Word: lakefront
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...scene on the ground is worse. We land on a patch of dry ground at New Orleans Lakefront Airport. For days, rescue teams like this one have been doggedly shuttling survivors from the putrid streets of the city to this desolate airstrip. Hundreds and hundreds of refugees plucked from parking garages, apartment buildings, highway overpasses, the roofs of their homes, whatever high ground they could find, are now stuck standing on the dark runway, waiting for someone to take them somewhere, anywhere but here...
...Earlier in the day, fights had broken out for seats on outbound helicopters. "The gang-bangers," said Jimmy Dennis, 34, a Lakefront Airport firefighter who had been up for two nights trying to care for the sick and keep order, "couldn't understand that we had to get the sick people out first." Frightened, the small band of firefighters called in ten New Orleans levee police with shotguns and semi-automatic weapons to calm the crowd. But once the situation was diffused, half the cops had to respond to other calls...
...runs seven of the dozens of rescue helicopters hovering over New Orleans and bringing the stranded to dry land . He's sifting through conflicting information on where to go to help the most needy, or where to take them once they're saved. Tarchick would later find out that Lakefront was never designed to be a drop-off point in the first place and just evolved into one with out the necessary support. ?Who's running things? Nobody as far as I can tell. I wish I knew...
...During one of the many trips from Lakefront to pull families out of the waterlogged city that evening, Tarchick?s crew spots a signal. Below, Edna Fleming (her head nearly bald from cancer chemotherapy), her boyfriend Curtis and some of her relatives and friends have been camped for three days out at the top apartment of a two story house on Upper Line in uptown New Orleans. Early on, they could still be merry about the predicament, using their gas stove to deep-fry the frozen chicken as it thawed, and celebrating her niece Nakisha Washington's 29th birthday...
...Back on the airstrip at Lakefront, the stars in the sky were blacked out by a layer of smoke over the city from uncontrolled fires. The only light came from the head beams of a fire truck on the airstrip. Families stood and sat and lay down in a 100-yard-long trash-strewn column. Many had only the clothes on their backs. Some had a bit of money stashed away in pockets, shoes and handbags or a few vital medications. Others had braved the rising waters with a beloved pet. A green parakeet chirped in a white cage...