|
Seventeen Delgado Campus Police Officers reported for duty on Sunday, August 28 with enough provisions to hold them over for the duration of the hurricane. Monday morning, immediately after the hurricane struck, officers checked out the campus and began to document the damage. By about 3:00 pm, they’d observed 2 to 3 feet of water on Navarre Avenue, the street bordering the north side of campus.
Over the next two days, rising water from the levee break at the 17th Street Canal wrapped around the Delgado City Park campus, making it an island of refuge. About 200 residents seeking higher ground streamed into the campus, among them the elderly, the infirm, diabetics, and children without shoes. At one point during the day on Monday, an unidentified boat dropped off a load of nursing home patients and left. Officer Helen DeLatte said of the terrifying scenario that was unfolding, “My mission had changed from the protection of property to the protection of life.”
While some officers obtained food and clothes from the Culinary and Theater departments, two officers, Sergeant Rodney Bailey and Corporal Jesus Rojas set out in a boat retrieved from a nearby Delgado warehouse to search for provisions. Officer Rojas, after spending many hours wading through contaminated neck deep waters in order to secure provisions and help civilians, was later admitted to the hospital with a staph infection of his feet.
On Wednesday morning, Campus Police learned that scores of boats from Acadiana were staged about a mile away on Metairie Road. They decided to walk everyone out within hours. Fortunately, a National Guard vehicle arrived in time to take away the infirm. After raising the computers in Buildings 1, 4 and 37, the officers put the remaining civilians between them and walked them to the rescue boats, wading through the water on the neutral ground and climbing over the tracks.
Once the civilians were safely delivered to the boats, some officers returned to the campus in order to secure it. Later, they were taken to the Causeway overpass and let off among a throng of desperate civilians. The situation there had deteriorated and their police uniforms put them in further danger. From there, some officers were bussed to Baton Rouge, while others walked home, uncertain as to what they would find. Officer DeLatte, for example, walked for miles, first to her uncle’s empty home in Metairie, then to her own home in Kenner, only to find it completely flooded. She stayed there for a couple of days, until others came searching for her.
To this day, Office DeLatte, along with the other campus police, continues to work six days a week, 12 hours a day.
Sadly, Delgado has lost one of these heroes. Today we mourn the passing of veteran Campus Police Officer Michael Edinburgh. We remember him and honor his and his fellow officers’ extraordinary dedication and courage. |
