I received a text message earlier this week from former Daily News reporter Jim Gaines reminding me it was the 19th anniversary of an assignment we covered together. I had to chuckle at the reminder of an assignment that almost killed us because of our inexperience in covering natural disasters.

The assignment was Hurricane Katrina, the devastating and deadly tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damage estimated at $186.3 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area.

The largest loss of life in Hurricane Katrina was due to flooding caused by engineering flaws in the flood protection system, particularly the levees around New Orleans. Eventually, 80% of the city, as well as large areas in neighboring parishes, were flooded for weeks. The flooding destroyed most of New Orleans’ transportation and communication facilities, leaving tens of thousands of people who did not evacuate before landfall with little access to food, shelter and other necessities. The disaster prompted a massive national and international response effort, including federal, local and private rescue operations to evacuate those displaced from the city in the following weeks.

Nineteen years ago, southcentral Kentuckians were part of that massive effort. Our National Guard, the Bowling Green Fire Department, the Salvation Army, linemen from Warren Rural Electric and many others headed south to help. Jim Gaines and I pitched a plan to spend a week in the ravaged areas documenting our local folks.

Nearly two decades ago, the mist was still settling on Warren County fields when we left at 6:30 a.m. We didn’t know what to expect on our trip south, or exactly where we’d wind up. But we guessed from news accounts that many basic items would be hard to find. So we prepared as best we could. We strapped an extra 17 gallons of gas to the roof of our small rented SUV, then loaded it with camping basics, three cases of bottled water and way too much beef jerky.

We were two big, burly journalists who had never roughed it even camping, headed 1,000 miles south into the devastation. Logistics were the biggest problem. Infrastructure was so hard hit, that just getting from point A to point B took hours and a lot of ingenuity. At night, we parked as close to the National Guard HUMVEEs for safety, and when they shooed us away, we drove for hours looking for a room anywhere.

Several nights, we slept side-by-side in the cramped SUV in a hotel parking lot with hundreds of other displaced folks. It was hot, humid and we drew the ire of our fellow parking lot campers when I kept hitting the horn in the middle of the night. In the morning, we would sneak into the hotel lobby to use the bathroom and try to clean up a bit.

It was a blur of scenes of devastation, hopelessness and despair that will always stick with me. While shooting the Salvation Army food kitchen, a little boy saw the camera and asked what I was doing. I told him I was from a newspaper in Kentucky and I came here to photograph the Salvation Army workers. While holding a hot plate of Ravioli and a Pepsi, he asked, “Do they have hurricanes in Kentucky?”

Gulfport, Mississippi, stood out in my memory for the damage and the stupid mistake that almost killed us. Gulfport was a study in contrasts. Military helicopters constantly buzzed overhead, but the radio reported that commercial flights restarted from the local airport. Spray-painted signs on boarded-up buildings warned, “All looters will be shot,” but the local Cadillac dealership was still open for business.

In nearly 100-degree heat, we made our way straight through downtown Gulfport, looking for Highway 90 that runs along the coast. We found it – we think. We’re not sure, because there’s hardly a road there anymore. Weeks before, it had two, packed lanes in each direction, running right along the beach. Now it’s a sand-covered, rubble-strewn track with big chunks missing, lanes undermined and pools of standing water. A few vehicles, mostly military and police, creep along it. We have to switch back and forth across what used to be a median, because only one lane out of four is relatively clear.

A dozen yards away, a car stops and a man gets out waving frantically and running toward us. We were bewildered. I grab a camera and start shooting pictures of him running at us. As he gets closer, we can make out he is yelling “gas cans!” and points at the roof of the car. Jim and I look up top and almost throw up. We had forgotten to vent the three plastic gas cans on the roof of the car. In the sun, heat and humidity, they had expanded and stretch to the point of exploding. It was scary to see how loaded they had become with the fumes. He helped us vent the cans, fill up the car, and we were on our way.

Jim and I stopped at an apartment complex before we headed back to Bowling Green and gave away all of our remaining supplies, except for a lone bag of beef jerky for the drive home. We barely made the drive home, having to switch drivers nearly every hour because we were so tired.

I’m glad Jim reminded me of the assignment. One great thing about small community journalism is when you get to share a local angle from a national event. The response of our community was incredible and it was a privilege to tell that story.

– Daily News Publisher Joe Imel can be reached at (270) 783-3273 or via email at joe.imel@ bgdailynews.com.