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COPYRIGHT 2005 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Last week's coverage of Hurricane Katrina
Continuing coverage of Hurricane Katrina
When I first saw Lionel Petrie, he was standing on the second-story porch of his house, at the junction of Desire Street and North Bunny Friend, in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. The house was built of wood, with white siding and peach trim. Petrie, an African-American with salt-and-pepper hair and a mustache, appeared to be in his sixties. A large Akita was standing next to him, ears perked vigilantly. The two of them looked out from across the fenced-in expanse of the front yard. Petrie was clearly an organized man: a painter's ladder was dangling from the railing of the porch, and a clutch of orange life vests hung within reach of a fibreglass canoe that was tethered to the house. The canoe bobbed on the surface of the stinking black water that filled the street and had engulfed most of the first floor of the house. The spiked parapet of a wrought-iron fence poked up about eight inches above the waterline, etching out a formal square that separated the house from the street.
Petrie's house was different from those of his neighbors, most of which were small brick row houses, or rundown clapboard houses that had deep porches flush with the street. His was set far back in the lot, and had a self-possessed air about it. Near the fence, in what must have been the driveway, the hoods of two submerged cars and a truck could be seen.
I was seated in the back of a four-person Yamaha WaveRunner that was piloted by Shawn Alladio, an energetic woman in her forties, with long blond hair, from Whittier, California. Eight days had passed since Hurricane Katrina made landfall, and Alladio was out on a search for trapped survivors and for what rescuers were calling "holdouts"--residents who didn't want to leave their homes--in one of the poorest and worst-hit parts of the city, the Ninth Ward, in eastern New Orleans.
Alladio maneuvered the WaveRunner so that we were alongside Petrie's fence, and, after calling out a greeting to him, she asked him if he wanted to leave; he waved politely in response, but shook his head. She told him that the floodwater was toxic and that he would soon become sick. He said something in reply, but we couldn't hear him because of the rumble of the WaveRunner's idling engine. Alladio turned the ignition key off.
Petrie explained that his wife and son and daughter had left the city by car, heading for Baton Rouge, the day before Katrina hit. He didn't know where his family was now, and, if he left, they wouldn't know where he was. He said that he intended to wait for them to come back, and for the waters to go down.
Alladio told him that the authorities were not allowing people to return to this part of New Orleans, and that it might be a month before the waters receded. He listened carefully, nodded, and replied that he had stocks of food and some water; that he'd be all right--he'd wait. He patted his dog's head. "Thank you, but I'll be fine," he said. Alladio tried again. "I can promise you that you will not see your family if you stay here," she told him; it was much likelier that he would pass out and die from the fumes from the water.
He asked whether she would promise that he would be able to join his family.
Alladio paused, and said to me quietly, "I can't promise him that. If I turn him over to the authorities, like the other evacuees, he could end up anywhere in the country."
Turning back to Petrie, she asked, "If I drive you to Baton Rouge myself, will you come with me?"
"You would take me yourself?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "I promise. Today, when I am done...
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