BATON ROUGE, La.
After 18 years of military service on active duty and in the Louisiana Air National Guard, Staff Sgt. Michael Sorjonen thought the mission sounded routine: rescue a handful of people from the roof of a two-story Holiday Inn.
But as the Black Hawk helicopter approached the flooded hotel in the New Orleans East area on Sept. 2, he was stunned by what he saw on its balcony.
“For a minute, we sort of looked at each other and didn’t say anything,” Sergeant Sorjonen said. “It was something – something you wouldn’t expect to see here. Something you wouldn’t want to see here.”
Hundreds of people were crowded onto the balcony, with barely an inch to spare. Some were weeping, some waving hotel towels. Others were on the verge of passing out from the heat and days of privation.
Even having his helicopter fired upon in Iraq paled in comparison, Sergeant Sorjonen said.
Three days earlier, Sergeant Sorjonen, 37; his wife; and their cat and two dogs fled their home in Slidell, La., a small city across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, as Hurricane Katrina approached. He had no idea what condition his house was in, or whether it was even there anymore.
Now, in the half-light of dawn, he had to guess whether his helicopter would fit on the roof and whether the crew would be greeted as rescuers – or as authorities who had responded with too little, too late.
“We were concerned we might get overrun,” he said. “So I told the pilot, ‘If you see me running back toward you, get ready to go, and I’ll dive in. We’ll come back.’ “
That was not necessary. By the time the four-member crew had finished the rescue – 10 hours and 25 or 30 trips later – they had ferried about 420 people to safety. They included people in wheelchairs, several amputees and at least eight pets.
As for his house, Sergeant Sorjonen said he flew over it a few days later. His neighbor’s 50-foot pine had fallen on the roof. “It hit his house first, so that slowed it down,” he said, smiling.
TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
