Voices From the Storm
In the late summer of 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, leveling entire cities and leaving others under vast amounts of water. Thousands of Americans were stranded on rooftops and in dangerous makeshift shelters. Stranded in a city submerged, the narrators of Voices from the Storm survived the devastation brought on by Hurricane Katrina only to find themselves abandoned—and even victimized—by their own government. These thirteen men and women of New Orleans recount, in astonishing and heartrending detail, the worst natural disaster in American history.
Today’s excerpt features Dan Bright, a New Orleans native who spent almost nine years in prison for first-degree murder before he was exonerated of the crime and released from prison in 2004. The night before the storm, Bright was arrested and taken to Orleans Parish Prison for dubious misdemeanor charges. The morning of the storm, guards left Bright and his fellow inmates to die in their cells as floodwaters swallowed the building. Those who managed to escape, including Bright, were met by heavily armed guards waiting outside the building, who held the inmates for days on a highway overpass without food or water.
Late, late—maybe early Monday morning—maybe like 4 or 5. Hard wind, very hard wind. Lights went out in the jail. I was on the top floor. We can look out the window. They had these little portholes that you can look out, and see the rain, the wind blowing, and the water starting to rise.
It was early. You can see the water is constantly rising. You gotta remember, we’re stuck in these cells. Guys on the first level, on the bottom level—man, they hollerin’ and screamin’. No one comes. They were hollering for the guards to come. Begging, pleading. You had guys who had broke windows out, burning sheets and blankets, flagging them to try to get some attention. In fact, helicopters was flying over, and guys was holding blankets out the windows, burning blankets to try to get their attention. And no one came and helped them.
The lights had done went out, so you can imagine being in this water, in the dark with this water constantly rising. Only thing we had to do now is to break out. We wasn’t trying to break out just to be breakin’ out of jail, we breakin’ out to save our lives.
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