In the end, I didn't take any more patients to the hospital that day. I reassured them, took their vital signs, gave them medical advice, gave away my own food and water, gave away antiseptic wipes and bandages, taped and bandaged their injuries as best as was possible. For the most part, my thinking was: "OK, this person will survive another few days, and someone else is dying right now." Definitely some of the hardest decisions I've ever made, and there is no way to know if they were the right ones.

Tuesday night around dark we got back and had dinner. Someone had donated a bunch of meat and we ate good barbecue. We hadn't had a patient in an hour or so. The sun was going down and the clouds were beautiful and the air felt dry. Then word started going around about New Orleans Police Department officers being shot, and there was a feeling in the police station that everything was about to change. I felt sorry for everyone -- for the people inside and the people outside. On the most basic level, everyone was just trying to stay alive. I headed up to the command post and waited for my next assignment.

At the time, the pumps were still working and the water was coming down. The previous day, my car had been parked in a foot of water, but now the pavement underneath it was dry. Most important, the lower water level meant that the fire department would be able to get their engines down some of the streets, which meant that other EMTs with real equipment and probably some paramedics would be available in Kenner. As I saw it, it was time to get transferred to New Orleans, where I'd be more useful doing search and rescue.

At 7:45 Tuesday night, I walked into the command post to speak to the captain about my transfer. In general, it was a very serious place, but I could tell something terrible had just happened. There had been a 400-foot breach in one of the levees that afternoon. Word had just come down that the breach could not be fixed. In a matter of hours, New Orleans would be under an additional 10 to 15 feet of water. The situation was already terrible, but it was about to get much, much worse. And as I've said before, many or most of the civilians I saw were already out of food and water, wading through three or four feet of filthy water to get anywhere. There was no running water within miles. With the exception of a few hospitals and police stations with backup generators, there was no electricity, either.

The official estimate was that the town of Kenner was going to get 10 more feet of water. The first floor of the police station would be swamped, the generators and radios would be knocked out, and the only transportation would be on the single flatboat. Not to mention the jail, which would be flooded also. The captain assigned a sergeant to get cheap battery-powered walkie-talkies from Wal-Mart -- the kind you use for hunting or skiing and have a range of a few hundred yards -- because with the power out, the police radios were going to be useless. A lieutenant was ordered to come up with a simple system of hand communication that the officers could learn in a few minutes. Despite all their preparations, the Kenner Police Department was headed back to the Stone Age. The situation at the New Orleans Police Department was even worse.

I followed the captain downstairs and asked when he thought the water level would get back to normal. "Months," he said. "Maybe never. This is much worse than the worst-case scenario. No one knows how to think about it."

Outside there was a steady convoy of emergency vehicles, hundreds of them, leaving the city along I-10. I watched them leave. The waters were coming and I had a very short time to make my decision. Stay for the duration -- a month, at least -- or leave that minute.

The argument in favor of leaving was that every day, thousands more rescuers were arriving with serious equipment and gear (mine was limited to what I'd been able to buy at the Target in Austin). The biggest difference I'd made was that I'd arrived during the hurricane, hours or days ahead of most rescuers -- FEMA and all the official agencies had understandably waited at a safe distance. There was also the question of continuing my own life -- keeping the fellowship I'd just been awarded, not being kicked out of school, etc. Still, at first, I knew I would stay. Then, a few minutes later, I knew I should leave. It was the hardest decision I've made in my life.

I grabbed my gear from the bunkroom and made my way downstairs. At the same time the previous night, the bunkroom had been full of exhausted officers trying to sleep. That night, it was empty. When I went to the briefing room, it was packed with every officer in the building. They were listening to the news about the coming flood -- about the annihilation of their town. I said quick goodbyes and felt incredibly guilty. The meeting ended and dozens of officers rushed by me, all talking about how to save their family members who had been safe that day, but might be in danger now that the levees had broken.

Outside, I ran into the SWAT team officer who'd been one of my escorts. He was compassionate and tried to reassure me that people were extremely thankful I'd showed up at all. I shook his hand. I felt like the worst human being on earth.

When I got to my car, I realized it was facing the wrong way on the highway. I drove for several miles, toward New Orleans, toward the coming flood. I couldn't find a place to turn around. Finally I saw an opening in the guardrail and wrenched my car into the grassy sinkhole between the two sides of the highway. The mud was a foot deep and the car bogged down and for a second I was sure I would be stuck there. Then the tires caught and I lurched back onto the highway. I slipped in with the convoy of ambulances and police cars leaving the city.

As everyone can see now, the situation in New Orleans is only getting worse. People inside have been out of food and water for days. The million or so people who used to live in and around New Orleans now have no homes, no jobs, and no paychecks. I was in New York during Sept. 11 and the weeks that followed, and I say the following with complete certainty: This disaster is so much worse than Sept. 11 that they are not even comparable. Maybe people are already saying this, or maybe it's not a fashionable sentiment. Either way, it's true.

I'd like to end this by talking about the police officers. All of them had lost everything -- their homes were destroyed, their families scattered far and wide and out of communication. Despite all of it, every one of the officers kept working to save their town and the citizens who'd been trapped there. They are all heroes. It was an honor to know them.

-- Philipp Meyer

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