Patricia Thompson, a 53-year-old mother of six, was living in a housing development for thirteen years before Hurricane Katrina hit. She was working part-time at her church, Sixth Baptist Church, when the storm came. She was relocated to College Station, Texas, where she works at a consolidated high school.

PT: Keep in your mind, I live in a public housing development, my rent is supposed to be based on the amount of money I was making, so bad for me, so bad for me, the only thing I could find to do, I kid you not, as God be my witness, the only thing I could find to do was with my church, Sixth Baptist Church, a part time, part time job, $200 a month. Housing authority raised my rent to $191.00, and I’m asking, I’m supposed to survive on $9 a month? Nobody seemed to care. Black, white. Didn’t nobody seem to care. And I’m going to tell you, I was in a state of desperation. At this point, this was still going on when hurricane Katrina hit, I was still doing work for the church. The hurricane hit August 29, we were getting paid once a month, last day of the month. We were finally evacuated, and I know you’ve heard all of this foolishness that people didn’t want to leave: Those are bald-faced lies.

When the hurricane hit, I had one dollar in my pocket. I did not have a vehicle, so there was no way for us to get out. It was two people living in my house when the storm hit, me and my youngest daughter, we were just grabbing people who had nowhere to go. And some of my family members, because one of my sons and one of my daughters, my son went with his girlfriend and her family, and my eldest daughter went to her job with her three kids, she’s a supervisor at a convalescent home. My oldest daughter, my third oldest daughter, my fourth oldest daughter, and my baby daughter were stuck in New Orleans. Projects are good for some things, like natural disasters, you know. You got brick.

I was living on the second floor of the Melphomene Housing Development, now known as the William J. Guste. I gathered my family members and their families and everybody retreated to my house. People got no money to spend on transportation. That’s kind of bringing me up now to Katrina, right? Okay. Now. To get into Katrina, what happened with Katrina, I want you to hear me well when I say this: Katrina was truly a disaster, but for me it was a blessing. It turned my life around. I’ve been wanting to leave New Orleans. You’re not treated right in New Orleans, you’re not treated fair. New Orleans was the city that forgot to care, and the city that care forgotten about. You hear about the Big Easy, you hear about Carnival. But man we go through hell in New Orleans. I’m being totally honest with you. Me, all six of my kids, my mom had six kids but there’s only three of us living now, every family member, and we’re talking at least twelve, maybe fifteen households, everybody has left New Orleans. This is our chance to get out.

This is how that went down. We was hearing on the news that the hurricane was coming, I was watching the meteorologist on the news, I remember seeing one particular weatherman who had a very, very worried look on his face. He was talking about what we were about to encounter, we were not ready for. Now if I could understand what the man was saying, then I knew the mayor, I knew the governor, I knew the president knew what time it was. We received the mandatory evacuation order less than twenty-four hours before the storm made landfall. One young lady, she’s a white lady, it’s like I say, she knew what was happening, with the institute we were infused with white folk, white folk were constantly coming to my house, the kids, white kids, one big happy family, once you get over that whole racial mindset, it’s easy. One of these ladies, she was in the military, she told my twenty year old she only went into the military to get her career started, because she did not like being in the military, but she said she had a newfound respect for the military after she heard that the military had evacuated 95 percent of the city. Lies. It didn’t happen that way, it didn’t happen that way. In doing that December 6th panel, that congressional hearing, up there in Washington, I was asked several questions, and I’m going to repeat this stuff to you. I know the race card was being played. I don’t know exactly what percentage of the city had been evacuated, but there were masses and masses and masses of black folks left in New Orleans. There were some whites, but I guarantee that for every white person there were a few hundred blacks, you know what I’m saying.

So one of the attorneys up there in Washington told me something that I don’t care to repeat because I wouldn’t want to get anyone in trouble, but there is a lawsuit going on because two tourists went to Washington and told the attorneys, the cops let them through, and they said it was the negroes the didn’t want to cross that bridge. That’s how that class action lawsuit got started. Once we got the mandatory evacuation order, right now you’re like crazy, you don’t know what to do, you can’t evacuate, so now this leaves desperation… People are trying to get water, people are trying to get food, trying to steal cars, whatever they can do to help themselves to get out of that city. Here comes the mandatory shoot to kill order. See, everybody is pretty much thinking about what happened with that bridge. But you see, that didn’t just happen with the bridge, that happened with the city. They locked us in that city. They wouldn’t let us out. They said if we tried to get out, they would shoot to kill. Didn’t just happen with that bridge. Once the mandatory evacuation order was given, we were told to go to the Superdome, go to the Convention Center, go to the interstate bridge. We did that every day for about a week, to try to be rescued. People were dying all around us. If you hear me, I’m reliving this stuff right now. We were sleeping next to human feces and urine, all around you, watching people die, watching scream for help. Dialing 911, the operator’s telling you there’s nothing we can do to help. You can’t get any assistance from the police. Helicopters everywhere. Nobody would stop to give you a hand or so much as answer a question.