Chapter Appendix B - What Went Right
Section The Department of Veterans Affairs
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The Department of Veterans Affairs
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) took a hard look at their resources, missions, assets and personnel, and redirected them to fill the needs of the victims of the hurricane and flood, while maintaining service to America's veterans. The VA not only provided medical services, hospital beds, and medications in accordance with its standing emergency health care mission,68 it also removed VA properties for sale from the market in eleven states to use them instead to fill housing needs for those displaced,69 and worked with veterans to replace their benefit checks.70 The VA cared for many victims of the hurricane and flood, while also continuing to care for the soldiers who have borne the battle, and for their families.
Jack Myers, Maintenance and Repair Foreman, Wayne Brown, Air Conditioning Shop Foreman, and James Ware, Plumbing Shop Foreman, had taken shelter from Hurricane Katrina in a building on the north side of the Gulfport Veterans Affairs campus leaving their vehicles and their office on the more dangerous south side. That afternoon, the three men went to check on their vehicles. They found a five-year-old boy alone under a four-foot tall pile of debris that minutes before had been part of an apartment complex. The men took him back to their shelter. There, they dried him off, fed him and clothed him with an oversized uniform crudely tailored to fit his small frame. Fortunately, he suffered only minor cuts and scratches. "He's a very smart boy," said Brown. "He knew his name and his school and his teacher's name. He told us his momma had given him a Pop Tart and told him to go upstairs." The boy just continued to clutch that wet Pop Tart, remembered Brown, and was eventually reunited with his mother and brother.
By Friday, Sept. 2, all patients, employees, and family members had been safely evacuated from the VA in New Orleans using boats, military trucks, and military transport planes. Nine veterans, however, remained in the hospital morgue. Lynn Ryan, chief financial officer with the South Central VA Health Care Network, was determined to make sure everyone was evacuated. He searched and found a local company that had a refrigerated tractor-trailer and a willing driver. The following day, the truck driver, Ryan, co-worker Ceagus Reed, a human resources coordinator, and VA Police Officers Charlie Donelson and Reginald Finch, both with the G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi, made it through all the roadblocks and to the outskirts of downtown New Orleans. Four feet high floodwaters and the approaching evening hours forced them to take shelter for the night, sleeping in their vehicles at a toll plaza where law enforcement officers had set up a temporary station. On Sunday, two additional colleagues arrived to help - Steve Jones, an engineer, and Steve Morris, occupational safety and health manager. The team made it to downtown New Orleans but the refrigerated tractor-trailer couldn't make it through the flooded streets to the hospital's loading dock. Ryan flagged down a five-ton military transport truck that helped ferry the bodies from the hospital to the refrigerated trailer. At the loading dock, Ryan, Reed, Morris, and Jones donned biohazard gear and climbed the three flights of stairs to the hospital morgue. One at a time, they carried the bodies out. They returned to Jackson and notified the next of kin and made burial arrangements, including some at the VA's national cemetery in Natchez.
Phil Boogaerts, chief engineer at the New Orleans VA Medical Center, single-handedly kept the hospital supplied with necessary power and utilities to ensure adequate care for patents, employees and their families for four days prior to their evacuation. As a direct result of his actions, VA staff was able to provide adequate care to patients and successfully evacuate all patients, families, and employees, including nine ventilator-dependent patients. In addition, Mr. Boogaerts videotaped the facility before, during, and after the storm providing valuable documentation that assisted with the assessment of damages to the physical plant as a result of the storm. Finally, Boogaerts voluntarily remained at the hospital after it was evacuated to continue maintenance of the facility. For several days, Boogaerts lived at the hospital in isolation, without air conditioning, running water, or prepared meals.
After evacuating the VA Medical Center, employees donated all of their food, 300 cases of water, all their medical supplies, and needed medication to Charity Hospital, a neighboring hospital that was still operating and had yet to completely evacuate. Employees delivered the provisions by boat, making their way through the murky waters of flooded downtown New Orleans. Among the medicines Charity needed and donated by the VA, were medicines for ant bites and snake bites.
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