Gabby
I’m from Chalmette, Louisiana. I went to elementary school and all that here in Chalmette. The elementary school I went to was C.F. Riley Elementary and the middle school I went to was Chalmette Middle. I only stayed at Chalmette Middle for about two weeks and then Katrina came. Now I’m in the Saint Bernard Alternative Program. I have been here since August, since the beginning of the school year. I’m ADHD and bipolar. I take Adderol, Lithium and Trazodone because I can’t sleep at night.
I live with my mom, my grandpa, my grandma, my little five year old brother who been in the hurricane too, and my other sister Samantha. She’s thirteen. My little brother’s name is David, Jr. We have three dogs and a cat. It’s my sister’s cat. The cat’s name is Yuki. My dog’s name is Honey, and then we have two Schnauzers named Sugar Bear and KiKi. Honey is half Rottweiler and half Lab. She’s black and caramel color.
Before Katrina I had only been to Texas. After Katrina I been to Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Shreveport, and I been to Picayune. The first time I heard about Katrina was way in the beginning of August. And then all of a sudden, a couple of weeks later, I was hearing on the TV that we better evacuate, because it was going to be worse than a category four hurricane. And then I heard that my grandma didn’t want to evacuate. She wasn’t going to leave her grandma’s house and take all that stuff with us, because she didn’t have enough time. That’s why my grandma has a bad heart right now. We don’t know if she’s going to make it to next Christmas because of the hurricane. It traumatized her. And it was very hard. My friend passed in the hurricane, and my little brother is still traumatized from it.
When I was hearing stuff on the news, I was petrified. I was scared. I wanted to go really bad. I didn’t say that because my mama wanted me to go with her cousins. I didn’t want to leave my mom and them behind because I didn’t know if I was going to meet up with them again. So I just stayed here. Right before Katrina came, we bought one hundred dollars worth of batteries and we bought flashlights. We bought a spare TV. It was a little battery TV. My mama bought two extra cell phones for me and my sister, prepaid phones. She bought my brother extra clothes, and she bought an ice chest for our food. She went grocery shopping. We got marshmallows. We got peanut butter and jelly. We got sandwich meat, cold cuts. We got a whole bunch of things. Drinks and stuff like that. Yeah.
Our house before Katrina was beautiful. We had just spent like three thousand dollars building on to the house. The house had three rooms but we built two extra rooms so then we had five rooms. Five bedrooms. Yeah. We had like a living room and a dining room. The dining room was my room. We made it into a den. Me and my step sister, we shared that room until she heard about Katrina. Then she moved upstate somewhere. And I never seen her again. Well, I seen her for Christmas one time. The house was one story. It had a porch. We had like a green bench on it. It was beautiful. Until Katrina came. We spent three thousand dollars on a dream. Yeah. Building on to the house, and then Katrina came and took it all.
The Sunday before Katrina, the weather was perfect. It was a sunny day, so perfect outside. The temperature was right. We didn’t really have no problem until that Monday. On the news that Sunday, they were just saying evacuate as soon as possible, and just because the weather is good doesn’t mean the hurricane’s not coming. We were getting all my grandma’s plants and everything like that. We were getting her plants and her pottery that she made and we brung all that and the dogs inside. Yeah. It was terrible. Sunday night the wind was blowing like fifty miles an hour. We boarded up the windows and we had a picture window that we boarded up but it broke. The wind was making it crack.
Sunday night I went to bed. It was terrible because I heard my mom yelling at my grandma saying ‘C’mon, Mom! Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go! It’s gonna kill us! It’s gonna kill us!’ And then my grandma goes, ‘I’m not leaving this house! I’m not leaving this house! You can leave me here! Leave me to rot and die! I’m not leaving this house!’ And then my mama said, ‘Well then we’ll leave you then!’ But then, like, my mama ended up staying. So, so, I heard them talking from my bedroom and as I went to sleep, I heard my grandma crying and she came into my room. I was sleeping, but I can hear anything in my sleep. She came and kissed me on my forehead and said ‘I love you.’
She went in my sister’s room and my sister told me the morning of Katrina she said, ‘Gabby, Ma-ma came in my room and said, ‘It’s gone be all right. Just pray for us all.’ ‘And I said okay.’ And then my sister started crying. And then I went to my grandma’s room, and I say, ‘Ma-ma you okay?’ And she goes, ‘Yeah. I just don’t want to leave this house.’ And I said, ‘Oh.’ And then she say ‘It’s gonna be all right. All we gotta do is pray cause God is always with us. God is there watching us every minute of the day.’ I said ‘Okay.’
And then the day of Katrina, um . . . we um . . . it was . . . it was raining really hard. About six in the morning, it was raining really hard. The wind was terrible. They had lightening going everywhere. Lightening struck the house right across from me. That’s when my brother got scared. He starting crying, running around the room. And then my sister, she was hysterical. She couldn’t take it anymore. She told my mom that she was going to kill herself so that Katrina wouldn’t kill her in a slow death. And that’s when I got scared for her.
Then all of a sudden, around five, six o’clock in the evening, the water came. It had stopped raining. It was a perfect day. And all of a sudden we heard a big explosion. Then across the highway, something else exploded. The water was coming from that way, from the village square, coming from that way toward our house. Then all of a sudden a big tidal wave–it looked like a big ole tidal wave–started coming from every corner and it was heading for our street. We were the only ones on the block, and so . . . and so . . .we got the dogs in then our neighbor next door, Mr. Chris, he had a boat . . . he had a boat . . a motor boat, but the motor didn’t work, and so we went in his yard and got in that. And by the time five minutes passed there was about three feet of water. So we got in the boat and we floated. About twenty more minutes passed and it was about ten feet of water. Then I got scared. Because I was getting paranoid. I was getting traumatized. Everything. My little brother, he didn’t really mind it though. He was trying to go fishing and trying to jump in the water.
And my step dad, he had to jump under water. We had a blow up pool and um, he had to jump under the water, cut the pool up with a pocket knife, and we had to use the plastic to put over us, because the rain and hail was so hard it was causing bruises on our bodies. And so we used that to cover us up. And then, like about another ten minutes later, the water was eighteen feet high. We couldn’t even see the giant magnolia tree in front of our yard. It was under water. And then my grandma fell in the water. She was trying to get out, trying to get out of the water, and my step daddy had to jump in the water again. He was in the hospital for two weeks after Katrina from pneumonia. And so my grandma fell in the water, almost flipped over the boat and fell in the water. My step daddy got her out by putting her over his shoulder and then she started pulling him under on a accident, so he threw her in the boat with my mama’s help. My mama grabbed her hand and pulled her in.
My grandma was freezing cold. She almost had died. And so, my little brother, he jumped in the water unexpectedly. We were looking for him, looking for him, and he was on a little board or something. He was floating on it, crying, saying, ‘Help me! Help me!’ And I got scared for him cause I didn’t want him to die. So I jumped in the water and my mom was trying to get me back in, and I didn’t know what to do. My leg got stuck on something and I kept going under and I couldn’t breath. And so I got my little brother. I swam back, and my step daddy came and got me. He, he, he threw a rope. My step daddy came and got me and pulled me back and I was shaking. I was so cold. My lips were turning blue.
And um, and then I heard my friend screaming for help. And then, I um, I told my mamma Hurry, hurry, hurry! Go over there! Erica’s in there! Erica’s in there! And my mom was like, ‘We can’t Gabby! We can’t!’ And then I seen Erica’s hand, waving out the roof. And then all of a sudden, I seen her head poke out and then our boat floated over her, and that’s how my friend passed. Yeah. And that’s the last time I seen her. She was twelve or thirteen years old. We grew up in school together. I don’t really know what happened to the rest of her family. I haven’t heard from them. They said they got out. And like, she was the last one to get out. But she, she didn’t make it. But they invited me to the um, to the wake, but I couldn’t make it because my step daddy was in the hospital with pneumonia and me and my grandma was in the hospital too. We were in the same room though.
When we was in the water, we, we seen a dead body floating. I seen it. My mama hurried up and closed my eyes. It was some old lady. And like my step sister well, my step sister, I mean my sister, sorry, seen a cat, a dead cat floating in the water. And she loves cats, so I closed her eyes and hugged her tight and I told her ‘Simmy, I love you. It’s going to be all right.’ I closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see, and, and so she could take her mind off of it.
When I saw the dead lady in the water, I just, I just said, I hope . . . I just said to myself, I’m glad that’s not us. Thanks to my step daddy. He’s the one who really saved us. He’s the one who got us out the house and everything. When the water was flowing in the house, it pushed the big screen TV into the kitchen where my mama was and so my mamma had to push the big screen TV out of the kitchen and get a hammer just to break the front window. It was cracked enough from the wind so she had to break the front window just to get out. And then all the water just started pouring out. Then more water came in so that pushed us back. And so my grandpa was still in there and he didn’t know what to do because his phone fell under water and everything. He had a pocket knife, um just to like cut the little scraps of paper we had on the walls, but it was terrible. It really was. I didn’t know what to do. I was so scared. I’m still traumatized from it. Every time it rains I get paranoid.
Well, we went um, we sailed for one day on the boat. We were sailing in the dark. There was other people around in boats too. We didn’t have nothing to eat. Not at first. But we sailed down the road where Merrill Food Store is. They didn’t have that much water down there yet so they had people rushing to get food. Rushing to get food and everything. Chips and everything like that. And like people were just too worried about getting cigarettes and everything. Like wine, cigarettes, alcohol. It was terrible. I was worried about getting food. I had to punch a old man in his face. I really did feel bad for it, but he tried to put a gun to my mom’s head and so she hit him and took his food, just for us.
And then about twelve o’clock that night we decided to go to the um, the St. Bernard Jail. That’s the only place that didn’t have water. That was the only dry place. My grandma worked there for four years before she retired. They had so many people there. They had people lying in beds dying. As we walked down the hallway there were people lying in beds. They were grabbing our wrist saying ‘Help me! Help me! Help me!’ because nobody couldn’t do nothing for them. No nurses was there.
And so um, and then, they cooked boiled eggs for everybody. That’s the only thing they had to do was boil eggs. That’s why now, whenever a hurricane comes, we boil eggs. We have a tradition now, whenever a hurricane comes, we boil eggs and eat ‘em and we drink bottles of water. We stayed in there for about three or four days, three or four days, in the jail. We lived off of boiled eggs and bottled water. I didn’t talk to any of the other kids at the jail. I was too scared. I was just too . . . worried. My sister still has a souvenir, a hat some policeman gave her. It says INMATE. It’s a orange hat. And she still has that. Yeah, and then um, like after that, like this bus came.
My grandparents, they weren’t doing too good. They are still living now, but like my grandpa has a pacemaker. He already had it before the hurricane, but he, he just had to get another replacement though. Because he touched a microwave and it shocked him. My grandpa is fifty-nine. My grandma is fifty eight. My mom is like thirty nine.
Then a bus, yeah, a bus came. But we didn’t know what bus it was. We thought like the prisoners were coming just to help us pack. But it was people from Texas, and they brung us to the Astrodome. We had to take like a six, seven, eight hour drive just to Texas.
Once we got to Texas, we heard on the news about the levees breaking. We didn’t know that before, but I figured the levees broke because we had so much water. That’s what I thought.
Yeah. The bus came and took us to the Astrodome which took about six, seven, eight hours. And the people were just crying, crying, crying, just to, just to get off the bus. Just to go home and everything. It, it was it was scary because we had people in the Astrodome raping people and like stealing their money, killing people just for their money.
When we got off the bus at the Astrodome, I was just saying it’s sunny. I still got clothes on, even though they’re rags. But at least we got somewhere to sleep. And so that night I heard a lady screaming. I heard gun shots in the Astrodome. Some lady was getting raped by some man. And it was just scary. That’s why my mama made me sleep by her. I was, I was by her but like I wasn’t close enough. And that’s when my step daddy almost got in a fight because some man tried to take my little brother, claiming him for his son, because he lost a son in the hurricane. And so, it was, it was really scary. I was petrified.
In the Astrodome, they gave us um, they gave us cookies, bread, and milk. I was thinking, I miss my home. I don’t want to stay here. I wanna go home. Rebuild my house and just, just get out of Texas. I went to school in Texas like half of the year. I was getting tormented, harassed by other kids. They would, they would say like, ‘You miss the fish bowl. You miss the fish bowl. Y’all . . . y’all seen dead fish floating everywhere.’ Um, I heard another person say, ‘You miss New Orleans? Well, New Orleans don’t miss you!’ It was scary. I was so scared. And then I got in a fight with this girl, and I went back and told the principal and the principal said, ‘You were on their territory.’ So my mamma made me drop out for the rest of the year.
My grandma bought a car in Texas, and we drove to Arkansas because we had some relatives who evacuated there before Katrina. Then we went to Mississippi to visit my step sister to see how they were doing because we heard that Katrina hit Mississippi too. Picayune wasn’t as bad as Louisiana. It was like wind damage and water damage a little bit, but they didn’t have as much water as we did. They still had houses built and everything. And then we went to Shreveport. That’s where my uncle stays, well he used to. Then we went back to Texas and then we came back to Chalmette, Louisiana.
That’s when we lived in a little trailer. That’s when we lived in a little trailer behind the Civic Center. It was like . . . it was like a sixteen, twenty foot trailer. It was really small.
Yeah. It was like so small. It only had one bedroom with two bunk beds. And it had a sink and a bathroom and then it had a table that turned into a bed, then it had a sofa bed. There were a lot of trailers behind the Convention Center. All the people had been cleared from the Convention Center by this time. We stayed in that little trailer for about a year.
My mom was trying to get a job and my step daddy was working. He worked as a roofer. And my grandma was still getting retirement money from her job. And they’re working on getting the house rebuilt through SBA. They keep calling every now and then saying ‘We gonna work on your house. We gonna work on your house. We gonna work on your house.’ We tried to get in touch with FEMA but FEMA don’t do anything. They just make you pay more and more money. That’s what my grandpa said.
We moved again because the people were like, the people didn’t like us staying there because we had so many kids by our house, my new friends and everything so they didn’t like that. So we moved and went to Miraux, down the road. We stayed on the same side as Ben’s Pizza we lived in Myrtle Grove. Yeah, in a big trailer. We got three rooms and a bathroom. It’s like a house. It’s really big. It’s worth it.
Now my mom is working at the River Bend Bistro and my step daddy is still roofing. My step sister Jolie, she evacuated. She’s twenty-one. She works at Wal-Mart and um, and um, it’s in Slidell. My younger sister, she don’t work. She’s only 13. She’s in middle school. My brother, he’s pretty traumatized, because like when it rains he gets scared. He starts crying and he has night terrors. Like when he sleeps he screams in his sleep. He screams for help. He said one time, ‘I’m gonna drown! I’m gonna drown!’ And like, I don’t understand how he gets these words in his head. So he must be traumatized.
I don’t sleep well at night either. Not really. I still have dreams about it. And when it rains, I get paranoid. I just get shaky. My nerves start getting bad. I start crying. My mama thought I was having a seizure because I was shaking so bad, and so she called the doctor and she asked, ‘What’s wrong with my daughter?’ And he goes she’s just having flashbacks of Katrina. She asked, ‘Will she ever grow out of it?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, she will, but if it keeps going it could cause her brain damage.’
My younger sister is doing . . . she’s growing out of it, yeah. She’s doing pretty good. Like on the tenth, this month, the tenth was her birthday. And like, I just showed her how much I love her and like, I just showed her it’s going to be okay. It was raining on her birthday, and she got scared. I told her, I said it’s going to be okay because it’s your birthday and we’re going to have our fun. Katrina isn’t here no more. It might rain and get flooded and get ugly out here, but still you’re my sister and I love you. Don’t be worried about it no more.
Me and my sister argue a lot but our relationship is a lot better. As far as my relationship with my parents, I get, I get sassy some times. Cause I just get frustrated about our situation. When I think about it, I get frustrated and worried, and I sass them some times. But it’s okay though. They apologize. They know what’s going on and everything. Yeah.
When I think about Katrina, I think about my best friend Erica, our house, the way Chalmette used to be, the money we spent on the house, and my great grandma’s jewelry. She gave me a ring. I saved it from the hurricane. It was her wedding ring. And I still have it. I gotta remember that. Yeah. It’s this ring on my finger. This is her wedding ring.
My grandparents are doing pretty good. My grandma has chest pains now and then, but she says she’s going to be all right. She never talks about not wanting to evacuate. She don’t bring it up.
T. F. Young is the author of All You Could See Was the Water and Stories My Foremother's Told Me. For more information or to purchase these titles click here.
