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Jed Boal ReportingWhen Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans a year ago, rain and wind severely damaged the airport, but by the next day airlifts started to carry evacuees to safety. The manager of that airport, now manages Salt Lake International.
Hurricane Katrina spared little on the Gulf Coast a year ago. At Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport it left 54-million dollars worth of damage. But the airport was critical; emergency crews needed to evacuate patients from flooded New Orleans hospitals and help had to arrive.
Roy Williams, Director of Salt Lake International Airport: "We had no electricity, no radios, no telephones."
And no water for three days. Roy Williams was at the helm of Louis Armstrong International. In June he took over as director of Salt Lake International. Back in New Orleans, he says the airport was at least safer than most of the city.
Roy Williams, Director of Salt Lake International Airport: "We were able to establish areas where the able-bodied could rest and wait for their evacuation, where the sick could be treated. It was very challenging, but the chaos was manageable."
People arrived faster than they could be airlifted. The airport became a hospital. Baggage equipment became ambulances, baggage claim became a triage center. Hurricane victims died there while more than two dozen babies were born.
Williams slept in his office more than a month but considers himself fortunate.
Roy Williams, Director of Salt Lake International Airport: "Still today, of my senior management team, three of my deputies are still living in trailers a year later."
At the peak of the evacuation, they airlifted 12-thousand people from the New Orleans airport. That's a greater evacuation than the military pulled off at the end of the Vietnam in Saigon in 1975.
Roy Williams/Director of Salt Lake International Airport: "Just the incredible level of care and commitment that so many people showed in the process of the evacuation and recovery, those are the memories to cherish."
Williams and his wife lived in Salt Lake early in their careers and always wanted to come back. As for the New Orleans airport it's back to 75 percent of pre-Katrina traffic.
