It’s tough to tell your parents you banged up the cherished station wagon.
It’s even more difficult to tell your employer you tore off the air conditioning unit from the roof of the recreational vehicle they rented to cover Hurricane Katrina.
This seemed as good a venue as any to break the news.
Katrina swatted down so many trees and power lines that it’s daunting to traverse many of the rural roads near Pass Christian, Miss.
Reporter Ben Montgomery had wrestled the RV down a tattered road, under some downed power lines onto a flat piece of land near the swollen banks of the Wolf River.
Everything was fine until some cranky old guy in a neighboring motor home said in no uncertain terms that the land was his, not ours, and that we were to be off it immediately. I tried to explain that we were journalists and that our other team was off reporting. I promised to leave the moment they returned.
But he was adamant, and gassed on a few beers.
It was time to leave.
He suggested a nearby camping area that would potentially require us to navigate our RV through several feet of standing water.
No thanks.
In haste, photographer Crystal Lauderdale and I decided to drive to a nearby service station (can you call them gas stations when they don’t have gas?) down a road Montgomery had traveled earlier in the RV.
But somehow a power line he snuck under clipped our roof-top air conditioning unit, jettisoned the plastic cover and slightly mangled our trusty cooling system.
Our roof-top diagnosis: no cold air.
Some residents said we can get it fixed in town, but we were afraid to abandon Montgomery and photographer Kathy Moore while they were out reporting. Perhaps we will try to fix it tomorrow.
The lack of air conditioning is not a major problem. Katrina has proven that to tens of thousands of victims.
The real problem is lack of fuel. There are reports of gas shortages well into Florida.
Our tanks are low and we are rapidly guzzling fuel in our ten or so five-gallon cans.
The Tribune has sent someone with extra gas and supplies, but with no cellular phone service it’s nearly impossible meet up.
Our minor concerns are nothing compared to what residents face here. On Friday, Lauderdale and I plan to spend the day with an elderly man who will have sipped from his last canister of oxygen over the tonight. Friends plan to take him to a hospital in the morning.