Story Photos
 Photo by Bill Wagner Staff Sgt. Chris Baker, his wife Karyn and daughter Hailey look at photos members of his Oregon National Guard unit took during their recent deployment to help victims in the aftermath of the hurricanes in Louisiana. Karyn is pointing to the high water mark on the buildings. |
A tour of duty on the southern front
Monday, October 3, 2005 8:22 AM PDT
By Evan Caldwell
Printable version
E-mail this articleLexington resident Chris Baker didn't know what to expect when he arrived in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck.
Baker, a staff sergeant with an Oregon National Guard unit based in St. Helens, served a year in Iraq, but he said the devastation left by Katrina was a catastrophe he had never experienced before.
"As soon as we got off the base down there, you could see the damage," said Baker, who returned to Southwest Washington on Thursday. "Houses, trees, lumber and cars all blocked the roads."
Baker and the rest of his Oregon Army National Guard Delta Co. 1/162 Infantry 2nd Battalion were assigned to clear roads and search for people in New Orleans Parish, an impoverished neighborhood in eastern New Orleans.
For two and a half weeks, they cleared roads and made contact with as many people as they could, Baker said Saturday, at home with his wife and children.
While knocking on doors in the 50-block neighborhood, Baker and three others from his unit, Spc. Gregory Mannen, Sgt. Travis Baughman and Sfc. Stan Getz, heard the voice of an elderly man trapped in his house. The man had been trapped for nearly two weeks.
They checked the front door, but it was swollen shut from the flooding. And the back door was blocked by the stove and refrigerator that floated there when the waters rose.
Baker found a sledgehammer to bash the front door open.
"Of all the things, he didn't want us to break his front door," Baker said. "But we convinced him we had to, and it took four good hits to get it open."
The elderly man had chosen not to evacuate during the hurricane, but when the water rose inside his house, he had to chop a hole in the ceiling with a hatchet, Baker said.
Baker said the man, who was able to cook on his stove because the natural gas had not been disconnected, was in good health. He went to the Red Cross shelter after his rescue, Baker said.
Meanwhile, back in Lexington, Baker's wife, Karyn, was glued to the TV watching news reports of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath and of a new hurricane, Rita, that was bearing down on the region.
"The people watching on TV couldn't feel the heat and humidity," Baker said. "Also, the smell was just awful from all the rotting wood, mold and the bodies."
However, Baker said, they would meet people who had little but offered a lot.
"I guess it's the Southern hospitality, but people offered us almost everything they had --- coffee, food, water," he said.
Baker's unit helped distribute, food, water and ice to people in New Orleans, Marysville, La., and DeRidder, La., but it wasn't enough, he said.
"People should realize that there is never going to be enough aid down there," Baker said. "People should not stop giving, they need so much still."
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