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nineteen
     of them to the Baptist campus. A twentieth died en route.
    The patients traveled in clusters, up to four to an ambulance, because ambulances
     were already in short supply. They went with their own medicines, which the pharmacist
     prepared for them. Paraplegic patient Emmett Everett, who weighed 380 pounds, went
     from, and was resettled on, his own “Big Boy” bed.
    The elevator doors opened on the seventh floor to face a wall adorned with the LifeCare
     philosophy.
         L IFECARE
         H OSPITAL
restoring hope
       
instilling desire
         
rebuilding confidence
    LifeCare occupied three long hallways on the seventh floor of Memorial Medical Center—north,
     west, and south. The corridor to the east was devoted to Memorial’s marketing department.
     Isbell wove back and forth between patient rooms and nursing stations, ensuring her
     charges were registered and properly situated. When she exerted herself like this
     her round cheeks flushed a pretty pink. A phone call came in for her, but she was
     too busy to take it. Instead she passed a message to the caller, the daughter of one
     of her favorites, ninety-year-old Alice Hutzler. Hutzler had been wheeled into Room
     7305, a spacious room on the west-side hallway with two televisions, a clock, and
     three roommates, including Rose Savoie, another elderly lady. Isbell knew Hutzler
     from repeated stays and fondly called her “Miss Alice.” To Isbell, Miss Alice looked
     perky, even with the stress of the move. “Perky” was relative. Hutzler suffered from
     heart disease, diabetes, dementia, and a stroke that had left her partially paralyzed.
     Now she was recovering from pneumonia and bedsores contracted at a nursing home. The
     fact that she would likely survive to make it back there meant, Isbell knew, a great
     deal to her attentive, loving family. Isbell passed a reassuring message to Hutzler’sdaughter: “Tell her she’s here, and I’m going to take very good care of her.”
    That night, LifeCare appeared to have made the right bet by moving patients out of
     the single-story hospital in St. Bernard Parish. The National Weather Serviceupgraded its hurricane watch for New Orleans to a warning delivered in an eerie all-caps
     bulletin, a format designed for thearchaic Teletype: “ THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT KATRINA IS EXPECTED TO BE AN INTENSE AND DANGEROUS HURRICANE
     HEADING TOWARD THE NORTH CENTRAL GULF COAST … AND THIS HAS TO BE TAKEN VERY SERIOUSLY .” Heavy rains were expected to begin in twenty-four hours.

CHAPTER 3
DAY ONE
SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2005
    ON SUNDAY MORNING, Katrina’s huge, Technicolor swirl filled the Gulf of Mexico on
     television screens throughout Memorial Medical Center. The Category Five storm packed
     the greatest intensity on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Dire forecasts shocked even the
     most seasoned hands. “ MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS … PERHAPS LONGER ,” the National Weather Service’s New Orleans office warned. Katrina was “ A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH ,” certain to strike within twelve to twenty-four hours. “ AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED
     ROOFS WILL FAIL … LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED. […] POWER OUTAGES
     WILL LAST FOR WEEKS … AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED.
     WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS .”
    Local leaders appeared on-screen to tell residents they needed to leave and leave
     now. The grim-faced president of a parish near New Orleans warned those who intended
     to stay to buy an ax, pick, or hammer sothey could hack their way to their rooftops and not die in their attics like many
     Hurricane Betsy unfortunates had. He told them to “remember the old ways” and fill their upstairs bathtubs with water; after the storm
     that would be the only source for drinking, bathing,