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Rickey B. Calliope Housing Projects 09/10/05
My
name is Ricky B. Im from New Orleans, Louisiana.
Im from the Calliope Housing Project. The
way I got here is by boat that my partner had,
and I was saving lives with the boat. I have been
shot at, people tried to take the boat from me,
okay? I got my family out, I got friends and elderly
people out, I saved a couple of lives, you know?
I saved a baby drowning, you know? Went in the
water, I was already in the water. Babies
were floating on a mattress, and the baby fell
off the mattress. And nobody couldnt find
him., and they had a bunch of men trying help
find him. I come up with the baby. It feels good,
you know, to save lives, because I have seen people
get killed and die, but I have not seen that many
people at one time. What I went through, I never
thought I feel the way I feel about life. Living,
you know, is beautiful, and God sent us to a place
that we never been. I
even saved a dog. Thats how intimate this
thing was. It was intense, it was scary, it was
a situation youll never forget. I heard
the dog screaming. The dog was trapped in the
twines where a tree had fallen. He was standing
up on his hind legs trying to keep his head above
water. He was trembling. But the dog was real
friendly to me. He must have known I was the onliest
person going to save him. I held him in my arms
and brought him to this porch. Later on, that
porch was covered with water so I dont know
if the dog made it okay or not. Since
I been in Austin, I ran across a lady named Christine
and her husband named Jerry, also an older guy
named Joe. They from here. They been with me all
the way. They told me they wouldnt give
it up until we find them, and I took them as my
family too. They wonder what Im gonna do,
whether Im gonna stay, but I have to go
back to New Orleans because I got twin boys, fourteen,
and a daughter, fifteen years old, theyre
still over there on the West Bank side, and they
got a baby brother. They did not have to evacuate
Algiers. It did not flood on that side. The
peoples know that levee was weak. The money they
financed to fix the levee, they went undercover
with that, they went under the table with that
money. They didnt use the money to build
the levee up, not like theyre supposed to.
Mayor Nagin, he aint never done nothing
for us since he been in office. Morial did more
for us than Nagin. Nagin is for the high-class
people, hes not for the poor blacks and
the Spanish and whatever. So
it took people like me that was in the flood and
everything to get the assistance that we really
needed. Im one of the guys that did the
looting to save lives. Gathering supplies. People
was up there three and four day with no water,
up on the interstate across from the Superdome.
My mother was up there. My mother is seventy-eight
years old. And I could see it in her eye that
she couldnt last much longer up there for
four days with no water. They had Kentwood water
trucks parked, just parked, the city never did
take them out and use them. So me and two of my
cousins, two of my friends at least, one of them
named Jap, said Ricky, Im going get
one of those trucks, bro, Im going to Baton
Rouge in it. He said, What yall
gonna do, yall gonna come and take your
family, too? He went and got the first truck,
and me and my partner Beau, a friend of mine named
Beau, we went and got the trucks and brought them
up on the interstate and just gave people water.
That was some relief for them there. Then turn
around, get my mom up higher, and built her a
tent to keep the sun from her. She a diabetic.
We found piece of tarp from an eighteen-wheeler
truck, so what we did was me and my other brother
and two of my cousins made her a tent so she could
get up underneath it, keep the heat off her. It
was cool up underneath it but it was hot. So,
you know, so much confusion. I was fearing for
my life because I was shot at quite a few times
by people trying to take the boat. And they people
that I know. It was a motor boat but we were rowing
it. The boat I was using was from a friend of
mine, I knew he wouldnt mind. I dont
know where he at, or his family, and his brother,
his family, they was in Saint Bernard Parish.
Theres no more Saint Bernard. I dont
know where they at. They had livestock and everything
down there. I know him, he took the livestock
out and his family. I know he took them out because
he loves horses too. We
lived in Calliope Projects. They changed it to
B.W. Cooper. I stayed on Dorgenois and Third Street.
I been all through Mid-City on the boat. I was
on it for four days, saved a lot of lives, a lot
them. I got out by helicopter, on Interstate 10.
They took my mother out of there Friday evening
and my wife, shes in San Antonio. When I
heard her voice, I cried. I cried because I wasnt
good enough. People try to poison your mind, tell
you that you got to go on with you, which is true,
but all the love and relationship that we have
for each other
I might argue with her and
everything, but thats the way we are. I
kept my heart strong with my higher power: God.
Without him, I couldnt have did it. I feel
like a big burden is off me now. I have a phone
number where I can get in touch with my wife,
and I can get in touch with God too. He on the
main line. Just tell him what you want. Hell
give it to you, but he wont give it to you
when you want it, he give it to you when he gets
ready to give it to you. I
love it here. People show me all kinds of kindness,
help, support. Im trying using it as my
advantage to get me some work. In New Orleans,
I was self-employed, construction work, landscaping.
I did it all for myself, you know. Christine
and Jerry and Joe, they were there for me from
day one. Everything I needed, there were there
for me. Thats my family too. Theres
a bad apple in every bunch, but they got some
good people through those doors. I thank God that
he didnt send me to a place like Houston.
From what I hear theres a lot of people
going to jail, rapes, everything. I been hearing
all kinds of stuff, but you cant go by what
people say. Whats
happening with that now, I put in an application
for a place with one bedroom, and I got my cousin
with us with all three of us staying in one bedroom,
because we have stayed in a one bedroom before.
Until I find her boyfriend, so I got people on
that right now. The white guy, Joe, he getting
ready to go to Dallas, hell be back Thursday.
Theyre there for me, and Im not going
to let it go just like that. Im a hard-working
man, I can survive anywhere I go in the United
States or anywhere, but the first place Im
looking for is a shelter, and an unemployment
office. My
mom had nine boys, no girls, all of them safe.
All of them lost everything they own, but they
safe. Grew up in a tiny town in Mississippi, except
my baby brother, he a New Orleans baby, the only
one. He by his self. My mama raised me up with
no daddy in the B.W. Cooper Housing Project. Shes
a strong woman. She raised me and she didnt
raise no bum, she raised a hard-working man. We
went back and forth from Mississippi to Louisiana,
and I plowed mules for a living before tractors
even came out to our farm. Im
glad to be here. I know a lot of people didnt
make it. I never thought something would affect
me like this here in my whole life, but it has
affected me to see whats happening. And
to see whats happening with people that
dont have no heart at all, to try to do
what they did, you know? And it mostly its my
race, the young ones, not the elderly, not the
older ones. Im forty-four years old. Its
the ones in they early twenties and they early
teens that been doing all the bad stuff. Shooting
at helicopters and everything like they did in
New Orleans. Thats the ones that dont
want to live their life, that take life for granted.
I want to live as long as I could, I like to get
like Moses and them was, a hundred thousand years
old, nine hundred years old. You never know. God
take care of his people, he take care all his
people. The
hurt, it comes and goes, you know. At night, I
got a joy tear, but I also got a sad tear too.
Im the type of person that dont cry.
I hold a lot in, but it had to come out. Everyone
been good to me, treating me good up there, cant
ask for no better. Who
gonna rebuild our city. It gonna take a while.
Too much partying. Its the one place you
can go twenty-four hours a day and get what you
want. Mardi Gras, Saint Patricks Day, we
got a party city. We cant let it go like
that. The only thing hurts is that they knowed
about the levee, they knowed there was a weak
part of the levee they knowed if something like
that come, what it would mean to the city. They
knowed that already. See, the lower Garden District
is flooded, but the Garden District? Not flooded.
Thats where the richest houses are. Lakefront,
part of the lakefront? Not flooded. St. Charles?
Not flooded. See what Im saying? The
people were the cause of the people getting saved.
Because the National Guard and everything to come
in and start picking them up with helicopters.
All they was doing at first was taking the prisoners
away. I got a brother, he went to jail two weeks
before the storm, we dont know where he
at. Thats my next thing, to try to find
him, where he at. Because I know one thing, I
did time too, and the system is corrupt. Im
gonna find him. I would not give up. Thats
my brother. If
theres anything I can do to help anybody
here, Im gonna do it. I cant do no
more than God let me do, you know? But he also
told us, he said he would not put no more on us
than we can bear. Sometimes I feel like giving
up, but I cant. I gotta be strong for the
next one. My
experience is living. Life is the best thing that
can ever happen. What I went through, if I had
to do it again to save a life, Id do it.
Id do it. Anywhere in the country. We all
sisters and brothers. Everybody equal, your blood
and my blood is the same, and we breath the same
way. We all born to die and live and love. One
more thing: Times-Picayune is one the best newspapers
there is. I met people from Washington, D.C. and
put interviews in and let people know what happen.
I have nothing against Mayor Nagin, but I despise
the things that he did. The police force, they
was all right, they cant do it all, they
got to try to take care of themselves too. But
the mayor, he aint worth the shit come out
of a buzzards ass, and thats the way
I feel about him. Make
it public. He did nothing for us from day one.
Ray Nagin did nothing for us. Eddie Compass did
his best. He did his best. Im not mad at
him; Im mad at the mayor. Eddie Compass
did a lot in his own way. Before the storm, he
got all the police on the force and added on to
it. He did what he could do. Im with him.
Ray Nagin, I dont want to say it, but your
day coming. Before
you sign off, I want the people to know that God
is good. Take this as something in life to look
back on, but you got to keep on going on. You
cant give up. I know a lot of people lost
their loved ones, I lost some of mines. We just
got to be there for each other. We got everybody
in Austin and other places that are coming to
help, that are showing us great love, and we showing
it back to them. And if something was to happen
to they city, we would have been there for them. Please explore our new digital archive of oral histories. We encourage you to read, reflect, and respond to these stories. Click here to open a separate window. |
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