Katrina Survival stories

Adele Bertucci, 53, hospitality worker, native of Cuba and 35-year resident of New Orleans

The worst experience for me was being alone for maybe four days in the airport. That's something I'll never forget. There were bodies. There were people bleeding. There were people lying in their own waste. One after another. If you take Gone with the Wind and the Nazi War and the Vietnam war, and visualize that in one place, that's how I would describe the airport. When you watch it on TV, it's like watching a Walt Disney versus an R-rated movie. You only see what they want you to see. You can't smell it.



Calvin Dawson, 36, brick mason, former resident of Jackson Avenue in Orleans Parish

I saw a shotgun fired off. I saw shotgun pumped and stuck under a lady's throat. Cops standing at gung ho, ready to fire. A guy ran over a pop bottle and dude was like on the crowd with a fully automatic weapon in the west bank. He was ready to kill us, man! And he like blasted the crowd with a shotgun over our heads. Boom! Because people were trying to get on the bus! They were only bringing in two at a time and there were 600 people under the West Bank bridge! People were trying to get on the bus with little tiny babies. They had been standing on their feet all night long. They were sick and tired. They were stressed out. They had lost everything they owned. They were literally at their wit's end.



Lorrie Beth Slonsky and Larry Bradshaw, emergency medical technicians from San Francisco who were in New Orleans for a convention when Katrina struck

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.

http://citypages.com/databank/26/1294/article13694.asp

put them together as a book.

I understand that Spike Lee has just gone to NO to begin a documentary about the Hurricane and the Levee break.

I wonder why we haven't heard more about the vigilantes who were circulating in rowboats and on the ground with shotguns, etc and terrorizing the residents who stayed in the city? With all the ridiculous lies that people like Soledad O'brian told, you notice you never hear anything about the vigilantes?

and I want to see their stories published in books and posted far and wide online.