After stocking up on five weeks worth of supplies, which included plenty of ammunition, Goodson and his wife settled into their 200-year-old home in the Upper Garden district for the long haul. "Unfortunately, looting is a proud tradition in New Orleans and that was really my biggest concern," Goodson said. "The city is home to a welfare culture where larceny is largely accepted. My major concerns before Katrina were winds from the storm and the anarchy that would follow." His wife attempted to leave town on Saturday, but after four hours she found herself only five miles away from home. "There are only three roads out of town, and at that point they were a mess," he said. Fearing she'd be stranded on a clogged interstate and low on gasoline when the storm struck, she returned home instead.

Having prepared for the storm as best they could, the couple huddled inside their house as Katrina blew into town. "We watched roofs blow off of houses, trees fall, and heard the constant sound of breaking glass as things flew through the air. It was a natural energy unlike anything I have ever witnessed," Goodson said.

As daybreak broke on Tuesday, it looked as if a nuclear bomb had exploded. "There was debris everywhere. I began walking around picking up limbs, shingles, and trash, trying to clear a path from my front door to the street. Later, as I was standing in the middle of the street, a 12-foot geyser erupted from a nearby storm drain, followed soon thereafter by another geyser, then another. Staring down the street for three or four blocks, I began to see waterfalls of water exploding from every corner. I began to put two and two together and knew something very bad was happening," he said. Goodson ran into the house and turned off the gas. Within 30 minutes, the water in the street had risen four feet. "We quickly moved as many valuable items upstairs as we could. Soon water began seeping though the floorboards and the air conditioning ducts. We stood at the top of the stairs wondering how far the water would rise."

For the next nine days, Goodson and his wife lived in their upstairs bedroom while daily temperatures hovering in the mid-90s baked the city. In the house now stood six feet of water, which was a stale, murky, toxic mix of chemicals and undefined components. "There were just all sorts of weird things in that water and the smell was atrocious. Our dog stood at the top of the stairs and barked at it." Sleeping was difficult, and the sounds of helicopters became an almost continuous drone. Each night they heard the sound of gunshots in the distance.

Goodson began to hear reports that in areas where the water was receding, looters were following. After exhausting all of the dry areas, the looters were now seeking new territory. Goodson also heard that the Army had been dispersed across the city to kick in doors and remove people from their residences. As a result, the looters had also begun to follow the Army as they went door-to-door throughout the city.

Deciding that now was the time to leave, Goodson hung a sheet on the front porch. Hours later, soldiers arrived but couldn't reach the house. A helicopter arrived and hovered overhead with a basket, but couldn't negotiate its way through the trees and power lines. "Finally, this huge vehicle designed to pick up large, massive debris arrives and we made it out with the clothes on our backs, along with our [very small] dog secretly hidden in a purse (animals were not allowed on rescue boats).

Goodson continues: "We soon realized these weren't soldiers rescuing people, they were engineers clearing debris and they owned the only vehicle large enough to reach our home. They were wearing body armor and the men in back were manning machine guns, because people had been shooting at them for days as they tried to clear debris from the roads."

Traveling to the St. Charles Avenue military processing area, Goodson began to witness first-hand the extent of looting throughout the city. "I can't describe it other than widespread mayhem, just unbelievable. Having now seen the media coverage, I can tell you that no one is telling the American public how rampant this problem is, for whatever reason."

Goodson survived the bureaucratic chaos that involved cataloguing survivors because the unit that saved him was comprised of engineers, not an official Army rescue unit. "They told us, 'We don't know you, and we never saw you, and when we hand you off, he won't know you and he'll never see you. Hitch a ride and split.' That's exactly what we did."