First of all we followed Yahoo! directions, which I advise no one to do. From 45 south we took the beltway paralleling the tollway into the middle of town, then turned back along 290 east, then realized we missed the ramp we needed, so went back and tried it again, but missed the proper lane, now in rush hour traffic in a very steady rain. Another lap around and we got it right, just in time to hit the parking lot of traffic. If there's one thing you don't want to do in a 17 foot U-Haul, it's get stuck in Houston rush hour traffic.
After braking and lurching our way through town, which took just this side of forever, we finally got out of there, and then had to negotiate a series of construction projects that had concrete barriers lining the lane, right where the lines should be, with no margin for error. In the dark, still raining, in a veritable convoy of semis. Nervewracking, to say the least.
The one good thing was that we stopped outside of Houston for some cajun food, Cathy tucking into a blackened snapper and grilled shrimp and me putting away a catfish po boy and a bowl of seafood gumbo. Delicious. And it'd be our only cajun food, even though we were going right into New Orleans.
Of course, we got to New Orleans right around midnight. The drive to the city was harrowing enough--dense fog, shit roads, a nasty drive in the middle of the dark night--and once we got there, it was just creepy. The city's under curfew and appears largely abandoned, so it was empty and dark, with few streetlights working and no road signs to speak of. The pea-soup night air made it all the moreso, though it did keep even the cemeteries out of sight. We didn't see much flood damaage on the way in, because we couldn 't see much of anything.
We got into the tent city around 12:30 after another call to a guy there named Raymond.
I stayed up a little while talking to Rick from Montana, who'd been there for about 6 weeks, since before the Guard got there. He told me of how New Orleans, wth all its destruction, was but a triopical storm compared to parts of lower Mississippi, which you won't hear about on the news. Towns obliterated, dead cows in trees, now hides and bones, along with houses, trucks, and coffins. Coffins, in trees. Amazing.
In the morning, at 6, after a night with not a single minute of sleep, we made our way to the shelter. Bleary-eyed and tired, I was ill prepared for this. Hundreds of dogs in makeshift runs, barking and baying and raising a racket unlike many I've heard.
We started to set up the trucks, loading crates into the back and tying them down in whatever system we felt best. Rope and bungee cords everywhere. It was a web of tie downs holding down a city of crates. How the hell would the dogs survive this trip? I had no idea.
Cathy made the rounds of the shelter, checking out the dogs, finding out who'd be coming and who would not, talking to the volunteers, while I busied myself with readying the crates. To be honest, this work kept me from confronting the scene behind the shelter where all the dog runs were. I took a walk back there when we first arrived, and I had a hard time of it. Beagles and hounds and Rotts and shepherds and all between, old and slow dogs and litters of new puppies, some emaciated and some healthy looking. So many dogs waiting to be claimed, to get out of this chain link nightmare and just friggin go home already.
Much to our pleasure we learned that we were to take all dogs at the shelter who were not already spoken for. Many had owners who had come already, found and claimed their dogs, and left them in the shelter's care until the time they could get back into their house, or get into a new place, or secure a trailer from FEMA where they could live and accomodate a dog. It must have been horrible to leave a dog behind here, but at least their dogs were alive and well and waiting for them.
The three trucks all departed separately, as once one was loaded up, all dogs accounted for, the paperwork had to be done. This took a while, but Dr. Hebert did a good job of keeping track of everyone and making sure the dogs would be counted and looked after. Medical history and all else were in this file, which we carry with us now.
We were the last truck to depart, and it was about 11:00 by the time we took off. This did not bode well, as when the fog burned off, the air got hot, and the back of the truck resembled nothing so much as an oven. It'd be slow-going, stopping about every hour to open the truck and air them out. At one point we put a bag of ice in each kennel, which did well to keep them cool for a couple hours, but also left a big puddle in every crate. Quite a mess, but in the end worth it, as each required cleaning anyway and this made it nothing more than dumping out some unsavory water and tossing the empty bags.
It was a long day with many stops, the frantic need to get north and away from the heat stymied by the incessant need to stop. But, there was no choice in the matter, so we settled into a frustrating pattern and chugged on.
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