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If you watched Spike Lee’s documentary, "When the Levees Broke" you'll remember outspoken Phyllis Montana-Leblanc, who achieved fame as the woman who told it like it is in. Her memoir, "Not Just the Levees Broke: My Story During and After Hurricane Katrina" discusses in great detail with the same honest gut-wrenching but God-fearing style what happened to Montana-Leblanc on Aug. 29 and the horrible months that followed. As the title suggests, her family, life and mental health were broken along with the levees.
Montana-Leblanc describes in horrifying detail the riding out of Hurricane Katrina, the ceiling collapses in her apartment which sent her literally out into the raging storm, the rising waters that followed and the endless days trying to find a way first out of her East New Orleans apartment complex, then out of the city. And, like what she related in Lee's documentary, there were numerous incidents of government indifference, arrogance and hostility towards those needing evacuation and assistance.
"Word of mouth comes back to us that ice and food are back by the building where the chairs are," Montana-Leblanc relates of their experience waiting for rescue with hundreds of other people on the grounds of UNO. "I volunteer to go and see, and what they have is, believe it or not...watermelon. Hot watermelon. I refuse to take it. I mean, if there was ever confirmation that we were being thought of as niggers, this is it. Watermelon! All we need now are fields of cotton. We already have Lying Larry as the overseer. We have the black bodies and my cousin named Kizzy. The only thing missing is Kunta Kinte saying don't call him Toby."
Montana-Leblanc wavers back and forth between outrage and trauma to having faith in a higher source, knowing that God will see her through. She later pontificates on black-on-black crime, people who still rip off the system and each other and the glorification of the almighty dollar. It's amazing that someone so traumatized and humiliated would offer such an uplifting book, but then she did steal Spike Lee's show.
"If we could have more of one person being kind and generous to another," she writes, "not based on how much money they have or what shade of color their skin is or how they speak or what school they went to or how or if they went to school — damn, I know I'm asking for a lot but it is not too much. I'm just being Phyllisophical and nobody has to agree with me. I am but one person and sometimes one person can make a difference. I just pray that God blesses me with the wisdom, knowledge, and grace to share it with the world."
For those who doubt the horror of that week, the past and present race problems plaguing the city or the lack of both proper response and compassion by government agencies, this heart-wrenching and thought-provoking book is a must read. And through it all, Montana-Leblanc maintains that faith, forgiveness and seeing the larger picture as God’s plan are all part of life. Amen sister!
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Within hours of Hurricane Katrina's landfall on New Orleans, and the following levee breaks that flooded 80 percent of the city, evacuees began flowing into Lafayette looking for shelter, health care and food. In response to these hundreds of people arriving daily, Greg Davis, executive director of the Lafayette Cajundome stepped up to the challenge. Knowing that this was an historic event that should be documented, he enlisted the aid of Ann Dobie, a retired English professor at ULL.
Dobie brought her laptop and set up shop among the thousands of evacuees who ended up calling the Cajundome home during the 58 days after Katrina (which also included evacuees fleeing Hurricane Rita on Sept. 25). The result is her "Fifty-Eight Days in the Cajundome Shelter," published by Pelican Publishing. The book includes day-by-day reports on what happened and how government agencies and the Cajundome staff responded, personal stories of the evacuees and her "reporter's notebook" that Dobie kept during the ordeal.
Book signings
Ann Dobie will be signing "Fifty-Eight Days in the Cajundome" from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday Aug. 30 and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 30 at Barnes & Noble, 5707 Johnston St. She will also sign copies from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 20 at the Cajundome.
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| Katrina books out for the 3rd anniversary |
Holiday books 2007: Lafayette’s Leslie Leonpacher's beautiful and
touching The Dog and the Hurricane
($25), illustrated by New Orleans artist Jane Brewster, is printed on hand-crafted paper and bound with a ceramic
fleur-de-lis bookmark fired in Leonpacher’s studio.
Although fashioned as a children’s book, adults will love this story of a young dog lost
in the streets of New Orleans after Katrina. Leonpacher worked in the
Lamar-Dixon animal facility after the storm and used her first-hand experiences
to pen this tale. Don’t
mistake it as a “hurricane book;” it’s anything but. The tale could have been
told in any American city after a storm has passed.
For more information, visit www.thedogandthehurricane.com |
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