The rides to the Superdome stopped coming. Frustrated people — almost all poor african-americans — were walking by. Some asked for water, some asked for food, or about transportation to the dome. I felt conflicted. I gave a few bottles of water away quickly so others wouldn’t see. I didn’t have enough to give everyone, and making it obvious I was giving it away could have jeopardized our safety. Then, a woman walked by yelling and screaming. She wanted to use a cell phone. None of us owned up to having one. She kept yelling, shouting to anyone who would listen that we just wanted a story, that we weren’t doing anything to help them, that the government didn’t consider them human. I was afraid others walking by would agree with her and raid our vehicle and harm us. She finally left. I think others were simply to exhausted and had to reserve their energy for the long walk with whatever they had managed to get out of their houses with.
Our shift ended at 915 am. We told headquarters we could file a report but just needed to get a tour on a boat by Fish and Wildlife and get a few quick interviews. It wasn’t until 3pm that we were finally able to begin assembling our report. The boat ride happened later than we had hoped because — and justly so — the Lieutenant in charge didn’t want to disrupt rescue operations.
Dominic, one of the cameramen and the editor, went to work assembling the report on a laptop. Adaora then realized she hadn’t put antyhing in the script about the people waiting, how long they had waited and how frustrated they were. I was by then just too tired to have noticed, but it was important and needed to be addressed. Bruce, both camerman and audio technician, took the camera and shot the people waiting in the hot sun by the side of the road. As we walked around, one man told us there was a body floating in the water. Bruce and I went to look. Several people, including children, were looking over the railing. They kept shouting that they saw bubbles, that the man might still be alive, couldn’t someone go out in a boat and help him? I went up to one of the Fishery and Wildlife officers and asked if they knew about the body. “We have to many live ones to worry about one dead one,” was his response.
Dominic finished assembling the report on a laptop and he attempted to send it via satellite phone back to Atlanta. The server was full and was not taking any more video we later found out. Our only choice was to hope that we would run into a satellite truck that would help us out as we drove back towards the hotel. As we were packing up an elderly woman was dropped off at the ramp and even with help from others she was struggling to make it up the ramp. Bruce, one of the cameramen, saw her and said he was going to take my car down to where the Fishery and Wildlife officials were to alert them and see if they could help her. On his way back the car stalled and we had to abandon it. No one ever went to help the old woman up the ramp.