Friday, Sept. 9, 2005 | 10:58 a.m.
New Orleans resident Barbara Mason was determined to spend a normal Sunday at home Aug. 28.
She had seen the news reports warning everyone to evacuate because a hurricane called Katrina was headed for the city, but so far all she saw outside was some unspectacular rain and wind. It wasn't even enough to scare her 5-pound Pomeranian, Essence, who was pretty high-strung.
And besides, where was she supposed to go?
Her paramedic husband, Ronald, already was out working with the rest of the New Orleans EMTs, preparing to help people during the hurricane.
And her daughter, Renee, was a full-time college student living at school in Thibodeaux, La.
Even Ronald's repeated calls home that day didn't convince her to leave.
"I said, 'Barbara, you need to get out of the house,' " he recalls. "She still seemed reluctant."
So Ronald called some of her co-workers at Orleans Parish Prison, where she had been working as a teacher. He asked them to convince Barbara to take Essence and a few belongings, and go to the prison until the storm blew over. At their urging, she finally relented.
"I called her at the jailhouse and she said she was safe," Ronald says. "She even had paper on the floor for the dog."
That was the last time Barbara would speak to her husband for more than a week.
Sunday night passed uneventfully, although she was concerned about Ronald, who was busy transporting victims to the Louisiana Superdome where they would be safe from the storm.
But then the water started coming, and everything changed.
By Tuesday, the flooding had reached as high as a stop sign outside the prison complex. It was already far above the 5-foot-1 Barbara's head.
The power went out -- no lights, no air conditioning. The prison workers moved to a second-floor terrace, where they laid blankets and pillows outside for beds.
The prisoners, still in their cells above the water level but isolated from the rest of the prison staff, were terrified.
"The water was rising, they couldn't get food to the inmates at the time," Barbara recalls. "Everybody just wanted to get out."
The inmates got out of control, breaking glass windows, burning their blankets and waving white handkerchiefs at passing helicopters to signal for help.
Still, Barbara felt fairly safe because she was with deputies she knew, and there was nothing they could do but wait. Hours went by, then days. She began to lose track of time.
Lying on her hard concrete bed one night, Barbara felt something furry skitter across her shoulder -- a mouse. She had a hard time sleeping after that, and instead occupied the time cuddling with Essence and worrying about her family.
"I really thought I was never going to see my husband or my daughter again," Barbara says.
At Nicholls State University in Thibodeaux, college employees were rounding up students living in campus dormitories -- including 18-year-old Renee Mason -- and herding them into a second-story ballroom at the student union.
"They said to pack for a week," Renee says. "It was horrible."
Much of Renee's experience mirrored that of her mother -- sleeping on the floor, the power outage, feeling cut off from the world.
But unlike Barbara, who heard nothing about her husband and daughter during the five days of captivity, Renee began hearing terrible rumors about the prison where she knew her mother was staying.
The prisoners are taking over. They're holding hostages. Some people have been killed.
"I broke down," Renee recalls.
To make matters worse, rescue workers started bringing other flood victims into the already crowded ballroom. Renee could tell they were still wearing the clothes put on before the floods came because they were all wet with sewage.
A handful of the new arrivals were so thirsty they jumped over a fence and starting drinking from a chlorinated pool. Others begged the students for food and dry clothing for their young children.
"Some were lying down on the floor, just crying," she says. "They were hopeless."
Renee envisioned her mother, inside the prison, looking and feeling like the people she saw suffering in front of her.
"When I was seeing the conditions these people were in, I thought my mom was probably in the same conditions," she says.
From the moment the New Orleans EMTs launched the hurricane rescue effort, there was little rest for Ronald Mason's body and mind.
Moving back and forth between the Superdome, the rescue effort's operations center and area hotels where victims and emergency personnel had been placed, he says the work was nonstop.
But rushing from crisis to crisis was not enough to keep Ronald's mind off Barbara and Renee.
"I was wondering about my family," he says. "I kept trying to call, but I couldn't get through."
Ronald, too, had heard the rumors about a hostage crisis at the prison. He tried to have faith that his wife would be all right.
Conditions at the Superdome had devolved into chaos. The smell of natural gas hung in the air outside, and the water level kept rising. Still, the most immediate danger came from displaced residents who had chosen to react violently to their situation.
"A lot of people were on the street, looting, breaking into stores," Ronald says.
Some were stealing only what was needed to sustain their lives, but others took things that seemed useless under the circumstances.
"I saw a guy walking down the street with a stolen TV," he says.
Through it all, Ronald kept calling every chance he could, but it wasn't until Sept. 5, Labor Day, when he received word that Barbara was at New Orleans International Airport, safe and trying to reach him.
She had been taken by boat and helicopter from the prison to safety. The hostage situation Renee and Ronald had heard about never happened.
Unfortunately, the rescue was too stressful for Essence, who died on the boat before reaching safety.
"She had a weak little heart," Barbara says.
Still, by Monday all three family members had been informed that the others were OK, and they made a plan to reunite at the airport in Baton Rouge.
Barbara says she could barely speak when she first saw her family.
"It was just a big hug, and crying, and crying and crying," she says.
The Masons arrived in Las Vegas Tuesday, guests of the city's Operation Open Arms program for New Orleans rescue workers and their families.
Barbara, sitting Thursday with Renee and Ronald inside the Railhead lounge at Boulder Station, said she was grateful for the reunion but worried about the future.
"I don't have a home -- I don't have anywhere to go," she says.
Although the family plans to return to New Orleans and make a new home there after the cleanup effort, many of their friends do not. Things will never be the same.
"It's like you're going home, but you're not really going home," Renee says.
Ronald's work isn't done -- he will return this weekend to a scene that may be worse than the one he left, the receding water revealing even more death and decay.
But at least now he won't be burdened by constant worry for the safety of his wife and daughter.
"I was so glad, so glad to be with my family," he says.
archive
