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New Orleans, Louisiana: During Hurricane Katrina
JUST BEFORE LEAVING LOUISIANA I met a small, slender black woman. She was in her sixties, with her short gray hair neatly tucked up inside a kerchief. Let's call her Lydia. An internist and I had traveled to a rural town's shelter housed in the VFW hall, the temporary home of seventy-some people.
Entering the large VFW hall, we were struck by the chemical odor of a cleaning solution so strong that it seemed toxic. The hall had no windows; only fluorescent lighting illuminated the large space. Coming from the hot, humid weather outdoors, we found the inside uncomfortably cold from air conditioning. The cackle of a television set was the only sound. There were several rows of cots and mattresses with a few people lying on them. Most of the shelter residents had left for the day, to work or do errands, but they were expected to return later. A local official told us that two adult residents needed medical care.
One of these was Lydia, who had an abcessed tooth. Lydia was soft-spoken but eager to have her tooth examined. It turned out that she had been unable to chew on the affected side for several months. She hadn't been able to afford $25 for an x-ray, and she didn't have medical insurance; the pain, she told us, waxed and waned. Her cheek was quite tender, and it appeared that the tooth should be extracted To address her immediate need, we started her on a course of antibiotics and made a note that a dentist should see her soon. The internist asked where she lived and if she knew how her family was doing.
Lydia told us that she lived alone in her home, located in the Eighth Ward in New Orleans, adjacent to that city's devastated Ninth Ward. As the first storm raged, she knew to avoid windows....