When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans 20 years ago, it created the largest evacuation crisis in the nation's history.
It is estimated that up to 150,000 people remained in the city when the storm hit and the levees broke. Around 30,000 people sheltered in the Superdome before and after the storm, while some 20,000 also sought help at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, which had not been set up as a shelter at all.
The scale of the disaster created unprecedented challenges in emergency response. There was a lack of everything, no way to get supplies, people or buses in or out of the city, and the Superdome's roof had been damaged in the storm. Shelter conditions deteriorated rapidly, exacerbated by fear that gripped evacuees and responders as rumors spread about looters, snipers, rapists and other criminals roaming the streets of New Orleans.
Later, many of those rumors would prove to be unsubstantiated. However, the fear that they created in the wake of the disaster caused delays in the humanitarian response.
Greg Davis was the Cajundome director at the time, and he did not want that fear to reach Lafayette. People began to arrive in their own vehicles seeking shelter the day after the storm, and continued arriving by busloads for weeks as people were cleared out of New Orleans. For 58 days in the late summer of 2005, the Cajundome sheltered around 18,000 people displaced by Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 28 and Hurricane Rita on Sept. 18.
"The news media at the time was doing nothing but depicting looters and depicting the people of New Orleans as thugs, rapists and killers," said Davis, who still speaks with emotion 20 years later, remembering the people he and his staff helped in the wake of the hurricanes.
"I gathered my staff, and told them, we have a decision to make. We can be driven by compassion or driven by fear. My staff were religious people. I just put it to them like this: 'What would Jesus do?' We all knew what the right choice was."
Cajundome staff mobilized a response that later became part of national best practice on how to use sports arenas as mega-shelters. Davis would go on to author a manual on the topic for FEMA and the International Association of Venue Management.
The story of their efforts can be seen in "Cajundome City," a documentary directed by father-son team Chris Allain and Christopher Allain for Vidox. The film has been described as one of the most uplifting stories to come out of Hurricane Katrina, as it depicts Cajundome staff, Lafayette medical personnel, law enforcement and volunteers going to great lengths to take care of the people who came to Acadiana.
Feeding people would prove to be less of a challenge than volunteers feared. The facility's caterer stepped in when other organizations were not able to provide hot meals. In true south Louisiana style, the parking lot of the Cajundome filled with local cooks, with their barbecue pits and black pots.
Through limitations, such as the Red Cross not being able to provide more complex medical care, the people of Lafayette filled in the gaps with an "ask for forgiveness instead of permission" attitude, bringing in extra supplies, medicines, food and other essential help.
According to Davis, Lafayette police captain Ned Fowler also gave clear directives to his men as the evacuees arrived: "Assume everyone is a friend until they prove otherwise."
"We benefited from great leadership," said Davis. "We had families arriving in desperate situations. We began to help them and gave them the utmost in human respect, and they gave to us what we gave to them. Decency and respect."
"Cajundome City" premiered on LPB in 2023 and is available to watch on the PBS website.