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Tuesday, September 6, 2005

Bernalillo Deputies Join Rescue

By T.J. Wilham
Journal Staff Writer
    More than 40 Bernalillo County deputies and firefighters are smelling death.
    The deputies are in the heart of New Orleans trying to restore order and rescue people who are trapped in flood-stricken homes.
    But along the way, Sheriff Darren White and his band of specially trained deputies have seen sights they don't want to remember.
    They have seen bodies left in hospitals, floating on water and stacked up by hotels.
    "The smell of death is everywhere," White said Monday night in a telephone interview with the Journal. "I have seen things that I have never seen in real life before."
    Using 20 trucks and police cruisers, the deputies left Albuquerque on Friday and have set up a "tent city" along New Orleans' river walk next to the Mississippi River.
    When they arrived, a police commander told them to focus on the living, that they would worry about the dead later.
    One of their assignments, White said, was to clear several buildings, including a hospital, and get the living out. Along the way, they encountered many people who had refused to leave. Instead, they moved to higher ground and waited for the waters to recede.
    People have eaten the food they have left and are throwing feces out of windows.
    "I have smelled things that would gag a maggot," White said.
    He and his deputies are encouraged because they "saved many lives" by pulling people out of the water and bringing them to safety.
    "I am very proud of these deputies and firefighters," White said. "They have faced the unthinkable with incredible courage."
    The deputies and firefighters are members of the sheriff's office emergency response team and earlier this week they were asked to mobilize by the National Sheriffs Association.
    They are specially trained in riot control and natural disaster relief. They are expected to return within two weeks.