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Mission: New Orleans Page 2 of 3 Wagenpfeil gives a running commentary as his patrol car makes its way through the various districts: There's the high school where my father went. ThaYs the ferry I used to take every day. Those are some of the houses 1 visited as a medic. "These were my old stomping grounds," he said, as the washed-out houses slipped by. "It's tough." He's had a difficult time with the hurricane even in Minneapolis. His mother rode out the storm in a hospital, and he and his wife just have relocated her to a home in Baton Rouge. That pales in comparison to the blows the New Orleans officers have taken. While on patrol, the caravan swings by the house of one of the officers in the woif pack, lust a day or so before it was unreachable in 4 feet of water, so he stops to get a first look. VISITING HOME �. s his colleagues stand on the street stili mushy with slime, the officer and his partner don boots, grab a plastic bag and sledgehammer and trudge into the blackness and muck. They return 20 minutes later, covered in sweat and grime and looking a little dazed. They dump on the car hood a white case, a pistol and framed set of four police badges. Nobody says a word as the two change into clean clothes. Nobody asks what they've seen. Nobody wants to intrude, After a few minutes, the officer blurts out: "Hey, if you need a beer, there are a few in the fridge." I t relieves the tension. The patrol stops a number of people not obeying the dusk-to-dawn curfew. They check the identifications of some people headed back to their house, question one man who was apparently locking up his house, and another standing next to his SUV in front of a looted grocery store. The last one is a guy in his 20s, cooperative, saying he was checking on his family's business. It's close to midnight and he has a bottle of booze in his vehicle — factsthat make the story a bit iffy. The pistoi police spy in his car causes some concern, but officers let it ride, saying Louisiana law allows guns in cars in some instances. At 1:30 a.m., the patrol finally heads to its makeshift headquarters: an elementary school in the Algiers section, which the New Orleans police have renamed Camp Victory. Katrina hammered the school, breaking many windows and causing enough structural damage to warrant condemnation. But police have set up cots and sleeping bags In rooms that still have air- conditioning. And in the cafeteria, teams hold daily briefings as off-duty officers sprawl on couches watching football on the wide-screen N and the hungry ones pick through boxes of granola bars, Cheerios and beef jerky for snacks. TWIN CITIANS REST For many of the Twin Cities personnel, however, rest is in RVS parked in the front field — or in pup tents sweltering from the evening heat. By 10 a.m. Sunday, patrols are out again — this time with Ramsey County sheriff's deputies. One group patrols the Algiers neighborhood, talking to residents and military patrois to get an idea of who's been causing trouble. At one point, the team is alerted to a report of a white power group terrorizing blacks. The other group helps pick up dead bodies identified by boat patrols after the flooding. Deputies either go into houses to help retrieve them, or keep watch in case criminals fire on the team. On Sunday, deputies went to the entrance of the Pontchartmin Park community near Dreux Avenue. They're there to recover a body trapped in a house several blocks away. Ramsey County Undersheriff George Altendorfer grabs an AR-15 rifle and climbs into a military truck to help an Army soldier protect a team of eight recovery personnel and their Zodiac motorized boat. Recovery workers have been picking up three to four bodies a day, but they expect to pick up severai more that day. It's grim, at times dangerous work — especially in hot conditions that could give a boat crew heat exhaustion or expose them to toxic contaminants in the water. "And there are other peopte taking pot shots at them," says 48-year-old Ramsey County sheriff's Lt. Douglas Biehn OFFICERS CLEAN UP � 1� 1k�7;r'� �'w�++ iuwil7�i±i �:�. � t�❑l1�SS I�1;'pi�i7��:r�+re��' ��}t}LM 5?�.�ltr[i?I�:LtiF7�'r1LL'� �{]Il'_�Il L�'�i hLI LLI L'tii� rint�L«r}�,j .- �; �'�?:�}f�Q�