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ACLU presents
Katrina - Broken Promises:
Ivy Gisclair
IG: Days before, they cut the phones off, so nobody could call their people to see if
they was leaving or nobody knew nothing about their family. Like the night before the storm,
we was all watching it on the news and then the lights go off. You could hear the wind.
The wind was bad. You could hear it like a train. Well, by the time the morning came,
no guards were there or nothing. So we was in there, I mean, you could look out the window
and see houses blowing down and the water steadily rising. They had cops, like, and
people riding around in boats because the water was so high. Well, I think it was like
two to three days where I was at in ??? three before we seen anybody. So, we just thought
they left us. And we was just there. No food, water, they never had no type of plan for--everything
was, like, electric. Everything! The toilets. You push a button and it flushes the toilet.
To take a shower, you push a button. So, once the power was out you couldn't flush no toilet,
you couldn't get no water. So we was just in there. No food. No water for days. Everywhere
you looked, they had all the windows broke out. They was hanging these blankets and mattresses
and stuff out the windows on fire. So, they was trying to let somebody know--hey, we in
here. Because the guards, like I said, they just left us. I thought, when everybody was
going crazy in there, breaking stuff, and lighting stuff on fire and stuff, I was there
like -- hey lay down and go to sleep because we dead. They ain't coming back. I mean, you
don't see nobody for days. The guards were just gone. I just thought that I was dead.
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