Vegas couple’s vacation turns into a nightmare

Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005 | 10:51 a.m.

When Gayle Whitman and her husband, John Quirk, talk about their vacation in New Orleans, instead of the French Quarter's food and fun they describe howling Hurricane Katrina, subsequent flooding, looters, darkness and dead bodies floating by their hotel room.

"It was horrible," Whitman said Wednesday. The couple spent eight hours on a bus from New Orleans to Houston and then caught an American Airlines flight to Las Vegas, arriving home about noon on Wednesday.

"We feel so sorry for those people," Whitman and Quirk said of the thousands trapped in floodwaters, their homes and businesses destroyed in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

The couple had jumped on an airplane Friday morning for a vacation in New Orleans to celebrate Gayle's 59th birthday on Wednesday. The reservations had been made months in advance.

"There we were on Friday afternoon walking down Bourbon Street when this weird street person came up to us and said, 'You're going to die. Thirty-five feet of water is going to come here,' " Whitman said.

They went on to dinner and then back to their hotel, the Chateau Sonesta.

On Saturday as authorities ordered mandatory evacuations of New Orleans ahead of the hurricane, Whitman and Quirk tried to arrange a flight out of Louisiana.

"There was no way out for tourists," Whitman said. No taxicabs, no rental cars, no buses, no flights, not even a boat.

The couple realized that they were on their own and would have to survive.

They hunkered down in their hotel room, a comfortable interior room sheltered by an atrium, and braced for Katrina's arrival.

"Local newscasters and national news said that if the hurricane goes west, you're dead," Quirk said. "We didn't close our eyes at all, holed up in that room."

Before the storm surge, Quirk went to a nearby store, which later would become a target of looters, and bought flashlights, batteries, a $3 battery-powered radio, ice, bottled water, a cigarette lighter and candles, sensible shoes and socks for Whitman. He also filled the bathtub in their room with water.

Once the electricity and air conditioning went out, people had one hand around a water bottle and the other hand around a flashlight, Whitman said.

During the period between the hurricane's fury and the storm surge that came Monday night, one of the hotel guests thought he had a seat on a helicopter leaving the heliport at the Superdome and invited the Las Vegas couple to come with him.

Whitman and Quirk tried to comfort the man's little daughter, as she cried in the hotel lobby, explaining that they would go someplace safe.

Then Whitman and Quirk packed their luggage and supplies and lugged all of it down to the Superdome where hurricane victims had gathered.

"As a building inspector, I knew the roof of the Superdome was going to peel off like an onion skin," Quirk said.

"It was horrendous," Whitman said of the Superdome. The bathrooms had started backing up when they arrived and the stench worsened every minute.

And adding to their problems, the would-be airlift was already too full when they arrived.

After Katrina had done its damage, Whitman and Quirk were moved to Royal Sonesta, a sister hotel, because windows were blown out in addition to other damage at the Chateau Sonesta.

"People at the Royal were armed, security was a little overbearing," Quirk said.

They were relegated to the lower floor rooms because hotel employees and their families all had rooms in the seven-story hotel's upper level.

As Monday dawned and the flooding began, cockroaches swarmed the hotel and a pack of looters came around the corner, braving floodwaters.

They watched as a man pushed a grand piano with his possessions on top of it down Bourbon Street.

"It was a black-market atmosphere on the street," Quirk said.

From their hotel room window, they saw two bodies float by in floodwaters on Bourbon Street.

"Everything we heard was, you are going to die or the looters are going to beat you to death," Quirk said.

So Whitman and Quirk built alliances with other guests, forming a network with three working cell phones and began planning their departure from New Orleans.

"We had no place to go, the ice was melting and we were running low on water," Whitman said.

Maybe she is naive, Whitman said, but she expected a Boy Scout or a firefighter to help the tourists trapped in the Big Easy.

"That's not true," she said. "We were on our own."

Once Louisiana officials ordered tourists to board Greyhound buses for evacuation to Houston on Tuesday, Whitman and Quirk were told they were leaving at 6:30 a.m. But the buses didn't leave until 12 a.m. Wednesday.

Then they were dropped at the wrong airport in Houston.

After a $75 cab ride, they arrived at the international terminal where they caught their flight home to Las Vegas.

"It was a frightening experience, and the fact that there was no way out stayed with me," Whitman said.

Hotel staff were cordial, efficient and provided food and water, but it was not sufficient.

"I keep wondering what would happen if a disaster strikes Las Vegas," Whitman said.

She suggested local authorities form a citizens committee to plan for the aftermath of a major event, such as a flood or an earthquake, especially as far as tourists are concerned.

"What is Las Vegas ever going to do about tourists stranded here?" Whitman asked.

"They weren't prepared in New Orleans," she said. "We're not prepared."

The couple said they don't plan to vacation in New Orleans any time soon.

"The end result is that I'm no longer allowed to pick our vacation destination," Whitman said.