Disaster practice takes to the water
By Trymaine Lee
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
Copyright 2006 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company
In a show of post-Katrina teamwork among local, state and federal rescue workers, more than 15 agencies came together Wednesday for a massive search and rescue simulation on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain.
The exercise, dubbed Operation Lily Pad, included more than 200 people, playing roles of victims and rescuers during a disaster scenario modeled after Hurricane Katrina. During real emergencies requiring water rescues, first responders will use lily pads — patches of dry ground — as staging areas to provide flood victims with food, water and emergency medical attention until they can be transported to secondary shelters such as the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
Agencies involved in Wednesday’s operation included New Orleans police, fire officials and emergency medical services; the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries; the Federal Emergency Management Agency Gulf Coast recovery team; the state Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness; the Louisiana National Guard; the state departments of Agriculture and Forestry; the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; State Police; and the Coast Guard.
“With this exercise, we will be able to practice working efficiently with multiple organizations and make future search and rescue missions better for both rescuers and victims,” said Operation Lily Pad commander Lt. Col. Keith LaCaze, assistant chief of law enforcement for the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
Terry Ebbert, director of homeland security in New Orleans, said the exercise will help iron out the communication problems among the various agencies by creating a common command and control center.
A day after Katrina, 80 percent of New Orleans flooded. Early rescue efforts were hampered by the sheer magnitude of the event. And a lack of local planning and communication failures among state and federal authorities also slowed rescue efforts.
As bright orange Coast Guard helicopters hovered above the Point in Lakeview and flat-bottom boats cut across the choppy waters of Lake Pontchartrain on Wednesday morning, Lori Haeuser and Louie, a 2 1/2-year-old white Maltese, stepped from a rescue boat onto a narrow dock leading to terra firma.
Most days Haeuser, 46, is the Louisiana SPCA’s community outreach coordinator; Wednesday she played the part of a Lakeview flood victim who refused rescue unless her beloved pet could go with her.
Haeuser and other officials said residents’ devotion to their pets posed one of the biggest obstacles during Katrina, when many rescuers took a people-only policy, prioritizing human life. But authorities learned that refusing to rescue pets can mean leaving their owners to die.
“Before, people just didn’t know that so many people would be stuck out there with their animals,” Haeuser said. “Now rescue agencies realize that these pets are valued family members.”
Louie, the fluffy white Maltese, made it safely through the mock rescue operation and is available for adoption through the SPCA, Haeuser said.
Animal rescuers
Laura Maloney, executive director of the Louisiana SPCA, said 15 dogs took part in Wednesday’s exercise.
“We’re excited about the opportunity to practice together,” Maloney said of the joint operation.
During a real disaster, Maloney said, human search and rescue teams will locate victims and rescue them and their pets when possible. But if a pet cannot be taken with its owner, for whatever reason, then an animal rescue team will be sent to the location to retrieve it.
Mike Lambert, chief of the Sorrento Fire Department and president of the Louisiana Fire Chiefs Association, stood a few yards from where rescue boats launched into the lake and admired the finely tuned organization.
“The more practice, the better you get,” Lambert said.
Working together
During the mock operation, the agencies involved swapped personnel, sending crews of rescuers into the sea and sky. In the days after Katrina, each agency communicated with its own teams on different radio frequencies, making it virtually impossible for one agency to communicate with another. Important information such as rescue locations got lost or garbled in translation from one agency to another.
From now on, LaCaze said, a liaison from each organization will be embedded with each rescue unit so information can be shared immediately, whether it’s a request from the NOPD for a Coast Guard helicopter or the National Guard requesting Fire Department support for a rescue.
Holding an oversized grid map of New Orleans, Capt. Bob Norton of the NOPD Criminal Intelligence Bureau plotted various points and discussed the difficulty in getting rescuers organized before Katrina.
Despite the heroic work of individual rescue teams, the lack of coordination caused duplication of efforts, wasting time and costing lives, he said.
Moreover, different agencies used different maps, making communication that much harder. The NOPD used its own zone map. The Fire Department used a map with different zones, and Wildlife and Fisheries used a state map.
“There was no unification,” he said. “Those were hard lessons learned.”
Now, all agencies will use a universal map.
More boats on the way
The NOPD also has added 15 boats to its fleet, Norton said. By October, the department will have about 29 boats, he said.
The 15 boats, along with about 35 available from other local agencies, can be put to use immediately if needed, Norton said.
During Katrina, NOPD diver Scott Seymour and other rescuers scoured downtown, Gentilly and Lakeview searching for survivors.
But on Wednesday, he treaded along the docks, a morgue of half-sunken pleasure boats and fishing vessels, searching for “victims” who were actually firefighters.
The group located six victims, who hopped into the boat and sat on its wet floor. “Anything we can do to help,” said Devin Barbarin, 24, a Fire Department recruit. “That’s why we want to be firefighters, to help. And I think this better prepares us in case something happens again.”