2005 - 09-05-04

If you like anything I've said/sent - would love
to hear back from you....... and thank you for
reading.

Linda Rothenberger

Here's the copy from the doctor's email:

From: Gregory S. Henderson MD, PhD <[email protected]>

Thanks to all of you who have sent your
notes of concern and your prayers. I am
writing this note on Tuesday at 2PM. I
wanted to update all of you as to the
situation here. I don't know how much
information you are getting but I am certain
it is more than we are getting. Be advised
that almost everything I am telling you is
from direct observation or rumor from
reasonable sources. They are allowing
limited internet access, so I hope to send
this dispatch today.

Personally, my family and I are fine. My
family is safe in Jackson, MS, and I am now
a temporary resident of the Ritz Carleton
Hotel in New Orleans. I figured if it was
my time to go, I wanted to go in a place
with a good wine list. In addition, this
hotel is in a very old building on Canal
Street that could and did sustain little
damage. Many of the other hotels sustained
significant loss of windows, and we expect
that many of the guests may be evacuated
here.

Things were obviously bad yesterday, but
they are much worse today. Overnight the
water arrived. Now Canal Street (true to
its origins) is indeed a canal. The first
floor of all downtown buildings is
underwater. I have heard that Charity
Hospital and Tulane are limited in their
ability to care for patients because of
water. Ochsner is the only hospital that
remains fully functional. However, I spoke
with them today and they too are on
generator and losing food and water fast.
The city now has no clean water, no sewerage
system, no electricity, and no real
communications. Bodies are still being
recovered floating in the floods. We are
worried about a cholera epidemic. Even the
police are without effective
communications. We have a group of armed
police here with us at the hotel that are
admirably trying to exert some local law
enforcement. This is tough because looting
is now rampant. Most of it is not
malicious looting. These are poor and
desperate people with no housing and no
medical care and no food or water trying to
take care of themselves and their families.
Unfortunately, the people are armed and
dangerous. We hear gunshots frequently.
Most of Canal street is occupied by armed
looters who have a low threshold for
discharging their weapons. We hear gunshots
frequently. The looters are using makeshift
boats made of pieces of styrofoam to
access. We are still waiting for a
significant national guard presence.

The health care situation here has
dramatically worsened overnight. Many
people in the hotel are elderly and small
children. There are ID physicians in at
this hotel attending an HiV confection. We
have commandered the world famous French
Quarter Bar to turn into an makeshift
clinic. There is a team of about 7 doctors
and PA and pharmacists. We anticipate that
this will be the major medical facility in
the central business district and French
Quarter.