When they reached the boats, the 16-foot boat had sunk and the 14-foot was about to sink. It was floating in about 7 feet of water with the trailer still strapped to it and about a foot of water in it. King cut the straps with his pocket- knife. They then balanced atop an adjacent chain-link fence and bailed out the boat with buckets they found floating nearby.
After a hard swim, the pair managed to get the boat back to the Tower. Capt. Hellmers was injured twice by submerged debris while retrieving the boat, sustaining large, deep lacerations to the front and back of his left leg.
As soon as Hellmers and King got the boat to the back of the building, Capt. Gordon Case (a skilled boat mechanic) was waiting to get the boat running. Within minutes, Case had the motor started. He and Firefighter Patrick Ball left with the boat to get more boats. The firefighters hoped to have a small fleet of boats operational as quickly as possible.
Operator Steve Condon and Firefighter King swam out and retrieved another boat, which they used most of the day to rescue people. Later in the day that boat’s engine began to sputter and die on them. They managed to find a one-man jet ski next to a house in the neighborhood. They transferred the gas and oil that were on the boat, as well as more gas they had found in the area. With about 30 gallons of gasoline tied to their jet ski, they headed back toward the Lake Marina Tower.
They were boating over Bellaire Dr., a road that runs parallel to the canal and beyond the breach, and had to boat past one of the 17th Canal breaches where the current was swift. Trees and debris blocked any other route. It was proving difficult to balance two men on a one-person jet ski. As they entered the zone of the swifter currents, the engine on the jet ski started to fail. Unfortunately, there was a large natural gas fire blazing on the river down current from the breach. Condon mentioned to King he didn’t think they were going to make it, as the current was rapidly pushing them towards the area where the fire was. They were towing about 30 gallons of gasoline. The firefighters frantically worked on restarting the jet ski. It seemed to have flooded. The jet ski’s engine finally engaged with seconds to spare and the men narrowly avoided the fire and headed back to Lake Marina Tower.
Capt. Case and Firefighter Ball went to get another boat, but when they crossed Old Hammond Highway, they heard people screaming for help. It was a family on a roof (a man, a woman, and children). When they got close to the family, one of them said, “There’s a man screaming for help in the house next door.” Capt. Case steered the boat next to a bathroom window where the screaming could be heard. Firefighter Ball held on to the rain gutter to steady the boat while Capt. Case kicked out the almost submerged window. When they looked in, only the man’s face was visible above the water as the man stood on his toes on the edge of the bathtub struggling to stay alive as the water was rising rapidly. They worked together to pull the man through the tiny window.
Out of the 9 firefighters present, 4 were proficient at operating boats. As the day wore on, they managed to retrieve several other boats and were able to get them started by hot-wiring the ignitions. They immediately began going out into the neighborhood in search of flood victims. Many people were rescued from rooftops, attics, and trees. They were first bringing the people they rescued back to their base of operations (Lake Marina Tower), but they were quickly overwhelmed and had to start bringing people to the bridge over the 17th Street Canal at Old Hammond Highway. While at the bridge later in the evening, Capt. Case and Firefighter Ball met some officials from the Army Corps of Engineers. The men had no boat and insisted that it was urgent that they get to the breach to measure the water depth so that emergency repairs could be planned. Case and Ball brought the men to the breach, where the current was treacherous. The water depth where the levee had been was 25 feet.
From 2:00 p.m. until totally dark, they were driving around in the boats pulling people off roofs and out of second floor windows. The rescue operations continued until it was too dark to see anymore. The men recalled that maneuvering the boats was very difficult with wires and debris above and below the water. Propellers were frequently damaged by submerged vehicles, street signs, branches and fences. They continued to try to acquire extra boats at every opportunity.
The process began again all over at first light Tuesday morning. At this time they had a couple of boats to use. Joe said that it would have been nice if they had had more boats to work with. The couple of crews out the very first day did a really good job. The next morning, they pulled as many people out as they could and continued to canvass the entire area. All over the city, firefighters from all different locations were doing the same thing.
Their radio communications became incremental at best. They received numerous addresses by radio where people were possibly trapped. Every location was investigated and checked off the list. They set up an operation where some men were dispatched to the boats; others would do the cooking while others would gather needed medical supplies, gasoline, oil, etc. It was a well-orchestrated effort. They worked as a team with each member doing his duty to benefit the whole. Joe later found out that these efforts were duplicated throughout the city, independent of any central coordination.
At first, people who were rescued were brought back to the Lake Marina Tower and provided food and water. It became clear pretty quickly, however, that the Tower would not be able to sustain the sheer numbers of people needing rescue. So as not to compromise their last resort area, Chief Joey Lampard requested that “Fire Alarm,” a term used to designate the fire dispatch folks, call the resources in Jefferson Parish and request some vehicles to pick up the evacuated people who were being dropped at the Old Hammond Highway Bridge that crossed the 17th St. Canal immediately next to Lake Pontchartrain. The objective at that point was to get people to dry land where they would be out of danger from the high water. It took about 2 days to get most of the people out of the neighborhoods in which they were working. After the first 2 days, civilians were helping out in the rescue efforts as well.
Dr. Ivor Van Heerden, an LSU researcher who had contributed to the Hurricane Pam scenario noted in his book The Storm stated, “Indeed it is clear that local first responders achieved remarkable success following Katrina…If it was not for these thousands of heroes, the number of fatalities could have been 10,000.” Van Heerden’s calculations were part of the Hurricane Pam scenario and had estimated that 10,000 casualties could be expected for a Hurricane of Pam’s proposed intensity. Pam and Katrina were similar in magnitude.
Joe concurred with Van Heerden’s later assessment that the efforts of the firefighters and the civilian rescuers significantly reduced the predicted death toll derived from the Hurricane Pam scenario. At the time of this writing, the confirmed death toll of Katrina (total of direct and indirect deaths) is over 1,900. However, over 100 people remain categorized as missing in Louisiana. Though a large number, it was significantly lower than the 10,000 deaths predicted by the Hurricane Pam scenario.
For most of Tuesday, they were unable to communicate with dispatch but they could hear intermittent transmissions. Joe recalled that Tuesday evening they had heard from dispatch that there were firefighters and fire alarm (dispatch) personnel trapped at Delgado Community College requesting evacuation. The crew of Engine 18 knew that it wasn’t far from where they were. They made plans to get some boats over to Delgado the first thing in the morning. They found out later that things weren't as dire there as the radio transmission had suggested on Tuesday night. They headed out to Delgado first thing Wednesday morning where they found many NOFD personnel and over 100 civilians who either were rescued or were being looked after by the NOFD at that location.
The men of Engine 18 recalled expecting a huge federal rescue force to arrive and help, but by Tuesday evening, they were surprised when none had. There were some sporadic rescues in the area performed by the Coast Guard by helicopter and by boat, but what they observed fell short of the level for which they hoped.
By Wednesday when no significant government help had arrived, they all accepted that they would work for as long as it took to rescue everyone until
