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The Robinson Family
"After Katrina we stayed in our house for seven days. Each day felt like a week."
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By Angelica Robinson
The Robinson family stayed in their home for seven long days after the hurricane, waiting for help, before they evacuated to Memphis for six weeks. Fifteen-year-old Angelica Robinson takes us back to those moments, and explains how the experience changed them all.
My name is Angelica Robinson and this is a story about my family.
I have four younger brothers.
BROTHERS (on tape)
Robert: My name is Robert Robertson
Christopher: My names is Christopher Robertson
Raymond: My name is Raymond Robertson.
ANGELICA
And my mom was pregnant with my youngest bother Elijah, when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.
After Katrina we stayed in our house for seven days. Each day felt like a week. We all lost weight and started to look sickly. I lost ten pounds, and the back of my hair started falling out in clumps. My brother Raymond got little red dots all over his face. My pregnant mom worried that she might lose Elijah. Chris’s hair got so long that he had an Afro for the first time in his life.
It was hot, the water surrounding our home smelled like rotten cabbage, and my brothers and I thought that we were going to die. On the sixth day we celebrated my brother Robert’s birthday.
RAYMOND (on tape)
I had a big pile of cookies for my birthday. My brothers made paper little toys for me. And after we sang happy birthday, I wished that the water went down, and I looked out the window and then there was grass sticking out of the water.
And I said, “Wow, look at the grass.” And everyone ran to the door and looked, and I said, “Look my wish is coming true.”
ANGELICA
We didn’t think that the storm would be as bad as it was and that’s why we stayed. It was a terrible week, but what alternatives did we have. My dad says that we didn’t have any.
ROBERT SR. (on tape)
No way in the world that I would have brought my family to the Super Dome. When we’re home, we’re safe, and then we used resources inside the house for our survival.
ANGELICA
After a week of sitting around our home thinking that we might die, my family evacuated to Memphis for six weeks. In some ways it worked out for the best. My parents cleaned the walls and the floors of our home as soon as the water emptied out of it. That saved us from the mold that consumed almost every other house it our neighborhood.
When we returned to New Orleans we didn’t have any neighbors. But for better and for worse, staying that week changed us. My mom, Angelique feels mixed about the whole thing.
ANGELIQUE (on tape)
Well, sometimes I like to talk about how strong you are as children. And then some times it makes me feel sad or depressed when I think about the negative experience that we experienced.
ANGELICA
My brother Robert has changed a whole lot. I remember the day when my dad took the training wheels off Robert’s bike. He was six years old then, and he used to ride his bike until my mama called him in for dinner. He was obsessed.
ROBERT (on tape)
But I just stopped riding my bike. Because I don’t really know why. I don’t really like going outside all that much ‘cause it remind of the storm…like all the debris. Just look around, it used to look like a lake. And, it was quiet. But most of the time I just lay around the house.
ANGELICA
It my seem strange, but in some ways our life is better than it was before the storm. The storm has made us stronger, both mentally and physically. I am more confident in myself. In school, people’s harsh words used to hurt me to the core, but now they don’t mean anything. My brothers have been drawn towards the physical side of strength. They began to fight a lot, and now they act like they could take on the whole world.
Robert (on tape)
Like a bad and hard soldier, I got very very brave. I used to be very very scared of crickets. One night one got on me. I was about to scream at the top of my lungs, but I just looked at it and was like wait, it’s going to be alright, that cricket can’t do nothing, it’s not going to bite you, and it just flew off. And I said wait, that’s just a harmless little bug.
ANGELICA
My Grandmama once told me “life has to hurt you, before it blesses you.” We as a family have experienced that first hand. We have taken some serious twists and turns, and have gotten lost on our journey to blessings. The water has been gone for a while now, and my family is still here.
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