Wayne G., via "Alive In Truth"

Wayne G., Singer, 9/7/05:

We got there the first day. On a Wednesday. Okay, we had security guards on Wednesday, there. They had electricity, in the Convention Center. They had air conditioning, in the Convention Center. Okay? See, that next morning? We was by ourselves. We were by ourselves.

No security guards. They turned the lights off. They turned the air conditioning off.

No representatives, no state representatives, no government agents. Nobody came to us to see what was happening with us, okay. Alright, here go the feces and the urine! Okay, now, you got 5,000 people—that’s in one section of the Convention Center! The Convention Center goes to the A, B, C, D, and E. It’s about the same size as yourn, on the inside, okay. Bathroom a mess. Feces, urine. Peeing on the floor. All that, and shittin’ on the floor. Okay, all that there. So then they had to find another place to shit and piss. Alright? They went, they found a big ole room. They made that out a sewage room.

You got no air conditioning, right? So all the heat … You can smell it, going all through your throat. You’re smelling urine, you’re sleeping with urine. So here go the people dying on you, okay? Disease, disease setting in, okay? And then, uh … shit. (Crying.)

Okay. Me and my mother. Like I said, we are Christian people. We always believed in God, we have faith in God, we know that he did it for a reason. It’s something when you get around—when you’re, when you’re, when you’re sleeping with dead people right by you, you know. It’s, uh … and, uh …. When you see, uh, elderly people dying around you and you can’t do nothin’, because uh nobody there to give you no water.

I starved three days and I fed my mother, just so she can eat. But she was worrying about me, but I told her I was strong. Told her I was strong, Mama, you go ahead on, eat this. Okay? And, uh, then here come the rapes.

Raping little—gangs raping little females, cuttin their throat. This is at -- this is -- I seen it all. Little babies dying. (Crying.) They were stompin little babies. (Crying.) They started killin’ little children for nothing. They had nobody to protect us, at all.

Transcribed and published to the web by "Alive in Truth: The New Orleans Disaster Oral History & Memory Project." From "who we are":

Alive in Truth is an all-volunteer, grassroots effort to record oral and written history about the lives of displaced New Orleanians, in their own words.

First and foremost, we are grateful to the people who share their stories here, and whose enormous strength of character is evident.

The project is founded and coordinated by New Orleans native Abe Louise Young.