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Not Just The Levees Broke: My Story During And After Hurricane Katrina (2008)

by Phyllis Montana-Leblanc(Favorite Author)

3.51 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1416563466 (ISBN13: 9781416563464)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Atria Books

review 1: This story really is harrowing. The author was living in New Orleans, Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina and this is her story of what happened when the levees broke. She'd stayed behind in her apartment because she lived across the hall from her disabled mother and her sister with an autistic son was staying with them too. It was pretty scary, so many times when the roof blew off and the water rushed in she thought she was going to die. It seemed a horrific experience. Very intense read. The aftermath was pretty bad too. Days of sitting around with nothing to eat or drink and nowhere comfortable to rest while not being able to get a straight answer about where to go or how they would get away from the disaster.Finally she gets away, but struggles for a long time due to va... morerious incompetencies. I did enjoy the story, there are times when she wanders and gets a bit randomly preachy about things at a length that doesn't really add to the story, especially at the end. It would have been nice if an editor had helped her clean up the rambling.
review 2: Upon starting, I loved this book. She writes the way she talks and when there's such crazy, intense stuff going on, it was refreshing to hear it like it is. Everything she wrote during Katrina was really interesting and horrible and real. The treatment of the people of New Orleans is just astounding. Everyone dropped the ball on this one. The mayor, the governor, the president, FEMA, EVERYONE. Things should have been better for these people when all of this went down.It's when she starts to write about what happened AFTERWARDS that really begins to bug me. I don't presume for a second to know what it's like to go through this kind of ordeal. I have no idea how I or people I know would react. I can only speculate. I had a lot of problems with her reactions to things - but this is just based on my personal behavior and how I deal with issues myself. I come from a long line of fighters. No hysterics, no making yourself crazy, none of that nonsense. You can't function in fear. You do what needs to be done. Once everything is over, once everyone is safe, you can freak out. I also believe in personal responsibility and gratitude when it's due. I don't understand waiting for someone to come save you. I feel like some of the people of New Orleans are still waiting for someone to come fix things for them. Things need to be fixed, don't get me wrong. But it's not in someone's best interest to wait around for it to come and do it for you. It's about going out, working as much as you can, earning what you deserve and going from there. It's about picking yourself up with the hands and feet you were given and fixing your own life.I don't agree with complaining that you're still living in a FEMA trailer 3 years later and things with money are just bad - when you don't have a job and your husband makes all the money for the household. I don't understand complaining about the first hot meal you've had in days and how it's "the cheapest thing they could make" and how you'd like a steak instead.There's also a lot of poetry at the end of the book that I skimmed through or skipped - but that's because I don't really like poetry, I have no idea whether it was good or not.I think this book is definitely worth the read. There are some parts of it that are golden. It would be wise to go in without judgement and take it as a part of someone's life and what happened as opposed to the voice of everyone involved. less

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