Tulane doctor recounts chaos, uncertainty, eventual escape
By NED RANDOLPH
nrandolph@theadvocate.comAdvocate business writer Tulane surgeon David Yu reported to work last Sunday with a pair of "scrubs" and a couple of changes of clothes. As most New Orleanians, he expected to be home in a few days.
Katrina developed into the most destructive hurricane to strike the United States, sending 135 mph winds pounding against the walls of Tulane University Hospital and Clinic where Yu spent most of the week.
His is one story of the thousands of people stranded in the chaos of what was once New Orleans.
When he went to bed Monday night, New Orleans was intact.
Five days later, the second-year resident had lost his house, was shot at while in a National Guard truck, and declined an airlift out of New Orleans to stay with his patients.
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Monday
The winds had knocked the power out, but Tulane Hospital was open, humming along on diesel generators.
The streets were dry, and some staff went home. The 150 patients and 300 to 400 staff members were safe, Yu said.
The Monday night breach of the 17th Street Canal changed the character of the storm and New Orleans forever.
"We woke up Tuesday morning, and the water was there," Yu said Saturday. "We lost generator power when the water rose."
The hospital's parent company, Columbia/HCA, ordered -- at it's own expense -- an airlift to remove the patients.
The critically-ill were lifted from the hospital's garage rooftop, as the streets filled with stranded people.
New Orleans residents waded through cruddy, waist-deep water, carrying belongings over their heads and looking for higher ground.
"There were thousands of people on the I-10 ramp on Tuesday and Wednesday, just standing out on the highway, waiting for someone to come get them," he said.
The hospital's emergency phones and lobby pay phones offered sporadic contact with Charity Hospital down the street. No one could reach University Hospital.
"We had no idea what was going on. We heard University had already evacuated," he said.
Tuesday night
In the darkness, nothing seemed to move. "It was surreal."
With only hand-held flashlights in the uncertain darkness, the staff and family members waited.
"Other than Tulane getting people out by private means, we didn't see any evacuation effort," he said.
Yu knew people were at the Superdome from pictures before the storm, but he couldn't see them. And then there were rumors of unrest.
That night, the airlift resumed.
Wednesday morning
"Every day from Wednesday to Friday, I don't know if it was rumors, but we were being told specifically that the Army was coming," he said.
On Wednesday night, they could see bus headlights on the interstate.
"We couldn't do anything after dark because of security," he said. "You could hear gunshots."
Yu and his colleagues were armed only with stethoscopes.
"Every morning I woke up expecting to see the Army in the streets. But no one came."
A National Guard unit on the ground was securing the Dome and "helping where they could," Yu said.
Critical patients were moved from Charity to the Tulane airlift.
"They told us Charity had 200 to 300 patients and almost 1,000 people. They hadn't had any central power or running water since the hurricane hit Monday morning," he said. "They were getting along with just a few generators hooked up to important equipment."
Even when Tulane airlifted away its staff members, Yu stayed behind with some others. They took all of Tulane's food and medicine to Charity by truck.
"Charity was in worse shape. They had much more critical injuries and more people … and less security," he said.
The place stunk of human waste. A stairwell was being used to store bodies after the basement morgue flooded, he said.
Department of Wildlife and Fisheries airboats started arriving with news of people stranded throughout the city.
By airboat, Yu delivered a Nextel two-way radio to the University Hospital surgery staff, where he saw the conditions were even worse than at Charity.
"They had the most patients and people. There were 300 to 400 patients and 1,100 staff and family members," he said.
"The building is much more closed in; it was hotter. The stench was worse," he said. "And they were surrounded by 10 to 12 feet of water because they're in a lower area."
Smoke from a fire filled the air.
"Fortunately, we didn't know the full devastation of the city," he said.
Thursday night
Another night and the worst for many. Mayor Ray Nagin gave a scathing interview on WWL-TV about the inadequate response by the federal government to save his city.
The president held a news conference, and reinforcements arrived.
Boats were landing at University Hospital, and helicopters touched down on its rooftop. "By 1 p.m. or 2 p.m. on Friday we got a call from University that they were clear," he said. "Eleven-hundred people had been evacuated in a half day."
Then the Army turned to Charity. Yu and other doctors carried patients on makeshift stretchers, tabletops and cubicle walls down the building's stairs, and loaded them onto air boats and trucks bound for the Tulane helipad.
Two at a time, patients were loaded onto a pickup truck, driven to the rooftop and loaded onto helicopters.
"They wanted four patients at a time, but we couldn't load them fast enough," he said.
At 6 p.m., Yu and the remaining staff were loaded unto boats and taken to buses. That's when he saw the crowds at the Convention Center.
"We knew there were large groups of people at the Dome and Convention Center … but going over the Crescent City Connection, I saw the crowd," he said. "It was unbelievable. Literally the length of the center, five or six blocks, there were just thousands of people."
Yu arrived in Baton Rouge Friday night and took his first shower in a week. Back in civilization, the Tulane college and medical school graduate joined a growing diaspora of displaced New Orleanians.
"I think I saw the best in people, certainly at the hospitals," he said. "Everyone at the hospitals and staff and family members there were concerned about someone. We were all in the same boat."
