thedrifter
09-13-05, 01:10 PM
September 19, 2005
Marines keep amtracs moving in their search for survivors
By Christian Lowe
Times staff writer
NEW ORLEANS — It’s the smell that hits you first. A deep, sulfuric stench that’s a mixture of biological decay and manmade chemical runoff.
As the Marines’ AAV7 Amphibious Assault Vehicle 106 waded through Virgilian Street, about 10 miles east of this city’s center, the vehicle’s angular bulk formed creases on the surface in rolling waves of putrid water, with brown foam spurting in the amtrac’s wake.
Turn the corner onto Dwyer Boulevard and what clearly used to be a struggling working class neighborhood now seems more like a scene from an apocalyptic movie. The Marines’ amtracs moved through the streets — now nothing more than maritime byways — bobbing softly, their engines groaning as the amphibious vehicles ground over a submerged car, with a bumper tearing loose and rising slowly to the surface, the only evidence that this area was at one time a bustling suburb of the historic city of New Orleans.
Looking over the thick steel rim of the amtrac’s crew compartment, the Marine infantrymen stared in stunned silence.
“I don’t see how they’ll ever recover from this,” said Cpl. Michael O’Brien, 26, of Dorchester, Mass., 1st Squad leader with 1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines. “I expected it to be like this for a few blocks, but so far every place we’ve been has been flooded like this.”
On their first day in the region, the 1/8 Marines and their amtracs from the Reserve’s 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion waded through the flooded streets looking for survivors in Michoud, a community on the outskirts of New Orleans that lies just south of levees that hold the waters of Lake Pontchartrain back from the geological bowl where this city and its outlying suburbs had taken root.
Some residents staggered dazed down the few streets on the city’s outskirts that did avoid the flood, and others could be seen resting under one of the many live oaks that so characteristically drape the city’s avenues.
The Marines passed scenes of what must have been chaos and mayhem; a Shell gas station with its doors ripped off; trash from pilfered goods still littering the parking lot; the glass windows of a beauty supply store smashed in; used car lots full of vehicles with their doors pried open, trunks and hoods agape.
The Marines have been told to concentrate on the survivors and to leave the dead for later.
“The police said that if we find a dead body, we should tie it to a tree and leave it,” shouted Sgt. Shon McGuigan, 30, of Gainesville, Fla., an amtrac section leader with the Jacksonville, Fla.-based Bravo Company, 4th Tracks, to one of his fellow amtrackers during the Sept. 6 rescue mission.
While the Marines dealt with the odors and devastation on those patrols, the environment took its toll on their vehicles.
Amtracs are meant to carry Marines from ship to shore, slashing through battering ocean waves to drop their deadly cargo on an enemy beach. But these amtracs weren’t navigating clear, unobstructed waters.
Instead, the aging vehicles were negotiating minefields of urban detritus, swimming through ruined neighborhoods that were six feet beneath the fetid water.
“There’s so much crap floating around out there,” said Cpl. Andrew Neilson, 26, of Gainesville, Fla., an amtrac crewman with Bravo Company, 4th Tracks, as he ripped what was left of an above-ground swimming pool from a tangle around the tracks of his vehicle.
“And the water’s so dirty you can’t see it, so you can’t steer around it.”
It took a Herculean effort by these part-time Marines to keep their vehicles in working order. They faced collisions with downed trees, tangles in fallen power lines, and fouled water jets. The snarls with submerged vehicles, walls and fences that were a near-hourly occurrence forced the savvy mechanics and crewmen of this amtrac unit to act as a self-contained, on-call towing company, pulling ensnared amtracs from their traps.
That also meant that their day didn’t end when the ramp dropped back on the tarmac at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility, which was the Marines’ impromptu base camp on the outskirts of the city. Lights flickered late into the night on the darkened blacktop as the amtrackers poked and pried their machines back into working order.
“I was up until 2 a.m. using my Ka-Bar to cut a carpet out of the water jets,” said Cpl. Marcus Acosta, 34, of Jacksonville, Fla., a radio operator with Bravo Company, 4th Tracks. “One of the other amtracs broke off two blades from something that got stuck in its jets.”
The Marines struggled through all this, not to mention the normal wear and tear that their lumbering beasts must endure for even the most routine missions, much less one that takes them through the carnage of a major natural disaster.
“I felt like a refugee myself,” said 1st Lt. John Whiteside, 30, of Ocala, Fla., commander of Bravo Company’s 1st Platoon, who spent most of the day stranded with a broken-down vehicle. “People were passing me cold drinks and asking if I needed help.”
Ellie
Marines keep amtracs moving in their search for survivors
By Christian Lowe
Times staff writer
NEW ORLEANS — It’s the smell that hits you first. A deep, sulfuric stench that’s a mixture of biological decay and manmade chemical runoff.
As the Marines’ AAV7 Amphibious Assault Vehicle 106 waded through Virgilian Street, about 10 miles east of this city’s center, the vehicle’s angular bulk formed creases on the surface in rolling waves of putrid water, with brown foam spurting in the amtrac’s wake.
Turn the corner onto Dwyer Boulevard and what clearly used to be a struggling working class neighborhood now seems more like a scene from an apocalyptic movie. The Marines’ amtracs moved through the streets — now nothing more than maritime byways — bobbing softly, their engines groaning as the amphibious vehicles ground over a submerged car, with a bumper tearing loose and rising slowly to the surface, the only evidence that this area was at one time a bustling suburb of the historic city of New Orleans.
Looking over the thick steel rim of the amtrac’s crew compartment, the Marine infantrymen stared in stunned silence.
“I don’t see how they’ll ever recover from this,” said Cpl. Michael O’Brien, 26, of Dorchester, Mass., 1st Squad leader with 1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines. “I expected it to be like this for a few blocks, but so far every place we’ve been has been flooded like this.”
On their first day in the region, the 1/8 Marines and their amtracs from the Reserve’s 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion waded through the flooded streets looking for survivors in Michoud, a community on the outskirts of New Orleans that lies just south of levees that hold the waters of Lake Pontchartrain back from the geological bowl where this city and its outlying suburbs had taken root.
Some residents staggered dazed down the few streets on the city’s outskirts that did avoid the flood, and others could be seen resting under one of the many live oaks that so characteristically drape the city’s avenues.
The Marines passed scenes of what must have been chaos and mayhem; a Shell gas station with its doors ripped off; trash from pilfered goods still littering the parking lot; the glass windows of a beauty supply store smashed in; used car lots full of vehicles with their doors pried open, trunks and hoods agape.
The Marines have been told to concentrate on the survivors and to leave the dead for later.
“The police said that if we find a dead body, we should tie it to a tree and leave it,” shouted Sgt. Shon McGuigan, 30, of Gainesville, Fla., an amtrac section leader with the Jacksonville, Fla.-based Bravo Company, 4th Tracks, to one of his fellow amtrackers during the Sept. 6 rescue mission.
While the Marines dealt with the odors and devastation on those patrols, the environment took its toll on their vehicles.
Amtracs are meant to carry Marines from ship to shore, slashing through battering ocean waves to drop their deadly cargo on an enemy beach. But these amtracs weren’t navigating clear, unobstructed waters.
Instead, the aging vehicles were negotiating minefields of urban detritus, swimming through ruined neighborhoods that were six feet beneath the fetid water.
“There’s so much crap floating around out there,” said Cpl. Andrew Neilson, 26, of Gainesville, Fla., an amtrac crewman with Bravo Company, 4th Tracks, as he ripped what was left of an above-ground swimming pool from a tangle around the tracks of his vehicle.
“And the water’s so dirty you can’t see it, so you can’t steer around it.”
It took a Herculean effort by these part-time Marines to keep their vehicles in working order. They faced collisions with downed trees, tangles in fallen power lines, and fouled water jets. The snarls with submerged vehicles, walls and fences that were a near-hourly occurrence forced the savvy mechanics and crewmen of this amtrac unit to act as a self-contained, on-call towing company, pulling ensnared amtracs from their traps.
That also meant that their day didn’t end when the ramp dropped back on the tarmac at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility, which was the Marines’ impromptu base camp on the outskirts of the city. Lights flickered late into the night on the darkened blacktop as the amtrackers poked and pried their machines back into working order.
“I was up until 2 a.m. using my Ka-Bar to cut a carpet out of the water jets,” said Cpl. Marcus Acosta, 34, of Jacksonville, Fla., a radio operator with Bravo Company, 4th Tracks. “One of the other amtracs broke off two blades from something that got stuck in its jets.”
The Marines struggled through all this, not to mention the normal wear and tear that their lumbering beasts must endure for even the most routine missions, much less one that takes them through the carnage of a major natural disaster.
“I felt like a refugee myself,” said 1st Lt. John Whiteside, 30, of Ocala, Fla., commander of Bravo Company’s 1st Platoon, who spent most of the day stranded with a broken-down vehicle. “People were passing me cold drinks and asking if I needed help.”
Ellie