Logan County resident recalls his Hurricane Katrina experience

LOGAN COUNTY, Ky. – August 29, 2005 is a date that will live in American history. Hurricane Katrina made landfall, destroying everything in its path, killing nearly 1,400 people and leaving hundreds more missing still to this day. For Logan County local and first responder John Dearmond, his Katrina journey started before the hurricane’s arrival.

Dearmond was in New Orleans for EMS training and caught the last flight out of the city. Dearmond said the view from his airplane window was something to behold.

“I kept wanting to look back and see if this is the monster they’re calling. You know, that there was a black cloud and it was like a shelf cloud. It was coming into the city, and you could see it in horizon,” Dearmond said.

As soon as Dearmond touched down in Nashville, he kept up to date on the devastation the Gulf Coast had seen and felt a calling to go back. He was able to join a group of other Logan County residents heading down to the affected areas to help, and soon the group arrived in southern Mississippi, near the border with Louisiana, and set up to help as many people as they could. Within the first day, they were able to help many people, but it was already evident that supplies of all kind was desperately needed.

“They told us, you know, you can go right up here and, and set up and it kind of look like a homeless encampment, you know, it was, everybody bought that was in the group brought tents and camping supplies, but yet our trailers were completely loaded with food and tarps and blankets and women’s supplies and baby supplies and just all the different things that we might need and all that was expended the first day. The first day, how we distributed all that up and down the road,” Dearmond recalled.

Dearmond soon found out, though, that the storm did not discriminate, devastating everybody equally.

“We had a security line for the food because, you know, people were pulling up in cars with, like, a a tree would fell across the lady’s car. I remember it was, Mercedes or something. It was a really nice car. And she had diamond rings all around her finger, but she had scars all over her face. Where something had broke in front of her and shrapnel had hit her, and all she wanted was water,” said Dearmond

The sight of the devastation left a permanent impression in Dearmond’s memory. The scenes of disparity and survival was something you would think would come from a movie.

He said, “There was a family living under a blue tarp that was stretched over a tree that had fallen in the middle of town, and there was a family living there. And I thought, you know, that’s really that’s their only form of protection from the storm, you know, or whatever, of the rain. And that’s their house. And then I realized that that was more than just that one family. That one family lived under this limb. Underneath this limb over here was another complete family that maybe didn’t even know the other people, but they were living underneath this limb but the whole thing was encapsulated by a tree. And, blue tarps over it.”

Soon, though, Dearmond had returned home to Logan County, and with him came the memories and photos of destruction but also a sense of accomplishment. Knowing he was able to help those most in need.

“It’s one of the top five rewarding things as an EMS service, you really felt like you made a difference,” he said. “You didn’t have to do much to do a lot.”