Doug Thornton, GM of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans.
REPORTING FROM NEW ORLEANS — It’s one thing to put your heart on the line to preserve history. It’s another thing to do it in front of 300 people.
But that’s exactly where Doug Thornton found himself on June 11 during the Event & Arena Marketing Conference here. The GM of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome relived the experience honestly and humbly just nine years after Hurricane Katrina walloped the Big Easy and almost brought down the iconic National Football League stadium.
For Thornton, it was a cathartic experience, recalling the five terrible days he and his staff endured at the stadium after Hurricane Katrina hit on Aug. 29, 2005 and caused millions of dollars in roof and structural damage to the stadium. The human tragedy of what occurred that day would unfold later as the evacuee population swelled from 20,000 to 40,000 following the collapse of the levees around Lake Pontchartrain.
“I think it’s compelling because everyone asks themselves what they would do in that situation,” said Thornton, who serves double duty as a VP for SMG, the global facility management firm that operates the Superdome and dozens of other buildings around the world.
“You ask yourself — ‘Who could I count on in this type of situation?’ There will be people you never expect who will rise to the occasion, and there will be other individuals who let you down. It makes you think long and hard about who you have on your team.”
For five terrible days in the fall of 2006, refugees packed themselves into the Superdome and endured near inhumane conditions. There was no air conditioning, no working toilets, very little food, and toward the end of the ordeal, no protection or security. After several close calls, the New Orleans Police Department and the National Guard pulled their forces out of the building and instead set up a perimeter around the building.
“We did that because we didn’t want the National Guard to start shooting evacuees on TV,” Thornton said. “The whole world was watching.”
It was one of dozens of decisions by Thornton and his team that seemed to contradict common sense, but ultimately prevented further bloodshed. Thornton said the atmosphere between the National Guard and the evacuees was quickly deteriorating.
“At the end of the day, we were trying to prevent mass casualties,” said Thornton. “Ten people did die inside the Superdome but it could have been much, much worse.”
As Thornton explained, the memory of New Orleans exists in a grey area for those who survived its trauma.
“There were many things that took place during Katrina that we don’t talk about, things that never made it out of the building. Things that never got reported,” Thornton said. “People endured terrible conditions. There were assaults. There were rapes. There were times that we wanted to help, but couldn’t.”
Perhaps one of the most scrutinized incidents of all was Thornton’s decision to leave the building before the evacuees. By his own admission, the women and children of SMG and Centerplate employees were first out of the building before any of the evacuees were allowed to leave. Two days prior, New Orleans’ own Chief of Police Eddie Compass actually told Thornton to leave the Superdome.
“That warning was a real shock and after Compass left, we got together and came up with a solution” that prevented the lights from going out. There would be no massive stampede, but at some point he knew he had to get out. By his own acknowledgement, the building could only survive another day or two. Conditions were quickly deteriorating. Security had been breached and Thornton and his team took refuge in a small office with only one armed guard. Every few seconds, someone would pound on the door trying to get it.
Thornton was the last SMG employee to leave the building — he said everyone was sneaked out of the building, hidden in the cover of darkness to avoid enraging the evacuees. When he finally got on that helicopter to leave, there were still 40,000 evacuees in the building waiting for buses to take them places like Houston, Oklahoma City and Baton Rouge.
Did he make the right decision? It’s a question Thornton himself has struggled with in the past, but as the years have gone on, he’s come to terms with his decision.
“We did everything in our power to protect the evacuees and avoid major loss of life,” he said, adding “the building simply could not have gone another day.”
And it would not have made sense for Thornton to stick around any longer. When the National Guard pulled its last soldier out, when the medical rescue teams like California 6 exited the building and when there was no staff left to render aid, Thornton was a man with very little left to offer the Superdome crowd. He too, was an evacuee. And it was time for him to be rescued.
“It got to a point where you go into pure survival mode,” he said. “You try to see the big picture, you grapple with the enormity of the situation and you try to help where you can. But for your family’s sake, you also must survive. You must continue forward.”
Interviewed for this story: Doug Thornton, (504) 587-3663