After the Deluge

As told to Georgina Hunter-Jones by Capt. Janie Foster

One of Evergreen Helicopters pilots details her experiences of the post Katrina New Orleans.

Janie Foster had just transferred from Alaska to Evergreen's Galveston base in August when the Katrina hurricane struck. She was flying second-in-command in a Bell 212, as well as a Bell 206 LongRanger on offshore contracts. For this mission they took the 212 and Janie flew as co-pilot. "We arrived on day 12 after the hurricane and it was quite chaotic."

They flew first to Jackson, Mississippi where they were based at Hawkins Field to work primarily for FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). In a strange return to the past there were numerous electrical outages in the affected disaster areas, and so there was limited or no access to communications. Postal mail was the one of the better forms of communication and it had to be flown in by helicopter.

"When we arrived at Jackson at 7.00pm," said Janie, "everything was closing. There 5-hour lines for gasoline, so there were no shuttle buses or cabs but we were given a lift by one of the other pilot groups. Everything was totally different from normal. One MacDonalds, for example, had run out of many food items and had stopped serving until a new truckload arrived. Many major...