Tales of the great flood: auryn24, "a nurse with a little bit of attitude"

The September 5 posting by Liz, aka "auryn24," formerly a nurse at Methodist Hospital in New Orleans East, Hurricane Katrina update #4--final update.:

I believe it was Wednesday that the helicopters started coming in and landing/hovering on the roof. We began to ship patients off of the floor to the 6th floor/roof to be shipped out to the helicopters. We watched in awe as the Navy blackhawks hovered, lowered down baskets, and picked patients up. However, getting the patients up to the 6th floor via very small stairwells that smelled like rotting garbage (1st floor=stagnant water) and diesel fuel (to run the generators) was NOT FUN. [...]

Thursday night, we started to ship out some of the staff families that had small children with them. The visitors (which mind you, ELECTED TO STAY) found out about it, and started a screaming match and throwing things. I was sitting in the middle of the hall with my coworkers (who were in more need of sleep that me) watching all of this, listening, trying to protect my coworkers. The dialysis nurses came running down the hall and LOCKED themselves into the dialysis room. They made sure to tell me that if things got too bad, we could come and lock ourselves in too. I got a flashlight shined in my face and I could hear the visitors (the SAME VISITORS I GAVE MY PORTION OF WATER TO INSTEAD OF DRINKING IT MYSELF) say "there are those nurses. If we see them leave, I will stab them."[...]

I just want away from the sights and sounds of New Orleans for awhile. I will be in the Dallas area for 2 weeks. Tomorrow I make a claim on my Explorer, try to find a job (I want to do travel nursing here in Dallas...hopefully work at Baylor in Grapevine. Anyone that knows of travel agencies that provide cars/living arrangements/insurance, let me know). My health insurance runs out on the 30th of this month. I will be calling UHS to see what they can help me with. Maybe one day, MAYBE, I can go back to New Orleans. Maybe my coworkers with do the same.

I miss them so much. Those are the people that mean the most to me. I saw them sweat, bleed, cry, pray, pour their souls out. I hate that some of them I will never see again. They are gone, Methodist is gone, New Orleans is gone.

The August 29 phone post:

Hey everybody its Liz. It is 5:15am and I am holed up still at Methodist and the weathers gettin really bad here. The lights have been flickering for the last 3 or 4 hours I guess and you can hear the wind and the rain pounding against the windows. So, anyway, I just thought I'd let everybody know how I'm doing, Im ok, so far this thing has not come ashore yet. It'll probably, um, it looks like its going to hit Gulfport before it hits us, so anyway, I just thought Id let everybody know. Ya'll take care, you can still call me on my cell phone if you want. Bye.

Go here for auryn24's latest.