Online Story Contribution, Hurricane Digital Memory Bank

I am seventy six years old and I stayed back in New Orleans during the hurricane, because my mother who was ninrty seven was there. She was blind and infirmed.The hurricane came on Monday, August twenty ninth as predicted, shattering windows and trees. Then we saw brown water started coming up the drains. We started moving the patience upstairs and used the hallway to gather them. The power went out and the water was becoming so high that they begun to use matresses to float some of the people near to the stairs.\r\n \r\nWe poured water into cups and used wet towels to put on faces, because it was getting very hot and there was very little way to keep cool. The first elder person died and prayed and covered her with a whit sheet. She had been in hospice care before the storm. I was saddened and cried as I watched her breathing faded away.\r\n \r\nOne Tuesday morning, the water in the yard started to receed and by midday the road was passable. One army guard truck was coming down the highway and fire trucks sped by. The workers started fanning out and begging the vichiles to stop. One Wildlife and Fisheries vichile stopped, but he said they were tring to get to some other neighbour hood where people were stuck on the roof. The night came and all I could hear on the streets were gunshots and confusion. I became scarred and nervous, so I started praying.\r\n \r\nSister came and told us she found a police officer and asked for help. He promised to go get help , but hours passed and no one came. A police car came in the yard at one point,but they were looking for gas so the workers gave it to them. Up until Wenesday there were promiseof help, but none came. We telephoned and begged on the streets as the vechiles passed by. One of the nurses got hold of a cell phone and sent out an important SOS through one one of her brother who lived out of state. He cantacted one of his friends who lived in Atlanta. He made it to New Orleans from Atlanta athough stopped at check point. He told them he was going to check on sewage and water board. His friend had a badge to prove.\r\n \r\nThey got help for us by calling a bus company he found. Some able bodies were put on the bus, numbering about forty. The rest of us had to wait. Days passed by,the nights were dark and the heat prevailed. Friday noon the National Army truck came and some other recuers. Some patience were taken away in emerency vichiles and I was put on the army truck with some others. I ended up in Houston and my mother in a hostipal. By then by mother had gotten sicker , she ah caught Pnemomia. She died a couple about two weeks after. I evently made contact a group of nuns in Houston, then my family. They are much more detailed of this experince that I have not shared, but It is a chapter in my life that is somewhat a life reflectin.

Citation

“Online Story Contribution, Hurricane Digital Memory Bank,” Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, accessed November 26, 2024, https://hurricanearchive.org/items/show/2292.

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