Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival (13 page)

For the last two nights, I’ve been a guest on
Larry King Live,
and listened as politicians thanked one another for the “Herculean” efforts they were undertaking in the wake of this “unprecedented” and “unpredictable” disaster. I don’t know what they’re talking about. I see their lips move, I hear the sounds, but it doesn’t make any sense.

“Stop thanking each other” I want to yell. “Grab a body bag and get down here with some soldiers!” Instead I nod and listen. Night after night.

Wednesday, I interview FEMA director Michael Brown. I tell him I’m not seeing much of a response here, and there are bodies lying in the street. It’s “unacceptable,” he says. He promises he’s “working on it.” After the program, someone from FEMA tells my producer we can follow Brown around the next day. Later, however, they call back and rescind the offer.

Politicians keep saying that they know people are “frustrated.” If they really understood, however, they wouldn’t use that word.
Frustrated
is waiting on line for a film; it’s a slow-moving train. The feelings here go much deeper. People aren’t “frustrated.” They are dead. They are dying; the scales have fallen from their eyes. I remember what Dr. Tectonidis told me in Niger, about the mothers in the intensive care ward. “They don’t want your sympathy,” he said, “they want you to do your job.”

In normal times you can’t always say what’s right and what’s wrong. The truth is not always clear. Here, however, all the doubt is stripped away. This isn’t about Republicans and Democrats, theories and politics. Relief is either here or it’s not. Corpses don’t lie.

When you’re working, you’re focused on getting the shot, writing the story. You sometimes don’t notice how upset you are. In Waveland, I certainly don’t. Late Wednesday night, I’m talking to someone back in the office about the woman we left on the street, and I find myself crying. I can’t even speak. I have to call that person back. At first I don’t realize what’s happening to me. It’s been years since a story made me cry. Sarajevo was probably the last time. I’ve never been on this kind of story, though, in my own country. It’s something I never expected to see.

I used to get back from Somalia or Sarajevo and imagine what New York would look like in a war. Which buildings would crumble? Who among my friends would survive? I always told myself if it did happen here, at least we could handle it better. At least our government would know what to do.

In Sri Lanka, in Niger, you never assume anyone will help. You take it for granted that governments don’t work, that people are on their own. There’s a different level of expectation. Here, you grow up believing there’s a safety net, that things can never completely fall apart. Katrina showed us all that’s not true. For all the money spent on homeland security, all the preparations that have allegedly been made, we are not ready, not even for a disaster we know is coming. We can’t take care of our own. The world can break apart in our own backyard, and when it does many of us will simply fall off.

THURSDAY. I’M ABOUT
to interview Senator Mary Landrieu. She’s a Democrat from Louisiana. I’m unaware she’s going to be on the program until a few minutes before she appears. Much of what we’re doing on the air each night is impromptu. I like working that way best. No scripts, no TelePrompTer, just talking with the viewers—no separation between me and the camera. Before I go on air each night, I have a rough idea what will be in the program: where our reporters are located and what they’ve been working on. During the broadcast, however, much of that changes, so I have to be quick on my feet, ready for anything.

As a child, I used to spend summers at the beach, and I loved to run along the edge of the sand cliffs made by the retreating tide. As I ran, I could feel the sand collapse beneath me, but as long as I kept moving forward, kept running fast, I could stay one step ahead of the falling cliff. That’s what anchoring the news is like. You can easily falter, easily destroy your career in a sentence or two. The key is to keep going, keep moving, never forget you’re running on sand.

I’m standing in a small clearing in a field of destroyed homes. It used to be someone’s front yard. Senator Landrieu is in Baton Rouge. I can’t see her; I can only hear her through my plastic earpiece.

I start by asking her if the federal government bears responsibility for what is happening. “Should they apologize for what is happening now?” I ask.

“Anderson, there will be plenty of time to discuss all of those issues, about why, and how, and what, and if,” Landrieu says. “But, Anderson, as you understand, and all of the producers and directors of CNN, and the news networks, this situation is very serious and it’s going to demand all of our full attention through the hours, through the nights, through the days.

“Let me just say a few things. Thank President Clinton and former President Bush for their strong statements of support and comfort today. I thank all the leaders that are coming to Louisiana, and Mississippi, and Alabama to our help and rescue.

“We are grateful for the military assets that are being brought to bear. I want to thank Senator Frist and Senator Reid for their extraordinary efforts.

“Anderson, tonight, I don’t know if you’ve heard—maybe you all have announced it—but Congress is going to an unprecedented session to pass a ten-billion-dollar supplemental bill tonight to keep FEMA and the Red Cross up and operating.”

I can’t believe she is thanking people. In Waveland, the bodies haven’t been picked up; the National Guard is just starting to arrive. In New Orleans, no help has come to the Convention Center; the Superdome is unbearable for those still stuck there. I literally cannot believe what she is saying.

“Excuse me, Senator. I’m sorry for interrupting,” I say. “I haven’t heard that, because for the last four days I’ve been seeing dead bodies in the streets here in Mississippi. And to listen to politicians thanking each other and complimenting each other—you know, I’ve got to tell you, there are a lot of people here who are very upset, and very angry, and very frustrated.

“And when they hear politicians slap—you know, thanking one another, it just, you know, it kind of cuts them the wrong way right now, because literally there was a body on the streets of this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman had been lying in the street for forty-eight hours. And there’s not enough facilities to take her up. Do you get the anger that is out here?”

“Anderson, I have the anger inside of me,” she responds. “Most of the homes in my family have been destroyed. Our homes have been destroyed. I understand what you’re saying, and I know all of those details. And the president of the United States knows those details.”

“Well, who are you angry at?” I ask her.

“I’m not angry at anyone,” she says. “I’m just expressing that it is so important for everyone in this nation to pull together, for all military assets and all assets to be brought to bear in this situation. And I have every confidence that this country is as great and as strong as we can be to do that. And that effort is under way.”

“Well, I mean, there are a lot of people here who are kind of ashamed of what is happening in this country right now,” I say. “Ashamed of what is happening in your state, certainly, and that’s not to blame the people who are there. It’s a desperate situation. But…no one seems to be taking responsibility. I mean, I know you say there’s a time and a place for…looking back, but this seems to be the time and the place. I mean, there are people who want answers, and there are people who want someone to stand up and say, ‘You know what? We should have done more.’ Are all the assets being brought to bear? I mean, today, for the first time, I’m seeing National Guard troops in this town.”

“Anderson, I know,” she says. “And I know where you are. And I know what you’re seeing. Believe me, we know it. And we understand, and there will be a time to talk about all of that. Trust me. I know what the people are suffering. The governor knows. The president knows. The military officials know. And they’re trying to do the very best they can to stabilize the situation. Senator Vitter, our congressional delegation, all of us understand what is happening. We are doing our very, very best to get the situation under control. But I want to thank the president. He will be here tomorrow, we think. And the military is sending assets as we speak.

“So, please, I understand. You might say I’m a politician, but I grew up in New Orleans. My father was the mayor of that city. I’ve represented that city my whole life, and it’s just not New Orleans. It’s St. Bernard, and St. Tammany, and Plaquemines Parish that have been completely underwater. Our levee system has failed. We need a lot of help. And the Congress has been wonderful to help us, and we need more help. Nobody’s perfect, Anderson. Everybody has to stand up here. And I know you understand. So thank you so much for everything you’re doing.”

When it’s done, there is silence in my ear. We are in a commercial break, and my producers are not saying a thing. I worry I’ve crossed the line. I hate TV anchors who are rude, and I never want to be disrespectful to any guest on my program. I always pride myself on not wearing my opinion on my sleeve, and on being able to adapt to a given situation and discuss ideas with anyone. This is different, though. No one has any information, and people are desperate. The least our politicians can do is answer questions. It seems to me totally inappropriate to stick to sound-bite statements and praise of the president.

Three days later, Senator Landrieu appears on
ABC News,
being interviewed by George Stephanopoulos. Her tone seems to have changed. She says she is upset about the pace of relief efforts and angry about federal criticism of New Orleans police. “If one person criticizes our sheriffs,” Landrieu says, “or says one more thing, including the President of the United States, he will hear from me—one more word about it…and I might likely have to punch him—literally.”

Just as we come back from commercial break, a pickup truck drives by. In the back a young man with a trucker hat holds up a tattered American flag. He salvaged it from the wreckage. He’s tired and worn, but proud of that flag, proud that he and his family are still standing. We don’t speak—he is too far away—but I look him in the eye and we nod to each other. In his face I think I detect betrayal and anger, but also strength and resolve. I’m on the air, but I find myself tearing up. My throat tightens; I’m almost unable to speak. I quickly try to move on to another story, and hope no one has noticed.

MY DAD USED
to cry often: in movies, at church, once even in a restaurant in Mobile. A woman moved among the tables singing “Amazing Grace,” and tears rolled down his cheeks. I always found it embarrassing. When he was a child, a relative whom everyone called Mr. Raspberry was known for his prodigious crying. Mr. Raspberry was a devout Pentacostalist, and one year at a family reunion he became overcome with emotion. Weeping, he shouted, “Glory to God! We’ve all been spared another year!”

“Why does Mr. Raspberry cry so much?” my father asked his grandmother.

“Oh, if you ask me, his bladder’s just located too close to his eyes,” she said.

There is so much about my father I’m just starting to remember, so much I recognize now that I’m nearing the same age he was when I was born. My father wrote a book called
Families,
a memoir about growing up in Mississippi. The book is a celebration of family and of the importance of remembering one’s roots. He wrote it two years before he died, as a letter to my brother and me. I think he knew he wouldn’t live to see us grow into men. His father had died young, and his sister Elsie had died of a heart attack when she was just thirty-eight. I know he worried that in his absence my brother and I would forget our Mississippi roots, our blood connection to the South.

When my father’s book came out, he went on speaking tours throughout Mississippi and several times brought my brother and me along. He didn’t try to hide the state’s faults from us. He’d been an early champion of civil rights and made sure we were aware of Mississippi’s history of racial injustice. Meridian was the hometown of James Cheney, the civil rights worker killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by local Klansmen. My father told us all about Cheney and the civil rights movement in the South. He saw the good and bad in his home state, and his love of Mississippi was richer for it.

Growing up in New York, we were always aware of my mother’s family’s history. It was hard not to be. We lived for a time not far from Vanderbilt Avenue, and Grand Central Station, where there is an imposing statue of my great-great-great-grandfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt, the founder of the New York Central Railroad. After seeing it for the first time when I was six, I became convinced that everyone’s grandparents turned into statues when they died.

My father’s family may have been poor, but they had branches of aristocracy as well. Men who weren’t rich, but who carried themselves regally. My great-granduncle Jim Bull fought at Chickamauga, one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. It was said he never got over the habit of killing, and once shot a man for cussing in front of a group of women. According to my grandfather, “he never killed nobody that didn’t deserve it.” He died trapped under an overturned train. According to family legend, when the steam began to scald him, he attempted to cut off his legs with a pocket-knife.

My great-grandfather William Preston Cooper also lived by his own set of rules. He had a number of illegitimate children, and on his deathbed, at the age of eighty-four, he shouted to horrified family members that if they’d just “bring a woman to my bed, I’d have no need of dying.”

After my father’s death, our trips to Mississippi all but stopped. For a few summers my brother and I went for weekend visits to stay with family friends. We’d see our relatives for just a few hours—strained meetings that always made me sad.

For years after he died, I used to imagine that my father would somehow give me a sign, sometimes I still search for it, his approval, his advice. Friends of his tell me, “Your father would have been so proud of you,” but it’s not the same as hearing it from him, seeing it in his face. I like to think of him watching my show each night. I like to imagine he’s seeing it all.