Not Just the Levees Broke

My Story During and After Hurricane Katrina

Phyllis Montana-Leblanc

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Year: 2008
• eBook ISBN: 9781416566182
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: History

Called "one of the rawest specimens of classic Nawlins spitfire you'll ever find" by Newsweek, and featured in Spike Lee's HBO documentary When the Levees Broke, Phyllis Montana-Leblanc gives an astounding and poignant account of how she and her husband lived through one of our nation's worst disasters, and continue to put their lives back together. New Orleans Hurricane Katrina survivor Phyllis Leblanc reveals moment by moment the impending doom she and her family experienced during one of the greatest disasters in contemporary American history. The initial weather forecast, the public warnings from officials, and then the increasingly devastating developments -- the winds and rain, the rising waters -- Not Just the Levees Broke begs the question, What would you do in a life-and-death situation with your family and neighbors facing the ultimate test of character? Not Just the Levees Broke is a portrayal of the human spirit at its best -- the generosity of family, neighbors, and strangers; the depth of love that one can hold for another; the power to help and heal others.

1

My husband and I start hearing about the hurricane and the chances of it hitting New Orleans on August 26, 2005. I call my sister Catherine and we decide that my husband, Ron, and I will go over to her house and bring her and her son Nicholas over to my mom’s apartment so that we can be together. Catherine lived about a mile away from us in eastern New Orleans. Ironically, that’s where our FEMA trailer is now located.

Mom’s apartment was directly across from ours. She had moved there after a short stay with my sister Cheryl in Los Angeles. When Ron and I first walk out of the apartment, I look up at the sky. I notice an odd kind of gray color, but otherwise it’s a normal day. I pause for a second in thought and then go about the business of getting my family.

I’m looking around as Ron is driving and I’m thinking, “What in the fuck is about to happen to us and this city?” I think this because the newscasters are saying that a huge storm could possibly happen but “it’s not definite at this time.”

This is why we’re so confused and don’t know whether to run for our lives or just “ride it out.” We’ve had this happen before where the weather people tell us that the forecast is bad and then that turns out not to be the case. We are cautious kind of by nature, and wait to see what’s up. But, honestly, this time I have a feeling that something is about to go down in a serious-ass way. We get to Catherine’s home and start packing her truck.

My nephew Nicholas is running around without a care in the world. I envy him right about now. He has autism and is unaware of “real time.” I know it sounds crazy, but in anxious moments like this, you do what you have to do to mentally escape.

So, we’re packing juices, clothes, Nicholas’s backpacks that Catherine has just purchased for school, cans of food, extra bottles of water, Nicholas’s school uniforms, and her favorite music that her late husband had taped for her. And just as we’re ready to head back to our apartment complex, Catherine yells that she has to go back in the house to get her husband’s pictures. All I can say to Ron is “Oh, my God, not now.” She runs into the house and grabs the picture of their wedding and jumps into her truck. Her husband, Helmon Michael Gordon Jr., succumbed to liver cancer on September 4, 2004.

We ride back to the complex and all the time I’m thinking that all of this effort is for nothing. Ain’t no damn hurricane gon’ hit New Orleans, this is some bullshit! Every time they tell us there’s a hurricane, people begin running for their lives and nothing happens. So we get to my mom’s apartment. Once we situate Catherine and Nicholas, Ron and I go back to our place. I put the Weather Channel on and begin to cook and put food away in ziplock bags. The media are saying we need food for the two or three days when we may be without power.

I know people say that black folks love some chicken and I gotta say they are correct. I fry chicken, barbecue chicken, smother chicken, buffalo-wing some chicken. You name it, I did it to the chicken, okay? I fixed some egg and rice for Nicholas and some gravy and rice, because those are his favorite foods. I fill our tub up with water because the news is saying to “fill your tubs up with water, just in case you need to flush your toilets.” Then I remember something that I used to see my mother do back in the ’70s when there was a predicted hurricane. I put gray electrical tape on all of our windows so that if the wind breaks the windows, they won’t shatter and cut anyone.

All the time I’m running around doing all of this, Ron is looking at me and not saying anything because he would upset me. Ron later told me that the way I was yelling and screaming he was thinking that I was going to have a mental breakdown or a heart attack. He’d already made up his mind to let me do what I wanted and that’s why he only called my name every few minutes or so in hopes I’d calm down. I have to do what I have to do, and nothing is going to stop me. My anxiety is building by the minute because the media’s starting to talk about what to do if water comes into your home and you have to go into your attic. They are recommending that we keep handy a hammer or something that could make a hole through the ceiling to your rooftop. I was like, “Oh, hell no, fuck this, this shit is about to be serious.”

So, I begin to think, if it’s going to be this serious, why in the hell is there no mandatory evacuation right now? What does the mayor have to say about that? Where is the governor? Why are they not telling us to get the hell out of town? So, I’m thinking maybe, just maybe, this is all for nothing. Don’t worry, Phyllis, this is all going to pass us by just like it always does. Still, I prepare. Just in case.

 

Friday, August 26

Governor Katherine Blanco declares a state of emergency in the State of Louisiana, as Katrina is upgraded to Category Two and has passed into the Gulf of Mexico.

Saturday, August 27

Katrina is upgraded to Category Three. Mayor Ray Nagin calls for a voluntary evacuation of New Orleans. President Bush declares a federal state of emergency for Louisiana and gives FEMA authority to provide aid.

2

The night of Saturday, August 27, 2005, we sleep and all is well. But the weather forecasters are still watching the storm. She’s not in the Gulf and as long as she doesn’t come there, we’re okay. We wake up on Sunday, August 28, 2005, and the news is now saying that Hurricane Katrina is in the “Gulf” and predicted to hit New Orleans.

Okay, I fry more chicken and call Catherine and tell her what I just saw on the news. “Do you see how big this bitch is?” I ask and then say, “We got to get the fuck out of here.” Catherine says, “I’m ready, ’cause you know if Mike was here we wouldn’t even be here right now. We’d be gone to Texas by now.” My mom is in the background saying that she’s not leaving. She says that her legs are hurting and nothing’s probably going to happen anyway.

“You know what, if Momma wants to stay, then let her. She’s got her neighbors if she needs anything,” I say to Catherine, laughing the entire time because we both know we aren’t leaving our momma. But I’m starting to get worried with all this damn talk about “keep a hammer just in case you have to bust a hole in your attic to come out on the roof” and “fill your tub up so you can flush the damn toilet.” It’s as if all of these people know what the hell is going to happen and they aren’t telling us the real deal, you know? Then Catherine adds to my damn worry by telling me that she forgot something at her house and needs to go back. We jump in her truck and ride back to her house.

We notice fewer and fewer cars on the street, and people gone. The sky looks weird. The clouds are dark gray, light gray, white, and almost black. And they aren’t all together at this point in time. They’re all separated, as if they know that once they connect all hell will break loose. Looking at them, they seem to go through my eyes and down into my soul. There is the most horrible feeling of fear, and at the same time I feel a strange beauty in it. What come to my mind are two words: ominous and ethereal. It reminds me of a really handsome man who is gorgeous to look at but evil behind his face. As much as I enjoy looking at it, I feel something bad behind it, like this is going to be really, really bad—like the end of the world or something. Street after street is empty. The stores are closed and houses boarded up and there is silence in the city. The only thing we need now is for tumbleweed to roll across the street and that would do me in, for real.

So we get to Catherine’s house and I’m telling her to hurry up because it’s starting to rain. It’s only a couple of sprinkles but my anxiety and panic are starting to grow. We should grab what she came for and get the hell back to the apartment complex. I stop rushing her when I see that she’s come back to get more of Michael’s photos. Some are of him in college—he attended Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and was a member of Kappa Kappa Psi fraternity. She grabs Nicholas’s one-piece life jacket just in case the waters overwhelm us, so the rising waters won’t pull him away. Her worst fear is Nicholas drowning and that’s why she is so frantic about getting his life jacket, which is really what she used when they went swimming. We take Michael’s pictures and a few toys for Nicholas, and these paper flowers that Michael had made for her out of construction paper with his own hands as his life was being completely consumed by the cancer.

On the ride back we see police cars riding up and down the streets, patrolling the neighborhoods…probably for looters. There was lots of talk later about how shocking it is when people steal during a bad time. But a criminal isn’t going to change his or her behavior because everybody is in a bad situation. It’s just a fact of life. We get back and I look across the street to a neighboring apartment complex, Pirogue Cove, and it’s practically empty: from what I can see, only a few people around. We walk up the stairs and Catherine goes over to my mom’s apartment and I return to ours, where Ron is waiting for me.

I double-check again to make sure that the apartment is in order and listen to the weather reports. We are now in the path of Hurricane Katrina. And, at about nineteen hours before Katrina is predicted to hit New Orleans, the mayor of New Orleans, C. Ray Nagin, announces a mandatory evacuation. Nineteen hours! What in the hell took our city’s officials so long to place this order?

I call Catherine and ask her if she’s seen the same thing on the news and she says yes. Now I’m in panic mode and yelling that we should leave, and leave right now. I hear the weatherman say that if you haven’t left by now it’s best to hunker down and just get ready to “ride it out.” He keeps repeating what tools to have on hand just in case you have to go through your ceiling and come out on top of your roof, and that shit is freaking me out more by the second. My heart is racing a hundred miles a minute and I keep telling myself that it won’t be that bad. I keep thinking that they are exaggerating this storm, but my heart is filled to the top with fear. I have been through different storms in my life and this is the first time I actually think I might not survive it.

Ron, in the meantime, is asking me to calm down. He says that everything’s going to be okay. I swear, I want to cuss him out and just start walking up the street; that’s how out of control my thinking started to get. But I know better, and decide to try to collect my thoughts. That lasts a good five minutes, and I’m back to checking the windows to make sure the tape is in place.

I walk around our apartment complex and see that there are quite a few people still there, and this helps to calm me down. Then I think, oh, God, that’s how many bodies will be floating when this is all over. Okay, come back, Phyllis. I have got to get myself together, I think. When I walk over to my mother’s apartment, they are sitting down watching television and we talk a little while about what could possibly happen. My mother, Rita, is being very positive about nothing ever happening and this will all pass us by. I leave and walk out to the parking lot, looking at the sky again, and I gotta tell you, you can feel the bad. I’m dead serious. This is the worst feeling I’ve had in my life.

I go back upstairs by Ron and of course he’s telling me the same old shit about relaxing and calming down. The news is scaring the living shit out of me, so Mr. Ron suggests that we turn the television off for a while. Oh, yeah, that will work out just great. Turn off the television and let my imagination just take over and kill me right there on the spot. Needless to say, Ron decides to leave the television on to help his wife calm down. Great idea! Fuck! I don’t know if anyone who’s never experienced this before can imagine sitting and waiting for disaster to strike and not knowing if today is your last day alive. The pressure on my heart is so intense that I want to just crawl inside of a closet with earplugs and a blanket, close my eyes, and make it all just go away. I start singing in my mind, “Rain, rain, go away, come again another day.” Now, do you think that works? I’m trying to find a way to not lose my mind. I have four sisters and a brother—Gina, Catherine, Cheryl, Lisa, and Thomas—and I’ve always wondered which one of us would end up being “the crazy one.”

I choose to hang on to who I am: a strong black woman. I begin to think of all of the bad things I’ve been through in my life and how I overcame them. For example, when I was a teenager and this “boyfriend” decided that I was his punching bag. I was only a teenager and for five years he physically, sexually, verbally, and mentally abused me, and not that someone needs a reason—because there is no reason for someone to do this to another human being—but he had no reason to hurt me that badly to the point where I just wanted to die to get away from it all. I did try to commit suicide, but God wanted me here for a reason. I have come a long way and if I survived those other “storms,” I can do this. Y’all, there is nothing worse than knowing that you are in a fight for your actual life and not know if you will lose.

The news is still saying that it’s now too late to leave. They’re also saying that we’ll only be without power for about three to four days. Okay, not too bad. Maybe we’re going to be okay. A little smelly and hungry, but okay. Catherine, my mom, and me talk back and forth and every few minutes I walk over to where they’re talking with the neighbors and laughing about how all those fools are running for nothing and people will be stealing everything not nailed down. We eat and bathe so at least to have a head start on what is predicted to come. I forget about looking at the sky. It’s as if we all are feeding off each other’s strengths and weaknesses. You know, like real life. As evening begins to fall upon us things start to quiet down and then you can feel the “get ready” in the air—although no one says those exact words. My family members and I keep our cell phones plugged into the wall when we talk on them so we have a full charge when the power goes out. Then darkness comes. We still have electricity. Even as I’m writing this, my heart is starting to beat a little faster because I already know what’s going to happen next and I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to never remember what happens next. Ron and I are in our apartment and my mom, sister, and nephew are across the way from us and we are all watching the news and calling each other back and forth. Ron then decides to move our bed alongside the wall. I think that’s a little uncool. But it seems like a good idea at the time to him and gives me something else to think about.

I do another run-through. I have the comforters nailed over the windows to block any breaking glass and that’s a wrap for the day. Ron goes to lie down and soon falls asleep but I keep waking him to have someone to talk to to get the nervousness out of my system. He wakes up and talks to me and then falls asleep. I keep at it for a while and then give up, feeling sorry for him because he is very tired. I start praying. I ask God to please let us survive this storm and to not let us be killed by it.

I had met so many rotten men in my life. Ron was the best thing to ever come into my life and I want more: many, many more years with him. I think about losing him and what would happen if I lost my mother, sister, and nephew, and that just about wipes me out emotionally. I think I actually started growing gray hairs all in that one evening.

What does help is thinking about growing up in New Orleans. We used to have these sweet summer treats called Huckabucks—they were some type of frozen juice or Kool-Aid and people would sell them during the summertime. We would buy them from the homes of neighborhood women who were elderly and knew how to make them the right way. Our favorite house to go to was Ms. Hazel’s because she put fruit cocktail in the bottom of her cups so you got more for your quarter. Sometimes you could buy them during winter season, but that was only from the desperate households, so we would just wait to go to Ms. Hazel’s or another house if some kid found a better spot to go to. I start missing them. I wish that I had one because when you ate one it made you happy and all you thought about when you had one was that Huckabuck. Sometimes we’d call them Zips or Frozen Cups, and I just wanted something to make me happy and stop the fear.

I call Catherine, who is channel surfing, watching some BET awards show and the weather. Now it was definite: the news is saying New Orleans is in the direct path of Hurricane Katrina and we will be getti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Foreword
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• PHYLLISOPHICAL FOOD FOR THOUGHT
• KATRINA POEMS
• AND THIS TOO SHALL PASS
• ANOTHER STORM LAST NIGHT
• BLACK WATERS
• COLORING BOOKS AND JACKS
• DREAMSICLE
• HIS ARMS
• NO SMOKING ANGEL
• STORMY MONDAY
• THE STORM IS OVER
• THE WINDOW AND THE LADY IN BLACK
• THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE
• TODAY IS A GOOD DAY
• USED 2 B
• WOULD YOU HAVE COME IF I DROWNED?
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND THANKS
• PHOTOGRAPHIC INSERT