I suspect that insurance companies called on the government to apply what to me was a bizzarly extreme application of police and military tactics to get the population to evacuate and stay out so as to delay the filing for insurance reimbursement (current value to the insurance companies of the delay is reaching the billions.). Another suspicion I have is that the government/military has been waiting for this kind of disaster to test tactics and strategies for evacuating a city on a massive scale even,as in the case of Katrina, after the critical danger has passed.

They were very sucsessful in this case. Of an original population of 1. some odd million they were able to get 1. some odd million to leave. The government estimates (and I think this is an overly high estimate considering that I see most of the city is a virtual ghost town.) only half of the original population has returned. ( I think that prior to my own "manditory (forced by arrest) evacuation" there were as few as 40,000 civilians and 40,000 military and police left in the city as of september 29.

Some of the things they did: The helicopters were in the hundreds. They were thundering and pounding overhead. Knocking down plaster they were flying so low. I went up to my roof to see what they were up to. The storm had sheared off the trees to rooftop level so I had 8 to 10 miles visibilty. I am a pilot myself so I know what a traffic pattern looks like. They were not in a landing pattern nor were they rescuing anybody (not from knee deep water they weren't, puhleeze) I did not see them pulling anybody up from my neighborhood. Frankly, I, and my neighbors, were feeling a little picked on because those helicoptors were not flying off to the major damage area. They were just circling and circling and circling all day and all night for days and days. That got a lot of the people out (Of course, having trucks loaded with 15 or 20 machine gun brandishing police and marines asking 5 or 6 times a day "when are you leaving?" probably helped). Mind you, I'm talking as long as a month after the storm.

The psycological warfare techniques I witnessed were interesting. Notable was one that I recalled from a psycological warfare documentary I had seen some 10 years ago. What was shown in the documentary was a loud speaker truck driving around with the announcement "WHEN WE FIND YOU YOU WILL BE ARRESTED". Sure, the military is trying to find people hiding in a war zone. I didn't see the psycological aspect of it until it was applied to me. A HUM V was cruising my nieghborhood announcing on very distorted and echoy loudspeskers what sounded (and what I believe was psycologicly intended to sound like) "WE ARE THE MARINES echo echo mumble STAND IN YOUR DOORWAY echo echo mumble WHEN WE FIND YOU YOU WILL BE ARRESTED". The last "echo echo mumble" to be interpreted by the hearer as "if you hide"....WHEN WE FIND YOU YOU WILL BE ARRESTED". Of course, if they actually went around actually announcing that, there would be some resistance, even on an international scale. It is not legal to just arrest people who don't want to evacuate and who feel the need to hide from military incursion on their (our) rights. The psycological aspect comes in where that is not what the announcement actually says. What it actually says (And I only heard it one time listening carefully as the hummer passed right in front of my house) is "WE ARE THE MARINES we are here to help you. STAND IN YOUR DOORWAY. If you cannot move make some noise and WHEN WE FIND YOU YOU WILL BE ARRESCUED". Sounded like the normal "swing" of his voice but... This was the exact voice I remember from the psycological warfare documentary 10 years ago. I mentioned it to a japanese news crew that interviewed me. I don't know if they played it.

To be sure , I must point out that this is a psyclogical weapon that was not just used on me but also on YOU. While they intended the hearer to missunderstand what was actually said they also intended YOU to missunderstand what they intended to be understood.

The next one was when a squad of airborne came by my house to inform me that "they" were going to spray some "stuff" on the sediment that the flood had left to kill anything that might be in it. He (Sgt O'Connel airborne) told me that it was known to kill animals and was not known whether it would kill humans. I asked him when it was going to be sprayed. He didn't know. I asked him if it was going to be sprayed from the ground by trucks or by plain. He didn't know. I told him of the other things that had happened over this event and that this sounded very fishy to me. He agreed but said that this was what he was ordered to tell me. Later that day some military planes flew over spraying mosquito poison. A cover for what they had told us earlier? I think so.

Then there was the fire. 4 times through the day and into the night my nieghbor and I had taken turns going out , having no phone, to get fire department help to put out a reletively small 2 story wood building fire behind my home. The fifth time I asked my nieghbor if he wanted to just have he and I go over to put it out. He declined so I went out on foot to find, what I had decided had to be, out of state fire help. Waving the brightest flashlight in town I circled the entire French Quarter of New Orleans, a distance of about 4 miles on foot, trying to get border patrol, police department of half a dozen states and vehicles of the Department of Homeland Security to help me. I reached Canal Street where the media circus was encamped and tried to get their help. By the time I was half way down the street I was raving. I was cursing and calling them maggots and vultures because I could not get any help from them. I went back through the Quarter to my house cursing and swearing and kicking every "official" vehicle I tried to get help from but literally could not get arrested to put out a fire.

By the time I got back to my house the fire was out. I suspected that my nieghbor had gone over and put it out by himself. The next day he confirmed my suspicion. One man, by himself, in the middle of the night had put out a fire that 7 fire trucks coming 4 times that day would not put out.

Like I said, I was feeling picked on.

By that time my neighbor and I were the only ones left in a half mile area and that was the only fire in the city that day.

Eventually I was "arrescued". I was arrested 30 days after the storm and held without charge, without lawer, without miranda, without phone call, without even seeing a judge, exactly like the guantanimo bay prisoners or Jose Padilla, under 18 hour lockdown in the maxmum security section of one of the worst maximum security state prisons in the country. I just got out out 2 weeks ago. There are still (rumor has it) 8000 men still imprisoned).

I still don't know why I was arrested or why I was released. The only paper I have says my arrest date and my release date and nothing else.

They took my money, phone book, credit cards, I.D. card, clothes, shoes and my american citizenship. They returned nothing when they released me.

Friends, let this be a warning, keep your head down and your powder dry.

While I was in prison I wrote about 375 pages of my Katrina aftermath and prison adventures. It is titled "Carina" Not the name of the storm but I explain that in the book. Be on the lookout for it if it gets published. It may be the book of the year, maybe a Pulizer prizer.