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October 16, 2005
Well That Was Exciting
They tried to steal my car. Four days antedeluvian they tried to steal my car. A standard steering column defeat job that failed. But succeeded on the next car they tried. That poor lady, a state employee, had been parking in that garage for 10 years, driving the same car as mine for the last, well, since it was new (they found hers gutted and burned three days later). It took three tow trucks to get mine out of the sixth floor of the parking garage. Then the shop had to figure out how to defeat the anti-theft circuitry (the thieves broke into the vehicle, removed the steering column plastic, and then the car disabled the ignition circuit). Then it was Saturday and Katrina was coming. The shop was demolished around my car! The car just looked like it got a power wash! The shopowner called a couple of weeks ago and said he could have it fixed by last Wednesday, and my neighbor went and picked it up and delivered it to my house (I'm in Houston).
So I was in the back seat of my friends' car as three of us drove back into New Orleans on Friday night. I was getting a ride to get my truck, and they were getting a truck to haul stuff back to Houston. At 10 pm we were on a 25 mile long swamp bridge (a roadway standing about 20 feet off the ground) when we came to a skreeching stop. Cars skidding onto the shoulder, the whole bit. About 20 minutes later one of our classmates, Dan, calls Van, sitting in the passanger seat, and reports the accident is near the end of the bridge: a car fire; Dan saw the gas tank explode out the side, stopped to help and then drove. Emergency services responded fairly quickly and I could see the flashing lights behind us but they weren't getting any closer: the cars weren't moving to let them through. So I ran about a quarter mile back to them and started directing cars to clear a path, which I did until about a quarter mile ahead of our car where someone else took over the path-clearing job. Then more emergency vehicles were trying to get through, man, that's a lot ambulances for one car fire. Why aren't they moving? Awwww! People had driven back into their lanes, again blocking the ambulances! Mental note: if there's a wreck, and a path is made for emergency vehicles, keep the path clear until traffic starts to move again!
As I was clearing cars (again!) some of the drivers (many independent reports relayed over CB) said there was another accident: a semi, still up ahead, had driven over six cars! Oh. That's why there's more emergency vehicles. So after the path was clear I explained the situation to everyone and advised them to turn their cars off as we might be here for a while. Then I went back to our car. Van was just getting out of the car saying to someone on her cell phone "Oh my God, are you okay?" The driver, Bart, was asleep and she didn't want to disturb him, but that got cleared up really fast. Two of our classmates, Kelly and Kam, were in the wreck with the semi!
Turns out the trucker was at a complete stop in the traffic jam caused by the car fire and decided to back up. Into the three cars behind him. And then slam forward into 13 more! Kelly was driving a car that belonged to her exchange family (she's from New Guinea), a Honda Prelude. A bit of context—Kelly's exchange family lives in Lake Charles (incidentally the hometown of Michael E DeBakey). After she evacuated New Orleans for Katrina, Kelly's exchange family lost all their property in Rita, except two cars, one of which just got smashed by a semi. Kelly and Kam were standing outside the car, near the driver's side door stretching their legs and waiting for the burned car to be cleared out when the cars started slamming into each other behind them. Kelly basically stood there counting the violence approach, wanting, I'm sure, to believe that this couldn't possibly be happening, until Kam grabbed her, yelling "Run!" Good thing because the Honda started moving before they were actually clear of it and was ultimately slammed into the median siderail. Six inches of concrete away from the swamp! They would have been pinned if they hadn't run.
I learned most of that later. When Van told Bart and I that Kam and Kelly were in the accident Bart and I agreed I'd run ahead and meet them, and Bart and Van would meet us once we disposed of the wrecked Prelude. Luckily, Kam's family is in with the Louisiana state police so we were able to drive the Prelude (with smashed bumpers, a smashed left side, and soft steering) thirty miles to the state police headquarters and wait for Bart and Van. We got there about 3 am. Have you every tried to take a cat-nap in a Honda Prelude? Bart and Van got to us about 4:20 and we got to Van's house in the Uptown neighborhood of New Orleans about 5:30. We all passed out. I got a phone call at 8 and couldn't go back to sleep.
Other than that it was a usual weekend spent salvaging our lives out of the largest national disaster in American history.
Posted by Niels Olson at October 16, 2005 8:11 PM
Comments
Holy crap, what a story! No I've never catnapped in a prelude, but I drove around the country in a Civic, and it's an art to sleep in one. I got pretty good at it, and at it's best, was even more comfortable than my CRV.
Posted by: Doc Shazam at October 16, 2005 11:48 PM
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