NATCHEZ &045; There are many tales of selflessness service in post-Katrina New Orleans, but not many of them involve the protagonist staring into the spotlight of an infrared Kiowah helicopter.

Yet that’s just where one midnight a couple of weeks ago found Kenny Bellau.

The erstwhile home renovater and professional cyclist was walking down the street with a can of gasoline he had pilfered from a friend’s garage.

&8221;It came on me so fast, I just stopped in my tracks,&8220; Bellau said. &8221;I thought they were going to shoot me right there.&8220;

It’s a good thing for the city’s recovery efforts that the helicopter spared him.

The gas Bellau (rhymes with mellow) had taken was going to fuel boats he was using to help the National Guard rescue an estimated 400 people from the swamps of Orleans Parish.

Bellau was on his way back from a bike race in French Guyana when Hurricane Katrina altered his travel plans.

After holing up for a few days with his Herring Gas teammate Frank Moak in Brookhaven, Bellau decided he had to go home.

&8221;I felt like there was nothing else in the world I should be doing,&8220; he said. &8221;I had a list of people to check on.&8220;

After talking his way into the city and finding his uptown home dry, he set about checking down his list.

He spent the first day with a group of recovering addicts from a halfway house who shared Bellau’s mission.

His group decided they couldn’t handle the stress, so they gave Bellau the keys to &8221;their&8220; 24-foot Skeeter and he set off alone.

That didn’t last long.

&8221;The military came up to me and said, &8216;hey, we need to commandeer your boat,’&8220; he said. &8221;They said, &8216;you from here? Well, we need to commandeer you also.’&8220;

The unit got another three boats and the rescuing began.

Sergeant First Class Leo Boeche was in charge of making sure the 2nd Battalion, 185th Army National Guard troops stationed in the Sophie B. Wright School on Napoleon Avenue had everything they needed to successfully execute their mission.

&8221;When we first got there, I had 400 guys with backpacks,&8220; he said. &8221;The first day there, I walked out and started looking for civilians. I needed everything. One of the guys I ran into was Kenny.&8220;

Bellau became the guide, conduit and occasional interpreter to the California-based guardsmen.

&8221;As far as a civilian helping out a military operation, pretty much whatever I was looking for, he was instrumental in helping me find it,&8220; Boeche said.

Bellau and his four-boat flotilla, pulled people out of houses and prevented looting, the former being as difficult as the latter.

While his platoon never exchanged fire with looters, Bellau did see the bodies of people who had earlier refused to leave their homes.

Bellau, 37, praised his younger compatriots. &8221;Those kids were so honest and caring and compassionate,&8220; he said. &8221;Anytime we ran into an elderly person, no matter what our timeline was, they didn’t want to leave.&8220;

The soldiers were rotating in and out of patrol duty, however, while Bellau went day after day.

It took a toll on him.

&8221;Every day, I would think, &8216;this is my last day, I can’t do this anymore, it’s too depressing, too gruesome,’&8220; he said.

Then, he’d drop the soldiers off at Sophie B. Wright school, hear their requests for tobacco and the commanders’ plans &045; of

which Bellau was to be an integral part &045; and, well,

&8221;I couldn’t ever tell them no.&8220;

So he’d return the next day and do it all over again.

The waters subsided and the various security forces got a tighter grip on the city, and Bellau returned to normal life, whatever that is.

Although in Natchez on Day 45 &045; that’s Friday to the rest of us &045; to relax with a balloon ride, he’ll be back in the Crescent City on Monday, ready to get back to work at his new career. Once a restorer, Bellau is now a demolisher, gutting houses with an uncertain view of the future.

&8221;All of my family’s houses, they’re all ruined, but we don’t know if we should start tearing them out or tearing them downŠ If they’re not going to build the levees up high enough, there’s no sense in rebuilding.&8220;