Tracking new ground with Katrina

Wade Carter and Roger Guay have grown accustomed to working through the Thanksgiving holiday. With 32 years between them as Maine game wardens, long lazy afternoons filled with turkey, pies and football games are but a distant childhood memory.

With the end of hunting season afoot, the two men generally spend this weekend traipsing through the woods with their dogs, checking hunting licenses, monitoring tagging stations and perhaps searching out a late-returning hunter or two.

“Usually the most you can hope for is to stop by the house for a few minutes, scoff something down and then you’re right back out the door again,” Carter said this week.

It comes with the territory.

But this holiday weekend, Guay and Carter are way out of their territory.

“We couldn’t be any further out of our element if we tried,” Guay said with a chuckle earlier this week.

Instead of combing the brisk Maine woods with dry leaves crunching beneath their boots, the wardens from Machias and Greenville are guiding their dogs through acres upon acres of sludge-covered debris in the 9th Ward of New Orleans.

The two men and their cadaver dogs, Buddy and Radar, are among those making a last-ditch effort to find any of the 1,400 people who are still missing from the hurricane-ravaged city.

“We had heard so much about the situation here and what it was like, but when we arrived here last Wednesday, we just couldn’t believe our eyes.

“I’m tellin’ ya, it’s like a nuclear bomb has gone off. Think of taking the entire city of Portland and just flattening it. There is just no way to prepare yourself for what you see when you get here,” Guay said.

The work is emotionally and physically draining. The wardens and their dogs work nine-hour days, chopping through rubble, walking on glass and pawing through hazardous debris.

The dogs are working around dead dogs and cats in search of any scent of human remains.

So far they’ve found no actual bodies, just pieces.

“If the dogs get a hit and we find something, tissue or anything like that, we just mark it and move on. There are other people who come along to remove those things and take it to the next identification level,” Carter said as he and Guay took a quick lunch break on Tuesday.

Despite the devastation around them, both men, who have a quick and uniquely Maine sense of humor, have found time for some laughter and cling to the treasured tiny moments of normalcy they find amidst the chaos.

The dogs, for example, have adapted well, moving from one debris pile to the next focused intently on their jobs, yet they struggle with the idea of getting on the elevator at the hotel where they are staying.

“And, you know, it’s not quite like Machias, where you can just open the door and let ’em go out and pee,” Carter laughed. “There’s been a lot for all of us to get used to.”

A few days ago, the two drove to a town about 15 miles away that escaped serious hurricane damage.

“We went to a Barnes and Noble [bookstore] and sat down and drank some Starbucks coffee, and it was just this huge feeling of relief, of a sense of normalcy, because you can just get lost in the devastation here,” Carter said.

Stories across the country this week spoke of “Katrina Fatigue.” People are getting tired of hearing about the hurricane and its devastation. There’s a feeling among many that the people in Mississippi and New Orleans are picking up the pieces and moving on.

There’s a couple of good guys from Maine who will tell you differently.

“That’s the biggest misconception of all,” Guay said. “Picking up the pieces? There aren’t any pieces to pick up.”

Carter has established a Web site where he posts pictures and information about what they are doing, http://mysite.verizon.net/vzerjy31/. The two men should be returning to Maine at the end of this month.

You can reach Renee Ordway at rordway@bangordailynews.net or at 990-8292.