Katrina: Some Stayed
Aug. 29th, 2010 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
infrogmationLike more than 80% + of the population of the city, I bugged out just in advance of Hurricane Katrina 5 years ago. Those who didn't, and lived to tell about it, often have some interesting stories. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of these stories have made it into print, web sites and blogs. Hundreds of thousands more stories haven't. Below are a few excerpts from some of the many stories I've heard from friends, acquaintances, other New Orleanians I've talked with.
I've left them anonymous, identifying only the part of town needed for context. I've put them in quotes, but these are from memory and I don't claim to recall everyone's exact words.
Uptown:
"After being stuck in the car for 12 hours when we evacuated for Ivan the year before, my mother absolutely refused to leave the house. We decided we couldn't leave her here alone and stayed with her. As the storm started getting worse, she started comparing it to other hurricanes. "Hm, this about like Hurricane Andrew, 1992." "Now it's like Camille, 1969." "Getting worse. Now it's like the Great Storm of 1947". Finally after it was over, she proclaimed, "That was exactly like the Great Storm of 1947. Of course, I learned from MY mother that the Great Storm of 1915 was even worse!"."
Treme:
"In the storm, the house started shaking like crazy. Good thing [roommate] is a contractor. He knows all about old buildings, he said, "The roof is going to blow off if we don't act quick!". He had us all run up to the attic, nailing boards and reinforcing things. A house across the street collapsed, but we made it through."
New Orleans East:
"My house flooded like everybody else. In the storm the water went over my head. Had to climb on top of things in the dark. After the weather was clear, next day, the water level went down to my chest, about my armpits, then it stopped going down. I waded and swam, and made it to the ramp of the I-10. I walked up and it was dry, and started walking towards the city [center]. After a while a police van came up, picked me up with some other people. They said they were taking us to the Convention Center, where there'd be shelter and buses to evacuate us. I thought, "OK, the worst is over." But no, the worst hadn't started yet."
Uptown-Freret:
"The morning after the storm, we went out to look around. There were trees down, shingles and nails in the streets everywhere. On the radio there were reports that some parts of town were flooded, but it was fine here. We started cleaning things up. Then mid-day, we started hearing strange gurgling sound. Water started coming up from the storm drains. It started filling the street. I thought "I'd better move the car to be safe", in case it floods. I went in the house to get the keys, and when I came back out it was already too late, the water was over the wheels. It kept coming up until it was ankle deep inside the first floor of the house [raised 3 feet above street level]."
Gentilly:
"When my neighbor gets back to town, I need to thank him for building a new wooden fence a week before the storm. A section of it blew loose, and I floated on it in the water for a day. It saved my life."
SuperDome:
"Yeah, it was scary when the roof started to blow off, and we didn't know if the whole thing was about to collapse. But after the storm passed, it wasn't so bad. I mean it was bad, sure. Hot, sticky, just barely enough food and water. Bathrooms didn't function after the first day. What a mess. But all this talk about criminal gangs running wild, I never saw any of that myself. Really, the worst of it was that as it went on day after day after day, we became more and more sure that they were just going to leave us all there to die."
Uptown (Sliver by the River):
"The city running water had stopped working, and the reports on the radio, things were just getting worse, and so we knew we had to get out. We took both cars 'cause there were so many nails and things in the streets we figured if we were lucky we could make it out with one. We spent hours trying to clear paths, getting a block, then finding a tree or something in the street we couldn't move and doubling back. Finally we got to Tchoupitoulas [Street], somehow with both cars. Got to the [Crescent City Connection] bridge [across the Mississippi River and out of town]. The police waved us through, told us to drive across the bridge quick, don't stop. Along one side of the bridge were all these people without cars, the police weren't letting them through. They were out in the sun. It looked like Biafra [African famine]. I remember seeing one woman, staggering like she could barely walk, dragging a cardboard box with babies in it."
Crescent City Connection Bridge:
"People were on this side of the bridge, we heard it was the only way out, but police kept turning people back. A bunch of us tried to walk across together. There was old and young, black and white, mothers with babies, all kinds of people. We got more than half way across. The Gretna Police blocked the way, took out their rifles and started yelling at us with bullhorns: "This is not New Orleans" "Go back where you came from" "We will shot you" "New Orleans is not welcome". They fired over our heads and started yelling the most vile obscenities you ever heard, and "Turn around now, or we will shoot you". We pulled back."
Convention Center:
"After a few days, some of the gangs actually started bringing in food from stores they looted to share. Lots more people would have died if they hadn't done that. They started trying to impose some order. Some little girl got raped, and the gangsters killed the guy who did it. Even crack dealers don't like anyone who'd rape a little girl."
"One day, we saw some police cars and some Kentwood bottle water trucks coming up the road. Folks were cheering, "They're bringing us water!". But they all drove by fast without stopping."
Uptown (Sliver by the River):
"It never flooded here. The first week was fine. I had the apartment complex all to myself. Plenty of food. I used the swimming pool for baths, and took buckets upstairs to to refill the toilet. After the pool got moldy and full of mosquitos, it was less good. One day I walked over to my shop, and it had been looted. Everything of value had been taken off the shelves. I boarded up the door, and painted on it "ALREADY LOOTED". The next day, the boards were down, the shop had been broken into again, and they knocked everything over and trashed the place."
Treme:
"The street in front of the house was like a river, had a good current. Saw everything in the water floating by. Debris, boxes, furniture, couches, dead dogs, dead babies.
"One day I saw the neighborhood crack dealer, making his rounds like before, except in a boat. The damn crack dealers worked out what to do in the disaster before anyone in the government did."
Uptown-Freret:
"For days in a row, I'd sit out on the balcony on the 2nd floor. In the morning I'd see a gang pushing an empty boat through the water, and in the evening they'd come back the other way with the boat full of stuff they looted. I always had my rife across my lap. They stayed away from our block."
Uptown (Sliver by the River):
"I'd barricade my door at dark. At night sometimes gangs would come and bang the hell at the door; I'd yell at them I had a gun."
(Location redacted):
"I stayed to help take care of the old ladies in the neighborhood; I wasn't leaving until they got out safe. Looters and gangsters kept coming through. I had to shoot a couple. I shot to wound. Not to be kind. I didn't want to deal with their bodies. No one was coming to pick up any bodies. If they could stagger away bleeding to die somewhere else, whatever."
Convention Center:
"After I got out [of New Orleans], the first stories I heard [in the media] made the Convention Center even worse than it really was. Now I'm hearing stories that go too far the other way. What are they saying now, only like 6 people are supposed to have died there? Shit, I helped throw more bodies in the river than that. That's just the ones I helped carry myself. Yeah, when people died, we carried them out to the side of the building where we could throw them in the river. What else could you do? The bodies stank in the heat, no one else was doing anything for us. I don't know how many died there, but it's a lot more than they're saying."
Faubourg Marigny:
"I never left. I was doing ok, though not much to eat. Some 'responders', or whatever they called themselves, finally came to the neighborhood and set up a camp kitchen. I got in line with a bunch of guys in uniforms and with badges. When I got to the front of the line, they asked what group I was with. "Hungry local". No, they said, who was I, who was I with? "New Orleanian. I live here. Hungry local." The guy said he wasn't authorized to serve me. I lost it. I started screaming at them, "If you're not here to help us, get the hell out of my city, you fucking tourists!"."
Carrollton:
"Finally they started dropping packs of MREs [military Meals Ready to Eat] on us from the helicopters. Hit one guy in this block, broke his arm."
Uptown:
"We had a little radio we turned on once or twice a day for some news. We heard the Guard had arrived in town, but none had come through our neighborhood. After a few days, we just started taking turns going out on the balcony and making noise, banging pans, blowing horns, day and night. Kept it up for a day and a half. Then guardsmen come in this truck -- the biggest, highest truck you've ever seen, driving right through the water. We had our dog with us, they said we had to leave her, we said no. They said they couldn't evacuate us with the dog, but they took us to the nearest dry land, which was right at St. Charles Avenue [about 10 blocks away]. If we'd known it was dry at St. Charles we could have waded there ourselves, but we had no idea."
Treme:
"It wasn't until the helicopter trip taking me out that I realized the situation. It wasn't just my neighborhood that flooded, the whole damn city was under water." [Very similar stories heard from multiple other people and locations.]
I've left them anonymous, identifying only the part of town needed for context. I've put them in quotes, but these are from memory and I don't claim to recall everyone's exact words.
Uptown:
"After being stuck in the car for 12 hours when we evacuated for Ivan the year before, my mother absolutely refused to leave the house. We decided we couldn't leave her here alone and stayed with her. As the storm started getting worse, she started comparing it to other hurricanes. "Hm, this about like Hurricane Andrew, 1992." "Now it's like Camille, 1969." "Getting worse. Now it's like the Great Storm of 1947". Finally after it was over, she proclaimed, "That was exactly like the Great Storm of 1947. Of course, I learned from MY mother that the Great Storm of 1915 was even worse!"."
Treme:
"In the storm, the house started shaking like crazy. Good thing [roommate] is a contractor. He knows all about old buildings, he said, "The roof is going to blow off if we don't act quick!". He had us all run up to the attic, nailing boards and reinforcing things. A house across the street collapsed, but we made it through."
New Orleans East:
"My house flooded like everybody else. In the storm the water went over my head. Had to climb on top of things in the dark. After the weather was clear, next day, the water level went down to my chest, about my armpits, then it stopped going down. I waded and swam, and made it to the ramp of the I-10. I walked up and it was dry, and started walking towards the city [center]. After a while a police van came up, picked me up with some other people. They said they were taking us to the Convention Center, where there'd be shelter and buses to evacuate us. I thought, "OK, the worst is over." But no, the worst hadn't started yet."
Uptown-Freret:
"The morning after the storm, we went out to look around. There were trees down, shingles and nails in the streets everywhere. On the radio there were reports that some parts of town were flooded, but it was fine here. We started cleaning things up. Then mid-day, we started hearing strange gurgling sound. Water started coming up from the storm drains. It started filling the street. I thought "I'd better move the car to be safe", in case it floods. I went in the house to get the keys, and when I came back out it was already too late, the water was over the wheels. It kept coming up until it was ankle deep inside the first floor of the house [raised 3 feet above street level]."
Gentilly:
"When my neighbor gets back to town, I need to thank him for building a new wooden fence a week before the storm. A section of it blew loose, and I floated on it in the water for a day. It saved my life."
SuperDome:
"Yeah, it was scary when the roof started to blow off, and we didn't know if the whole thing was about to collapse. But after the storm passed, it wasn't so bad. I mean it was bad, sure. Hot, sticky, just barely enough food and water. Bathrooms didn't function after the first day. What a mess. But all this talk about criminal gangs running wild, I never saw any of that myself. Really, the worst of it was that as it went on day after day after day, we became more and more sure that they were just going to leave us all there to die."
Uptown (Sliver by the River):
"The city running water had stopped working, and the reports on the radio, things were just getting worse, and so we knew we had to get out. We took both cars 'cause there were so many nails and things in the streets we figured if we were lucky we could make it out with one. We spent hours trying to clear paths, getting a block, then finding a tree or something in the street we couldn't move and doubling back. Finally we got to Tchoupitoulas [Street], somehow with both cars. Got to the [Crescent City Connection] bridge [across the Mississippi River and out of town]. The police waved us through, told us to drive across the bridge quick, don't stop. Along one side of the bridge were all these people without cars, the police weren't letting them through. They were out in the sun. It looked like Biafra [African famine]. I remember seeing one woman, staggering like she could barely walk, dragging a cardboard box with babies in it."
Crescent City Connection Bridge:
"People were on this side of the bridge, we heard it was the only way out, but police kept turning people back. A bunch of us tried to walk across together. There was old and young, black and white, mothers with babies, all kinds of people. We got more than half way across. The Gretna Police blocked the way, took out their rifles and started yelling at us with bullhorns: "This is not New Orleans" "Go back where you came from" "We will shot you" "New Orleans is not welcome". They fired over our heads and started yelling the most vile obscenities you ever heard, and "Turn around now, or we will shoot you". We pulled back."
Convention Center:
"After a few days, some of the gangs actually started bringing in food from stores they looted to share. Lots more people would have died if they hadn't done that. They started trying to impose some order. Some little girl got raped, and the gangsters killed the guy who did it. Even crack dealers don't like anyone who'd rape a little girl."
"One day, we saw some police cars and some Kentwood bottle water trucks coming up the road. Folks were cheering, "They're bringing us water!". But they all drove by fast without stopping."
Uptown (Sliver by the River):
"It never flooded here. The first week was fine. I had the apartment complex all to myself. Plenty of food. I used the swimming pool for baths, and took buckets upstairs to to refill the toilet. After the pool got moldy and full of mosquitos, it was less good. One day I walked over to my shop, and it had been looted. Everything of value had been taken off the shelves. I boarded up the door, and painted on it "ALREADY LOOTED". The next day, the boards were down, the shop had been broken into again, and they knocked everything over and trashed the place."
Treme:
"The street in front of the house was like a river, had a good current. Saw everything in the water floating by. Debris, boxes, furniture, couches, dead dogs, dead babies.
"One day I saw the neighborhood crack dealer, making his rounds like before, except in a boat. The damn crack dealers worked out what to do in the disaster before anyone in the government did."
Uptown-Freret:
"For days in a row, I'd sit out on the balcony on the 2nd floor. In the morning I'd see a gang pushing an empty boat through the water, and in the evening they'd come back the other way with the boat full of stuff they looted. I always had my rife across my lap. They stayed away from our block."
Uptown (Sliver by the River):
"I'd barricade my door at dark. At night sometimes gangs would come and bang the hell at the door; I'd yell at them I had a gun."
(Location redacted):
"I stayed to help take care of the old ladies in the neighborhood; I wasn't leaving until they got out safe. Looters and gangsters kept coming through. I had to shoot a couple. I shot to wound. Not to be kind. I didn't want to deal with their bodies. No one was coming to pick up any bodies. If they could stagger away bleeding to die somewhere else, whatever."
Convention Center:
"After I got out [of New Orleans], the first stories I heard [in the media] made the Convention Center even worse than it really was. Now I'm hearing stories that go too far the other way. What are they saying now, only like 6 people are supposed to have died there? Shit, I helped throw more bodies in the river than that. That's just the ones I helped carry myself. Yeah, when people died, we carried them out to the side of the building where we could throw them in the river. What else could you do? The bodies stank in the heat, no one else was doing anything for us. I don't know how many died there, but it's a lot more than they're saying."
Faubourg Marigny:
"I never left. I was doing ok, though not much to eat. Some 'responders', or whatever they called themselves, finally came to the neighborhood and set up a camp kitchen. I got in line with a bunch of guys in uniforms and with badges. When I got to the front of the line, they asked what group I was with. "Hungry local". No, they said, who was I, who was I with? "New Orleanian. I live here. Hungry local." The guy said he wasn't authorized to serve me. I lost it. I started screaming at them, "If you're not here to help us, get the hell out of my city, you fucking tourists!"."
Carrollton:
"Finally they started dropping packs of MREs [military Meals Ready to Eat] on us from the helicopters. Hit one guy in this block, broke his arm."
Uptown:
"We had a little radio we turned on once or twice a day for some news. We heard the Guard had arrived in town, but none had come through our neighborhood. After a few days, we just started taking turns going out on the balcony and making noise, banging pans, blowing horns, day and night. Kept it up for a day and a half. Then guardsmen come in this truck -- the biggest, highest truck you've ever seen, driving right through the water. We had our dog with us, they said we had to leave her, we said no. They said they couldn't evacuate us with the dog, but they took us to the nearest dry land, which was right at St. Charles Avenue [about 10 blocks away]. If we'd known it was dry at St. Charles we could have waded there ourselves, but we had no idea."
Treme:
"It wasn't until the helicopter trip taking me out that I realized the situation. It wasn't just my neighborhood that flooded, the whole damn city was under water." [Very similar stories heard from multiple other people and locations.]
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Date: 2010-08-29 05:28 pm (UTC)