Mar 139:41 A.M.
We were briefed and ready to go. Trucks were taken care of, and put in line with one another. Destination FSC Hammond here we come. The journey seemed long and perilous only because our vehicles can only hit 60 MPH and we had to yell to speak to each other. Sgt. Mollere was expressing his passions about wasting time in the unit, which I completely agreed with. I’ll be writing on that as a separate entity all together.
11:20
We arrived at the unit in Hammond, refueled our vehicles ,and got orders to reroute to Livingston parish. “ON THE ROAD AGAIN!” In a jolly, melodically sung tune. All the way to the 911 call center in Satsuma. After staging our gear, three trucks left to go on mission while I stayed with the NCOIC, aka Sgt. Mollere.
7:30 P.M. Rolls around, officer Bernard, Spc. Moton and myself dispatched to “The MoonLight INN,” (a run down, shagged out bar, with barely working flickering lights, and a dead parking lot) for a 12 hour standby mission waiting for the flood to arrive. While on standby, I noticed severe flooding covering the streets in this area. 6ft 210 Ilb officer Bernard in his high water boots, blue collared shirt, khaki pants, utility belt, and big dip in his mouth mentions in his country accent that ” the water was over 6ft in that area just a few hours prior.” The officers, in this area have definitely come together to save as many lives as possible. I commend them for their efforts ,and I’m glad we could assist their endeavors.
9:53 P.M.
Well, a few hours elapsed, so we decided to kill time. There was a stray cat walking nearby, so we took the red dot sight from officer Bernard’s taser making it follow the light in a circle for a good ten minutes.(That’s the most exciting thing that has happened in the last two hours aside from my discussion on the failing leadership in this country.)
11:40
Officer Bernard and I witnessed a drunk man in a truck yelling over the phone “IF YOU DONT GIVE ME MY KEYS I WILL BUST THE WINDOWS OUT OF MY OWN TRUCK AND START IT WITH A SCREWDRIVER!” Domestic dispute call happened as we were talking to some other officers, so we went down with them just to make sure the situation didn’t escalate. After figuring out the situation, the man was going to have two people come for him, so one can drive his truck back. Well he says “It’s okay, my buddy and his one eyed girl is coming to get me.” We started laughing, and just told him to sit down. Turns out he actually busted out the windows of his truck. Well, Mr Lawrence Calendar (a man standing 6’1 at 210 pounds, white hair, mid to late 50’s with a soft spoken spoken yet dignified demeanor), was telling us a story about the last flood as the drunk man was going off in the background. Apparently, a man jumped out of the water, Mr. Calendar says “who are you,” with a gun pointed to his head. The man replied “My name is Leprechaun,” I couldn’t contain my laughter. After introductions, we are now posted up at the French Settlement police department. They are taking pictures of us to put on their wall of all the soldiers who have assisted them over the years, we have access to their key code, and wifi. I feel right at home at this point. After several circles to observe the water’s activity at 5:00 A.M. we made it back to the 911 Call center to get some shut eye from the 24 hour operation.
Basically the beginning of tomorrow. 