New Orleans Voices: Clarice B.

This interview is the first in a series of oral histories AlterNet will post from a survivor of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans. These accounts were recorded by Alive in Truth: The New Orleans Disaster Oral History and Memory Project, an all-volunteer witnessing effort led by poet Abe Louise Young. To read other testimonies and to find out more about Alive in Truth, visit Alive In Truth.org.

Clarice B. is a health care worker who lived in New Orleans' Ninth Ward for 66 years. She waited on the I-10 overpass for five days before being evacuated to Austin, Texas. Clarice has traveled from Texas to Mississippi and is now residing temporarily in a hotel room in Georgia.

Clarice B.: I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana and I was caught into the storm. I never thought New Orleans would have done us the way they done us. I didn't realize what was going on until maybe the third day after I was trying to get out of that place they would not let us out. I was on top of the Interstate, the Interstate in front to the Superdome and some guys came along in an Ozone Water truck and picked up a lot of people and we got near as far as getting out. They turned us around with guns. The army turned us around with guns. Policemen. And I realized then that they really was keeping us in there.

And you want me to tell you the truth, my version of it? They tried to kill us. When you keep somebody on top of the Interstate for five days, with no food and water, that's killing people. And there ain't no ands, ifs, or buts about it, that was NOPD [New Orleans Police Department] killing people. Four people died around me. Four. Diabetes. I am a diabetic and I survived it, by the grace of God, but I survived it. But they had people who were worse off than me, so, and they didn't make it. Old people. One young woman couldn't survive it because of the dehydration. So I mean, this is what you call NOPD murder. Murder. That's what I call it. What else would you call it?

Look, I was on top of the Interstate. Five days, okay? Helicopters at night shining a light down on us. They know we was there. Policemen, the army, the whole nine yards, ambulance passing us up like we wasn't nothing. Drove by and by all day. At night when they got ready to pull out, they pulled out and left us in darkness.

We was treated worse than an animal. People do leave a dog in a house, but they do leave him food and water. They didn't do that. And that's sad.

It was horrible. It was horrible. I mean, look. It was something like 100 degrees out there. It is hot. I was by myself. ... I live on Forstall. That's the Ninth Ward. The lower Ninth Ward. I live around the corner from Holy Cross School. And I left from there, which was that Sunday. And I went by my friend's, upstairs in a house in which I thought I was getting off of the lower area ground. But the water kept rising, downstairs from his house. So the boat came and picked us up: neighbors in the neighborhood, was trying to evacuate as many people as they can.

I took nothing but my pocket book, my slippers. And I had a little small overnight case. I thought I was going to come back on the next day. That was my thought, but I was wrong.

And of course I had to leave my birds and my dog. Of course I didn't want to. But I didn't have no other choice. Didn't have a choice. So I brought my dogs and my bird to as far as I could bring them. And I left them there upstairs. And I'm hoping I can retrieve them. I'm hoping. I have to call the SPCA or somebody. I left them upstairs on the deck, and I think if they was captured I should get them back. I'm hoping, anyway. I had a little Chihuahua. He was 9 months old. I had five birds. Two parakeets and two cockatiels. And my cockatiels just had a baby bird which was five weeks old. So you know I'm heartbroken. But again, my life was more important at that moment. ...