First hand account of devastation

ABC North America correspondent Leigh Sales visited some of the most devastated areas of the southern United States to cover Hurricane Katrina. Here is an account of her experience.


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Day One

I knew things were not going to be easy when I got to the car rentals counter at Mobile airport in Alabama and the woman told me she didn't think they could give me a car with a full tank of petrol.

That was disastrous news for me. Separated from my television colleagues, I wanted to fly into Mobile because it was less than two hours away from the disaster scene. When we made that decision, we didn't know the full extent of the devastation, nor did we know that New Orleans would end up controlled by gangsters.

The woman at the rental counter must have seen me blanch and after I explained my situation she gave me the only car with a full tank of petrol.

I drove down the road to a local supermarket for supplies - muesli bars, tinned food, nuts, water and toilet paper. I looked for a generator and gerry cans for fuel but they were sold out. The supermarket was chaotic. I saw just one open service station and the lines for petrol were three kilometres long in both directions. Without the gerry cans, I couldn't carry spare fuel anyway. I decided to leave and aim to get to Biloxi, Mississippi, one of the worst-hit areas. Without the extra fuel, I decided to only drive as far as half a tank would get me, so I'd have enough to evacuate back to Mobile Airport if necessary.

Along the way I stopped to do a live cross with the 6am edition of AM. That was the last time I had communications for hours. It started to pour with rain as I drove. The roads were already half flooded, trees and power lines were down and there was nothing open - no petrol stations, no shops, nothing.

There was very little traffic and it took me about two hours to drive all the way into the main street of Biloxi. It looked like a Salvador Dali landscape - hellish, silent and devoid of people. It was a pile of twigs, dirt and rubble. I interviewed a few people sifting through the remnants of their offices and houses. There was absolutely no sign of any relief effort - they had no food or water and some had no petrol. The temperature was sweltering. I gathered my material as quickly as I could but couldn't file it because I didn't have a satellite telephone or access to a hard phone line. It was now about 5.30pm and I desperately needed to find somewhere to stay before nightfall. I didn't want to sleep alone in the car.

I decided to drive north, hoping that within 200 kilometres I'd find somewhere with phones or electricity or water. No such luck. I reached the town of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and because it was almost dark, I knew I would have to stop there, regardless of whether I could find accommodation or not.

In a stroke of luck, the first hotel I pulled into had one room left. The owner told me they had no way to clean it from the previous guests, that they couldn't give me clean towels or sheets and that they had no water, electricity or phones.

"It sounds like luxury, I'll take it," I said.

Then in a second stroke of luck, he told me they had a working fax line. I asked if there was any way I could use it to send a story to Australia, based on my material from Biloxi, and he agreed, as long as I came back after 10pm so that the line could stay open for emergencies.

Before I went back to my room, I made a stupid decision. I had no mobile phone signal at the hotel and I needed to do a live cross for The World Today. I decided to drive back down the road to see if I could find somewhere with a signal. I found one. When I finished the cross, it was now dark and I realised I was in violation of the military curfew and that it wasn't safe to be out. Worse than that, it dawned on me with horror that because there was no electricity and everything was pitch black, I couldn't see the buildings on the sides of the road and I couldn't identify my hotel in the dark. I started driving back in the direction I'd come but then realised I'd been driving too long and that I must have passed it.

This was the only time I truly panicked. I'd left everything except my purse and phone in the hotel room and now I couldn't find it. I started to get a wobbly chin and achy throat but I calmed down by forcing myself to think about what was memorable about the hotel. I recalled it had a verandah on the front. A few kilometres down the road I recognised the outline of the building in the dark - just. I didn't break curfew after that.

I went to the room and wrote and edited my story using a torch. I did as much as I could in my notebook because I didn't know how many days my laptop battery would last. But I needed to switch the computer on eventually to edit and send the piece. I took it up to the office to send and when I got there, one of the guys at the desk plonked a piece of tin foil in front of me.

"Here, we saved you a piece of fish from the BBQ."

They had a gas barbie. And then he brought me a glass of wine from their bar. I was overwhelmed by the kindness of that simple gesture.

Day Two

The next day, I went to some of the evacuation shelters in town and started getting worried about being unable to communicate properly with Sydney or Washington, and my petrol situation. By the end of the day, I would have only enough fuel left to return to Mobile, as there was no petrol to be had in Hattiesburg. I was also churning through my water fairly quickly, because the temperature was about 35 degrees and I was trying to wash with it as well as drink it.

At the evacuation shelter, it was bad, but not too bad, because at least most people there had been evacuated from New Orleans before the hurricane hit. A black woman was overseeing the Red Cross efforts with that famous southern hospitality. She told me I was very brave for coming to Mississippi by myself and said she had a trickle of running water at her house. She said: "You go around there and tell my husband that Raylawni said you can take a shower."

I went back to the hotel and filed my stories and by 5pm I was absolutely desperate for a shower, so I went around to her house. I followed her directions and ended up in this poor, black, southern neighbourhood. Groups of men were sitting out on their stoops. I found her house and knocked on the door, already feeling the water on my skin. But there was no answer! I couldn't bear the disappointment, so I mustered up my courage and went around and knocked on the back door. This time, her husband answered.

I asked if he was Al Branch. He said "Yes'm." I said: "I'm a journalist from Australia and your wife just sent me around to have a shower." So he let me in, gave me a towel and some soap and I had a shower! We had a good old chat and I'll send them a box of chocolates when I get back to Washington. I asked if they had a phone line to send a story but I was too embarrassed to ask for any food, after using some of their water. I was still eating my nuts and muesli bars.

The Washington bureau got in touch to say a producer, Jason Racki, was coming down to meet me, with extra fuel and water and to travel with me because they were concerned about my safety. Jason and I arranged to rendezvous at a truckstop the following day, en route to New Orleans.

Day Three

My TV colleagues Mark Simkin and Tim Bates did spend a night in their car in Baton Rouge. But Mark heard a woman on the radio who lived just outside New Orleans and was scared staying by herself. He got her number and asked if they could stay (for a fee). She agreed, so we all headed there.

It was no Hilton: there were no sheets and no towels - but to us it was luxury. The air conditioning was broken and in the upstairs bedrooms, it was about 30 degrees Celsius. To add to the scene, a newly born litter of feral cats had also decided to call it home. When we arrived and saw the place, I lay down on the couch in despair. One kitten jumped on me and another one started batting my feet hanging over the edge. I realised how tired and close to hysteria I was because I started laughing uncontrollably and tears started spurting out my eyes. Between peels of laughter, I gasped to Jason: "The experience in this house just wouldn't have been complete without a litter of feral cats walking all over me."

So that's where I am now as I write this. I'm sitting on the carpet, because there is no desk and chair. Fleas keep jumping on me out of the carpet.

Despite the long hours and the desperate scenes around us, we're keeping our sense of humour.

Tim told Mark: "I think it's really unfair that you're bringing fleas in here, the cats might catch them."

But can I just say - having been reporting on this horrible story and talking to people who've lost everything, I love my life and this house is a mansion.

The story is devastating to cover. It seems impossible to escape the conclusion that if you are black, poor, old, sick or disabled, you are a second-class citizen in this country.