Iwo Jima (LHD 7) - Naval Cruise Book

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Up River Monday, 5 September- Another incredibly busy 24 hours since I last wrote. We raced down from the coast of Biloxi and Gulfport and arrived at the entrance of the Mississippi River before daylight. After conducting some helicopter operations and picking up the first of two river Pilots, we turned north and started our 9 hour transit up the Mississippi to New Orleans, a distance of about 1 00 miles. At first we did not see much damage, the low flat delta is primarily wet lands, though virtually all the navigation aids were gone. But as we got further north, the destruction became overwhelming. We sailed passed broken levees and flooded towns, smashed buildings, plywood houses stripped bare of shingles and siding, boats and barges - some 200 feet in length - stranded high and dry 20 to 30 feet above the water level on some berm, sail and pleasure boats piled 30-40 feet high in the middle of some woods, sunken or partially submerged barges, huge oil tanks crumpled and smashed with oil leaking into the river. At one point, both sides of the river were covered with miles of stranded river barges. River traffic today was only about 10 percent of normal capacity, though the roadstead was filled - literally packed - with oil tankers waiting their turn to sail up river to offload their crude oil. After a while you become anesthetized to the carnage, only to be hit by some new and strange sight - a herd of black cows roaming free on some small island (how on earth did they get there? How did they escape the 20 foot tidal surge?). At times we had to watch our speed so as not to create too large a wake that might disturb relief operations or a delicate levee on the verge of splitting. After about 8 and a half hours of twists and turns, we pulled into New Orleans. On one embankment, the whole pier was still smoldering from days of fires. iVIost of the buildings had shattered and broken windows. There must have been 20-30 helicopters, civilian and military, buzzing around the skyline, giving the impression of a combat zone. With much difficulty, I spun the ship around just beneath the bridge (with the help of four tugs) and moored along the Rivenwalk pier where luxury liners normally moor. The city is just as it is portrayed in the news - broken. The mayor of New Orleans estimates that the death toll could be as high as 10,000 from the Hurricane and the violence in its aftermath. The mayor is currently onboard in the cabin across the passageway. He and his staff were grateful for hot food, a hot shower, some clean clothes, and a comfortable and safe bed. We are opening our doors to many other civil workers who have been battling the challenges of reclaiming the city over the past week. We have 140 National Guards- men (from Rl, no less) coming onboard tomorrow morning for hot showers and a hot breakfast before they return to their patrols. They had the grim work of clearing out the Convention Center a few days ago. Since 0500 this morning, we have been launching and recovering aircraft, even during the transit up the hver. I finally had to stop flight operations as we approached the pier so I could concentrate on mooring the ship. We have had three Admirals, one General (LGEN Honore - the Joint Task Force Commander), and the mayor and all their respective staffers onboard at some point today. Anne Curry of the TODAY SHOW plus members from three other networks flew onboard this morning and rode us up the river. I ' m slated to be on the TODAY SHOW live at 0713 (Eastern Time) Tuesday from the flight deck of USS IWO JIMA. All along the way up the Mississippi, we passed outbound merchant ships. Some rendered honors or dipped their flags as we passed. Every single river Pilot called over to us to pass along their thanks for our impending arhval in New Orleans. Our pilot, who lost his home in the Hurricane, had tears in his eyes when he thanked us all for coming up hver. IWO JIMA has arrived in New Orleans. We are all grateful to be here and hope to make a difference.

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Going Ashore after Katrina Sunday, 4 September- it is after midnight and I finally have a chance to catch my breath and drop you a note, I did go ashore today with about 150 Sailors to support two clean up efforts: a local High School that was being used as a shelter for 500-1200 people and a church that was completely devastated. I worked on the church project with about 120 Sailors, The area was hit hard. Everything made by man was swept away a couple hundred yards from the beach. Only the trees, thicl majestic southern oaks, stood the trial despite having their branches ravaged. The church was gone. We spent several hours just cleahng the wreckage away and piling it along the side. It was like an archeological dig in that we recovered bits of glass, broken china (and quite a few pieces that were intact), toys, a Bible, broken lamps. The church had an open air mass with some 150 panshioners that morning standing in among all the wreckage. We cleared the wreckage, but carefully stacked all the keepsakes, whether broken or whole, all around the make-shift altar. I found a picture of a baby mostly detenorated, that must have been on someone ' s desk. We thought the saved keepsakes will have some emotional value to the owners. It was hot, nasty and dirty work, but everyone was inspired to do their part, and I was glad, even blessed, to have the opportunity to do this with my Sailors. We were bombarded with press. Our arrival was the first real contingent of Navy personnel ashore (though the beachmasters had gone ashore late the previous evening and set up their camp on the beach), so we got a lot of press coverage. Quite a few people drove by and took pictures of us. Surprisingly (and ironically, too) there was a granite memonal to those that died during Hurricane Camile in front of the church. We cleaned that up too and tned to put the heavy granite pieces back together. The whole area was pretty hard hit. The neighborhood behind the church was all wrecked, the massive piles of debris in the street pushed in place by bulldozers. While we were working on the site, part of a 4-5 story apartment building came crashing down a few hundred yards away from us. I met the owner of the home next to the church. His property was completely gone, just massive debris. He appeared resigned, but obviously was inspired to rebuild. He had a restaurant in town that had suffered too but was repairable. 1 promised to come back in a few years and eat at his place. We finished up around sunset and sailed back to the ship on the LCAC. But before we left, I got the word that VADM Fitzgerald wants IWO to sail up the might Mississippi to act as the command and control center for all DoD operations in LA... Joint Task Force Katrina. We expect to have one Admiral (RADM Bookert) one three star general (my old boss from the Joint Staff - Russell Honore), two commodores, and countless (numbenng in the hundreds) | K9| ' SBBS B k l ' • — staffers, plus helos and a bunch of other things. So as I write, we are racing down to the B m m- I WI BlK5Pw i ?S£l.Z! C; i;7l ' entrance of the River at 24 knots in order to fly on Admiral Bookert and his staffers at first light and before we hit the pilot pick up point and start our 8 hour transit up the Mississippi. Despite all the frustrations - we are getting tortured hourly by stupid staff taskers - we are holding things together. Everyone is safe and in good spints. I just need to get us safely up the Mississippi to New Orleans. 1 picked the wrong week to give up smoking 109

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Herding Cats Tuesday, 6 September- Since I took over IWO JIMA over a year ago, I felt as though I had control of the destiny of the ship. I thought I lost it today, the first time ever, and that we were merely reacting to events rather than controlling them. Within the first 24 hours after arriving pierside in New Orleans, IWO JIMA has become many things. We are one of the few full service airports in the area and have been operating aircraft on and off our deck for almost 15 hours each day We are also one of the only air conditioned facilities within a ten mile radius and though we have had problems making water from the polluted Mississippi, we have the only hot showers within miles. All day long we have been accommodating local policemen, firemen, state troopers, National Guard, 82nd Airborne division personnel with hot showers and hot food, I met an ambulance team from Minnesota who just drove straight to New Orleans when they heard of the tragedy and have been supporting hospitals free of charge for the last week. They hadn ' t had a hot meal in over a week and were grateful to have the opportunity to have lunch onboard. The Deputy Commander of the Rl National Guard reported to me that he had guardsmen who were whipped, but after a hot shower and an IWO JIMA breakfast were ready to hit the patrols again. Rarely have I seen so many smiling, happy faces than on these people. After two weeks in the trenches sleeping on concrete floors, no shower, and eating MREs, good ship IWO JIMA has been a Godsend. I had an opportunity to talk to the Director of Homeland Security for New Orleans for a few minutes in my cabin. I asked him if there was anything more I could do for him. He asked if he could get a shower. I was glad to turnover my cabin to him. The local FEMA coordinator and his logistics and secunty teams were on my quarterdeck this afternoon asking permission to set up their command center on the pier next to the ship. While they had sophisticated command and control equipment, they had no place to berth their 250 FEMA members. We were glad to give them a home. Contrary to the press, all the FEMA people I met had been on station since last Sunday (before the Hurricane hit), never left the area, and have been in the field ever since. The command duty officer was told that one state trooper had dhven 80 miles to get to the ship. He said that the word was out: Come to IWO JIMA. We expect that the flood gates will open on us. Early this morning we received our first medical emergency: an elderly woman with stroke-like symptoms. Throughout the day we received about a dozen medical emergencies, the most senous was an elderly man who was stabbed in the chest and was bleeding to death. The doctors performed surgery on him and saved his life. I toured the hospital ward: all our charges were elderly and disadvantaged individuals. As with Hotel IWO JIMA, we expect to see many more casualties tomorrow. Our curse appears to be our flight deck and our extraordinary command and control capabilities. Our challenge today was the tidal wave of Flag and General Officers that flooded onboard, 17 total, virtually all without notice. I couldn ' t believe there were so many involved in this effort and they all wanted to come here. They poured onto the flight deck in one helicopter after another in order to meet with General Honore, the Joint Task Force Commander. The majority showed up around the same time and ail wanted to leave at the same time, making it a nightmare for our flight deck team to control and coordinate flights on and off the ship for all these admirals and generals while supporting the humanitarian effort, I spent most of the day running around the ship getting these people off and on helicopters and in and out of the meetings and command spaces. It was like herding cats. But the ship performed superbly and flexed to meet the challenge. Regretfully, we expect nearly 20 admirals and generals onboard tomorrow for more I BHIH L - ' Mt k 7 meetings. To add to the challenges, virtually all of these commands i t- t H B f ' , ' sending liaison staffs to help coordinate Issues, and already a number of admirals and generals have permanently ' embarked. The Inn is full. I talked to one of the FEMA team members who had also worked the disaster relief for 9 11. I asked him how much more difficult was the Katrina relief effort compared to 9 11. He said it was without measure: thousands of times worse than 9 11. He couldn ' t articulate the magnitude of the destruction. Despite all the challenges, I think we regained control by the end of the day We are forearmed for tomorrow ' s onslaught. At our evening Department Head meeting, I asked all my principals to tell me what the stupidest thing they heard or saw today. The list was enormous. But the most absurd item was when my Tactical Action Offlcer, who runs our 24 hour command center (CIC) got a phone call from the Director of the New Orleans Zoo, Apparently there was a large fire near the zoo. It was so intense that the fire department had to abandon the cause, but military helos were heavily engaged in scooping up giant buckets of water and dumping them on the blaze in an effort to put it out. The director complained to us that the noise from the helos was disturbing the animals, especially the elephants, which he was most concerned about, and asked us to stop. The TAO thanked him for his interest in national defense. It is inspiring to meet and talk to such a huge number of individuals who are doing the Lord ' s work to recover this city They have had little sleep, little food, no showers, working 16-18 hours a day and in some cases no pay and they are thanking ME for a hot meal! Only in Amehca. We have turned the corner. It will take an awful long time, but we have turned the corner.