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Hurricane Katrina...18 Years Later · Black Girl Interrupted Podcast

0:11
Black Girl is erupty. Y'all already know how it's got. It's erupting.
0:27
Y'all already know how to start it. That girl is rusty people, alright,
0:40
what's up, y'all? Y'all already know it's your girl Ash, y'all
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already know. Welcome back to another episode of Black Girl Interrupted. Many many
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man today, it's a specialty. Today is a very beautiful day. Today
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is a commemorative day. Today is not only Today is a day of celebration.
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Today is a day where we reflect and we focus on what we gained
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and not so much as what we lost. So, y'all, welcome back
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again to another episode of Black Girl Interrupted. I'm so excited to be here.
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I'm ecstatic to do this episode tonight. Like I really don't even believe,
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y'all. I just really don't even think y'all even understand how excited I
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am to do this episode tonight because eighteen years ago, this devastation not only
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rocks the world, what a small little city right in Louisiana. But y'all
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already know before I even get started and start doing the episode, y'all know,
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I gotta do my mental health check in so let's do that mental health
2:04
check in and then we are definitely jumping into tonight's episode. So this is
2:09
something spectacular, you know what, I'm gonna do something different. I'm gonna
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do something different. Let's start the show. Let's get get up. So
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let me go ahead and let me play this real quick and then we get
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into the night show. But I still want to do my mental health checking.
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Don't forget drop in the time. How are you feeling the day?
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Today is Tuesday? You made it another day? How you feeling? Well?
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Let's go okay. Not have been all over the world, man,
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i'dn't seen a lot of faces, met a lot of women. What's crazy
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to me is that, no matter how many there's still ain't nothing like a
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New Orleans. Let's go, let's stop from the beginning. He was double
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brown brown. She caught my daddy's eye and he still arise, which helps
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me through my point. It must be something in the water, because forty
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years later later and he still catty Carter. I be It still ain't God
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like a New Others girl I've been in over all over the world, it
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still ain't I like charl See. I'm wrong and I'm wrong, and I
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can see it for myself. These girls from the warlings, don't they they're
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something else When they call your baby, they don't melt you like some sugar.
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And don't let took your mil because that's gonna showing myself away over all
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over it's still they ain't good. And like a New Orleans girl who will
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be all over all over the world, ain't news said you better watch you
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old retreat up put them all over the world. You better watch y old.
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If you see a New Orleans girl, said, you better watch y'all
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street up put them all over the world. And you better watch your hut.
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If you see a New Orleans girl who watch me all over, still
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ain't uh like a New Orleans girl who will be all low. However,
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the world still ain't uh like the New Orleans girl shouting alright, y'all.
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I just you know what I want to do, something a little different.
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I always do my mental health check ins, I always always do. But
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today is different. Today is special, Today is again. Today's a day
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of reflection, Today's a day of celebration. It's better sweet because here we
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are eighteen years later since Hurricane Katrina devastated not only in New Orleans, but
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the world felt that. And in that moment, I think we were all
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in solidarity, and I think that was the beautiful thing because it just hurricane
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let me say this, Hurricane Katrina really showed how resilient one city could really
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truly be. And I'm gonna promise myself that I'm not gonna get emotion of
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the night. I know, y'all see that black and go No, y'all
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see that. But I'm getting a little patty tonight too. And this is
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for my football fans, because y'all know how your girl do. Y'all know
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I can get up here, I can get petty, But tonight I'm gonna
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get extra petty just because it's the start of football season. Oh pay me.
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Y'all already know your girl go cut up with no systems. But anyway,
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but again, y'all, welcome back to another episode of Black Girl Interrupted
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Podcasts. Of course, y'all know what's your girl ash. I'm bringing y'all
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some beautiful conversations each and every week, and I appreciate all the love and
7:16
the support that y'all come in and y'all show me daily. I absolutely appreciate
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that I'm very humble again. I made a post yesterday and I said,
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I want to change the world one podcast at a time, one one episode
7:31
at a time. I'm sorry, so that's what i want to do.
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But anyway, but tonight we are talking about Hurricane Katrina. Eighteen years later.
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Oh mmmmm, all right, so we got some comments. Hey us,
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I love you. My favorite hold up, I'm don't get my fingers
7:53
together. Eventually, hold up there would go. I got it, I
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got it, I got it. Put up there, Casis, my sisters.
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I feel great, a little under the weather, but I'm blessed to
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be here, you know what. Let me say this, and I'm glad
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that you posted that, because yesterday was a real hard day for me.
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But I'm blessed to be here. I'm blessed to be here. I'm blessed
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to have overcome every obstacle and every tribulation that God has thrown my way.
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I thank God every day that I'm able to get over that hill. Yesterday
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was rough. Yes yesterday was a real bad day for me. But I'm
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here. I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, I'm
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here, I'm here. Miss Shannon says, but blessed. I know it,
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girl, it was like what a hundred and seven degrees here today?
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Something like that. I know it's what a hundred and nine a couple of
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days ago, but hey, it is what you know, what can we
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do? What can we say? But tonight's conversation, we are talking about
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Hurricane Katrina eighteen years later. Can't y'all believe it's been eighteen years? I
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remember Katrina like it was yesterday, and then two years ago to day,
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Hurricane Either hit and ravaged Louisiana. Yet once again. Oh, I want
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to first start off by saying to all my friends and family in New Orleans,
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I love y'all. I'm so proud of y'all. I'm elated to be
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from such a beautiful city with a beautiful black background. Not blackground, but
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I could say that with a beautiful background. Not only the culture, the
9:48
people and the food, but it's the people. They're making such a great
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yet beautiful city. So regardless of what people say about New Orleans, that
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don't stop y'all from coming. H Petty number one, I'm starting already.
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No, but really though, but but honestly though, it's it's such a
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beautiful thing you know, when you're sitting you look back at how far we've
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come in eighteen years. Eighteen Jule says, eighteen years. Scenes like,
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yes, I'm telling you. I remember when the announcement came down and they
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said, hey, we got a hurricane coming our way. But it was
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really supposed to go to Florida. But once it hit the Gulf and it
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hit that hot spot, Katrina turned I had a straight for New Orleans and
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we were in panic mode. We were like, OK, we gotta go,
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we gotta we, we gotta try to get out of here. But
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a lot of us didn't make it out, a lot of us had to
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stay, a lot of us didn't survive. Mm hmm. August twenty ninth,
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I will say that was the most humble day ever. And I say
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the most humble day because thousands of people lost everything in one moment, one
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moment. Not only did we lose treasure gems, but we lost loved ones.
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HM. I'm gonna take my time with this one because when you m
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you look at the devastation and the treatment of the people in such a beautiful
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city. It's devastating. On top of the storm coming and touching down It's
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almost as there we would slapped again in the face. And I said,
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and I promise, y'all, I wasn't gonna get emotional, but I did.
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But I am m because when you think back to that day, you
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never thought that that was gonna be the last day you saw your loved one.
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You never thought that was gonna be the last day in your home.
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That day changed a lot of people. A lot of people didn't recover from
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that day. Eighteen years ago, Hurricane Katrino devastated the Gulf Coast. So
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Shannon says, I literally just came across the newspaper from Katrina yesterday. I'll
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see you to pick. I just got a boot. Thank you. Anthony
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says, there's no crying in podcast. And hey, my big brother,
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y'all show my brother some love. My brother is in Florida, and of
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course we know they're Adahlia is heading towards Florida. Although he is not in
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the direct path, he is in Florida, So y'all pray for him,
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pray for his family. Uh, Anthony, I love you, big brother.
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Thank you for being here for me, thank you for us parting.
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And you already know that is on Jesus Jerome Jackson. Y'all already know.
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But when I look back at that day, it takes me back right here.
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And I'm gonna play this video and then I want to get back into
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the conversation tonight. We all see the police, you shall, I can't
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put the camera on it, Okay, I'm sorry, didn't know. Well
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what you saw there was uh did you get that, Scott? What you
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saw there was something that we've been experiencing pretty much for the last two days.
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You can see the uh streets are still flooded down here. Let's see
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if we're we can go Can we go in there? Can we go in
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there? Lads? Falls? Uh? That's where they're load of us.
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That's where they load Um. Okay, thank you free born. Huh yeah,
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I live in you live in Mendon, Yas. Yeah. So what
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do you? Uh? What are you seeing down here? Oh? Saying
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all kind of stuff? I man, just people looting in different kind of
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stuff like that. It's yeah, just tot o kahus really yeah, what's
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what's what's the security like here? Oh? The security it's pretty strong.
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We got more soldiers in today, and I think everything I'll be all right
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once we get all these people out of here yet. So we're told by
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the army that this is where they're picking up some of the refugees out of
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out of the superdome. And as you can see, it's not a pretty
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sight. And I can tell you the smell is not that great either.
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But these people look like they've been here for quite some time. Uh.
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Actually the smell is actually putrid. What is that total? I mean sixteen,
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I don't need nine. And there you see the frustration can fusion.
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Uh just a young girl. She just wants to go home. Man,
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it was it was hectic, Uh, yourn everywhere. I mean a lot
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of people, yeah, rap, all type of violence and just water rising
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everywhere in the city. We're just glad to be out of here, right.
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We don't we don't want to keep you guys. We know you want
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to go. But thank you for talking with us in good luck. Thanks
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you, thank you. Yeah, how's your baby doing? You don't want
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to be on I respect that. Tell me what you go to smell?
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We can't use the basket because you can't flush it, saras everything. I'm
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worn't got a hospital, so I'm used to it, but I can't eat
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anything because I threw up? How are you throwing up? Guess when that's
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narrow and just thinking about it. And he is everywhere. This is uh
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again Poindress Plaza, uh hotel, and this is where they're This is believe
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connected to the Superdome, so they're they're taking them every as you see,
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everyone's got something to say to the camera. These people haven't even had access
18:45
to a television, right, So this is where they're exiting. So you
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can see a happy little boy there. Uh, this is what we wanted
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to bring you. We wanted to show you, uh, the sights and
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sounds up close. And the reason we showed it unedited because we wanted you
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to see it raw. We wanted we wanted you to see what we're seeing,
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every bit of it. Another reason for that was the expediency. We
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are under time constraints here because we have to go back to a truck and
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shoot it back via satellite, so we can't edit this. So that's if
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you're wondering, that's the reason we shot it this way. But this is
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New Orleans. This is downtown New Orleans here and uh, I'll tell you
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the last time I covered this the city it was the elections. It was
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full of life, The streets were full of people. Uh, it's a
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much different story here today. Oh so Jewel says, I sit in a
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hotel and tusta loose and watched that storm head straight up the mouth of the
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Mississippi being shifted at the last second. That side of relief with that shift
20:03
was aside thanks and gratefulness that God's spare in New Orleans, I'm with you,
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Oh thanks to Anthony. Anthony says, I don't like his choice of
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words. Why would he call them refugees? But you know what, Anthony,
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that's what we were called in every state that we went to. I
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remember when I got to Atlanta and they said, oh, you're a refugee.
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How you got from Katrinium? What not? A refugee? A lot
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of people really just couldn't acquet. A lot of people really just could not
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equate to what a refugee is. I didn't come from another country. I
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came two three fourth states over from you, And for you to say I'm
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a refugee, that's devastating to me. But going back and watching that video,
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it takes me right back to where I was eighteen years ago. I
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remember that super Dome. I remember the people, I remember the smell.
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And not only was I devastated, but I was humbled because again, a
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lot of people didn't make it a lot of people didn't get to leave the
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Superdome, A lot of people didn't get to leave their homes. I spoke
21:36
with my neighbor, the lady that lived next door to me, who lost
21:38
her daughter eighteen years ago in the storm, and we kind of reminisced a
21:45
little bit today. She said, you know, I remember when they found
21:48
my daughter. My baby's body had been in the house for two months,
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and they just kept walking back and forth because they thought her baby was a
21:55
baby dog because her daughter was so swollen. And she said, Ashley,
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we have to be thankful for what we gained and not what we lost,
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because I really couldn't make heads or tails of this, because it's like,
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why did this have to happen? Why did thousands of people have to lose
22:21
their lives that day? When all you had to get us out of there,
22:27
the government, the city, the local, the state officials. You
22:32
failed that city. You've failed the people of New Orleans. You waited until
22:40
the day before to declare a state of emergency, and then you say,
22:45
we gotta get y'all out of here. Where were we gonna go? The
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interstate was closed going west, so you couldn't go to Houston, you couldn't
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go to Dallas, you couldn't go to call you couldn't go anywhere. You
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could only go east. But how could you go east? And their gas
23:03
stations were running out of game, people running as on the industry. So
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what we had to do we had to get in. We had to get
23:14
into survival mode. We had to think fast. We had to grab what
23:22
we could in that moment and go. You had people that didn't make it
23:38
out. You had people that were stuck in their houses that drowned. You
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had people that had that were forced to relocate with nothing. Loved ones were
23:59
lost a day, but they didn't care. Y'all failed us as a people,
24:14
as a city, as a community. Y'all left us there again.
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You waited until the day before to say, you know what, y'all can
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go, y'all can leave. I remember we can have had prior. I
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sent my children to Houston, and I was stuck and I didn't have a
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choice, but I had to go to Atlanta. I get to Atlanta.
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We don't have anything, no birth certificate, no socialcurity card, no drivers
24:56
like nothing. And I remember, all I want to do is go home
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because this wasn't home. But I started a brand new, beautiful life in
25:14
a lama. I met some great phenomenal people that welcomed me just like I
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was family, like they have been knowing me forever. In a day.
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Oh hey, Jerry, if any let me say this, If anybody is
25:36
on clubhouse, please go follow Jerry. He has a club called the Power
25:41
of Influence. Let me say this to you, Jerry. I am so
25:48
humbled to be in your presence. I am enamored by the beautiful things that
25:56
you do, not only for the community, but for hip hop. I
26:02
love you so much and I promise I want to be like you when I
26:06
grow up. I want to be in the in the who's who with the
26:08
celebrities and all that great beautiful stuff. So salute to you. If anybody's
26:14
own clubhouse, please go follow Jerry. It is His club is called the
26:17
Power of Influence. Amazing room, no drama. We just we get in
26:22
there, we love, we vibe, and he gives you all the tea,
26:26
all the tea news, everything we talked about everything. No, no,
26:32
it's no disrespect, it's nothing but love, and I love you so
26:34
much. But at Jerry, thank you for showing up and supporting me this
26:38
evening. So Javert says, taste this. You're right. A lot of
26:42
people treated the survivors like they were nothing. I never called them refugees.
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Hell, I never understood what it was anyway. I had just graduated from
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high school and all I could understand at that time was people lost everything and
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they're trying to find peace, a new place to stay, and just another
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chance to rebuild all Jerry, since he put the sad face, Javert says,
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take your time, and Jerry says, oh, thank you. I'm
27:11
humble. I'm humble by you because I watch you. I've actually you become
27:18
my mentor. So I do sit back and I watch the things that you
27:21
do, and I make it my own. I make it my own because
27:26
you're doing amazing yet beautiful things. And I'm absolutely blessed to be in your
27:30
presence at any time. I'm in the power of influence. So I definitely
27:34
want to give you some love and your roses now. But I go back
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and when I again, when I go back and I think about the heat,
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no food, no water, clothes on your back, you can't take
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a bath. You remember to be grateful for the things that you have.
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I learned that. I was telling them today. I will no longer take
28:06
soap and water for granted, because sitting and your you know, you stink,
28:11
you feel nasty. And not only are you dealing with that, but
28:15
you have to deal with the people that passed away in the superdome. You
28:21
have to think about the people that were hurt inside the Superdome and the fact
28:29
of where do we go from here? Where do we even start? How
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do we even begin to rebuild what we lost? You're stopping your think about
28:41
some of those things because we don't know what to do. We're so discombobulated
28:48
and all over the place. All we're thinking about is I'm ready to go
28:52
home. I just want to go home. I just want to be in
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my house. But then I look at Raynagan, who was the mayor of
29:04
New Orleans at the time, who was a piss poor mayor that you didn't
29:15
even think to make a judgment call and say we need to get these people
29:21
out of here. You had people that were in nursing homes. You had
29:23
the people that were in the covalescing houses that couldn't leave, that passed away
29:30
in these nursing homes, that passed away in the hospitals because you couldn't get
29:36
them out because you waited less than twenty four hours before Katrina made landfall.
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Was when y'all declared a state of emergency. You knew people couldn't go anywhere.
29:52
Nobody had cars. You were telling people they couldn't take the busses.
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It's almost as if you wanted us to die, and I'm just gonna see
30:04
it. It's almost as if you wanted the citizens of New Orleans to die
30:11
because you left us. You made us feel like we were nothing to y'all.
30:19
You made us feel as if our lives didn't matter. But the most
30:27
disheartening part was after the storm was over, you still left us to sitting
30:34
that superdom for three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
30:37
nine ten days. Y'all left us there. Then you showed videos of people
30:47
looting, people needed clothes, people needed food. Do y'all not understand that
30:55
we were homeless. We didn't have anywhere to go. We had no food,
31:00
there was no water, there was no power. That's the way you
31:06
treated us. And then when we finally made it to our destinations, some
31:17
states were very welcoming, some not so much. A lot of families were
31:23
broken apart. You couldn't get in touch with anybody because cell phone towers were
31:29
down. I found a video, and I'm not gonna play the whole video
31:37
because it's like nine ten minutes long. But these are some of the people
31:45
of my community, from my city that are reflecting because we're survivors, because
31:55
New Orleans shows you every day how resilient we are. Here we are eighteen
31:59
years years later, two years ago, Hurricane item came and ravaged Louisiana all
32:06
over again, all over again. But here we're gonna play this view again.
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I'm not gonna play the whole video, but I just want you to
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hear from some of the family, from some of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
32:30
Tonight, out of darkness and despair. My heart was broken. God
32:36
Lord Jesus, a new perspective on the most destructive storm in US history.
32:43
I had to do something. I'm gon' you gonna leave him there harrowing stories
32:45
it took ten years to tell. I saw a weird acceptance in his eyes
32:52
that really unnerved me, and stories that hit close to home. For about
32:59
what twenty four forty eight hours, you didn't know if Mom and I were
33:02
even alive. Join us on a remarkable journey of renewal. We will always
33:08
fight to keep what makes New Orleans great alive. Redemption of Super Bowl Chairs.
33:15
I needed somebody to believe in me just as much as New Orleans needed
33:19
someone to believe in them. And resilience, That's what I'm talking about now,
33:23
I'm crying Katrina. Ten years after the storm, you think about food
33:38
and music when you come to the Gulf Coast, Cajun and Creole cooking,
33:44
Mississippi's soulful Delta blues, and the swinging jazz of New Orleans. Yet even
33:51
now, ten years after Katrina, there's something else you can't help but think
33:55
about. When you're here in the aftermath the storm, the music of everyday
34:02
life just disappeared. It was still. There was not even a seagull.
34:12
It was very ominous. There was nothing, no birds, no cats,
34:19
no dogs. And I'll never forget that. And for all of that to
34:24
be gone, you never understand it until you miss it. But before that
34:30
eerie silence. There was the unforgettable angry howl of the massive hurricane as it
34:43
kind of wide swath of destruction across the Gulf coast. Katrina strengthened into a
34:52
hurricane on August twenty fifth, two thousand and five, and as it gained
34:57
force over the warm Gulf waters, it was quickly predicted to become a catastrophic
35:01
event. My fear is absolutely that demodels are correct. It is gaining strength
35:07
again. It is now stalking the Gulf coast. It rapidly doubled in size
35:14
and intensified into a Category five hurricane. This is a terrible stole. Take
35:19
this seriously. Across Louisiana and Mississippi, there were urgent orders to evacuate ladies
35:25
and gentlemen. This is not a test. From the Texas coast to the
35:30
Florida Panhandle, millions braced for the worst. Those who couldn't evacuate or wouldn't
35:36
hunkered down or took refuge at a shelter of last resort. Already, hundreds
35:45
of people have made their way to the Superdome, driving cars, walking,
35:50
taking buses. On August twenty ninth, Katrina made landfall as a category three
35:55
hurricane, still packing deadly winds as strong as one hundred and twenty five miles
36:00
per hour. The storm has come ashore this morning, coming in over Grand
36:06
Isle, Louisiana. We got hit with a piece of debris took out the
36:08
window in our vehicles. Four hours the coast was under assault. When it
36:16
was over, Katrina's fierce winds and near record storm surge had gone from natural
36:22
disaster to national tragedy. Places like Slidelle, Louisiana, just outside of New
36:30
Orleans, suffered catastrophic damage. In New Orleans, we have a major American
36:35
city underwater. Major levies broken slowly. The city has filled with water.
36:39
The city is going to be essentially uninhabitable for many days. We were hearing
36:44
rumors that the lower ninth ward might be flooding, and the first thing that
36:47
I saw was this house. Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist Ted Jackson ignored his newspapers
36:55
evacuation orders and commodeered a small boat to photograph the storm for The Times Pickieune.
37:01
There was a family on the porch that was desperate, with water up
37:06
to their chest. Above the roar of the hurricane and the bands of the
37:10
rain that kept slapping us. They were screaming to me for help. Eighty
37:15
percent of New Orleans flooded after the levies failed. Neighborhoods like Saint Bernard Parish
37:22
completely submerged, leaving people trapped isolated, asking where is the help? When
37:30
is it coming? At the convention Center and estimated twenty five thousand people showed
37:36
up only to find out it wasn't an official place for evacuation. So they
37:44
were left stranded and it can't give us a bail of water. Some left
37:50
to die inside the convention center were there were five bodies that I saw Outside
37:57
there was one in a wheelchair that people had tried to respectfully cover with a
38:04
blanket. I was grabbed by the elbow by woman named Angela Perkins. She's
38:09
just she started started screaming, and she said, help us, help us,
38:14
please, And at that point when she dropped down to her knees and
38:17
just screamed. And while some people blame the government for failing as badly as
38:28
the levies, one federal agency was held as being heroic, the US Coast
38:34
Guard credited with rescuing more than thirty thousand people. What stands out ten years
38:52
later is how much has been rebuilt the whole, but the form the barrier,
39:04
I know, it's still missing. And you can see why. After
39:09
the levees failed with more than fifty breaches, how water would just pour into
39:15
the city, leaving an estimated sixty thousand people trapped for days. I think
39:23
most of America, most of the world, remember those images of people on
39:28
the rooftop trying to make sign What was it like to make it to those
39:34
rooftops and see people in such a state of desperation. Sometimes when you got
39:38
down there, they were crying because they wanted to leap so bad. Sometimes
39:42
they were just jumping up and down for joints. They wanted to get out.
39:45
Sometimes they were so dehydrated and beat down that they could barely even want
39:52
to get to the position that they needed to be to get hoisted up.
39:54
And you had to physically help them to get into the basket because they were
39:58
just so tired and jousted. My disposition women and children. At first.
40:04
One of those children, fifteen year old Serena Johnson, now twenty five.
40:09
She and her family sought safety on the roof of this house. We all
40:15
wanted help, that's all we wanted. Was helped, and nobody came to
40:19
how eat for a long time, and that's what makes me mad. Three
40:22
days passed, Serena and her parents were stranded in the unbearable heat, and
40:29
then just as things were getting really precarious, they caught the attention of a
40:35
Coastguard helicopter. At that point, you were out of food, out of
40:38
water, getting close to being completely out of everything. So it was like
40:43
they came at the right they came at the right time. So what was
40:45
that moment like when you knew that that helicopter was coming for you, this
40:51
was your way out. I remember it vivid me when it happened as I'm
40:57
going up into the air and we went spinning. We went spiraling up into
41:01
the helicopter. I had packed a little mesh book bag just with a couple
41:07
of things, just in case we had got out. But when the helicopter
41:10
came, the propeller winds was so strong it opened up my bag and all
41:15
of my clothes fell into the water. I can't see no cars like it,
41:20
just dropping into a swamp. I think they took my mom in a
41:22
second. They took me in first, and then we left like without my
41:28
dad. Yeah, I was still on the roof coming up the heart stopping
41:35
video of a hero rescuer as Katrina makes a direct hit in Mississippi. We're
41:40
drawing a boat down the hallway. I had to do something. My moren't
41:44
gonna leave him there. And a dramatic survival story. It's surreal. It's
41:49
just totally surreal. It took one woman ten years to tell. You're looking
41:54
at it, you're acknowledging it, but it doesn't seem real. Plus Serena's
41:59
life blown by the storm in an unexpected direction. I've been doing that.
42:05
I'm speaking of truth and later a personal homecoming when we return. Wow,
42:30
we maybe I just told my sister God made us so strong we weren't built
42:47
to break. We did it eighteen years later and we're still here. I
43:15
did this episode tonight not only to commemorate, but as a story of resilience
43:29
that with all things through Christ, it strengthens me. When I tell you
43:44
New Orleans, no matter where I go, I can't ry that city in
43:49
my heart. No matter where I go, I can't ry that city in
43:57
my heart. You never take the Louisiana girl a lot of me. I
44:01
don't care where I go, I don't care if I moved to Mars.
44:09
Jared says prayers up to who who lost somebody during the storm. That was
44:15
a powerful video. And there's actually a part two. I'm gonna play part
44:19
two, but a lot of people don't know that. Robin Robertson's from Past
44:22
Christian which is in Mississippi. And I had the opportunity to meet her once
44:30
New Orleans opened back up, and I had a chance to have just a
44:36
beautiful conversation with her. And when I tell you, I laughed, I
44:42
cried, and I was humbled because the whole world watched as this storm ravaged
44:54
the entire golf course. There was so many people that felt so helpless.
45:04
There were people that wanted to come and help or couldn't get to the city.
45:14
But let me tell you something, when New Orleans opened back up,
45:21
maybe we came back swinging. Do you hear me? We came back swinging.
45:27
Because although you took the things that the replaceable things, you never took
45:43
the strength of the people. You never took the resilience from the people.
45:47
You never took that from us. But we were in survival mode because again,
45:58
to lose everything in one day, and now you have to start from
46:02
the bottom to get back to the top. It's overwhelming. It's frustrating because
46:08
where do I even begin. Do I go back to look at my house,
46:14
Do I try to go back to the city, do what do I
46:16
do? Because New Orleans has experienced a hurricane like this before, back in
46:22
the sixties, but never to the extreme that Hurricane Katrina took New Orleans through.
46:35
What we vowed that when we came back, we were gonna come back
46:40
New Orleans strong. And that was one of the beautiful things about that city,
46:49
about the people, about the community, was the unity and the solidarity
46:53
that we gained in the midst of this devastating hurricane. A lot of people
47:04
didn't want to leave, you know, the older generation, Oh, you
47:06
know, we've been through this before. We're gonna stay. And a lot
47:09
of them stay. A lot of people left, but then there were a
47:15
lot of people that couldn't go. But I go back, and I think
47:27
two months to the day that Katrina hit, when they opened the Inner State
47:30
back up going west, we went back just to see because I know when
47:43
you see it on the new on TV, you're like, oh my god,
47:45
it's it. I know, it looks really bad, but it can't
47:47
be that bad. You know, the aftermath, once the water started to
47:51
subside. You go back and you look and the smell. You smell the
48:00
death in the air. You saw the houses with the exes in the circles,
48:10
and then reality sets in because I really just thought, Okay, I'm
48:19
gonna wake up. This is a dream, this is a nightmare. This
48:21
really cannot be happening until you go back and you look at what one storm
48:31
did to an entire city. Cars flipped over, houses ruined nothing but maybe
48:45
the stairs left. Yeah, really can't go in because it's molded in there,
49:00
and it's almost like you're slapped in the face again. What do you
49:12
do? How do you come back from that? So Javert says, thank
49:22
you for sharing. I've never seen these yet. There were a lot of
49:27
other videos, but I refuse to show those because those we're not so pleasant
49:32
to see. But here's part two of Katrina, and then I really want
49:45
to get into the celebration because we've cried. Now it's time for you to
49:52
see how we bounced the bag. So here's part two. In the chaos
50:04
of the rescues, Serena Johnson found herself living a nightmare. We went to
50:10
it was the lowest Armstrong airport, and when you walked into the airport you
50:15
saw all bids like it smelt like a hospital. Some people were passing there.
50:22
Desperation and despair were already hard to bear, but on top of that,
50:28
many evacuees, like Serena were separated from loved ones. Hurricane Katrina caused
50:35
the largest and most abrupt displacement in US history. People lose businesses, people
50:40
lose homes that they worked hard on. A million people in the Gulf Coast
50:45
were uprooted, scattered across all fifty states. Unsure of how to find her
50:51
father, Serena and her mother had no option but to evacuate without him.
50:57
Soon they were airlifted from New Orleans with no idea where they were going,
51:01
where her father was, or if he was even alive. I remember like
51:07
looking to my mom and like with tears in my eyes and was like I
51:10
lost everything, including the city she called home. And while a devastated New
51:16
Orleans was drowning in unmerciful floodwaters, just fifty seven miles away on the Mississippi
51:23
Coast, Katrina had also left a trail of unimaginable destruction. More than sixty
51:30
thousand homes were destroyed. Back on August twenty nine, when the eye of
51:35
the hurricane made landfall directly over Wavelin, Mississippi, their deadly storm surges nearly
51:44
thirty feet high exceeded everyone's worst case predictions. But this was rap arrive,
51:52
leaving an entire community trapped. That's when Howard oh Gwynn sprang into action.
52:06
This video shows Howard fighting the storm as roads turned into raging rivers and cars
52:13
were completely underwater. He pulled aboard anyone needing his help were driving a boat
52:19
down the highway. I mean, I never expected that in a hundred years.
52:27
Wynn was screaming like I ain't never heard it before. Rain was coming
52:30
down. It was like needles hitting us. We were just started hearing people
52:34
hollering. So we started picking up people. They were all stranger. A
52:39
true lifeboat with fifteen desperate people crammed into a vessel meant to hold only six.
52:47
I had to do something. I wasn't gonna leave him there. I
52:51
mean, people was hollering for help, help you go help. I was
52:57
scared, but I wasn't gonna let everybody in that boat know I was here
53:00
because I'd had a panic attack. Soon he heard frantic screams coming from this
53:05
house, which was almost totally submerged, and we couldn't get a door opened
53:09
to get out. Betty Gillan seventy six at the time, was trapped inside.
53:15
I jumped overboard when I opened up the door, and I put her
53:19
and her son and his girlfriend in the boat. It was very scary.
53:23
Howard navigated the boat through two miles of treacherous water, finally reaching safety on
53:31
a motel balcony just above the water level. Saved my life. He was
53:39
like a little clug come down from him and just to see me. I
53:45
love you and I love you too. Strangers before Katrina now lifelong friends.
53:55
I mean they called me a hero. With everybody was heroled. It made
54:00
it out at storm. For one woman we met in nearby Past Christian,
54:07
my hometown, there was no hero to rescue her. She's been silent about
54:13
her story until now. I was incredulous. I just couldn't imagine. We
54:22
thought we were safe. Diane and Tony Bruger did not evacuate from Harbor Oaks,
54:30
the historic n they had lovingly restored. They believed its thirty three foot
54:35
elevation was well above the predicted twenty five foot storm surge. It was supposed
54:39
to be going towards New Orleans. The track of the storm has shifted to
54:46
the east, capable of producing a tornado seven miles southeast past Christiana. The
54:52
Brugers took refuge on the top floor of their inn. We saw the the
55:00
water coming the cars and floating in everything into the water was almost up this
55:05
scenic drive and it was like, oh, this is serious. News stations
55:12
around the world covered the storm, reaching out to eyewitnesses who still had phone
55:16
service. At daybreak, a Canadian news anchor spoke to Tony Bruker. Got
55:22
a couple of windows that we weren't able to hit from the outside, and
55:23
they were already broken, So we're going to try and bore than the inside.
55:29
He had no idea what was coming. One block away, police captured
55:34
video of an alarming site as Sargeant Michael Alley's patrol car and as the waters
55:39
continued to rise, tornadoes touched down in Mississippi, one of which hit the
55:45
Brukers full on. We were sitting in the sitting in the bed and the
55:52
dogs were just going crazy, and the house you'd feel it sort of,
55:57
you know, like a lift up like a boat, and settled back and
56:00
lift up like a boat. And we just looked at each other, and
56:07
I saw a weird acceptance in his eyes that really unnerved me, that where
56:19
he almost was acknowledging that this was it. And I didn't understand. I
56:28
understood it, but I didn't accept it. But we said nothing. He
56:35
just held hands and just looked at each other. And then when the house
56:39
went up, then it didn't quite go right back down the way it was
56:44
supposed to, and we all got up, and then that's when the walls
56:49
fell away, when the ceiling came down, and then it just covered him.
57:00
The house literally just started breaking apart, just sort of flattened out into
57:06
like just stuff. This field of debris. Tony was when the part of
57:20
the ceiling came down, it caught his head and just stuck right under.
57:27
Somehow Diane survived. The only thing I remember is the trees. There were
57:31
two together, and I had a foot in one and a foot in the
57:35
other tree. It was all just just hang on. She clung to the
57:42
tree limbs for six hours until the violent storm subsided and she was rescued.
57:47
Having lost the love of her life, her home, and her community.
57:53
How could she possibly find the strength to carry on a little later, How
58:01
Diane discovers that determination the amazing reinvention of a life. Also a saint comes
58:08
marching in. I needed somebody to believe in me, just as much as
58:12
New Orleans needed someone to believe in them. How Drew Brees and football win
58:17
back the joy. M m hm. You go back and you think about
58:45
where were you eighteen years ago? My sister says, cars on roofs,
58:53
complete devastation. Yeah, it was, but again we've cried, we've prayed,
59:08
and we've asked why. But then we had to stop, and we
59:14
had to think. We're New Orleans strong. I get excited when I talk
59:22
about my city because we've cried at the devastation, and now it's time for
59:31
us to rejoice the comeback of New Orleans, because I'm here to tell you,
59:38
when we came back after that storm thought he could take us, when
59:45
that storm thought he could break us, we showed y'all what New Orleans was
59:52
really about. And it started not only with the people, but with football.
1:00:00
And I think this is the most beautiful opportunity at the start of football
1:00:07
season for my New Orleans Saints. Jude, this is for you, Sis,
1:00:13
This is for you. How New Orleans and the New Orleans Saints brought
1:00:25
LFE back into the city. Here we go back in oh five. People
1:00:46
still call them the Ants. Season take a tra down. Over two years,
1:00:52
there was talk of the move San Antonio, maybe LA. Then it
1:00:57
hit the costliest actual disaster in American history. The magnitude of the situation is
1:01:05
untenable. It's actually it's just heartbreaking. When I went to the Dome and
1:01:15
I saw the the water everywhere, and the people and the crisis that was
1:01:21
going on, it certainly became the symbol of despair. The widespread belief was
1:01:27
that the Superdome would be demolished and the Saints would move away. There was,
1:01:31
however, an alternate belief. Governor blank She, I think early on
1:01:38
came to recognize that the psyche of the public was critical, and she also
1:01:45
quickly came to understand that the Superdome and the Saints could be a critical piece
1:01:49
of that. Governor, people are out of work, people are homeless,
1:01:52
and you made a decision to fast track of football, stating why every time
1:01:57
they talked about the hurricane, the camera's panned the rooftop of the building,
1:02:00
and it just it represented our heart being ripped out of our soul. And
1:02:06
I felt like if it'd stayed there for any length of time that it would
1:02:09
also take the heart and the energy out of the individuals who were trying to
1:02:15
rebuild their businesses, who were trying to put their homes back together. Was
1:02:19
this a symbolic decision or an economic one? If we lost the Saints,
1:02:22
it meant that we lost a lot of tourism money. It meant that we
1:02:27
lost jobs. And I didn't want to be a governor, the governor who
1:02:32
allowed the Saints to leave. Gradually, a long shot vision took shape.
1:02:38
Keeping the Saints would require two things, saving the Dome and the blessing of
1:02:44
team owner Tom Benson. I remember talking to mister Benson when he was negative
1:02:49
about the likelihood that the Superdome could be salvaged. I said, on Tom,
1:02:54
I may be right it can be done. You may be right that
1:02:58
it can't be done. But right now, the one thing we have to
1:03:01
agree on is we have to try. Paul came to me at one point
1:03:05
in time. And he said, Governor, if you can get the dome
1:03:07
open, I will make sure that Tom Benson does not leave the city of
1:03:13
New Orleans. I said, Thornton, what's your timeline. He told me
1:03:16
it would take over two years. We probably couldn't have it open until maybe
1:03:20
January of two thousand and seven. And I said, you can't wait till
1:03:23
two thousand and seven. It's got open for two thousand and six because if
1:03:27
they play elsewhere, you'll never get it back. And his comment to me
1:03:30
was, you give me turf and make it safe for the fans, and
1:03:35
we'll play football. And I just I said, Paul, it's a deal.
1:03:40
We hadn't received the first penny from FEMA, we haven't hammered the first
1:03:44
nail, but yet we've committed to play football. By September, mone Staff
1:03:47
thought we were crazy. Oh I was crazy. I said, Okay,
1:03:51
Doug, let's go. You've got it. Let's go. If you'd try
1:04:00
to make the agreement the reality as quickly as you can, and the people
1:04:02
may unhappy, did it? They were eight hundred and fifty men and women
1:04:06
working here six days a week, ten hours a day, who lived in
1:04:11
this community, who wanted to rebuild the stadium, and they knew that failure
1:04:15
was not an option. It was such a spirit, it was electrifying.
1:04:18
They were inspired and they were working with a common unity of purpose. Last
1:04:24
year, so much hopelessness inside this arena. It's been replaced by the sounds
1:04:29
of hope and rebirth. This was a group of trumpeters blowing that New Orleans
1:04:35
is coming back. A joyous night in New Orleans. Fuck the party be
1:04:41
here. So what came of Katrina Well, contempt for the impossible and a
1:04:47
team that found where it was going by going home. I had to pull
1:05:13
that video because you have to understand the light and the love that New Orleans
1:05:26
carries. So when Katrina came and tried to shut the city down, we
1:05:32
came back swinging. And what a way to do it with the New Orleans
1:05:38
scenes. They're the heart, the people, the businesses, the food,
1:05:50
the music. It is the heart of New Orleans. And for all that
1:05:57
to be wiped away in one day. We couldn't give up on the city.
1:06:01
We couldn't give up. We didn't have a choice. So we said
1:06:11
we're coming back. We're bringing the city back. We may have lost,
1:06:15
but watch how we're about to gain watch the bounceback, and what a better
1:06:21
way than to do it with football. When I tell you that game opening,
1:06:33
I think I cried because I said, they had really given up on
1:06:40
the city. They were like, to hell with New Orleans. We people
1:06:44
were leaving, they wanted to take the team away. Businesses, a lot
1:06:48
of businesses didn't come back, a lot of people didn't come back. But
1:06:51
we had to celebrate the people that did come back. We had to celebrate
1:06:57
the culture. We had to celebrate the people. We had to celebrate the
1:07:00
food, we had to celebrate the music. But most importantly, again we
1:07:05
had to celebrate the people. And again, what a better way to do
1:07:13
than with football, because we know football brings everybody together, even people that
1:07:18
don't play, that don't watch football, or matter of fact, that don't
1:07:21
watch sports. This brought the city together. And I go back and I
1:07:33
watched that video and I just reminisced, and I said, I remember we
1:07:40
won that game. Shout out to Steve Gleeson, thank you to Drew Brees,
1:07:45
thank you to Sean Payton, but most importantly, thank you to the
1:07:51
city. I gotta give love to my city. All I have to.
1:08:00
I have to love it. I have to love on them because that city
1:08:02
loved me back. Atlanta loved me back, Texas loved me back. The
1:08:10
whole world loved me back. And you loved my city back. Y'all poured
1:08:16
into the city, even if you weren't a Saints fan. The love that
1:08:21
y'all gave us when New Orleans opened back up. When New Orleans they hold
1:08:28
up, we open it back up, We bring it. We're welcoming y'all
1:08:30
back into the city. We may not be at a hundred percent, but
1:08:34
we want you to come and we want you to enjoy and celebrate in our
1:08:39
city. And I looked at the people as I rolled back into New Orleans,
1:08:50
and I said, Damn, the bounce back was real. They doubted
1:09:00
us. They didn't think New Orleans could come back after the devastation. They
1:09:05
didn't think we could make it. People that really counted us out. With
1:09:10
the ones that counted us out, you really couldn't count because we came back
1:09:17
and we looked good. I had never seen one city come out and show
1:09:29
out the way New Orleans did when we opened back up. We opened back
1:09:35
up, and I said, damn, look at my city. Y'all s
1:09:42
throwing out down here for these people. But it was the love we received
1:09:48
from the people that came to visit that just that weren't even from New Orleans,
1:09:53
that said, I love you. You made it, y'all prayed would
1:09:59
a y'all poured into the city. Y'all showed us would love really looked like.
1:10:09
And then when we won that Super Bowl, I knew we had made
1:10:15
it. We had arrived. I'll never look at another city the way I
1:10:25
look at New Orleans. I'm telling you, I love other cities, but
1:10:30
not the way that I love that little bit of city called New Orleans,
1:10:33
with that five or full area code, with the great food, the great
1:10:40
drinks, the great people. Man eighteen years ago, they took that from
1:10:53
us, but we fought back. Jerry says, I love that hashtag New
1:11:00
Orleans strong, hashtag New Orleans level. My sister says, we partied hard
1:11:05
that night. It truly brought us city together, didn't it, thought,
1:11:12
And that was the day of reflection, since that was the day when we
1:11:15
sat down and we said, if we could bounce back from Katrina, we
1:11:21
could bounce back from anything that you throw our weight, even in dusty ass
1:11:28
Falcons. This hill, y'all know, I gotta get patties sometimes. But
1:11:36
again they really counted us out. But this hill game open against them,
1:11:44
Atlanta Falcons, Bay bad. Yeah at all. It's Tyles here go,
1:11:55
you're clean fun. It is going to be covered by the saintsbur a touchdown
1:12:04
baby. September twenty fifth, two thousand and six, a Monday night,
1:12:10
the city of New Orleans will never forget the Saints were finally home. It
1:12:21
had been six hundred and thirty eight days since the Saints played a true home
1:12:25
game after the city was decimated by Hurricane Katrina. They're Rocking two thousand and
1:12:30
five campaign resulted in home games at San Antonio's Alamode and the three and thirteen
1:12:34
record. Amid rumors the franchise would stay in Texas permanent, in came new
1:12:39
head coach Sean pay, three, agent quarterback Drew Brees, and the number
1:12:42
two pick in the draft, Reggie Bush. Suddenly the Saints had hope,
1:12:45
hope the city of New Orleans could latch on too. Fast Forward to week
1:12:48
three, Monday Night, the two and old Saints welcome Mike pick in the
1:12:51
Atlanta Falcons Coincidentally, the last team the Saints posted to New Orleans back in
1:12:57
two thousand and four, the Superdome rocking green day and you two doing the
1:13:00
same. The house was at full bore before kickoff. We all know what
1:13:04
happened next. Michael Canan, who has made a headline for missing six of
1:13:11
his eight field goal attempts this year, is now back to just punching and
1:13:14
kicking off. The former Saint Morton Anderson is here for most field goals.
1:13:17
Look out right, you could not sprint this any better. That's just happened
1:14:00
to everybody. How about YouTube? Y'all acting real crazy with me right now.
1:14:15
So they suspended my stream on YouTube. Y'all. Let me get back
1:14:21
over there. Let me see what I could do. Hold on, y'all,
1:14:25
man, Oh really, hold on, y'all. So YouTube just really
1:14:38
really really knocked me out. Oh no, I guess it's still I don't
1:14:47
know. I don't know what's going on with YouTube. YouTube just really completely
1:14:51
knocked me right on out. Jules says, if they didn't get along,
1:14:56
they threw that out the window. Just for one night. It was a
1:14:59
beauty for sight and it was Jared says, I admit I do love the
1:15:04
food. Football is one of the greatest past times they went from the eighth
1:15:09
to the Saints. Yeah, it's out on YouTube. It because I don't
1:15:15
know. I guess the stream. I don't know. I have to battle
1:15:20
with that. But Jared said that Super Bowl was one for the books,
1:15:27
legendary salute to Drew Brees. Yeah, it says I'm out on YouTube.
1:15:35
I don't know. I don't know why, but they just I got to
1:15:41
fight with them on this. Now this it just upsets me so much.
1:15:49
Oh no, it might still be. Oh, there we go, there
1:15:51
we go. I write, y'all, Uh, I'm back up on YouTube.
1:15:56
It's it's back up. So they muted my video big us. I
1:16:00
was showing y'all the U a video that I grabbed from YouTube with regards to
1:16:08
the things and the falcons. Maybe they didn't want me talking about the falcons.
1:16:11
I don't know, baby, Uh, they didn't want me to talk
1:16:14
about the falcons. But it's cool. I'm not tripping ever. Anybody that
1:16:17
has watched the game, you already know what happened our season opener. Uh
1:16:26
we won, baby, we won. We beat the falcons, and that's
1:16:32
in us right on where we needed to be. I don't know why they
1:16:36
do that. Maybe they don't want us talking. I don't know. Maybe
1:16:40
they don't want us talking about the falcons. I don't know. Maybe maybe
1:16:44
they don't want us talking about the falcons. Maybe they don't want us hating
1:16:46
on the f I don't know, baby, But we were resilient. And
1:16:51
what they did was they they muted that certain little part me showing but it's
1:16:58
cool, it's cool. Let's see. Maybe let me see if I could
1:17:02
get it back. Let me see if I could get it back. But
1:17:10
anyway, but I do want to say this. I go back and I
1:17:16
look at where New Orleans was eighteen years ago, and I look at where
1:17:23
we are today. Granted, two years ago, we did have another devastation
1:17:29
that affected New Orleans, well Louisiana altogether, and that was Hurricane Either that
1:17:34
hit two years ago. And I remember going back and rewatching my episode that
1:17:41
I filmed two years ago and in commemoration of Katrina sixteen years ago, but
1:17:48
also talking about Ida. But I go back and I say, that's you
1:17:57
know, that's ironic to have. I believe seven hurricanes hit August twenty ninth,
1:18:02
but in different years, I believe Harvey hit the same day here in
1:18:08
Houston, you had Ida that hit twenty twenty one, August twenty ninth.
1:18:17
I believe Hurricane Isaac. Again, I want to say, it's like six
1:18:24
or seven hurricanes that have all hit on the same day, but just in
1:18:26
different years. But it's the beautiful story and the resilience of New Orleans that
1:18:35
just makes me love my city even more. Hey, big, I hope
1:18:44
you're having a good night at work, Julia as your brother, but I'm
1:18:49
trying to see, can I get the video back? Let me see,
1:18:55
let me see if I can bring the video back, because again that see,
1:19:00
he's an opener and us coming back into the city was was great.
1:19:04
But then I also look at the music, I look at everyone that came
1:19:12
out to help rebuild New Orleans after Katrina, and again I love the people
1:19:23
because I think we're phenomenal. I think we are fantastic. God made us
1:19:34
New Orleans strong. God built the city and the community strong, Jules says,
1:19:48
hey, brother, But I just I don't know it. It's just
1:20:00
so many things to say. I'm just enamored at how strong New Orleans really
1:20:08
truly is even now in present day, eighteen years later, despite all the
1:20:13
crime and the violence that's going on in the city, we still managed to
1:20:19
stand tall. I'm just sitting here and I'm just really reminiscent, and I'm
1:20:28
just thinking, where would I be if Katrina had not have happened? Where
1:20:39
would my family be? Where would my children be? He says, what's
1:20:46
the big sess? But I asked people all the time, where would you
1:20:58
be if it wasn't for Hurricane Katrina? When I say, when people ask
1:21:05
me that, and I explain, I talk about how my life has been
1:21:15
so different, how I've learned to appreciate not only what I have, but
1:21:28
I worry less about what I lost. I focus more on what's irreplaceable and
1:21:39
less of what's replaceable, because monetary things could be replaced. You lost the
1:21:45
car that could be replaced, but a life there's no coming back. Once
1:21:55
a life is over, once it's done. I value my life because it
1:22:05
could have been over. And I thank God for where I am today and
1:22:14
how He's given me the gift to pour into people where he's using me as
1:22:27
a testimony while I'm able to tell the story, but also helped to encourage
1:22:39
and empower others that lost their trust and their way. Was it hard after
1:22:53
the storm. Absolutely it was. Things like that change you. Some change
1:23:00
you for the bad, some change you for the good. But I will
1:23:06
say it changed me for the good because again I learned to appreciate what I
1:23:12
have and not so much of what I lost. I shared that today when
1:23:19
I was in Jerry's room today own clubhouse, and I told Jerry, I
1:23:25
said, you know, that was a life changing event for me because in
1:23:30
a matter of minutes my life would have been over. I look back at
1:23:41
what I gained. Respect, I learned to be humbled, because when you're
1:23:54
faced with life or death, it gives you a whole new perspect of life.
1:24:04
So to all my people, my family, my friends, the community,
1:24:11
the city of New Orleans, I love y'all. We did it.
1:24:19
We made it. We're still standing there. And like I just told my
1:24:25
sister, we weren't built to break. We were here to keep going.
1:24:34
Our purpose has yet to be fulfilled. That's why I really strongly believe God
1:24:44
kept a lot of us here in the midst of that storm. We did
1:24:51
it. We made it. Eighteen years later, here we are. We're
1:25:00
smiling big, we're partying, we're celebrating, and we also know what we
1:25:12
need to do the next time we were faced with a life of that situation.
1:25:18
We did it, y'all. We made it. We overcame, we
1:25:24
stood tall, we came back. We put our boxing gloves on it.
1:25:28
We came back swinging and fighting for our city, the city that birthed a
1:25:36
lot of greats, a lot of legends. And I'm not talking about celebrities.
1:25:45
I'm talking about a community of plethora people that came together and we stood
1:25:53
tall, we stood strong, and we said, we're gonna fight this together.
1:25:56
We're gonna beat this together. We're gonna win this together. We're gonna
1:25:59
overcome whatever obstacle is thrown in our way. We know what to do next
1:26:04
time. So to Hurricane Katrina. You may have called us slipping eighteen years
1:26:11
ago, but baby, I'm gonna tell your stuff come back again, and
1:26:14
we're gonna be ready. We're gonna be ready. We are definitely gonna be
1:26:18
ready. I love y'all. I do. I love y'all so much like
1:26:25
I just I do this. This this here tonight was much needed. It
1:26:35
was much needed. We laughed, we cried, we celebrated. But before
1:26:45
I even bring this to a close, I definitely want to show what the
1:26:51
resilience beyond adversity looks like in present day New Orleans. Basically, my granda,
1:27:00
the flame Chenney Grain is on this coast. My mother's name, Joyce
1:27:03
Green, should also be on that coaster. In Nice, you see rooftop
1:27:08
riders. On that particular day, we rode the roof of our house from
1:27:13
eighteen hundred Tennessee to sixteen hundred Tennessee and Chenege was washed away at the twenty
1:27:17
five feet of water. My mother later drowned from what they called a dry
1:27:23
drowning. We came back one hundred and twenty days and found her body and
1:27:28
we were able to retrieve us. So basically, this neighborhood was the neighborhood
1:27:31
that I grew up in, and I'm happy to be here as always on
1:27:35
this particular day because our family has healed from it. We have the same
1:27:42
we were rooftop riders, original rooftop riders. Everybody now who survives the stump
1:27:46
survives it on the route. So basically this day is a day. August
1:27:51
to twenty ninth is that particular day when we remember that love to cherish this
1:27:58
the community, all the things that We lost that day, but it wasn't
1:28:01
by choice that we decided to stay. We tried to evacuate. We returned
1:28:06
away at the Superdome. We came back home. And as most people who've
1:28:11
been through storms has, we've been through death, City've been through camills,
1:28:15
We've been through storms before. We never expected twenty five feet of water and
1:28:18
five minutes to wash away our houses. So as you see when you turned
1:28:23
around, we never had the vacant land, we never had the forest that
1:28:27
you see. But we do have the families that lived here before, and
1:28:30
we are one of those families that lived here before, and we're not going
1:28:34
anywhere. This is a special day for us always. It's never their sorrow.
1:28:40
It's always a dead celebration and grace to God for His choices for which
1:28:45
were made beyond our control. Amen. Amen, I when I saw that,
1:28:56
I said, y'all have to see this, because, as I stayed
1:29:00
it in the beginning, this is a day of celebration. We cried.
1:29:05
I allowed y'all to get emotional in the beginning. We got emotional in the
1:29:09
beginning. We had to get that out of the way in order to be
1:29:15
able to celebrate eighteen years later and again. You may remember New Orleans for
1:29:24
Hurricane Katrina. You may remember it for the food, the people, but
1:29:33
I also want y'all to remember New Orleans for the music. I want y'all
1:29:41
to remember New Orleans for the music, for the culture of the music,
1:29:47
the Horns, the Second Lines, the Super Sundays, Mighty Grid, the
1:29:58
Esthence Best, the Voodoo Fest, the French Cord of Fest. I want
1:30:03
you to remember New Orleans for that and the love that the city poised into
1:30:11
each and every person that comes to visit. Even if you do hang out
1:30:15
on Bourbon Street, we still love you anyway. But I want to leave
1:30:23
y'all with this. This is actually gonna be my final thoughts. Well,
1:30:28
no, I'm gonna leave y'all with this, and then I'm getting into my
1:30:30
final thoughts, and then we're closing the show for tonight. Okay, we'll
1:30:35
go really hard to believe this, but we're closing in on ten years since
1:30:41
Hurricane Katraining, that monster storm that devastated the Gulf Coast, especially one of
1:30:44
America's great city, New Orleans, and so much has changed in the last
1:30:47
decade, and our Robin Roberts talks with hometown hero singer Harry Harry Connick Junior
1:30:54
about how bringing music back to the Big Easy was an important first step.
1:31:00
It's the beat on every street corner music. It electrifies New Orleans, and
1:31:08
from Mettery to Mobile Bay, Saint Louis to Biloxi, it lights up the
1:31:15
entire Gulf Coast. But right after the crescendo of Katrina, there was a
1:31:24
very real concern that music itself would become a Katrina fatality. The people who
1:31:30
formed the basis of that culture and music weren't able to come back home,
1:31:35
and there was no place for us to come home too. Everything was gone,
1:31:38
everything was washed away. God Lord Jesus. Singer Ellen Smith, whose
1:31:44
house was destroyed in the flooding, didn't have the means to rebuild molds growing
1:31:48
up the walls. I was so devastated, it was so hard. It
1:31:53
was hard for me to sing after the start. It's hard to talk about
1:31:57
it. My heart was broken. I needed to get back here and I
1:32:00
had to do it anyway I could, And it took a village literally to
1:32:08
help her do that. Musicians village. The idea came from hometown music heroes
1:32:14
Branford, Marsalis and Harry Connick Junior. So we got together with Habitat for
1:32:19
Humanity and decided we wanted to build, or be a part of building,
1:32:25
the Musicians Village, which was gonna try to get displaced musicians from out of
1:32:30
town back home. We wanted to open up a community center with a school
1:32:35
and recording studio, general sort of hang out place, And that's how it
1:32:43
all started. Hey man, I was so good. I knocked the muss
1:33:00
it golf the piano. Just explain to people how music helped heal after Katrina.
1:33:05
The music has always been a representation of who we are as New Orleanians
1:33:11
and has been sort of the backdrop for good times and bad times. So
1:33:16
the thought of it not being around anymore was something that made me loose sleep
1:33:19
at night. Seventy two houses have been built helping these New Orleans musicians get
1:33:28
their groove back. It was great to have a house that was our own.
1:33:30
I kissed every wall in here. We love our culture and we will
1:33:34
always fight to keep what makes New Orleans great alive. It's going to be
1:33:41
so great to see this show. You can catch Katrina ten Years after the
1:33:45
Storm with Robin Roberts tonight at ten Eastern right here on ABC. It would
1:33:49
be a great show, great food, great music, great culture. What
1:33:53
a town I couldn't leave, y'all said, I had to end this with
1:34:06
something beautiful because you hear that. The music, the food, the people,
1:34:12
the culture. Man, Oh goodness, goodness, goodness. I love
1:34:20
it. I love it, I really do. I do. So as
1:34:28
I bring the show to a close, I just want to jump into my
1:34:31
final thoughts and I want to sink to each and every person that survived Hurricane
1:34:42
Katrina or any devastation, you have a purpose. You were meant to be
1:34:49
here. Everyone has a gift. But I want you to know that,
1:35:00
regardless of whatever obstacle that's throwing your way, you can overcome anything. God
1:35:05
says no weapon formed against me shall prosper. He say, they made form,
1:35:11
but they shall not prosper. And I need to recite that to myself
1:35:17
every day. But we made it. We're strong, we're resilient, we're
1:35:30
fighters, we're winners. I understand we lost a lot of valuable things that
1:35:42
we made. You know, we never could get back, but you have
1:35:46
your life. I say all of that to say, you have some people
1:35:51
that didn't make the wake up list today that may not make the wake up
1:35:56
list tomorrow, but we made it. We're here, and I want you
1:36:02
to give honor to God each and every day that he allows you to open
1:36:06
your eyes, because eighteen years ago, thousands of people's eyes closed. August
1:36:18
twenty ninth will always be a day of reckoning, reflection, resilience, and
1:36:24
celebration. We can no longer warn what we lost, but celebrate what we
1:36:31
have. That's the So before you lay down tonight, you pray, and
1:36:46
you give God all the glory. You thank God that you made it.
1:36:56
You thank God tomorrow. Regardless of how far down you get, you thank
1:37:02
God. You give him all the praise, give Him all the glory.
1:37:12
That's something I had to learn to say them and repeat to myself every day.
1:37:16
But we bounced back. New Orleans is not only a city of love,
1:37:21
but a city of city of resilience, a city of faith, a
1:37:26
city of strength. So in two years, when we celebrate twenty years,
1:37:35
it's gonna be a celebration at how far we've come and not the time we
1:37:43
lost. Let me see, can I give my fingers together to give y'all
1:37:47
a heart? There we go. Don't laugh at me y'all, my fingers
1:37:53
are short, but I got it. But I love y'all. But on
1:38:00
Thursday night's episode, y'all already know I gotta give y'all update. But Thursday
1:38:05
night, we are gonna be talking about our black women really truly protected.
1:38:13
With all these black women that are coming up missing and that are being murdered,
1:38:19
are we really truly being protected? This is an unspoken epidemic. Thursday
1:38:28
night, y'all, And I do want to let y'all know that this Thursday
1:38:33
will be the last Thursday that Black Girl Interrupt the podcast will show. I
1:38:40
will be revamping the schedule so I will be going live on Tuesdays and Wednesdays
1:38:45
hence because football season has started. I do want to respect the football fans
1:38:50
and myself because I do have to watch football. But Tuesdays and Thursdays,
1:38:57
I'm so sorry. Tuesdays and Wednesdays they will still be eight thirty Central time,
1:39:01
nine thirty Eastern time, six thirty Pacific time, seven thirty Mountaintop.
1:39:08
I hope I got those times right. Don't judge your girl. Okay,
1:39:11
y'all, y'all forgive me. But on that note, I do want to
1:39:15
say to each and every person that came out tonight to support show me some
1:39:18
love. I absolutely appreciate you guys. Again, I'm greatly humbled each and
1:39:25
every week that you guys show up and give me bookoo love and support.
1:39:30
Shout out to the ones that like, share a comment, and have subscribed
1:39:33
to the Black Girl Interrupted podcast. Again, I'm deeply humbled, greatly appreciative
1:39:39
of that. As I stated, I want to change the world one episode
1:39:43
at a time. So on that note, I love you guys. Oh
1:39:46
yeah, don't forget. Black Girl Interrupted is expanding. For the ones that
1:39:54
do not know, I will be launching the Black Carpet Experience September. I
1:40:00
do have a date, but I need to ink it. I need to
1:40:04
like solidify that date. Also for whoever, if you are in Houston,
1:40:12
do not forget I am the guest speaker. Let me see if I can
1:40:16
make it a little bigger. I am the guest speaker at Lady d Day
1:40:21
here in Houston. That event will take place September the eighth, from seven
1:40:27
to nine. It will be kids only and then we'll have the out of
1:40:30
artists performances from seven to nine. Then we'll move inside from nine to twelve
1:40:35
and then twelve to two am. There will be an after party. There
1:40:40
will be a special award which is the Proclamation that will be presented. We'll
1:40:44
have all the cars, We'll have speakers, lots of vendors, food.
1:40:49
So if you are in Houston, pull up to Exhale two point Oh I'm
1:40:57
so sorry. Exhale Venue which is one three seven one one West Timer role
1:41:01
that is here in Houston, Texas. Your girl will be a guest speaker,
1:41:05
so come out show your girls some love. I will be sharing my
1:41:10
story with regards to being a domestic violence survivor as well as being an advocate
1:41:16
for mental health. So you if you are in Houston, come pull up,
1:41:19
show your girl some love. Y'all. I'm really excited. This will
1:41:23
actually be my first event that I will be participating in. But I do
1:41:28
know that this will not be the last for Black Girl Interrupted podcast. What
1:41:34
else? What else? What else? I'm trying to think, Oh yeah
1:41:38
again, Black Girl Interrupted is expanding. I will be presenting the Black Carpet
1:41:44
Experience. I will be spotlighting black business owner entrepreneurs. So if you're a
1:41:48
singer, rapper, dance, or whatever it is that you do, if
1:41:51
you have a black owned business, I definitely want to interview you. I
1:41:56
want to put the spotlight on your business. I want people to know who
1:41:59
you are. So for the ones that do not know, here's the promo
1:42:02
video and we are closing with this one. But I love you guys again.
1:42:06
I will see your Thursday night, eight PMS. I'm so sorry,
1:42:11
eight thirty pm Central Time, nine thirty Eastern times, same time, same
1:42:15
place. Again, don't forget the time. The date will change for Black
1:42:18
Girl Interrupted. I will now be on Tuesdays and Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays and
1:42:23
Thursdays. But again, don't forget to like, share comments, subscribe.
1:42:27
You can subscribe to a Black Girl Interrupted on YouTube. You can follow me
1:42:31
on Facebook. You can also catch any past episode on any streaming platform that
1:42:36
you utilize to listen to your podcast. So that note, I love you
1:42:41
guys. Y'all be blessed and I will see y'all Thursday, eight thirty pm. Bye,