On my third day of producing liveshots with Dan from Canal Street across from Harrah’s Casino — now a New Orleanss police staging area — all hell breaks loose completely unecessarily. Atlanta, the mothership, decides that because FOX News has a liveshot from an exit ramp now being used as a boat ramp to rescue people, we must have the same shot or better, immediately. This is the part I hate about network news. I understand it, to an extent but I really really dislike it.
Since I’m the only producer readily available I’m dispatched with Karl Penhaul and his cameraman Neil Hallsworth to find a similar site. Karl touches base with the 82nd Airborne who is conducing the rescue and they lead us in the general direction. Eventually we locate a military vehicles who are about to embark on door-to-door searches for people. This wasn’t quite what the network wanted but it was what we had found and it was readily available.
The 82nd was using large vehicles to go as far as they could down flooded streets and knock on doors. Karl and Neil went with them whille I stayed behind to lead the satellite truck to the location — just northeast of downtown off Esplanade.
Shortly thereafter, everyone else showed up. Dan, a camerman, a producer, and the truck. We set up our shot and started doing liveshots. Atlanta calls and asks who decided on our location. I told them this was the best we could do under the circumstances, that wasn’t the answer they were looking for. I thought about telling them to find a better location then, but refrained because I knew that would not help.
As we continued with our liveshots we periodically heard barking. We looked around and saw a dog on a porch surrounded by water. We called back to our headquarters on Canal Street — 4 or 5 RVs parked in a row — for some waders (we were in such a rush that we didn’t take them with us). When they arrived my satellite truck operator put them on and went out to the porch. As he started making his way out there another dog showed up but in the water alongside the porch. My cameraman then put on some waders and headed out.
Both were hesitant to be rescued but after a few minutes of being coaxed by granola bars they were convinced we weren’t going to hurt them. When they reached dry land I fed them more granola bars and fed them water. They practically took my fingers off as I fed them.
I wasn’t sure what we would do with them since we weren’t really prepared to take dogs with us in our vehicles full of equipment. I called a someone I had met just that morning and she tried to direct me to a drop off point, but it was way to complicated and it wasn’t clear if it was even accessible from where we were. And then, from out of nowhere, the Humane Society arrives.
As it turns out one of our crews had just left and drove past them and directed them towards us. They had an A Current Affair camera crew with them that filmed them as they went ahead and rescued three other dogs that were in the neighborhood.
