Lots of cynicsim about bureaucracies, but some did a bang up job:
In the control tower at Armstrong, air traffic controllers and
technicians worked long shifts just after Katrina passed to clear the runways and help bring in the first “mercy flights” by several airlines, which brought in supplies and took out evacuees.Within 24 hours of the storm, a Federal Aviation Administration truck loaded with radar and telecommunications gear rolled west from Jacksonville, Fla., stopping at airports along the Gulf Coast to get their radar and communications systems back online. At Armstrong, the technicians placed a radio repeater atop the 220-foot-tall control tower. The repeater replaced many that were lost in the storm.
“Not did it enable our people to talk with each other, but it helped
police and firefighers communicate in 37-mile radius of the tower,” Brown said.By Sept. 1, three days after Katrina passed, the airport’s primary radar site near Slidell was back on line. With the help of E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System military aircraft, it began steering the fleet of rescue aircraft into Armstrong.