Eleven Days Gone

by Dave Prochnow
September 12, 2005

Author's Note: This article is not meant to trivialize the plight of the residents of Southeastern Louisiana or the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Rather, this is just one family's story of surviving in the aftermath of a significant weather event. Hopefully, this article will stimulate a dialog on how to empower people to survive in an austere environment with minimal or nonexistent governmental assistance.

You may find some of this hard to swallow in today's "modern" world, but we've just been living through 11 days in rural Depression-era U.S.A. My little family of five was able to survive the calamity of Hurricane Katrina and, actually, make a terrible situation tolerable. First of all, let's debunk some myths:

• No, it is not clear, open blue sky inside the eye of a hurricane.

• No, it is not calm inside the eye of a hurricane.

• No, hurricanes do not sound like freight trains.

• No, it doesn't take just a couple of days to get "back on the grid."

• People find it easier to be uncivilized rather than civilized--especially when gasoline is involved.

• Don't believe what you see on TV; you can believe your own eyes.

At 9:50 a.m., the power died on Monday, August 29th. There were a couple of short "on-off" burps, but it was enough of a warning to cause us to run frantically around the house and turn off all appliances, especially the AC. During the next 6-7 hours, we were tossed around like a little milkweed seed. Were we scared? Actually, no. It was exciting and thrilling to see the "real" power of a hurricane up close and personal...real personal. The dead center, 35-mile-wide "eye" of the hurricane passed right over our house. No, there wasn't any clear sky above the eye, and no, the winds didn't stop blowing inside the eye, but you could actually see the swirling confusion that makes a hurricane, well, a hurricane. Very impressive and extremely educational. The kids might have actually learned something, but I doubt it.

Young eyes behold the incredible power of Mother Nature (click for full size).

The rain (over 10-inches worth; I actually made two trips outside to empty the rain gauge so that I would have an accurate estimate) is blown with such force that it becomes kinda frothy and sticky, like an oil. Oddly enough, it is also white in color almost like snow—think wet, wild, warm blizzard. The only thing that really bothered us was the loss of our beautiful backyard forest. Fifty-to-sixty-foot tall trees fell over like beer bottles after a fun Friday night. The ground would actually shake as each one hit. In case you're keeping score at home, pine trees will snap in half, while the leafy deciduous trees fall over. Very impressive. All told, we lost $100,000 to $200,000 worth of trees, but that's ALL. We were OK, our house was OK, and so we erroneously thought everything else would be OK, too.

It looks like I have some woodcutting to do (click for full size).

No time to be counting blessings, since I had a book manuscript to get to New York City "on or before" 1 September. Just poking our heads outside told us that not everyone was as lucky as us. The neighbor across the street had a hole poked in her roof from a tree; the guy down the street had his vestibule ripped off his house; and portions of the city of Hattiesburg, Mississippi were flattened like a pancake. We had no electricity, no water (drinking OR flushing), no phones (not even cellphones, go figure), no mail delivery, no garbage service, and, worst of all for my manuscript submission, no FedEx. We had to make a plan for delivering this book manuscript, fast.

As a side note, can you imagine no flushing water with three girls? You might not like reading this, but I was able to fashion an outdoor latrine for all of us, which my middle daughter actually said was "fun" to use. Kids!

You know how some people drizzle down into a puddle on the ground under a crisis, well I kinda like it sometimes. It serves as a good test of your brain power. So out came the maps, checked the fuel in the van, and a course of action had to be plotted. And this plot had to take into consideration the path of Hurricane Katrina. For you non-H types, "west is best" for avoiding hurricane damage. So you should always try to stay on the west side of the hurricane's eye. So plotting the path of hurricane showed us that Memphis, Tennessee MIGHT be a good place to start looking for a FedEx hub terminal. But that's a 300-mile trip, and we only had 11 gallons of gas. This could get kinda exciting.

So off we went. Getting to the highway involved doing things that you would NEVER EVER do with kids in a car—driving off the road, driving through people's yards, and driving over power lines. Yes, we had to drive over power lines. Luckily at least one of them was dead—that was the one that just touched our roof antenna. Gulp. Finally, on the highway, it was social chaos. People jostling for gasoline, cars stalled on the road everywhere, and people walking around dazed. It was an Irwin Allen "disaster" movie, only we were in it.

So much for building construction codes (click for full size).

We made it to Interstate 55 and started north. There were cars stalled all along the road, and get this—there were more Wal-Mart trucks headed south than ALL of the power utility company trucks and National Guard vehicles combined. How's that for commerce versus relief aid? When we finally got close to an exit, the gas lines were so long that they stretched out onto the freeway. We ventured into one little roadside community looking for gas, and the owner took pity on us and "let" us buy $5 worth of gas. At the outrageous prices for gasoline at that time, that generosity translated into 1.5 gallons. No time to fret—hey, it'll help us get further toward Memphis.

The new “Katrina” billboard (click for full size).

Our next gas stop was for the real thing—we were almost dry. So we got in the queue of an infamous gas line. It was hot, smelly (gas fumes were overpowering; remember it's near 100 degrees down here), and long. Two miles long. Thankfully, we were in the line at about the half-mile point, so after one hour, we were at the pump filling both the van AND the fuel can that I had brought along. Remember, you have to thrive in a crisis. At least now we could make it to Memphis.

These arches are no longer golden (click for full size).

You can't imagine the joy of pulling into the "home of Elvis." We had made it. We found a hotel, took five showers, had some great chicken dinners, and watched CNN after the kids had gone to bed. Gee, after watching the shrill Wolf Blitzer, we didn't realize how bad we had it. Remember, believe your own eyes, not the one-eyed, myopic media. So the next day, before heading to FedEx, we made a side trip to Target and Home Depot to buy all of the water, food, matches, cups, plates, candles, and waterless cleanser that we could cram into the van for us and our neighbors (upon return, most neighbors actually seemed annoyed that we didn't bring back any gasoline; you're welcome). After dropping off the manuscript package at FedEx, we topped off our fuel tank and then hit the road again back home.

I won't bore you with any more of the little "bumps in the road" that we endured during our 11-day ordeal, but suffice it to say that it sure is good to be back in the 21st century. In order to cope with this disaster, there were four things that made our lives bearable during our 11 day survival test:

• Baygen Freeplay Hand-Cranked Flashlight. This flashlight is also able to provide a 3V output as an external power source.

• Baygen Freeplay AM/FM/Short-Wave Hand-Cranked Solar Radio. Listen to it with the sun during the day, then crank 'er up for late-night listening.

• Spare Solar Cells (for keeping rechargeable batteries  "juiced up"). This activity took approximately nine hours of charging for a pair of "D" size rechargeable batteries. It worked great until my battery-powered soldering iron and my battery-powered multimeter both died.

• Spare DC Motor and a Bicycle. By hooking a DC motor to the rear hub of my bicycle with appropriate gearing, I was able to generate a fairly consistent 8V-9V power supply (see Plan1.gif). Don't take this activity lightly. I'm a vigorous cyclist and skater practicing 50-60 miles per week. Maintaining this amount of power for roughly 30 minutes required a significant effort on my part. As they say, your mileage may vary.

Here’s a rough plan for making your own bicycle-powered electricity generator (click for full size).

Returning home, we finally had some restoration of human civilized dignity on the fourth day (that's D+3 if you're into disasters). We had flushable water—water you can't drink, but you can flush down the toilet. That's better than nothing. The cellphones were restored on D+5, but only to local area codes. The mail was delivered on D+5. And behold the power of power: the electricity was restored on D+10. For our family of five, that's 11 days gone.

---

Search the pages of MAKE

Raves for MAKE!

“Now we've got geek DIY (do it yourself) porn. Just as would-be Emerils pore over lushly illustrated cookbooks with recipes involving hard-to-find morels and complicated instructions for roux, Tom Swift wanna-bes are devouring MAKE.”
— Steven Levy, Newsweek

“...O'Reilly Media recently launched what has already become the bible of this new movement, a magazine called MAKE.”
— Daniel Roth, FORTUNE

“If you're the type who views the warnings not to pry open your computer as more a challenge than admonition, MAKE is for you.”
— Rolling Stone

“One of the most innovative magazines I've seen in a long time.”
— Steve Riggio, CEO Barnes & Noble

“The kind of magazine that would impress MacGyver”
— Marcus Chan, San Francisco Chronicle

More Raves for MAKE

Subscribe