Voices from the Gulf

Stories and Observations of Hurricane Katrina Victims
Collected from Survivor Testimony and other Resource Materials

It's a struggle to get back home, and the government isn't making it any easier. (Cherlynn Gaynor, Our Stories, www.survivorsvillage.com)

“Here was an opportunity for a new conversation on race and class and poverty, and they blew it,” said the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers III, a Bush supporter who runs a coalition that represents mainly black churches. “It’s not even just President Bush. Here was an opportunity for Republicans and conservatives in general to make a moral and intellectual case for a positive policy agenda for the black poor, and they did not advance it.” (www.nytimes.com) Year after Katrina, Bush still fights for 9/11 image

“It’s different from New Orleans as far as opportunity, but they don’t want to open it up to people from Louisiana,” said Alphonso Thomas, a 34-year-old evacuee in Houston. “Over 90 percent of the people here are either suicidal or hopeless.” (www.nytimes.com) Storms Escape Routes: One Forced, One Chosen

The hurdles in Houston include lower wages, more rigorous qualifications, and a reluctance to invest in employees who might return home at any time. D. B. Spurlock, who taught school in New Orleans, said he failed the Texas teacher certification test. Mr. Spurlock now works seven days a week as a security guard, for $8 an hour. Shawna Kimbrough, a carpenter and welder, said she had been offered the same wage, $8 an hour, for work that paid twice that back home. At age 70, Lutisha Smith said, she had to go back to school to qualify for the same job, nurse’s assistant, that she was paid more money to do in New Orleans. (www.nytimes.com) Storms Escape Routes: One Forced, One Chosen

How could we fail the residents of New Orleans so badly? I believe we let those people down mostly because so many of them were poor. I gave money to the Katrina effort, but it doesn't fix anything. (www.hurricanearchive.org) Collecting and Preserving the Stories of Katrina and Rita

On a continual basis I am still shaken to my core reflecting on how our LA state (and to a lesser extent Federal) governments failed to respond to the immediate needs of our citizens left trapped in New Orleans after the flood waters inundated our city. (www.hurricanearchive.org) Collecting and Preserving the Stories of Katrina and Rita

Our nation's ability to turn away from social misery and to avoid responsibility for those in need has never really surprised me--at least when such indifference and cruelty took place long ago. I am a historian and I teach about such moments in our nation\'s past on a regular basis. So why was I so shocked, horrified, and down right disbelieving when I watched the nightmare unfold in New Orleans after Katrina? I had always assumed that I was more jaded and cynical that most. I was never one who assumed that, over time, we learn lessons and naturally evolve into a more humane society. And yet, as my husband and I watched so many people--women, children, men, the old, the disabled--so thirsty, so hungry, so desperate, and so absolutely abandoned in that convention center, I couldn't even sit down in my rage and anxiety. "What is going on?" I kept asking my husband. "Why isn\'t anyone doing anything?" "Why haven't they (the government) dropped water over the convention center?!" "They can drop supplies over the desert a million miles away but they can\'t drop it over New Orleans?!" "They can airlift Americans out of the American Embassy in Baghdad but they can't airlift them out of the nightmare in Louisiana?!"
But deep down I knew something unspeakable. of course "they" could and "they" chose not to. Why? Because, extraordinarily, they did not quite believe that things were as terrible, as desperate, as every reporter and eye witness was telling them it was. They still needed to "verify." They still needed to make sure that none of these poor folks were running some kind of a scam. They needed to confirm that these people begging for help really were the "deserving" poor. (www.hurricanearchive.org) Collecting and Preserving the Stories of Katrina and Rita

How is life different a year later?

Where do I begin? I haven't lived with my husband since he went back to work in October. My now 13 year old son lost everything he knew as his life and basically fell apart inside. Had counseling all summer to try to bring him back to his old self. He went from being in the gifted program since 3rd grade to barely passing 2 core subjects in 7th grade. He got no understanding or empathy from the school after they made promises to help him. We are in Tennessee alone. Can't find a place to move to in Louisiana near husband/dad. Can't afford to! I haven't found a job, housing being paid for month by month, but don't know when they will end it. Can't afford utilities, don't know what will happen this month. Life is miserably different.... no normalcy in our lives, always at risk of being put on the street. I want peace. I want a place that I can tell my son that he doesn't have to worry about being thrown out of. I want my family back together. Are these things too much to ask? (www.hurricanearchive.org) Collecting and Preserving the Stories of Katrina and Rita

As time went on, life in the little one-room apartment was really getting stressful, mostly because we were very cramped with boxes of salvaged belongings in there. We tried to find bigger places to rent, but all the apartments were already rented and had long waiting lists. Homes for rent were scarce, and those that were available were outrageously high-priced. In March we finally found a house to rent. It suited us because it had a large shed in the back yard where we could store some of the salvaged possessions, and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg--well, maybe just an arm. It was still in Jefferson Parish, but this time it was in the town of Metairie. (www.hurricanearchive.org) Collecting and Preserving the Stories of Katrina and Rita.

I believe that the contractors don’t have a heart to be touched. Poor people come here to work, to better the city, to do the clean-up and help out. These contractors, all they want is to hoard money. They don’t care whether you eat or not. They just want to get the money and run away with it as many companies have done. Broken Levees, Broken Promises: New Orleans Migrant Workers in their own words

“…The truth is that New Orleans does not want the people to return. The people who were left behind…the elderly, the children, the disabled, the Black, the poor, the like, those are the same people that are being left behind today in the rebuilding of New Orleans, and plenty of people are happy that they are being left behind.” And injustice for All: workers’ lives in the Reconstruction of New Orleans

Gwendolyn [Hammond] has been trying to return to work but her only transportation is the free bus. The nursing home (where she works as a nursing home worker) has 12-hour shifts, and the bus schedule does not fit. And she needs the bus because she can’t afford to live in the city. “Rents are now $700, $800, $1000.” And injustice for All: workers’ lives in the Reconstruction of New Orleans

“I never in my life paid $1000 for nothing. I can take my rent, my life, my phone, my kids, my car, my insurance, and still would never add up to $1000. And now I’m paying $1000 just for rent, so I have to work two jobs just to survive…”  And injustice for All: workers’ lives in the Reconstruction of New Orleans

[Donel] Sims said he once made about $400 a day cutting grass for corporate customers, but since many of the businesses closed for good after Katrina, he has not worked consistently and cannot afford the city’s skyrocketing rents, which have doubled and, in some cases, even tripled. Sims said a nearby apartment that once rented for $600 a month is now $1,200. "It’s not fair," Sims said. "We can’t afford an apartment." (www.blackamericaweb.com) The Katrina Aftermath, One Year Later-Part Two: The Crisis in Housing

Members of the AALP (African American Leadership Project) say blacks should have a serious stake in the rebuilding process and insisted that despite the city’s great cultural assets, "it is also a city with deep racial and class divisions rooted in the history of slavery, racial segregation and socioeconomic disparities and inequalities." (www.blackamericaweb.com) The Katrina Aftermath, One Year Later-Part Two: The Crisis in Housing

“The school was raggedy,” [Isaiah] Simms told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “It was dirty. We would tell people about it, and they would do nothing.” (www.blackamericaweb.com) The Katrina Aftermath, One Year Later-Part Three: Young lives on Edge