Katrina-Part I (How I finally reach Louisiana)

Its Friday, the 2nd of Sept, the Labor Day Weeknd is coming up and I have made my pilaans to go to Denver and meet up with friends I made when I was there last year.

Reach the office and there I see a mail from Deepi asking me if I am interested to go down to Louisiana with them to help in Katrina relief efforts as part of a United Sikhs mission.

Oh gosh, I do say yes to her but not sure how do I catch up with them. They would be driving from Dallas. Deepi tells me to reach St. Louis where they could pick me up from.

So, I book myself on a flight to St. Louis and have to get my Denver tickets cancelled. Delta charged me 100$ for cancellation and no refund either. :(

I have to tell Mike that I may be gone for a couple of days. He is a rea nice fella who thanks me for going there and assures me to not to be worried about when I get back. (Sure its a whole lot different story as to when I actually get back) So back to story..

Mike sends out an email to the whole office and even fwds it to the CEO that Jaspreet from IDC is going to Louisiana. Now everyone and anyone in the office knows my pilaans.

Vicky comes in the evening to take me to Midway Airport. Being a friday and that too start of a long weekend, I-290 is jam packed. I start to get a little touchy as to whether I would catch my flight or not. We encounter numerous red lights at intersections and also encounter a RR crossing and alas I miss my flight. :( I can see it leaving the tarmac but nothing can be done now.

So, I call up Deepi and inform them about my flight miss and ask them what to do. I am screwed now. When I go to office on Tuesday, what am I gonna tell them ? Should I tell them lies and make up some stories ? Should I tell them the truth and be mocked at ? Deepi tells me to search for a flight for Jackson, MS which could reach there by 11 am on Saturday. I come back to the hotel, book my ticket for a return trip from Jackson and Vicky leaves for the Gurudwara Saheb. But whats this he has my bag, I run behind them but they are gone. I have to call him up again and again and finally he picks up his phone and comes back to the hotel to give back my bag. Nice of him.

Its almost 1 am in the morning. Flight for Jackson is 5.30 am from O'haire. I manage to get a couple of hours of sleep and get ready to leave. Upon reaching the airport another drama unfolds. The flight has been delayed and I would have missed my connection flight from Houston so these guys book me on another flight with a stopover at Atlanta which would reach Jackson at around 1 pm. Now I have to inform Deepi about this since those guys are expecting me at Jackson by 11 am. I leave a couple of voice-mails on Deepi's phone. Boy she would surely be pi**ed off since I have called her up almost 10 times since yesterday. I am finally able to get across to her from Atlanta and she sounded irritated.

Finally I reach Jackson and call them up. Another small drama, Jackson has 2 airports and these guys first went to the other airport. I meet up with them and am off to Baton Rouge in their chevy.

Another drama now ( no end to them ??), we are running out of gas and Jackson has already ran out of. A couple of stations which had gad had huge lines extending upto 2-3 miles. We keep on driving in the opposite direction and finaly able to fill up our tanks from a station which was almost 70 miles north of Jackson. With our tanks full we head off to Baton Rouge and reach there at around 8 pm on Saturday. Boy what a really LONG it has been.

We put up at Sumir Aunty's house which has been made as a basecamp for United Sikhs. I meet up with her, her hubby, her daughter Vinny, son-in-law Steve, Talwinder, Gurvinder and Hardyal Singh. There were a couple of people more in her house. She's really nice lady. She had almost 15 people in her house but she managed to get each one of them a place to sleep.


For Sunday, we decide to go around the city to look for shelters and places where-in we could volunteer. In-between Deepi lets me know that they wont be able to drop me back to Jackson because of gas shortage. So here I am in Baton Rouge with a flight to catch on Monday from Jackson which is atleast 3 hours drive from here and no conveyance. I however tell Hardyal Singh that I can stay there lonegr and we decide to postpone my schedule and talk to airlines people the next day. Finally having been awake almost the whole day (make that almost 30 hours) with some seista in between I finally drop dead.

Lots more to come in subsequent parts. Bye for now.