September 2, 2008 8:20PM

What I Learned From Gustav

By Alexis Glick

It’s almost 8 p.m. Eastern time and I just arrived back in New York after flying out of Mobile, Alabama, with a layover in Atlanta. More on that later.

Needless to say, the past 48 hours have had their fair share of ups and downs. I had no idea what to expect when I got the call asking if I wanted to go to New Orleans for the hurricane. Honestly, I’m still taking it all in.

Last night, I was fortunate enough to get a decent night of sleep. On the road, that means four to five hours. Usually, it’s more like two to three hours. The show this morning from the French Quarter was much easier. A lot had changed in 24 hours. All for the good. As one of my local guests said this morning, “God smiled on us.” The “us” in this case was New Orleans. Somehow, either by divine intervention, luck or smart planning, New Orleans dodged a bullet.

When I woke up this morning, I turned on the television with some trepidation. At dinner last night, once we finished my last hit on Neil’s show, the crew decided to grab a bite to eat across the street at one of the few restaurants that remained open post-Gustav. We were starving, and needed a moment to detox and replay the events of the day out loud with one another without worrying about where to be next.

When we walked over to the restaurant, it started to rain lightly. About 15 minutes later, it started to pour. It poured throughout the night. When I woke up this morning, I was convinced that the amount of rainfall throughout the night would mean more flooding.

Luckily, it did not. The Army Corps of Engineers did wind up closing the newly created flood gates at the London Avenue and 17th Street canals due to the surge on Lake Ponchartrain. The preventive measure worked as the pumping stations worked overtime throughout the night. Mission accomplished. Music to everyone’s ears!

We decided to do the show from the second floor balcony of our hotel. It was, as I mentioned, still raining and we had no form of protection. The guests on this morning’s show were terrific. Between us, the show was put together in the hotel room the night before by an unbelievable team that traveled down to New Orleans with me.

Yvette, Karen, Lindsay, Brad, Dana and Brian booked a show at 7 p.m. last night from one hotel room with not one BlackBerry functioning. I sat next to them in amazement as everyone shared ideas, personal cell phones that were barely functioning and random notes that we had scribbled down while watching local television to book the next day’s show.

The thing about breaking news and booking guests when you’re on the road, especially in this case, is that it’s exceptionally difficult to reach people. Everyone in the city of New Orleans or in the Baton Rouge area had lost BlackBerry capability or communication due to the loss of power. None of our contacts could be reached. And yet, watching the team put a guest list together under extreme circumstances was one of the highlights of our trip.

In the course of an hour, we went from having no guests to having  Col. Jonathan Ball of the National Guard, who we talked to yesterday morning; the owner of the New Orleans Saints, Tom Benson; Marc Morial, the former mayor of New Orleans and current president and CEO of the National Urban League; Burt Benrud of Café Du Monde, a New Orleans institution; Major Tim Kurgan of the Army Corps of Engineers responsible for the rebuilding and engineering of the levees; and Gary La Grange, president and CEO of the Port of New Orleans, which is responsible on a daily basis for $275 million dollars of economic activity in the United States — or 62% of consumer spending.

I was so proud of our team. That’s what makes television great.

The show went off without a hitch. I will never forget Col. Jonathan Ball, as I mentioned in my last blog. I also will never forget Gary La Grange — what a terrific guy and what a tremendous job. In fact, I asked him to stay after my interview with him today for another interview that will air tomorrow morning on Money for Breakfast. The statistics, the responsibilities, the commerce, the money that changes hands every day due to his port is staggering.

The fact that he has not received one dime from the federal government post Katrina is shocking. I hadn’t realized that until today. While we waited to go on air, we talked a lot about his personal life, his reaction to Katrina and the rebuilding effort that the port has undergone.

Twenty-five percent of the Port of New Orleans was damaged by Katrina. Not one dollar from the government and $200 million dollars worth of insurance claims hanging over his head. Why isn’t that story getting told? It’s hard to believe. As you’ll see tomorrow, he talks about scraping by with what little they have. Very disappointing.

Gary drew my attention most when he talked off camera about his New Orleans routes. He talked about what it was like living through some of the biggest hurricanes in New Orleans history, like Hilda and Audrey. He talked about his father’s furniture stores (all five of them) and how they were flooded during Hurricane Hilda. How, as he says, his mom on June 1st of every year “frantically packed suitcases and left them in the hallway of our home so that we were ready to go on a moment’s notice. Every year the hurricane season began on June 1st and ended in November. My mom and dad always had a contingency home that we could go to in the event of evacuation.”

I was so captivated by his story that I scribbled notes. I asked him if he thought the people of New Orleans do what his mother he used to do and he said, “No. They don’t. New Orleans is about joie de vivre. They worry about today, not tomorrow. ”

He then corrected himself and said, “But Katrina may have changed that. Look at how the people of New Orleans evacuated this time around.”

He said it with an air of pride. How true. He and the officials who orchestrated a very well thought-out plan to evacuate the people of New Orleans hope that the lack of intensity of this storm will not negate the lessons learned of Katrina.

This morning after the show, my executive producer Brian Donlon and I drove from New Orleans to Mobile, Ala. We drove for about 150 miles through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Saw cars abandoned on the road, homes whose roofs had been torn apart, windows cracked, trees down, flooding off Lake Charles and trucks with cranes to fix electrical lines that had come down. We saw virtually no civilian cars with passengers. The highways were empty.

I had never been to Mississippi or Alabama, and circumstances like this made it unforgettable. Brian turned to me in the car and said, “So, was it worth it?” It was. He asked because I left my family mid-vacation to cover this story and, in a job and industry such as this, vacation doesn’t come along that often. Time with my three young boys and husband is precious, and leaving them is always difficult. I always shed a tear when I get on that plane knowing I’m leaving them. In this case, I shed a couple extra tears because, at the time of my departure, it was projected to be a Category 5 hurricane. Thankfully it was not.

So back to his question. Was it worth it?

It was. I learned so much on this trip. I met people who dedicate their lives to keeping us safe. I learned about the value of life. When to take risks and when not to take risks. I saw the pride and power of the people of New Orleans. I watched a crew guide me through 70 m.p.h. wind gusts on a bridge where a levee below was overtopping and my heart was skipping a beat. I saw teamwork in action, military trucks, National Guardsmen, deli and restaurant owners, hotel employees and journalists from other networks share moments together and tips on where to go and how to prepare.

I was afraid. Believe me. Personally, I now know and appreciate what my good friend Al Roker does for a living when he travels down to a hurricane. Next time, I will know what to expect. Maybe, as Gary said, God smiled down on New Orleans, or maybe God smiled down on me. He might have known I was a first timer!

You know what I also learned? Family, friends and colleagues are all that matter. As Col. Jonathan Ball put it, in New Orleans we call it “lagniappe,” pronounced “lanyap.” We don’t sweat the small stuff, the material things. That’s not what matters. It’s the people around us.