Monday, October 03, 2005
CNN Photog Saves Lives Following Hurricane
Source: Associated Press David Bauder writes: "Journalism may be the only profession where someone who helped save more than a dozen lives felt compelled to reassure his bosses that his time was well spent.
The night after Hurricane Katrina struck, veteran CNN photographer Mark Biello brought back vivid images of New Orleans residents rescued from floodwaters that chased them to roofs or attics. Some he pulled into a boat himself.
Biello isn't used to putting his camera down - journalists are trained to be observers, not participants. But the human misery caused by Katrina put these instincts at war with reality, and made many journalists rethink how to do their jobs amid calamities.
After riding out the storm in a French Quarter hotel, Biello met CNN correspondent Jeanne Meserve at the Superdome. A distraught city councilman drove up and said his Ninth Ward neighborhood was submerged. The CNN team jumped in their car and followed him there.
Biello, 44, has worked for CNN since 1983 and been to 81 countries, recording famine, disaster and the bombs that flew over Baghdad in the first Gulf War. But even he was shocked by what he saw from a New Orleans highway overpass.
"We did not know the extent of how many people were trapped," he said. "Nobody did ... As far as we could see in all directions you could hear people screaming and yelling, waving, some were drowning."
Three men pulled up in a boat. Biello asked if he could come along.
Their first rescue was a husband and wife plucked from a roof, arguing with each other as they stepped onto the boat.
"I was just recording and witnessing what they were doing," he said. "It wasn't until there were people submerged in the water that they asked for my help in pulling people onto the boat ... they needed the physical strength to pull people up." MORE
The night after Hurricane Katrina struck, veteran CNN photographer Mark Biello brought back vivid images of New Orleans residents rescued from floodwaters that chased them to roofs or attics. Some he pulled into a boat himself.
Biello isn't used to putting his camera down - journalists are trained to be observers, not participants. But the human misery caused by Katrina put these instincts at war with reality, and made many journalists rethink how to do their jobs amid calamities.
After riding out the storm in a French Quarter hotel, Biello met CNN correspondent Jeanne Meserve at the Superdome. A distraught city councilman drove up and said his Ninth Ward neighborhood was submerged. The CNN team jumped in their car and followed him there.
Biello, 44, has worked for CNN since 1983 and been to 81 countries, recording famine, disaster and the bombs that flew over Baghdad in the first Gulf War. But even he was shocked by what he saw from a New Orleans highway overpass.
"We did not know the extent of how many people were trapped," he said. "Nobody did ... As far as we could see in all directions you could hear people screaming and yelling, waving, some were drowning."
Three men pulled up in a boat. Biello asked if he could come along.
Their first rescue was a husband and wife plucked from a roof, arguing with each other as they stepped onto the boat.
"I was just recording and witnessing what they were doing," he said. "It wasn't until there were people submerged in the water that they asked for my help in pulling people onto the boat ... they needed the physical strength to pull people up." MORE
# posted by ATN @ 5:02 PM 
