By Laura Lane
But as Hurricane Katrina raged all around him, Johnston didn't take it all that seriously. Johnston, 57, who is now staying temporarily at a friend's Salisbury home, admits that he was crazy not to. "I was apprehensive, but was more in awe of the storm," said Johnston, who equated the approaching Category 5 hurricane to snowstorms he'd experienced in Merrick. "I should have been scared, but I really wasn't.²
Long Beach, Miss., is a suburban community, much like Merrick and Salisbury, with upper-middle-class neighborhoods full of tree-lined streets. Locals think of it as a bedroom community for nearby Gulfport and New Orleans. For Johnston, it was the perfect place to retire. "I love the people, the lifestyle," he said. "I remember when my mother died, I got this knock on the door, and it was a neighbor who said, 'You don't know me, but I live up the street from you. I'm sorry about your mother.' He gave me a tray of $60 worth of lunch meat."
Johnston said that hurricane forecasts in Long Beach are common, beginning each May. In the past, he was always prepared. "I always had money, food and gas in my car," he explained. He added that he'd always felt safe seeing so many hurricane evacuation notices. "But they had said a couple of days before that this hurricane would hit south of New Orleans. At the last minute, it went eastward toward me."
Hurricane Katrina first became apparent to Johnston at 4:20 a.m., when his power went off. By 6:30 a.m., he could hear the wind howling. "At seven, it was real bad, and I watched poles get uprooted and go over the trees. A tree in my backyard that was around four feet in diameter snapped and destroyed my neighbor's pool," he said. But he still wasn't afraid. "I'm a nature lover by heart and was fascinated by the storm. I have a cubbyhole in front of my house, and I opened the door and watched. It was like thousands of nuclear bombs going off."
Johnston lost all the shingles on his roof, and the back and side shingles on his brick house. His new fence came down, and the screened-in porch was ripped away from the house. But even with the damage, Johnston felt fortunate. There are woods beyond his backyard, and none of those trees hit his home. "Two houses down, a tree went through my neighbor's roof," he said. "Those trees have a root system that is eight feet wide. Now the uprooted tree was eight feet high."
Though he was safe, Johnston realized that he had a problem. "I didn't have much food in my house, because I didn't go to the grocery store,² he said. ³I kept thinking of the snowstorms on Long Island, how everyone runs out and stocks up like they'll be stuck for weeks in their house. Why spend a couple of hundred on food when in 24 hours the roads are clear and you can get your food then?"
With nothing open, Johnston had to get by for four days on very little. "I had two chicken breasts, which I ate the first day, cooking it on the grill outside," he said. "After that I had to eat cereal, crackers, and drink warm soda. You have no idea how important a cold glass of water is when it's so warm."
Without electricity, there was no air conditioning. Johnston withstood hot, sticky days, with temperatures rising into the 90s. "The heat index made it above 100 degrees. Boredom is the killer here," said Johnston, who added that he believes part of the looting among young people was so they'd have something to do. "By 11 a.m. every day, it's too hot, and by 8 p.m., you have to go to sleep because, without electricity, it's dark and there's nothing to do. I tossed and turned until I fell asleep around 3 a.m., when it finally cooled down to a humid 75 degrees. Then I was up at 6 a.m. again."
Johnston's neighbors decided to weather the storm because they believed it would be similar to what they'd experienced in 1969 with Hurricane Camille. "Camille had strong winds of 200 mph, but it was much smaller," said Johnston. "People who lived through both told me this one was much worse. This hurricane moved slow and devastated everything."
Johnston wasn't alone during the storm. His brother, the deputy sheriff of Long Beach, stayed with him. When the storm passed, the brothers decided to assess the damage. They found that downed power lines and trees cut off the block. They pitched in with other neighbors to move them.
Thanks to his brother¹s official status, the two were able to pass through roadblocks, allowing Johnston to see the rest of the town. "We saw the main thoroughfare of Long Beach, and everything was wiped out -- the schools, churches," he recalled. "They were flattened out by the water, and there were big piles of sticks and bricks left behind. In New Orleans, the water came in and the buildings are still standing. In Mississippi, the water came in like a wall of water, like a tsunami."
And if seeing the devastation wasn't bad enough, Johnston continued to worry about a friend whom he couldn't reach. "My friend lived closer to the water. Last I heard from him, he said he'd made a mistake staying; the water was rising and it was too late to leave," said Johnston. "A woman I know went down to see the area, and it's devastated. I haven't heard from Dave since."
When Johnston was finally able to use his cell phone a few days later, he called his family. Then he telephoned his friend in Salisbury. Barbara Cohen had been frantic, searching Web sites that listed hurricane victims and spending hours on the phone with the Red Cross. Relieved to hear Johnston's voice, she pleaded with him to stay with her.
In Salisbury, Johnston reconnected with his friends from Merrick and other parts of Long Island. And he watched news coverage, saddened by the aftermath of the hurricane.
He doesn't believe he has to worry about his house. He left a key with a neighbor and said the lawlessness in New Orleans isn't common in Long Beach. Johnston is certain local officials wouldn't allow looting to occur.
And even though he knows his neighbors are putting their homes back in order, an arduous task that awaits him, Johnston never doubts his decision to temporarily leave Long Beach. "I had running water in Long Beach, but it wasn't drinkable, and I had the grill in the backyard to boil water," he said. "But I figured, Why not get out while I can?"
Once the electricity is fully restored, he plans to return to Long Beach. In the meantime, Johnston isn't interested in blaming President Bush, Louisiana¹s elected leaders or even unruly looters. And he doesn't believe the lawlessness in New Orleans is a racial issue; he instead blames it on poverty.
But Johnston does have strong opinions on the damage done to the refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, and how to avoid the gasoline crisis that it's led to. "Instead of investigating who's at fault, why doesn't the government mandate a refinery in every state to ensure that another disaster or terrorist attack won't cripple the entire country?" he said. "The scary part is that if a storm did this, imagine what terrorists could do."
Comments about this story? LLane@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 236.
