Remembering Katrina, Part I: 'Shadow Cast' over Travers weekend

“This flight has been canceled.”

So chirped the robotic humanoid voice on the Delta Airlines customer service line, sending my Travers weekend into a tailspin and propelling me into panic mode. Not because I was planning a trip to Saratoga, or looking forward to a vacation.

We were trying to escape the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina. The window of opportunity was closing, and now we were in danger of being stranded in my hometown of New Orleans.

The stomach-turning irony was that my mom, Claire Olsen Reilly, and I had always evacuated early, even for tropical systems of far less magnitude than Katrina. Because of various health problems, my mom literally cannot survive without air conditioning. She goes into heat exhaustion within minutes, and her breathing is badly compromised. Hurricanes mean power outages, so we would beat a retreat in advance, and come home when all was clear.

But this time, the one time we needed to get out, we were grounded. My mom had undergone arthroscopic knee surgery just a couple of weeks before, and elective travel was out of the question.

Meanwhile, the tropical disturbance that would become Katrina began to swirl, apparently fell apart, and came back from the watery grave to take on an ominous new life. But it was forecast to stay well to our east. In the circumstances, I was relieved that my mom probably didn’t have to mobilize.

The deeper we got into Travers Week, however, the less sure I became about the forecast. Thankfully, I’d gotten into the habit of monitoring the Storm2k.org forums, where the eagle-eyed commenters often noticed trends before they were widely publicized. There I began to grasp that the central Gulf Coast may end up in the threat area.

August 26, 2005: Friday of Travers Week. I thought I’d enjoy watching one of our Fair Grounds regulars, Shadow Cast, in the Personal Ensign. But among all the things I had to do that afternoon, I was preoccupied with Katrina: do I compel my mom to leave, even though it will cause great physical discomfort, and might be pointless if the forecast holds?

About 20 minutes before the Personal Ensign, all I could think of was, “I’d better run to the gas station, just in case.” Not that driving for hundreds of miles was an option – we had to fly. But at least I could make sure we’d have gas for the trek to the airport. It was one less thing to worry about.

I made it back home in time to see Shadow Cast win handsomely. A great result for New Orleans railbirds, and a pleasant diversion from the black cloud over my brain.

It didn’t last. The shadow cast by Katrina grew darker. That night, there was no escaping the ferocious logic of the Storm2k crowd. Katrina wasn’t moving in accord with the projected track: every southwesterly jog assured that when it did finally make the northward turn, New Orleans would be in the region of the dreaded cone.

Staying up later and later, glued to each successive post, I knew that the decision point was coming in the morning – Travers morning.

August 27, 2005: Travers Day. The worrisome trend now became a certainty. I told my mom we had to leave.

I booked that infamous Delta flight scheduled for Sunday morning, thinking we’d be safe 24 hours ahead of any deteriorating conditions. Then in what I thought was a clever stroke, I booked a room at an airport hotel: we’d drive there today and avoid the sure gridlock to come Sunday. Then I got us all packed and ready to go, closing the door on my lifelong New Orleans home (pictured on right, in bygone days) for what would be the final time.

And so as the festive Travers card was getting under way at Saratoga, I was making the trek from our Gentilly neighborhood out west to the airport in suburban Kenner. And as I pulled into the hotel parking lot, my car battery died. But I still felt a palpable sense of relief. We’ve made it; we’re safe.

Once in our room, I ordered lunch and fired up the TV in anticipation of Saratoga. Now after the stress of the past couple of days, I could immerse myself in horse racing and try to forget the sense of impending doom.

For some reason, probably around the time Discreet Cat was breaking his maiden, I had the inspiration to check on our flight. It had only been several hours since it was booked, but just in case…

Then I heard that awful message about the cancellation. If I hadn’t checked on my own, when was Delta going to inform me? I frantically selected the option to talk to a customer service rep, who was singularly unhelpful when I explained we needed help to escape the hurricane. Now I’d have to find another airline, mid-Saturday afternoon, as the pool of available flights was closing. Well, we’re in a hotel outside the city, so maybe we can ride it out here?

My plans in ruins, I put off further decision making – not as an exercise in rationality, but as the result of mental paralysis. I watched Lost in the Fog win the King’s Bishop with a knot in my stomach, and a sense of being lost in my own brain fog.

Then came dear old Bellamy Road in the Travers. I so hoped he could win off the layoff, but knew it was a tall task. As Flower Alley passed him in the stretch and crossed the wire, my own brief hiatus from reality was over. And my road forward was by no means clear; it led straight into a blind alley.

I had to get us out. Going down to the computer in the hotel business center, I visited a number of airline websites, to no avail. Not only was everything that I could find already booked, but you had to enter your destination first. It would have taken too much time to enter every possible destination in hopes of finding 2 tickets to anywhere. So then I started calling airlines, without much luck. I finally found something, booked it, only to have that one canceled on us too.

Demoralized and defeated, I suffered a further reverse when the hotel notified us that it was closing up shop for the hurricane, and no one could stay. Now even my fallback position was stripped from us.

We can’t fly out of the area, we can’t drive, we can’t stay here, we can’t go back to our house that’s not safe for a hurricane and its aftermath. We’re stuck. Like a terrified, disoriented horse running right back into its own barn on fire, I thought maybe we could go to a downtown New Orleans hotel, as we used to do in years past.

Thank God that Max Mayfield, then-head of the National Hurricane Center, put the fear of God into anyone contemplating staying. The message was clear: get out any possible way you can.

Back I went to the hotel business center, back I went to the phone, calling the airlines right down the page in the phone book. I repeated the continual refrain: we’re in New Orleans, we have to escape the hurricane, we don’t care where the plane is going, we just have to get out on any available flight….Aside from the utter helplessness of not knowing what to do or where to go, I had the horrible, sinking fear that I was letting my mom down.

Continued in Part II...

Satellite photo of Katrina courtesy of NOAA.