BANGOR (AP) – Two game wardens from Maine who helped search for bodies in New Orleans will return to the hurricane-ravaged city on New Year’s Day for a second two-week assignment.

Warden Sgt. Roger Guay of Greenville and Warden Wayde Carter of Machias witnessed the despair of residents of the city’s Ninth Ward who were permitted to return to their neighborhoods and see for the first time the destruction left by Katrina.

“You could hear screaming and crying and shrills of agony in every direction,” Guay said.

The two wardens, part of a team that included their cadaver dogs, told the Bangor Daily News that none of the gruesome deaths they have seen during their careers in Maine could prepare them for what they encountered in New Orleans.

“You can’t smell the smells on television or (in) the newspaper, but when you step outside that truck and start walking through those buildings, you can see that everybody’s lives that they once knew was completely gone,” Carter said.

The team found three bodies last month, including that of an elderly woman discovered near her wheelchair. The dogs indicated that there were bodies or body parts under large debris piles, which the wardens plan to check out during their January trip.

Climbing under, over and through gooey sludge and debris was stressful and dangerous for the handlers and their dogs, Carter said. On his first day, Guay reached down to remove debris and sliced his leather glove and hand. A piece of steel got embedded in the eye of Carter’s German shepherd, but a veterinarian pronounced the dog fit to return to work within 24 hours.

Guay said much remains to be done to get the Ninth Ward back together, and part of the process is bringing closure to those with missing loved ones.

“The mind-set that things are getting back to normal is not reality. There’s nothing to get back to normal with,” Guay said of the stricken residents. “For them, the crisis is not over, and they think the world has forgotten them.”

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