thinking about it as he

climbed up 11 stories of stairs to go to work. He

mumbled something about the whole shopping area and

hotel having a generator.

 

He was wrong. And he was gone 48 hours later as I

slogged my way up 42 flights of stairs to get to my

room after the storm. As the hotel ceased to function,

so did the city around it.

 

From bad to worse

For the next five days I did the same climb, up and

down. Bathing in water I had dutifully filled in the

bathtub before the storm. Flashlights and glow sticks

provided the light. But nothing cooled the air. Sweat

poured from me as I sat down to recover from the

vertical commute.

 

That was Monday, the day Katrina hit, and I thought it

was bad.

 

Compared to what was to come, it was paradise.

 

Tuesday the levees gave way.

 

The city was drowning. I heard reports of water rising

so fast that people had fled to their attics, and then

kicked their ways onto the roof. I couldn't believe

it. But, it was true.

 

To inconceivable

And so began a string of days I would never have

believed if someone had told me, and every bit of it

was true.

 

Many people here were doing what they could never have

imagined doing only days before.

 

When I first saw looting I thought it was strange;

later I thought it was necessary.

 

When I saw my first body lying on the street I thought

that was strange, that too would change.

 

By midweek New Orleans seemed to be up for grabs. The

water was still rising. Fires burned and the

convention center now rivaled the Super Dome for Hell

on earth.

 

Images seared in memory

What I saw inside and outside of that nearly mile long

building will remain with me a long time, even after

reporting from Iraq, Bosnia, Somalia, East Timor,

Sierra Leone, etc.

 

Most interviews left me speechless and in tears;

people died even as I tried to report their plight.

I've never felt so helpless. I lost my objectivity and

when the military finally arrived days later, I lost

my temper.

 

What happened there should never have happened. Had I

not seen it, I wouldn't have believed it.

 

That much is true of so much after Katrina.

 

Martin Savidge is an NBC News correspondent.

© 2005 MSNBC.com

 

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9352964/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9352964/