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Callaloo 29.4 (2007) 1153-1162

Harold Baquet
with Charles Henry Rowell

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Figure 1
Harold Baquet
Photo by Wendell Gorden, © 2006
[End Page 1153]

ROWELL: Since its beginnings in the eighteenth century, New Orleans has had, almost each year, to face the terror of hurricanes. Since the second half of the twentieth century, the people of the city have been given advanced warnings of approaching destructive hurricanes and have been told to leave the city. Many did, while others ignored the warnings—perhaps thinking they could "ride out" the storm and protect their property. There were, no doubt, many who felt that nothing would happen or that the hurricane would pass by the city. After all, that had been the case many times before—they had too many times heard the officials "crying wolf." Then there were others, as Hurricane Katrina so starkly demonstrated, who did not have the resources to leave the city. It is tragic that they always had to remain put in the city. But this time, with the approach of Hurricane Katrina, more than half of the people of New Orleans left the city. What do you think motivated so many people to evacuate as Hurricane Katrina approached?

BAQUET: First of all, I want you to know that my family has been here in Louisiana since the 1690s. They came here from San Domingue, which is what Haiti was called before the Revolution. In other words, we have been dealing with hurricanes and similar kinds of weather for centuries. So when the hurricanes come, we have responsibilities, as a citizen, a neighbor, and a man. Your responsibility isn't really evacuation. Evacuation is something new. Before Katrina you would batten down the hatches, board up your windows and doors, stock food and supplies, water, tools and other necessities. We'd also keep on hand flashlights, batteries, and radios. A new thing we're doing is stockpiling gasoline to use in our generators. Let's not forget guns and ammo. Its true, we've always lived with the threats of hurricanes. No escaping nature. We have never run from a storm. There had never, until recently, been a FEMA or the government to step in and help dig us out. If my tree fell on my neighbor's roof, I knew I had to make it right.

The morning after Katrina, we took ourselves out into the street to try to pull huge tree limbs and large oak trees out of the street to try to clear a path to the hospital that's near my home. That hospital, the only one remaining in the dry zone, became a command post of sorts for local and national health and rescue resources. Historically, we, my family, would ride out the storm, reacting moment to moment to the loss of electricity, then phone, then the window or ceiling, leaking rainwater. And this time many of us did the same thing; [End Page 1154] few of us fled. We now live with our collective horror stories of cousins having their homes flooded and having to evacuate to the second floor of their neighbor's house next door. They talk of the water rushing in and the appliances and the furniture flipping over on their sides. Yes, I mean we've always tried to get through the "whatever" life lays at our feet, and I've been, we've all been, real fortunate. Even this time, all of my family came through it alive. Many of us lost everything. But we were there for each other: we pooled our food, our resources and helped each other, and we got each other through it. We have nine and ten generations of this recovery activity and support as our tradition.

Yes, we survived Hurricane Betsy back in '65. It flooded. The water was barely up to the floor of our 7th ward home. This time, with Katrina there were two feet of water inside our family home, meaning that Katrina brought about six feet of water in...

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