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Because once you see the difference, you're not going back. Hello. We have more exciting news from the world of Exactly Right.
00:02:04
Yes, we are thrilled to finally tell you about our new limited true crime series,
00:02:09
Infamous International, The Pink Panther Story. This is a true story of the world's most infamous jewel thieves.
00:02:15
So in the early 2000s, the Pink Panthers planned and executed a series of theatrical smash and grab heists in cities like Dubai, London and Monaco.
00:02:24
They targeted high end jewelry stores, making international headlines and most wanted lists.
00:02:30
Every Thursday, host and former BBC correspondent Natalia Antalava interviews journalists, experts and eyewitnesses to tell the spine chilling story of the shadowy crime syndicate.
00:02:40
So stay tuned after this episode of My Favorite Murder to hear the trailer for Infamous International, The Pink Panther Story.
00:02:47
And then head to the Infamous International feed and click follow so you don't miss the two-episode premiere on Thursday, September 14th.
00:02:54
And if you like the trailer, remember you can support our newest show by leaving a review and don't forget to click follow.
00:03:00
And one more thing, you can listen early on Amazon Music or early in ad-free by subscribing to Wondery Plus and the Wondery app.
00:03:06
Goodbye. my savior hello and welcome to my favorite murder that's georgia hardstark that's karen kilgarath
00:03:33
And we're here to podcast at you. All over you, at you, upon you, around you. Whatever area you need it to be in, we'll put it.
00:03:43
It's like a massage, but it's us yelling at you about things. It's a massage for the little horn in your ear.
00:03:51
What is it, a hammer in your ear? No. It's going through my ear horn, and it feels in my ear horn that it's familiar.
00:04:00
ear horn is what comes out of it for an old man's ear in victorian england but then inside your ear
00:04:05
there's a bone shaped like i think it's a hammer okay ear martyrenos let us know what we're talking
00:04:13
let us know what we're talking about ent doctorinos you would love any kind of guidance i bet there's
00:04:20
plenty i bet you're right and that's our show for today nothing goodbye it's called wonder
00:04:28
wondering about shit we have no idea about let's see what's going on is did you hear in the news
00:04:35
that these people were searching a florida lake for like a for a cold case yeah guess how many
00:04:43
cars sunken cars they found in that lake while looking for one cold case guess four 30
00:04:51
30 30 cars it wasn't a flooded car max parking lot what was happening not i think it's like it
00:05:02
was like a dumping ground in florida for people the drug mafia you know what i mean oh miami vice
00:05:11
from the tv show miami vice uh and they found 30 fucking cars man like that is But so far they haven't found any bodies.
00:05:22
So I think they're just like stolen cars. Leave it at the airport. Yeah. I mean, why pollute our waterways?
00:05:30
Truly. Any more than you have to. Beautiful Florida waterways. Can we please leave them alone?
00:05:35
I bet things will come out of that because it's like, well, then they'll look up those
00:05:39
VIN numbers and be like, that's where that car was, which means this person never made
00:05:43
it to blank. Right. So far they're only like stolen vehicles, though. They're not like, none of them have any missing persons.
00:05:50
ties yet. So it's just nefarious. Your missing person cold cases do this to me where I like now we need to link this up to one of these Yeah Normally I would be definitive about in the same way I am about ear canals
00:06:08
Just a straight-up expert. That's good enough, you know? I'm in Petaluma. I'm hanging out with my dad, quality time with home gym, quality stuff.
00:06:18
We watch a lot of sports on television. and then I of course kind of check out and just start looking at my phone and watching TikTok
00:06:28
yeah and then he goes what are you doing over there where I'm like oh so I have to watch you're
00:06:34
saying I have to watch he's like why aren't you paying attention to this you have to watch this
00:06:38
golf with me we're just like that's literally like why don't we watch a live cam of a park
00:06:43
because it's very similar like a thing in terms of excitement made probably more exciting I think
00:06:50
I think that's like a sports person thing. You know, like I have some work to do on my computer.
00:06:54
So I'll sit on the couch and Vince will put on like wrestling. And it's like, we're on separate planes now.
00:07:00
Like you're doing your thing and I'm doing my thing. However, he does start to go like, oh, that guy did that.
00:07:04
Like start telling me stories about that guy, you know, the wrestler. And I'm like, you want me to watch this with you?
00:07:10
And so I will. Like I'll watch it with you. But like, I thought we were. Is that when you pick up your laptop and you throw it down on the couch?
00:07:19
I have smashed so many laptops in our relationship. And then throw them into a lake.
00:07:25
That's right. To hide it. Speaking of sports, I was going to tell you that I ran into Stephen Ray Morris at a fucking Dodger game.
00:07:32
Of all people and places. What were either of you doing there? He was with his dad.
00:07:39
So he looked very sporty and like, you know, had a baseball cap on and shit. And I went with Vince.
00:07:44
We went for his birthday. And it just so happened that. Nice. Steven was there that's just Steven living his best life
00:07:51
in your face he's just like loving doing other stuff besides working for you he really shoved it in my
00:07:59
face really did you know how he likes you know how vindictive Steven can get oh my god just vicious vicious to
00:08:07
the core yeah I think here's the thing I don't follow sports but I understand I feel like
00:08:15
sports they have like automatic shimmer moments. Yes. Like going to them live. Yeah. Because it's like, everyone's
00:08:22
excited. Yes, for sure. Hot dogs. Hot dogs. Pretzels. We got fucking nachos. Like everything
00:08:28
about sports are great. Yeah. Wait, let's take a sidebar into what did you eat at the baseball
00:08:33
game? Okay. Oh my God. I kind of went crazy. So we had a Jersey Mike's that we brought.
00:08:39
Did you have to sneak that in? Sorry. Do you have to sneak outside food? No, we brought some in.
00:08:44
no no it was okay okay i had a hot dog dodger dogs i mean cost i love costco hot dogs why can't
00:08:51
costco just supply like the dodger dogs are not good okay but i'd be really careful about this i
00:08:57
know i feel like people are insanely passionate about stuff like this where we are blustering
00:09:02
into territory we we work i am not talking about the dodgers i am talking about the janky ass
00:09:09
fucking hot dogs. And I love hot dogs. I'm a hot dog aficionado. My phone's ringing. It's Elon Musk.
00:09:17
Who is it? He said we're both kicked off of Twitter. It's not Twitter. It's X. Those are
00:09:22
the two messages he told me to tell you. Well, good. Okay. And then we got a mini helmet filled
00:09:28
with nachos, with nacho cheese and pickled jalapenos. Nice. And a pretzel. And we dipped
00:09:35
that pretzel and that nacho cheese. Yes. Like motherfuckers. Now was the pretzel good? Yeah,
00:09:42
the pretzel was good. The nachos were good. You know what I want people to comment is like,
00:09:45
what's your favorite snack at your favorite sporting place? Like I want to show where I
00:09:49
just go to different sports arenas and sure, watch baseball or whatever, but also eat like
00:09:54
Philadelphia obviously probably has really good food in whatever. I'm not even going to guess
00:10:00
what their team name is called. Orioles? Anyway. Are you asking me? Yeah. I've heard of an Oriole
00:10:09
for sure. Isn't it the Baltimore Orioles? Karen, you're right. Baltimore Orioles. Oh no. That's
00:10:16
the worst place to get wrong. Oh no. We have to get out of this danger zone. Okay. We're done.
00:10:24
I'm sorry, Baltimore. Call Kenny Long and get him to get us out of here. This is like, we're just walking along and slapping trap guys across the face and then
00:10:33
expecting things to go great. It's not a good idea. We're smacking ENT doctors. We're smacking hot dog aficionados.
00:10:41
Okay. All right. We're done with this. Let's move on. I saw Steven. It was great.
00:10:45
I do like the idea, though. If you have a sports arena or stadium and you think there's one good piece of food there,
00:10:53
then Georgia and Vince will go on their new Food Network show to tour sport stadium food
00:11:00
around the nation. My dream. It'll be an apology tour. And the first place you'll stop is Baltimore.
00:11:08
I'll never go to Baltimore again. They're going to kill me. Are you kidding me? Oh my God. I'm
00:11:13
sorry. We played in Baltimore. That was that crazy show that had the catwalks. Remember that?
00:11:18
Yeah. It was like we were in an 80s concert video. Yeah. It was an amazing show. Baltimore is the
00:11:25
fucking the best city. I love you guys so much. I love them there forever and ever. Amen. Good job.
00:11:30
Good job. All right. Speaking of Baltimore, we've got some ERM highlights for you.
00:11:37
Okay. Guys, we're just here to tell you a couple of things that are happening on the ERM network
00:11:42
lately. We are so thrilled that you listen to our podcast. We have other podcasts that we adore
00:11:47
that are on this network that if you are ever bored or on a long drive, we'd love for you to check out,
00:11:52
for example, I about to do my own which is hilarious Erin Brown writes these and she setting me up Here what she wrote for me to say Are you listening to Do Need a Ride with Chris Fairbanks and me If not you missing out
00:12:06
I have to say about my own other podcast. We're back in the car this week. And our guest is our
00:12:11
very own Bridger Weineger from I Said No Gifts, who was recently featured in Vulture, a great
00:12:17
article about I Said No Gifts. And in additional Exactly Right Crossover news, Kara Clank and Lisa
00:12:24
Traeger of That's Messed Up and SVU podcast are Roz's guests on Ghosted by Roz Hernandez.
00:12:31
That's a power matchup right there. I keep seeing Lisa Traeger clips on TikTok. Oh my God.
00:12:37
And I fave them every time. I love her. She is just so funny. She's such a funny comedian.
00:12:44
Her standup is amazing. She's so vulgar and like doesn't give a fuck. No. She's so funny.
00:12:52
She's so funny. And she also is so herself. Yes. I was talking to somebody that does sets with her a lot at clubs and stuff.
00:12:58
And they're like, she just destroys every time. And it's because she gets up there and is like, hey, here's my deal.
00:13:04
And everyone's like, yes, we love it. It's so great. So go see Lisa Trager live if you can.
00:13:09
And also, while summer is raging in full effect. Erin. don't forget we have new ssdgm and murderino beach towels for you in the mfm store right now
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along with a bunch of other beloved goodies so go get your beach towel those can be used at the pool
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too oh right so go to myfavoritemurder.com to check those out they transition from beach to
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pool so easily you won't believe it and finally this is one more quick reminder to check out the
00:13:39
trailer for Exactly Right's newest limited true crime series at the end of this episode. It's
00:13:44
called Infamous International, The Pink Panther's Story, and it premieres on Thursday, September 14th.
00:13:51
Please check that out. Please like, rate, review, subscribe, all the above. It's a great show. We're
00:13:57
really excited about it. We're working with these amazing journalists, this awesome company that
00:14:01
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Code FLOW15. This is Ashley I from the Almost Famous Podcast. Can I be honest for a second?
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00:16:11
Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Ear Say, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
00:16:19
This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook Project Hail Mary.
00:16:27
Massive sci-fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone very far from Earth.
00:16:35
I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections.
00:16:43
And it's like, OK, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, no, at this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it.
00:16:55
But there's places in this book that deeply emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic.
00:17:01
That's great. Because it served the story. People will say like, oh, my God, I cried at the end.
00:17:06
It's like, yeah, dude, me too. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:17:15
And you're first, right? I am. I believe I am. Okay. I'm going to start this story by telling you a factoid that might surprise you.
00:17:26
It definitely surprised me when I read it. In a couple of days on August 29th, it's going to be the 18th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
00:17:35
Oh, shit. 18, almost 20 years. Yeah. So insane. And for those of us who were around in 2005, you know, we all remember watching the news that day, just horrifying, just watching New Orleans be devastated.
00:17:52
The destruction was historical. And its after effects of course piled on in the weeks that followed It was heart It was infuriating But today I going to tell you a story that you may not have heard about
00:18:06
It's the story of New Orleans Charity Hospital, and it's almost 300 years of service to the
00:18:12
city's residents, no matter how much money they had in their pockets. If you're from New Orleans, charity needs no introduction.
00:18:21
the hospital's massive Art Deco skyscraper was a fixture in the Crescent City. It was a place so
00:18:27
meaningful to the people of New Orleans that some even called it Mother Charity. As New Orleans
00:18:32
native John Johnston once told a documentary film crew, quote, Charity Hospital gave birth to most
00:18:39
of the citizens of New Orleans and gave life to many dying people here. She stood by our side.
00:18:45
She was here when we came into the world. She was here when a lot of us left. If there's something
00:18:50
to be called your mother, it was Charity Hospital. That's our mom. End quote. Oh, that's heavy. Yeah.
00:18:57
So on August 29th, 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit and the levees broke, the panic and the
00:19:04
suffering and the chaos enveloped the city. But as the waters rose to Charity's emergency room
00:19:09
doorstep, and even after the lights went out, the doctors, the nurses, and the hospital staff there
00:19:15
remained as committed as ever to the people of New Orleans. This is the story of the final days of operation at Charity Hospital New Orleans.
00:19:24
Holy shit. Yeah. So sources used today are the book Charity by Jim Carrier, a Real Stories documentary titled America's Oldest Hospital Abandoned,
00:19:37
and a 2005 Houston Chronicle article by journalist Tony Fremantle titled Trapped Hospital Workers Kept Most Patients Alive.
00:19:48
And the rest of the sources are in our show notes. When Hurricane Katrina hit, Charity Hospital has been in operation for 269 years.
00:19:58
It's one of the oldest continuously operating hospitals on the continent, only rivaled by Bellevue Hospital in New York City.
00:20:06
Charity was established in the 1700s, back when France still controlled Louisiana.
00:20:12
Wow. Yeah. It was founded by a Frenchman named Jean-Louis who allocated a large chunk of his modest estate in his will to creating a safety net hospital that would treat anyone regardless of whether they could pay.
00:20:26
Just like absorb that for a second in today's privatized healthcare system that is ruining the lives of so many people.
00:20:34
This country was established by this kind of charity and forward thinking, and we need to return to it.
00:20:42
So throughout his existence, charity changed hands and buildings multiple times.
00:20:46
But by the early 2000s, when our story takes place, it's part of the Louisiana State University system.
00:20:53
And it never strays from its mission. And throughout the years, it continues to operate as a free hospital.
00:21:00
There's a lot of French names in this story. And I did take French one and two in high school.
00:21:05
But much like when this hospital was founded, it was in the 1700s. So I can't really speak for it anymore.
00:21:13
So Peter W says, quote, nobody asks you, can you pay? Do you have money? That's something that we've never ascribed to.
00:21:20
At a hospital. Yeah. Imagine that. Imagine. Canada. Hey, Canada. So Charity Hospital even spawns a unique safety net medical system across Louisiana with nine additional public hospitals offering free services throughout the state.
00:21:35
and they are at the time the only system of this kind in the entire United States and unfortunately
00:21:43
and sad to say they've all been privatized at this point this this system does not exist anymore
00:21:49
yeah so Charity Hospital provides some of the best health care in the country their physicians
00:21:55
nurses residents and medical staff basically have seen everything you know they treat so many people
00:22:01
and they're able to treat so many people. They've seen everything from the rarest diseases
00:22:06
to the most gruesome injuries. Writer Jim Carrier says, quote, for every death, there were seven saves.
00:22:13
So good was their record that the Secret Service designated Charity Hospital's trauma center
00:22:18
for visiting presidents and popes. Whoa. Yeah. So behind the hospital's ER check-in desk,
00:22:25
a charity has a motto written on the wall in gold lettering, and it says, quote,
00:22:30
where the unusual occurs and miracles happen. That sounds like a fun place to work.
00:22:35
Yeah, it sounds like it needs to be rebooted as a medical drama. And then also through that drama,
00:22:44
it gets explained why privatized healthcare is ruining this country. Okay, that's just a speech my mom used to give
00:22:50
every night at dinners, but I'll go into that later. Now, charity's success rate isn't just chalked up
00:22:56
to exposure and technique. It's also about the staff's dedication to the hospital
00:22:59
which holds a special place in their hearts. Dr. W says, quote, 70% of the doctors that practice
00:23:06
within the state of Louisiana came through the halls of Charity Hospital, 70%. We are committed
00:23:12
to the care of our patients. That's the mission of the hospital, end quote. And Dr. Ben de Bois-Blanc,
00:23:20
who ran Charity's intensive care unit, says, quote, I think it's an understatement to say
00:23:25
I have an emotional connection to Charity Hospital. I first stepped into Charity Hospital
00:23:29
in 1978 when I started medical school, and I never left till the doors were closed.
00:23:35
Wow. End quote. So by the early 2000s, Charity's doctors and nurses are treating a thousand sick
00:23:42
and injured people every day, around the clock, under every conceivable circumstance. And so
00:23:48
to protect the hospital from potential power failures, there are two heavy-duty generators
00:23:53
outside the ground floor emergency wing, fueling a power grid in the hospital's basement, which then supplied
00:24:00
electricity to the building. Most of New Orleans is at or below sea level. It's surrounded by lakes
00:24:06
and rivers. And because it's on the Gulf Coast, it's no stranger to tropical storms and hurricanes.
00:24:12
New Orleans is protected by a levee system, but flooding, of course, still happens from time to
00:24:16
time. Dr. Norman E. McSwain Jr., a pioneering trauma surgeon at Charity, says, quote,
00:24:23
I've waded through waist-deep water several times. It's no big deal. the pump right badass the pumps take it out people who live in low-lying areas have to put
00:24:34
new carpet down every few years but they get used to it end quote dr norman mxwain jr he's just
00:24:42
basically saying if you live in new orleans you're used to flooding storms flooding all these things
00:24:47
that happen but of course in new orleans there's also the lingering fear about the big one the
00:24:54
storm that puts all the others to shame. And with human life at stake, Charity's medical staff knows
00:25:00
they can't afford to leave anything to chance. Hospital leadership routinely begs the Louisiana
00:25:05
state legislature for the money to move that power grid to a higher floor, but their requests are
00:25:11
repeatedly denied. The trend at the state house is to cut Charity's budget, which they do routinely,
00:25:17
not to increase it. So each year, Charity staff prepares for hurricane season the best it can
00:25:23
And in June of 2005, the hospital finds money in its coffers for six portable diesel generators, some extra medicine and saline bags, and enough canned food to supply the entire hospital for several days.
00:25:37
So that's basically their emergency setup, knowing that some storm will happen and just to be prepared.
00:25:43
So now it's the end of that summer. It's Saturday, August 27th, 2005, and a massive storm named Katrina has just moved through Southeast Florida as a Category 1 hurricane.
00:25:56
But as it hits the Gulf of Mexico, where the water's warm, it gets stronger by the hour.
00:26:01
So by 7 a.m. on Sunday, August 28th, Katrina is upgraded to a Category 5 storm with sustained winds of 175 miles per hour.
00:26:11
And it's coming straight at New Orleans with projections showing that it'll pass right over the city's historic French Quarter.
00:26:20
And so the mayor of New Orleans announces a mandatory evacuation of the city. Around 1.2 million people leave New Orleans and the surrounding communities, but an estimated 100,000 stay behind either by choice or because they have no way to leave or no ability to leave.
00:26:38
so 26,000 of these people will seek shelter at the superdome which is a story all unto itself
00:26:46
nightmare story like horrible things that came out of that but at the time when they set it up
00:26:52
it was a refuge and a last resort for a lot of people and meanwhile the staff at charity hospital
00:26:59
it's just business as usual for them before 8 a.m there are already 500 patients checked in
00:27:06
totally unrelated to the impending storm. It's just business as usual for them. And among many
00:27:11
other cases, the staff at Charity is currently tending to gunshot wounds, mental health crises,
00:27:17
strokes, spinal cord injuries, heart attack patients, and women in labor. So there are a
00:27:25
thousand staff members at Charity Hospital on site tending to these patients, and most of them
00:27:31
have packed overnight bags. So they know Katrina's coming. They're prepared. They've gone through
00:27:36
hurricanes before. So they all know they're just going to ride the storm out at the hospital.
00:27:42
No one has any idea how bad it'll be. And to the amusement of his colleagues, an orthopedic
00:27:48
resident named Dwayne Belanger even brings a canoe to work. He of course becomes the butt
00:27:54
of everyone's jokes because they all think he's overreacting. But Charity's staff is prepared.
00:28:00
They've seen these kinds of storms. They know what they can bring and they're preparing to handle it no matter what.
00:28:06
ICU nurse supervisor Henrietta Walt Nunes says, quote, we had made up our minds that
00:28:12
we came in here together and we were going to leave together. It was that spirit that came up.
00:28:17
I might die with a uniform with charity hospital insignia on it, but nobody abandoned their
00:28:22
patients. It became like a spiritual bond. If one leaves, we all leave. And that's what we decided.
00:28:28
Wow. End quote. So around 4 p.m., with Charity's ER full as usual, the rain starts to fall in New Orleans.
00:28:36
But the storm hasn't left the Gulf yet, and this is just a preview of what's to come.
00:28:41
By 7 p.m., the winds are picking up. And at this point, there are now over 1,300 people, staff, and patients in Charity's main hospital building.
00:28:51
Though the storm hasn't made landfall yet, Katrina is influencing the patients in unexpected ways.
00:28:56
Like as the night passes, the hurricane's low pressure system that's incoming reportedly induces labor in six of the pregnant patients.
00:29:07
Oh, no. So that's something to consider. Watch those low pressure systems. Don't storm chase, please.
00:29:15
So early Monday morning, August 29th, Hurricane Katrina makes landfall in southeast Louisiana.
00:29:22
Along the coast, there are storm surges over 25 feet tall. And before long, the ferocious storm hits New Orleans and Charity Hospital.
00:29:31
Dr. Dubois Blanc is working in the ICU at the time. And he says, quote, the hospital was a civil defense shelter during the Cold War.
00:29:39
It's not going anywhere. But it was a little creepy to feel this big, monstrous concrete building vibrating in the wind.
00:29:47
Damn. End quote. Yeah. So at the same time Dr Dubois hears a popping sound followed by the squeaking of nurses shoes on the hospital floor because all around the building wind gusts are blowing the windows out of their window frames oh no in some cases they falling out
00:30:07
several stories down to the pavement crashing glass all below and in other cases they're being
00:30:13
blown inwards through hospital rooms sending shards of glass everywhere holy shit yeah right
00:30:20
I mean, that's when it goes from like, oh, this storm is crazy to the windows are blowing in.
00:30:26
So, of course, the nurses run and turn all occupied beds as far away from the windows as they possibly can.
00:30:33
Over in the trauma wing, Dr. Nick Swain Jr. watches in horror as, quote, water blows sideways in big slats like Venetian blinds through the now empty window frames.
00:30:45
Holy shit. And then the power goes out across New Orleans and inside Charity Hospital.
00:30:52
So the rain's pouring down in sheets. The wind is howling through the hospital halls.
00:30:56
And the collective heart of charity skips a beat as it waits in the darkness. You're in a massive hospital with 1,300 people in it in pitch dark.
00:31:07
No. And like in the middle of people giving birth and people in the middle of surgery.
00:31:13
People on ventilators. Babies in the NICU. I mean, it's a hospital, but thankfully those generators kick in, the lights flick back on, monitors and machines start humming and beeping again, everyone breathes a sigh of relief, but it will be short-lived because within hours, one of Charity's two backup generators is destroyed in the storm.
00:31:35
and when it goes the powers cut again to an entire wing of the hospital an x-ray and operating suite
00:31:42
as well as rooms with ventilated patients are instantly thrown back into darkness and for
00:31:48
patients on those ventilators it's now a life or death situation so the nurses run to those rooms
00:31:54
with what are called ambu bags ambu you've seen them probably on gray's anatomy they're the hand
00:32:01
operated breathing devices. So the patient has a mask on and it's connected to a squeezable bag.
00:32:08
The nurses throw the masks on the critical respiratory patients. They create airflow
00:32:13
and many of the nurses will be sitting there squeezing those Ambu bags for days at a time.
00:32:20
So elsewhere in charity, staffers from every department are now desperately trying to restore
00:32:24
power to the dark wing of the hospital. So even though the hospital has just bought the six
00:32:30
portable generators in anticipation of hurricane season they're still in storage waiting to be set
00:32:36
up and filled with diesel fuel yeah oh no i literally got to that part as i was typing i was
00:32:42
just like oh like just so so rough yeah yeah okay so a group of the strongest staffers
00:32:51
basically they run they go and they're lifting one of the generators it's 500 pounds and they're
00:32:58
lifting it up several flights of stairs up to that wing where the power's out. Yeah.
00:33:04
So Dr. Dubois-Blanc winds up connecting with two residents who are running around with an extension cord.
00:33:10
And here's how he tells it. He says, quote, they literally ran a 12 gauge cord about 300 feet down the hallway, out the window, up to another floor and plugged into, of all places, a Coke machine outlet on the other side of the hospital.
00:33:25
and into that we plugged ventilators using a surge protector and then another surge protector
00:33:31
plugged into that and then another we were running seven or eight ventilators off this one extension
00:33:37
cord the son of a bitch was hot holy shit end quote like did you ever watch nurse jackie just
00:33:45
like the way hospitals run and the intensity where it's like sometimes it's a little bit quiet
00:33:50
And sometimes it's really intense and big things happen. Out of nowhere. Yeah. This is like, you have that.
00:33:57
And then on top of that additional, like now it's 10 times harder. Now it's 50 times harder.
00:34:02
Now it's a hundred times harder. Yeah. And then like, what are you going to do to solve it?
00:34:05
Cause you can't walk out. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And they wouldn't walk out.
00:34:10
So that afternoon, the storm breaks in New Orleans. It's moving North of the city.
00:34:15
There's a sense of peace and quiet. even as the lights continue flickering throughout the hospital, at least the major part of the storm
00:34:23
is over. But for the medical staff in the ICU, including Dr. Dubois-Blanc and Henrietta Walton
00:34:30
Nunes, one thing is obvious. Their sickest patients need to be evacuated to a less damaged
00:34:36
facility as soon as possible. Administrative staffers immediately call city and state agencies
00:34:41
looking for any indication of when rescuers might show up to evacuate Charity's patients.
00:34:47
but they can't seem to reach anyone outside of the hospital. Storm damage has killed communication systems,
00:34:53
and placing a phone call from a cell phone or a landline isn't working no matter how many times they try.
00:35:00
Then one staffer announces he has a receiver and a ham radio, but they still can't connect with any government agencies.
00:35:07
But the receiver does come in handy. Between it and a few hand-crank radios from the hospital's emergency supply kit,
00:35:15
The staff starts getting news updates about what's happening out in the rest of the world.
00:35:21
Throughout the building, teams are huddled around these radios, clinging to every word, and what they're hearing is terrifying.
00:35:28
The power is out for millions. People's homes have been wiped off their foundations.
00:35:33
Many people are stranded and worse. Now everyone is worried about their own homes and families, not just the crises that they're facing there at the hospital.
00:35:43
But Charity's employees know their immediate responsibility is ensuring the health and safety of the 250 patients they're currently caring for.
00:35:52
Not one employee leaves the hospital Not one Wow That incredible It amazing Instead the staff vows to stick by their patients until emergency responders can take every one of them to safety So for now the staff goes back to providing care as usual
00:36:08
But as this day turns to night, there's still no word or plan for an evacuation.
00:36:14
So now it's Tuesday, August 30th. And before the sun rises, the power goes off throughout the entire hospital.
00:36:20
every heart monitor incubator dialysis machine ventilator stops working oh my god yeah and along
00:36:28
with them the air conditioner the plumbing and the running water go out because they're also
00:36:35
connected to that power grid so in total darkness nurses go back to bagging ventilated patients
00:36:42
never taking breaks unless someone can take over for them in the neonatal icu which is called the
00:36:49
NICU. Nurses have to pull premature babies out of their incubators and cradle them in their arms to
00:36:55
keep them warm. Oh my god. By this point, the storm has passed and there's no more rain or wind,
00:37:02
so everyone's expecting the power to kick back on any minute, but it doesn't. And so staffers
00:37:08
armed with flashlights go down into the hospital's basement to see what's going on and they make a
00:37:13
chilling discovery, the basement is completely flooded. The cafeteria and the morgue are both
00:37:20
underwater, and so is their electrical grid. That same one that Charity's leadership had tried to
00:37:26
get moved to a higher floor, and they were denied that funding. So everyone's baffled. Why would the
00:37:32
hospital be flooding now? Katrina has already passed. So again, staffers search the dark
00:37:38
callways, they go back to those radios, only to hear more devastating news. New Orleans levees
00:37:44
have burst. So while the staff had been working through the night, billions of gallons of water
00:37:50
has been pouring into the bowl-shaped city. And when the sun rises, all of the staff looks outside
00:37:57
and what they see is apocalyptic. The city's underwater. The hospital looks like it's set
00:38:02
in the middle of a debris-filled lake. And now newscasters are reporting that the floodwaters could rise another eight feet.
00:38:11
Oh my God. Yeah. So the situation goes from dire to catastrophic. Now staff knows they have to get Charity's
00:38:18
most vulnerable patients to another facility as soon as possible. And then a hospital administrator finally gets word
00:38:26
that FEMA is preparing to evacuate Charity's patients. but there's genuine worry that the water is going to keep rising all the way up to the first floor
00:38:35
emergency unit and dozens of ER patients have to be moved to a higher floor in the hospital
00:38:41
immediately. So hour by hour, as flood water slowly swirls upwards, the doctors and nurses
00:38:47
scramble to set up an improvised emergency room in a second floor auditorium. So now all available
00:38:55
staffers start moving patients out of the ER and upstairs. And for those patients who can't walk,
00:39:01
staff members strap them onto spine boards. And when they run out of spine boards, they strap
00:39:07
them onto broken off tabletops and they move them one by one up the pitch black stairwells.
00:39:13
Oh my God. That sounds so terrifying. It's like legit apocalyptic. Yes. And kind of like, this is a job that's hard enough. So then it's like, if something happens
00:39:26
and you're like, oh, well, you just have to go up, but you have to go up in the dark and with water
00:39:31
everywhere. So you're running around trying to make sure that people are okay in this wing and
00:39:36
that wing. While if you're anywhere near the ground floor, you're either walking on water or
00:39:43
like slippery floor. Totally. For this already worn out staff, this move is extremely stressful
00:39:49
and of course, physically exhausting. When the second floor auditorium is at capacity,
00:39:55
staffers and patients keep climbing all the way up to the ICUs that are on the sixth and twelfth
00:40:01
floors. Oh my God. So as the doctors and nurses care for the rest of the patients without
00:40:07
electricity, they're forced to make difficult decisions. Over in the NICU, for example,
00:40:12
there are two extremely premature babies who require both incubation and breathing support,
00:40:18
neither of which are available in the power outage. Neonatologist Dr. Brian Barkmeyer,
00:40:24
who is caring for these babies, knows that they have to get to a functional hospital as soon as
00:40:28
possible or they'll die. So Dr. Barkmeyer finds the staffer with the access to the ham radio,
00:40:34
and he sends out a signal. And miraculously, this time, he connects with a team of firemen
00:40:40
who are set up on the nearby Interstate 10, which is elevated. So it's a part of this interstate that's above the floodwater.
00:40:50
So if the charity staff can get these babies to the interstate, the firemen are standing by ready to bring them to a more stable hospital.
00:40:58
But the problem is charity is surrounded by waist-deep water. But then Dr. Barkmeyer remembers that canoe that resident Duane Belanger
00:41:09
Jay brought in ahead of the storm. I forgot about the canoe. No longer a joke. Now it's a lifeline
00:41:15
for little tiny babies. This is all about improv. They're like, yes, anding. Yes. This fucking
00:41:23
disaster. It's crazy. And they're doing it like separate from how they feel, separate from what
00:41:32
they're worried about with their own personal lives. Like they're separated from their families.
00:41:36
That part of it must have been absolutely horrible. Yeah. They have to stay and they have to like basically dig in and it's like now they have to treat
00:41:45
their patients like their families. Yeah. It's so rough. And this idea that like I wonder if the resident Duane Belanger was joking when he brought that canoe in I wonder what he was really thinking Dr Barkmeyer rushes down the slick hallways covered now with discarded latex gloves syringes water bottles
00:42:06
until he finds the resident, Belanger, and he explains what has to happen to keep these infants alive.
00:42:13
So Dwayne and two other residents, Alan Butler and Michael Cox, immediately sign on for this challenge.
00:42:19
The four of them grab the canoe and the infants, carry them downstairs, swing open the emergency room entrance door and they place the canoe in the flood water which has
00:42:29
now reached the er ramp and the three residents step in dr barkmeyer decides that the babies have
00:42:36
to be carried one by one which is very smart like very smart i don't know if that would have struck
00:42:44
me at the time yeah he hands off the first child who has a breathing tube in her throat and he says
00:42:50
quote make sure the tube stays in place squeeze the bag about once a second hard enough to make
00:42:56
her chest rise keep the child pink keep her pink oh my god oh my god end quote oh my god
00:43:06
i mean also these are resident doctors they're they're just yeah this is how basically they're
00:43:14
cutting their teeth on becoming doctors. It's incredible. And it's so brave that they volunteered
00:43:20
to do it and they're in it. Here's the good news. The mission is successful. Both of these babies
00:43:26
live and make it to a stable hospital. And this day is filled with many of these highs,
00:43:32
stories of quick thinking, lives saved, set against extreme lows. The worst of which was
00:43:39
around noon that same day, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco's voice comes through those
00:43:46
portable radios saying that New Orleans Charity Hospital has been successfully evacuated.
00:43:52
No. Yeah. And they're like, ah, don't look like it. They're like, they're in total disbelief,
00:43:59
right? Obviously there's been a huge communication error. There's a serious problem.
00:44:03
so everybody grabs those phones they try to contact the state government but there's no signal
00:44:10
also the phone lines of course are jammed because everyone across the city is trying to find their
00:44:15
families their friends so the calls don't go through so they just have to keep trying to call
00:44:21
someone meanwhile charity's medical team works tirelessly to keep hundreds of patients safe and
00:44:27
cared for with no air conditioning, no running water, no lights. Also, it's hot. It's August.
00:44:33
So it's like that humid, sticky, heavy hurricane heat. Yes. Low pressure system, like horrifying. Also, the doctors and nurses can't wash their hands.
00:44:44
Oh, fuck. Yeah. The toilets aren't flushing. Oh, shit. Worst case scenario. Henrietta Walton Nunez says that, quote,
00:44:53
At that point, it was the basic needs, making sure that patients were clean, giving them water, keeping them fed as best as possible, and surviving.
00:45:02
But it was getting kind of hairy because most of the nurses had been working around the clock with no breaks.
00:45:08
We had to kick it into survival mode, end quote. So the doctors are fanning patients who are on the verge of heat stroke.
00:45:16
Nurses are emptying overflowing toilets. Anyone who can is bagging ventilated patients.
00:45:23
Groups of staffers are still hauling the five remaining 500 pound diesel powered generators
00:45:28
up as many as 12 flights of stairs to the ICU. I mean, that's that kind of thing where, you know, when like big guys are always bummed
00:45:37
because they're the people that everyone asks to help them move. I could do a ventilation bag.
00:45:42
I'll do that for a while. It's like, no, no, no. Go back to carrying that 500 pound block.
00:45:46
Yeah. And I bet it wasn't just like nurses and doctors and like that. It was like all of the staff probably, you know.
00:45:53
Oh, everybody. Everybody, yeah. Everybody. Because there's, you know, what is it, orderlies?
00:45:58
There's so many people that work at hospitals that make it go. Mm-hmm. Janitors.
00:46:03
Yes. Kitchen staff, yeah. At the same time, other employees are roving the flooded streets in Dwayne's canoe looking
00:46:11
for abandoned cars to siphon gas for those generators. It's all exhausting work.
00:46:17
the staff are saving the bottled water for the patients, they're forced to hydrate themselves
00:46:23
with IVs. Oh, fuck. So by Tuesday night, everyone's physically and emotionally exhausted.
00:46:30
Of course, they're also dehydrated. They're also overheated. Many staffers choose to sleep on the
00:46:36
roof of the hospital that night, hoping just to catch a slight breeze. They're wrapped in hazardous
00:46:42
waste bags that are serving as impromptu sleeping bags, and they're clinging to the hope that
00:46:48
tomorrow someone will come to help them. So by Wednesday, August 31st, the reality is setting in
00:46:55
that amid the chaos of Hurricane Katrina, Charity Hospital has fallen through the cracks.
00:47:01
No one's coming to evacuate them, and patients are starting to die. Dr. Dubois Blanc remembers
00:47:09
sitting in the ICU with his team, he says, quote, we came to the conclusion that if we were going to
00:47:14
get out, we were going to have to get ourselves out, end quote. They have to do everything. They
00:47:20
have to keep everybody alive, figure out how to escape. It's insane. So in certain wards of the
00:47:26
hospital, staff members and patients start using spare bedsheets to write SOS messages, and they
00:47:32
start hanging them from the building's broken windows. So this was the thing that I remember
00:47:37
most from watching Katrina footage like on CNN, which was people on the roofs of their own homes
00:47:44
hanging signs that say, you know, somebody's bedridden inside, like the kind of help they
00:47:49
needed. That's how long people were stranded. Yeah. You really only saw that on the news. The idea that a huge hospital in that city was doing the exacts
00:48:00
thing is like mind-boggling to me. They had one sign hanging out the window that said,
00:48:04
1,000 plus people and sick babies on the sign in bold, colorful lettering. Everybody's still
00:48:12
trying to place outgoing calls, only now they're not trying to call any government agencies. Now
00:48:17
they're trying to reach members of the media. And by some miracle, an ICU resident named Jeff
00:48:24
Williams gets a hold of CNN. He explained to them what's really going on at Charity Hospital.
00:48:31
And that day, Wolf Blitzer interviews him and Williams tells the world, quote, we have not been able to evacuate almost anyone. We have at least 42 critical patients as of early
00:48:44
this morning. A couple have died and a couple of people have gotten worse, end quote. Damn.
00:48:49
So now, and thank God he was able to do that because there were people watching.
00:48:55
And amongst those watching is a man named Richard Zschlag, who is the CEO of a large Louisiana-based ambulance company.
00:49:04
And he immediately offers helicopters to help evacuate. And at the same time, there's a company called HCA, which runs Tulane's Hospital.
00:49:14
And Tulane's Hospital is only about two blocks away. And so that company contacts Charity's team and lets them know that they can use their helipad.
00:49:25
They're currently doing air evacuations out of Tulane Hospital. They just have to get to Tulane Hospital.
00:49:32
Oh, geez. Right. So basically now the staff has to get their critical patients to Tulane Hospital.
00:49:39
And one canoe isn't going to do the job. so staffers sprint to the er ramp and they flagged down passing boats remember how they were like
00:49:49
people actually going through with like small boats to try to rescue the people that were on
00:49:56
their roofs and whatever so some staffers flagged down some boats and many of them belong to the
00:50:02
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries because they had been rescuing stranded people
00:50:08
So starting with the most critical patients, doctors and nurses, once again, strap these people onto spine boards, restrain their arms,
00:50:16
tape their medical records to their chests. Whoa. Then they carry each patient down those dark stairwells.
00:50:22
Now they're going down. I think it'd be easier to carry someone up. Yeah. Yeah. Then how easy it would be to be going.
00:50:30
I think, I don't know. And also it's pitch black. Dr. McSwain remembers, quote, One cardiac patient was on a pump that weighed 500 pounds and had two feet of tubing.
00:50:41
We had to carry him down five flights without separating them by two feet in the dark.
00:50:47
Oh, my fucking God. End quote. So now it's like that one is almost a combination of the generator challenge and the ICU challenge combined.
00:50:57
It's beyond. It's like superhuman what they were doing. So once they make it to the ER ramp, patients are gently placed on boats accompanied by members of the hospital's medical team.
00:51:08
For the dozen or so babies that need to be evacuated, nurses carry them two at a time, one in each arm.
00:51:15
From here, the boats move through New Orleans' flooded streets down to Tulane Hospital, where waiting medical staff carefully lift them back onto dry land and carry them up several more flights of stairs to the rooftop helipad,
00:51:28
helipad where Dr. Dubois-Blanc and his staff have now set up an impromptu ICU. They continue to
00:51:36
treat patients as they wait for available helicopters. So these trips to Tulane are
00:51:42
harrowing. At one point, Dr. Dubois-Blanc manages to wave down a National Guard truck
00:51:47
that is one of those amphibious ones that can drive through deep flood water. He loads a sick patient inside and they set out toward Tulane, but on the way, the patient
00:51:58
stops breathing. So thinking fast, the doctor stabs a hole in the man's chest to relieve the air pressure.
00:52:05
He would later say, quote, right there in the back of that truck in those floodwaters,
00:52:09
we stuck a big old tube in the side of his chest. We had the wherewithal to bring surgical supplies with us, but we forgot the sedation, the analgesics
00:52:18
and the anesthetics. Good night. End quote, right? As painful as it was, and I'm sure as nightmarish, this treatment saved that patient's life.
00:52:29
Oh, my fucking God. So that night, Dr. Dubois Blanc and his team head back to Charity Hospital,
00:52:35
and inside, they're greeted by groups of staffers trying to console each other with jokes and stories and sing-alongs.
00:52:41
They're just whatever it takes. All around the hospital, medical teams continue working in insane circumstances.
00:52:48
just before midnight a team of two doctors perform an emergency c-section on a pregnant
00:52:55
patient oh one doctor holding a flashlight while the other cuts into the woman's body
00:53:02
the baby and the mother both survive oh my god like c-sections are fucking dicey everything on
00:53:11
that's right when everything's up and running in the best circumstances when everyone has washed
00:53:16
their hands. Oh my God. Yeah. That's the thing I can't get over is like that they were in the least
00:53:24
sterile. Thank you. Sterile circumstances. It's just horrifying. I'm sure they were incredibly
00:53:30
horrified compared to what they're used to dealing with. Doctors continue escorting patients from
00:53:36
Charity to Tulane until 1am on Friday morning when there are no critical patients left in Charity
00:53:42
hospital. At around 3 p.m. that afternoon, airboats and heavy-duty trucks finally show up to evacuate
00:53:49
the rest of the hospital patients Tragically eight ICU patients are lost during these five hellish days after Hurricane Katrina But the other 240 plus patients in that hospital survived Oh my God Yeah So the road to recovery post is a
00:54:12
long and difficult one filled with anguish. Of course, people's lives are not only uprooted,
00:54:18
they're never the same. Yeah. Within days of the storm, 80% of New Orleans is underwater
00:54:24
and across the region, 1 million people are displaced from their homes. 1,400 people lose their lives.
00:54:31
The majority of those were in New Orleans. And to this day, Hurricane Katrina causes
00:54:36
an estimated $125 billion in damage. Oh my God. Yeah. To this day, it's the most expensive storm in US history.
00:54:46
And in today's money, it would be $200 billion. Damn. As New Orleans begins to rebuild,
00:54:52
there are serious efforts to restore Charity Hospital to its pre-Katrina condition,
00:54:57
but to the surprise of many, word spreads that there are no plans to reopen the hospital.
00:55:04
Instead, state-affiliated operators make the controversial decision to build a brand new,
00:55:10
more modern facility. This takes several years. It's a very modern, top-tier hospital that's open
00:55:18
to the public, but to the heartbreak of many in New Orleans, the name Charity is dropped.
00:55:24
The new hospital is simply called University Medical Center, and it is no longer associated
00:55:29
with free health care. In fact, in the wake of Charity's closure, nine of the 10 public safety
00:55:34
net hospitals across Louisiana either close or privatize. Wow. Heartbreaking. Those now private
00:55:42
hospitals are still required to provide indigent care, which means if you can't pay, you still
00:55:48
do get care. But of course, this is in addition to treating patients with private insurance,
00:55:53
Medicaid, Medicare, and it's unclear how this new system has affected healthcare for Louisiana's
00:55:59
poorest and uninsured citizens. Meanwhile, the abandoned charity hospital still sits in the
00:56:05
same location on New Orleans Tulane Avenue. Rumors occasionally will swirl about it being
00:56:11
redeveloped. Dr. Dubois-Blanc, like many of the doctors and nurses in this story,
00:56:17
continues to work in the LSU medical system. And he says, quote, where the unusual occurs and miracles happen,
00:56:25
in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, of course, it has new meaning. Those days following Hurricane Katrina
00:56:31
were our finest hour. Every day, miracles happened. I think the real story of Hurricane Katrina
00:56:38
is not the images that you saw on television. The real legacy is that it peeled away
00:56:43
all that isolates us from each other and allowed for those human-to-human connections.
00:56:49
People say what we did was heroic, but we were just doing our jobs. And that is the story of the staff of Charity Hospital
00:56:56
and their heroism and resilience during Hurricane Katrina. Wow. Can you believe that shit?
00:57:04
Like I tell you, you're on the brink of tears through that entire thing. Your eyes are like that bright blue.
00:57:09
Everyone's going to cry soon. My crying eyes. Well, you know, it's just to have a mother that was a nurse.
00:57:15
You kind of understand the first responder dedication. First of all, it kind of gets to me that I've never heard this ever.
00:57:23
No. Yeah. 18 years. And maybe it was because there were just so many stories. Yeah.
00:57:28
And there was so much national realization of what happened in New Orleans, the disparity of like help and care and watching the race issue.
00:57:40
All of it was so big and awful. and constant. And this idea that throughout all of that charity hospital that was all about the
00:57:53
people kind of no matter what never faltered. No, it's just, it's incredible. I mean, those people
00:58:00
deserve and have deserved huge accolades. Totally. I can't believe I haven't heard that
00:58:06
for sure. It's epic. It really is. I can't believe it's been 18 fucking years. It does not seem that
00:58:12
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01:00:11
hg.com slash ashley hey everyone it's cal penn i'm the host of ear say the audible and i heart
01:00:22
audiobook club. This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of
01:00:27
Andy Weir's audiobook Project Hail Mary, massive sci-fi adventure about survival and science and
01:00:36
what happens when you wake up alone very far from earth. I really had to make a decision because I
01:00:41
caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of
01:00:46
these sections. And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it.
01:00:50
I was like, no, at this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it.
01:00:59
But there's places in this book that deeply emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic.
01:01:06
That's great. Because it served the story. People will say like, oh, my God, I cried at the end.
01:01:10
It's like, yeah, dude, me too. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:01:20
Well, I'm going to take us back even further. Okay. To the late 1800s. Let's start there.
01:01:29
I love it then. I mean, they didn't wash their hands ever. There was no like... They didn't know.
01:01:37
They didn't know. They didn't know. I'm going to tell you the story of Wyoming Madam Del Burke and her brothel,
01:01:45
the Yellow Hotel of Lusk, Wyoming. They say the Yellow Hotel of Lusk, Wyoming was the charity hospital of Wyoming.
01:01:53
Of the late 1800s, Wyoming. In a way, where there was care. There was care and love.
01:01:58
And there was, and you're right. The main source I used for this story is a book by June Reed called Frontier Madam,
01:02:06
The Life of Delburk, Lady of Lusk. And the rest of the sources can be found in our show notes.
01:02:12
I am positive that Alejandro and Hannah, when they were putting these stories together,
01:02:16
were like, here's one institution of care. Now here's another institution of care.
01:02:22
So I'm going to tell you about the Madam Delbert. She's born Mary Ada Fisher on July 15th, 1888
01:02:28
in good old Somerset, Ohio. She doesn't start going by the name Del until she's an adult,
01:02:34
but I'm just going to call her Del because it's easier. So in 1898, when she's 10,
01:02:40
the family moves to the Dakota Territory. They live in a one-room house nicknamed a Soddy
01:02:46
because it's made out of sod. I mean, can you imagine? Yes, I can. It's actually the only widely available building material in the Great Plains.
01:02:58
So it's just basically dirt and grass? Wow. Sod. As a teenager, Adele is known around town as,
01:03:05
quote, the most beautiful girl in Wolf Creek, end quote. So she's gorgeous. She gets engaged at 16,
01:03:12
but for reasons we don't know, the wedding never happens. Then at 17, she gets engaged again. And
01:03:18
this time it works out. She marries a man named Stephen Law in November of 1905. Stephen's 24
01:03:25
years old and a freight conductor for the Great Northern Railway. I think we have to imagine in
01:03:30
our minds that Stephen Law looks like Stephen Ray Morris just because of the mustache. Yes.
01:03:35
and he's on like a freight conductor. Woo woo. You know, Stephen would totally woo woo.
01:03:41
He would love that. Yeah. Except, however, this is where he differs from Stephen.
01:03:46
We don't know much about the circumstances, but Del will later say that he was violent.
01:03:51
So. Oh, that's not. Yeah. Okay. Enough of that. Enough of that. Also, multiple accounts say that Stephen,
01:03:57
who is Canadian, has a low opinion of American women and tells Del about this often.
01:04:03
So like, we do know that in early 1910, now 22-year-old Del was living with Stephen and his sister in North Dakota.
01:04:11
But by the end of the year, she writes to her family, who she still, you know, keeps in touch with, that Stephen's dead, she says.
01:04:17
Oh. Stephen is not actually dead. Okay. But this was easier to explain than a divorce.
01:04:23
I can relate. He's dead. Okay. Can we not ever talk about it again? It's not going to be a conversation.
01:04:31
That's the thing. That's the point. There's a vague, he's dead. And so she moves to the resort town of Banff, Alberta, Canada,
01:04:41
where Vince and I had Christmas a couple years ago. Gorgeous. And she gets a job at the Banff Springs Hotel where Vince and I had Christmas dinner that year.
01:04:52
Was it all fancy and old fashioned? It is like the Shining Hotel. Essentially, it's gorgeous. Wow. So she gets a job there in the early 1900s.
01:05:00
It looks like a fairytale castle. It's in the Canadian Rockies. And it was popular at the time
01:05:05
with wealthy tourists looking to relax. And they'd hang out at the Sulphur Springs, which we also did.
01:05:12
Very lovely touristy town. Nice. One day, Stephen tracks Del down at the hotel and he instigates an
01:05:19
ugly confrontation. But Del's boss protects her, calls the sheriff, and she tells the sheriff that
01:05:26
she and Stephen had divorced and that Stephen used to hit her and the sheriff like steps the
01:05:31
fuck in, sends Stephen away. We never hear from him again. So. Wow. Yeah. So something happened
01:05:37
there. You know what? It's that they were in Canada. Yeah. Yeah. This is a classy country.
01:05:42
Yeah. So in the aftermath of the incident, Del becomes close with the sheriff and his wife and
01:05:46
their son, Willie, who is about her age. Problem is Willie starts to crush hard on Del. She's not
01:05:53
that into it He asked her to marry him a couple of times and she starts to worry that being the sheriff son her saying no all the time is going to be an ish And so she starts to work on an exit strategy to now get the fuck out of Banff because she
01:06:08
being harassed by a boy. So working in the dining room, Del has heard her wealthy customers talking about Alaska
01:06:17
and the gold rush there. And so Del, being practical, wants to make more money than she can as a waitress.
01:06:24
and she also knows her career options are very limited where she is. And she knows that in areas
01:06:29
where lots of men congregate, jobs for women abound. So she uses all that she saved from
01:06:35
her waitressing job to buy a ticket to Juneau, Alaska. The capital. That's right. We know that.
01:06:44
Gold has been discovered near Juneau in the late 1880s and the city has two minds which attract
01:06:49
men. They're mostly single and on their own. So Del, who is now 24 years old, spends only a year
01:06:56
in Alaska, but she makes about 10 grand that year working as a dance hall girl. It's considered
01:07:03
adjacent to sex work, but it's just dancing. And 10 grand in that time is worth about,
01:07:10
in today's money, $300,010. She makes $300,000 a year? In a year. Girl, yes. In the one year she's there dancing.
01:07:21
Who cares what they say? I mean, truly. Yeah. Fuck yeah. Do your thing. Do your dance.
01:07:28
So one of Del's friends from Alaska has settled in Butte, Montana, which is a copper boom town.
01:07:34
So Del and that friend, her name's Bessie, both get jobs in one of the well-regarded high-end brothels in that town.
01:07:41
So they later from Alaska to Butte, Montana. Business is really good there until 1917 when Montana is about to start enforcing prohibition.
01:07:51
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So she's an avid reader. She stays on top of the news. She's like, I know what's going on.
01:07:57
Let's get the fuck out of here. So she and Bessie look for somewhere more tolerant,
01:08:01
and they find the oil towns of Casper, Wyoming. So in 1918, Del is now 30 years old. She and Bessie
01:08:09
settle in Lusk, Wyoming. And she says that the reason she picked Lusk is because she misreaded
01:08:16
as Lust. And she was like, well, that's a great place to set up a brothel. Perfection.
01:08:23
But she also knows it's strategically located on the railroad near a new oil pipeline,
01:08:28
as well as a new uranium mine. So she's like a businesswoman. She knows what she's doing.
01:08:33
Yeah, she's smart. Yeah, she's smart. Here she also settles on the name Dell. So this is when she officially
01:08:38
takes her name, Del. So Del and Bessie first pitch a tent across from the railroad depot,
01:08:44
and they work out of that tent. I'm imagining more like a big old army tent. At least five feet to walk in. You don't have to bend all the way over at the waist to walk in.
01:08:54
You gotta hope. Also, it's really funny to put a tent up across from the train depot, where it's just like,
01:09:01
it's over here. This away. Yeah, that's right. So two years later in Lusk, 32-year-old Del
01:09:08
finally buys a property on the same location across from the depot and builds the Yellow Hotel.
01:09:15
It's a two-story stucco building that's painted, you guessed it, yellow. Yep. Sorry.
01:09:22
No, you're right. And it's an old, tiny, like, Western hotel building. Like, you see it in your mind's eye.
01:09:28
You watch Tombstone. Like, you know what the old-timey buildings look like. Yeah.
01:09:31
So her friend Bessie contributes some money towards the purchase of the hotel, although it's in Del's name on the title, and she puts most of the money down. So Bessie,
01:09:42
unfortunately, like many sex workers of her era, struggles with a laudanum addiction.
01:09:47
So shortly after buying the hotel, Bessie moves away. When she comes back, she's very frail,
01:09:52
and Del takes care of her until Bessie dies in 1929. So very sad. But Del is entrepreneurial.
01:10:00
She's made a fair amount of money, so she can invest in the hotel. She decorates it with
01:10:04
fine fabrics and beautiful furnishings. The first floor is divided by a center hall with two sides.
01:10:11
And on one side, there's a client waiting room. There's a bar and a bathroom and a laundry room.
01:10:17
And on the other side is Del's apartment. And upstairs, there are 10 rooms where Del's
01:10:22
employees meet with clients. Be hard to sell that as like a single family home after.
01:10:29
Right. Which of the 10 rooms? It's a 10 in one. One bathroom, 10 bedrooms. How many kids do you have?
01:10:36
Look at you being entrepreneurial too. I love real estate. So shortly after the yellow hotel opens,
01:10:44
Wyoming enforces its own ban on alcohol. And then six months after that, prohibition goes into effect nationwide.
01:10:50
But Dell quickly establishes good working relationships with local bootleggers and the yellow hotel develops a reputation for serving clean whiskey.
01:11:00
Oh yeah. Del herself doesn't drink. She doesn't permit her employees to drink while they're working.
01:11:06
And in addition, Del instructs her employees to dress conservatively, but beautifully when
01:11:11
walking around Lusk and has them in understated makeup. So she's like making it a classy joint.
01:11:18
You know what I mean? It's also kind of smart to play it way down. And then it's almost like it's a little bit lustier.
01:11:24
That's right. Luskier. It's a little secret. It's luskier out there than Lusk. But they still stand out from the other women in town because the other women are like, you know, cow women and they're all windswept and outdoorsy.
01:11:36
But they'll cultivate a dignified look. You can't call them cow women. I don't know.
01:11:41
I can't say cowboys. That's not that's not correct. Oh, I see. I see. Sorry. I see what you mean.
01:11:47
But I didn't want to say cow girls. We're women. What do you think I meant? I don't know.
01:11:52
I thought you meant kind of like prairie women. Yeah. I don't know. Could be that, too.
01:11:58
Cow women, you can see. negative. Does it? Oh, like I'm calling them cats. No, that's not what I meant. Shortly after opening
01:12:07
the hotel, Del starts to form a close relationship with a dude named Jerry Dahl, who makes repairs
01:12:12
at the hotel from time to time. So they start, you know, dating. Handyman. Oh, yeah. Gotta date the handyman.
01:12:19
Got to. Over the next decade, some people in the town complained about the Yellow Hotel,
01:12:24
but most tolerate it. The residents of Lusk know that in towns without saloons, where sex workers are prosecuted more forcefully,
01:12:32
the men who work in the oil fields are more likely to harass local women, which is such a sad, fucked up fact where it's like,
01:12:39
yeah, you got to, these cow men. Dell's hotel is usually fined about $100 a month,
01:12:47
which is like $1,700 in today's money. You know, just kind of like a little payoff, it seems.
01:12:53
Yeah. Which she can afford. In the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, Lusk doesn't suffer quite as badly as other parts of the country because the oil industry
01:13:03
insulates the town from the worst of the depression. That said, times are still tight.
01:13:08
And in 1929, the Lusk light and power generator fails and the town is without water or electricity.
01:13:16
Like they can't afford to keep it up. So Dell loans the town. She goes to fucking city hall
01:13:22
into like the town meeting and loans the town money to replace the generator and effectively controls the town's water and power for decades after because of it.
01:13:33
Genius. Yes. Genius. When neighbors occasionally complain about the brothel over the next decade or
01:13:40
two, Del reminds them that she could always call in her loan and shut down the town's lights.
01:13:46
Wow. Uh-huh. So city officials eventually redraw the city limits, putting the yellow hotel outside
01:13:52
of them so they don't have authority over it anymore. Essentially. Gerrymandering.
01:13:58
Yeah. Essentially they're like, we use this place. So why would we shut it down? I'm sure.
01:14:03
Yes. You know? Yeah. Okay. Like she has shit on everyone. Yeah. In 1933, prohibition ends and this ushers in the golden age of the yellow hotel. Authorities no
01:14:13
longer bother Del. Everything's legal, what she's doing. And they also don't want Del to turn the
01:14:18
lights off. Outside the hotel, it's still the depression. People are suffering. Del helps in
01:14:24
whatever way she can. The town sees an influx of transient men looking for work and Del employs
01:14:29
several of them on odd jobs around the hotel. And she feeds hungry men from the hotel's kitchen.
01:14:35
She's a fucking community leader. She's yeah, she's great. When Del walks around town,
01:14:40
she usually walks by herself or with her Pekingese dog. That's like her fucking thing,
01:14:46
which is the second story in a row that has had Pekingese dogs. Oh, that's right.
01:14:51
Isn't that weird? Yes, that's right. They're a very popular breed. Yes. So she doesn't speak to anyone unless spoken to first.
01:14:59
She knows that like, she can't be like, hey, Dave, when he's with his wife or whatever,
01:15:03
right? Like, then it'll be known. She's in church waving back to the different people that she's, yeah.
01:15:09
Hey, Pastor, what's up? Hey, what's up? So when she hires a new employee, what she does is she has that employee take the dog out for a walk so that everyone knows this is the new girl in town.
01:15:23
Like, come to the hotel because we got a new girl in town. Genius. Genius. Yeah.
01:15:28
And then in the 1940s, the oil boom had initially been fading, but then World War II creates increased demand for fuel.
01:15:36
A new air base nearby brings in a steady stream of customers. I mean, this chick is fucking killing it.
01:15:43
She's becoming one of the wealthiest women in Wyoming. Also, I really love how she kind of like tried a bunch of stuff, pivoted, was like, this doesn't work, this.
01:15:53
She made a mistake, the lust mistake that actually then insulated her from what almost the entire rest of the country went through.
01:16:00
But she was lucky enough to be in like a rich area, a place that was insulated from that horrible, like everyone losing everything.
01:16:09
Like there's prohibition. So many bars go bust because of that. There's the Great Depression.
01:16:14
There's the war. There's the this and she's fucking fine. Yeah. It's pretty amazing.
01:16:19
It's great. After the war, renewed demand for oil and the post-war economy keeps the Yellow Hotel busy as well.
01:16:26
Then the Korean War begins and those two military bases rev up again, bringing even more business to the Yellow Hotel.
01:16:34
Like this chick has got love She got her spot It like she got a spot in Vegas or something but Lusk So by now the hotel is well known across the state and Del herself is also well known
01:16:46
While in person, she's quiet and discreet. She is an entrepreneur and she widely advertises with
01:16:52
highway billboards, let's say Del Burke's hotel. So like she's a known person as well.
01:16:58
Other similar brothels have been shut down. So some people feel a bit proud to have this piece
01:17:03
of the Old West still around. Yeah. Because it's the 1950s at this point. And this is from like the early 1900s.
01:17:09
And it's kind of like historical, right? Yeah. Yeah. Other people, of course, are less supportive.
01:17:16
That said, Del is also well known because she's a member of the Chamber of Commerce.
01:17:20
And she gives very generously to every church and charitable cause in town. That's right.
01:17:27
Paper those MFers. Give them what they want. Money. Every year she pays for several students' college tuition as well.
01:17:36
Yeah. Smart. That's right. So Del also invests in real estate and stocks and invests in a few other businesses in Lusk.
01:17:43
She is by this point very wealthy. So she has to keep a low profile in town because it's, you know, modest, low profile city.
01:17:51
But when she and her fucking hot handyman boyfriend, Jerry, travel and she makes frequent trips to Cheyenne and Denver,
01:17:59
she actually keeps a supply of beautiful rich clothing and fur coats to wear while she's out
01:18:08
of town where she can actually show off so she's like into the finer things she's very fucking
01:18:12
aware that no one wants to see her showing off in lusk and so she takes her fucking arm candy
01:18:18
gets out of town and dresses up and then she just goes for it in denver yes right you know denver
01:18:25
Yes. So in 1955, she suffers a blow when her hot handyman boyfriend, Jerry, dies of a heart attack while driving his car, sadly. She's now in her 60s, and she's always remained in touch with her family. At this point, they call her Marie. They come to visit her at her, now her ranch that's outside of town. They just think Aunt Marie owns a really successful hotel. They have no idea. She's a madam, which I like to love.
01:18:54
In the 70s, all of the booms have died down. Lusk's population has gone from 10,000 in the 30s and 40s to about 1,400, which is a bummer.
01:19:05
Most of Del's business now comes from tourists who come during elk and antelope hunting season
01:19:12
and from cowboys who come from South Dakota, Nebraska, and other parts of Wyoming.
01:19:18
So by 1978, Del is turning fucking 90. Oh. She's finally winding down the business after 60 years in operation.
01:19:29
Uh-huh. In 1979, she slips on an icy sidewalk, breaks her hip. She closes the hotel for good and moves into an assisted living facility.
01:19:38
When she's first assigned to a room, her roommate fucking clutches her pearls and is horrified to learn that she'll be bunking with the famous Del Burke, owner of the Yellow Hotel.
01:19:49
what kind of a true asshole do you have to be where it's like you will have stories every night
01:19:56
until you pass over that's right make a friend that's why a different woman gladly moves in with
01:20:02
oh great she's like over here please yep come sit by me on another occasion a volunteer stops by
01:20:09
del's room and asks if she'd like to read the bible and del tells her quote get the hell out
01:20:15
up my room and turn the TV on as you leave. So she's our best friend. Yes. At this point,
01:20:22
hospital workers have to call in Del's family to come help take care of her. And this is when they
01:20:27
all find out that Aunt Marie is the famous Del Burke. Some of them clutch their pearls and are
01:20:33
horrified. I'm sure the older generation and I'm sure the younger generation are fascinated by it.
01:20:39
It's like finger guns into the ceiling. It's a little bit like my dad and I were watching
01:20:44
TV last night and we were watching something on PBS. And my dad goes, oh, I know that guy.
01:20:50
I saw him at Woodstock and I go, what? You went to Woodstock? And he goes, hell no.
01:20:57
He was just lying for fun. He was fucking with Jim. And it was like two seconds I thought that I'd uncovered like a mysterious past story from my
01:21:08
dad's life. Jim's got jokes. Jim's got jokes. He knew how funny it would be of like, of course I
01:21:13
didn go to Woodstock It everything I stand against I love that That right That right So Adele dies of natural causes in 1981 at the age of 93
01:21:25
And it said she dies as one of the wealthiest women in Wyoming. Yes. Yes. The Yellow Hotel is so widely known in the region. And here's a tidbit of trivia that fascinates me and will fascinate you.
01:21:37
3,000 people came to Lusk for the estate sale of the Yellow Hotel. Can you imagine what was in that?
01:21:44
I have a couple of pieces of information. First of all, that's twice the town's population that came to her estate sale.
01:21:50
No one was ready. No one was ready. No. The room keys each go for around $150. Yeah, they do.
01:21:58
And that's in the beginning of the 80s. A metal ashtray with a saucy picture on it goes for more than $400.
01:22:04
And like everyone, just so you know, you go to a estate sale, it's for deals. Like this is expensive.
01:22:09
You would not pay that at a normal estate sale. Right. Right. The internal bell system, which sex workers would use to signal that they were ready for a new client, sells for $850.
01:22:20
Wow. A velvet wall hanging inspires a fierce bidding war. It goes for well over $1,000. And in today's money, that's $3,362.
01:22:29
So people were there to spend money. Yeah, they were. And also it's a velvet painting.
01:22:35
Yeah. That is kitsch. Kitsch upon kitsch. I mean. Truly. And like the original. It's not like some guy did it to make it seem cheesy.
01:22:44
It's like, no, no, this is from a Wyoming brothel. Enjoy. And it's seen some shit.
01:22:49
Yeah. So at the sale, Del's grandniece, she's 39. We have to assume that she's cool as shit.
01:22:57
Like, awesome. Because she goes to the estate sale. Her name's Lorraine. And she says, quote, I only found out about her real life two years ago.
01:23:05
The notoriety has taken some getting used to, but I'm having a great time. I bet.
01:23:10
So she was like, cool. Yes. Auntie Del is cool. Yes. Lots of locals from town work the estate sale, and the town of Lusk generally embraces Del's
01:23:21
story in a way that they, of course, never really did openly while she was alive.
01:23:25
So they understand it's part of history. At the estate sale, the auctioneer, a Lusk local, says, quote,
01:23:32
Everybody knows what she did for a living, but she was widely accepted. She did a lot of good things.
01:23:37
she was certainly no drawback to the community. Hell no. In a 1973 interview a few years before her fall,
01:23:44
Del reflected on her relationship with the town, saying that after 1930, quote, no one's ever really threatened to shut me down.
01:23:51
Maybe it's because I know too much for everybody's good. Unfortunately, in the following decades,
01:23:57
the Yellow Hotel falls into disrepair. And in 2012, the town of Lusk burns it down
01:24:02
because it's deemed a hazard. Oh. Which sucks. Yeah. And that is a story of Del Burke, an entrepreneur who leveraged every big moment of the first half of the 20th century to grow her business and support her community.
01:24:17
Yeah. Del Burke. Another one I've never heard of or even like the slightest reference to.
01:24:24
That was great. I love that story. The book is called Frontier Madam, The Life of Del Burke, Lady of Lusk, if anyone wants to read that.
01:24:33
So great. Yeah. So before we go, I just want to say, I know everyone's been seeing this horrible, devastating fire on Maui and what happened to the town of Lahaina, which is so horrible.
01:24:47
I know on this podcast, I've talked about going to Hawaii so many times. It's one of my favorite places to go and the idea that that happened there.
01:24:58
And it's just so sad. If you can do anything, please donate to the Maui Strong Fund.
01:25:03
And you can find information at hawaiicommunityfoundation.org to donate. And Georgia, if you're good with it, we're going to donate $10,000.
01:25:14
And please consider not going on vacation to Hawaii because they don't have the services
01:25:18
and they don't have the support system they are trying to grieve. I mean, it's really amazing to see the way the Maui community and the other islands are
01:25:28
coming together to get supplies over there to make sure people have generators, water, food,
01:25:34
all those things. That's Hawaii. That's that community. Definitely. It's so devastating. I'm glad we can send that money over there.
01:25:42
Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, thanks for listening, everyone, and being here and being a part of it.
01:25:49
I really enjoyed both of these stories today A lot of good inspiring stuff to think about That us the feel good podcast that you know and love You know how we are Super positive All right Well stay sexy
01:26:04
And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? You can't get on a plane with a million dollars in cash.
01:26:18
Someone is going to stop and ask you questions. But you can fit a million dollars worth of diamonds in your pocket.
01:26:24
I'm Natalia Antalama. I'm a journalist based in Eastern Europe, and I'm going to take you into the world of Serbia's most infamous jewel thieves.
01:26:40
The amount that they're pulling in these two-minute heists is so astonishing. It's like magic.
01:26:47
They're called the Pink Panthers, and this is their story. They wanted to be known all around the world.
01:26:54
They were brazen. They entered the jewelry shop in Paris, threw out a magnum and a grenade,
01:27:00
and then they escaped with about $100 million in jewelry. And they seemed virtually untouchable.
01:27:06
You know, in Serbia, these guys were connected with very powerful people. But when the heists are this spectacular...
01:27:14
They entered, they stole the stuff, they were out of there within 32 seconds. And there is this much money.
01:27:19
If you've got a 10-carat flawless diamond, basically you're talking about a million-dollar stone.
01:27:25
So they break the window like this, and they have taken an egg slice. It was maybe three millions.
01:27:31
It's very, very smart. Someone's bound to come after you. He did a couple of heights, one of them pretty spectacular,
01:27:40
but he didn't have the reason to believe that someone would want to kill him in Serbia.
01:27:45
From Exactly Right Media, a Best Case Studios production. So destiny of one good Pink Panther is a lot of money, a lot of fast money, prison 100% for sure.
01:27:58
This is Infamous International, the Pink Panther's story. After the prison, again fast money and again prison.
01:28:06
Follow Infamous International, the Pink Panther's story on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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My Fave Murder. Goodbye. This episode is brought to you in part by Vital Farms. Have you noticed
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