The night of Aug. 28, in the French Quarter of New Orleans, was
almost like any other Saturday night in the popular tourist
destination.
Throughout the evening, stores were still open, bars were
selling drinks and tourists were roaming the busy streets.
But second-year business economics student from UCLA Hrant
Kargayan said the night was slightly different from the previous
nights they had spent on Bourbon Street during their four-night
stay in the city ““ fewer people were out, and the predictions
of the impending hurricane cast a black cloud over the evening.
As the evening progressed, Kargayan and his cousin began to hear
conflicting reports of the coming storm.
The receptionist at their airline said their flight would leave
as planned the next day.
The hotel concierge said that by Monday morning, the whole lobby
““ the place they and other tourists were standing ““
would be completely under water.
A police officer only said “good luck” and advised
them to leave town as soon as possible. But from his tone, Kargayan
said, the officer seemed to think the situation was hopeless.
But the varied reports did not accurately predict how severe
Hurricane Katrina would prove to be.
“At this point, everyone was saying something different
… they weren’t expecting it to be as bad as it was going to
be,” Kargayan said.
And nobody knew what to do.
Kargayan said he and other tourists in the hotel began to ask
each other if they should leave and where they could go.
“Everyone was asking, whoever we spoke with, they were
like “˜So what are you going to do?'”
Nobody had an answer.
The next morning, Aug. 29, when the hurricane hit New Orleans,
the scene Kargayan saw when he left the hotel was completely
different from the night before: stores that were always open, day
and night, were closed and the normally packed streets were
deserted.
It was then that Kargayan and his cousin began to realize the
severity of the situation.
And it was then that their concerns turned into panic.
“I started getting really scared,” he said. “I
noticed how serious the situation was.”
But by that time, so had everyone else, and with traffic and
most cab drivers taking themselves and their family to safety,
Kargayan said there seemed to be no way to reach the airport.
“Everyone’s just saying “˜good luck’ at
this point … like “˜you have no way,'” Kargayan
said.
It was on the gray and windy streets of the French Quarter,
where the oncoming storm was evident in the dark sky, that Kargayan
and his cousin’s good luck began.
“I will never forget it. You could have seen it. You could
have noticed what was going on and what was going to happen,”
he said.
With the storm approaching, and almost all cab drivers refusing
rides in the interest of saving their own families, Kargayan hailed
one who was willing to take them to the airport.
With traffic on the freeway stopped for miles, the driver
managed to navigate surface streets and reach the airport in less
than half an hour.
And with almost all flights departing New Orleans cancelled or
full, Kargayan found two seats on a flight to Los Angeles.
Kargayan later found out that it was one of the last flights to
leave New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina swept through.
As the plane climbed above the clouds, Kargayan said he could
see the storm.
“It was all basically gray and black clouds,” he
said. “If you looked way ahead, it was obvious that something
was approaching.”
Looking back on the day after learning how devastating Hurricane
Katrina had been, Kargayan realized how lucky he and his cousin had
been ““ they had gotten out of the city when many others had
not.
“The whole thing was luck,” he said. “That day
was full of luck.”