Since the first time I heard Louie Armstrong sing “Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans,” the appeal of jazz, great food, historic Catholic churches and streetcars named Desire have called to me. For a single mom from East Los Angeles, I jumped at the opportunity of a long weekend alone sipping Mint Juleps and searching for Harry Connick Jr.\r\n\r\nBy Sunday, August 28, instead of packing up my memories and returning to the daily grind, I was frantically searching for a way, any way, out of this city I had wanted so badly to experience. My flight back to Los Angeles had been cancelled, the trains and buses had stopped running, the rental cars were already booked and even my feeble attempt to hitch a ride from some other hotel guests fleeing the city under voluntary evacuation had failed. \r\n\r\nI cursed my independence as I braced for 175 mph winds in a hotel built for 150 mph winds. My silly thoughts were only, why had I taken this trip alone. That night as the 3000 hotel guests and I were evacuated from our rooms to a huge conference room with only a blanket and pillow in tow, I thought about the families I saw earlier that day lined up for blocks just to have a space to wait out the storm in the Superdome next door. \r\n\r\nThe mayor of New Orleans had by then called for a mandatory evacuation of the city. There were a few exceptions of who should be evacuated-police, fire and emergency personnel, bus drivers, tourists, and inmates. I was saddened those in the Superdome would fall into last category. Their crime-poverty. \r\n\r\nBy Monday afternoon the hurricane was gone. The 12 hours of wind and rain sounded like an airplane engine mixed with the crashing glass of the 525 windows that were destroyed from my hotel. No one spoke during the hurricane. We sat on our blankets in solemn silence, at first with only the news to tell us what was going on outside and later with only the dim lights of the generator-powered lamps.\r\n\r\nWhen the storm subsided, I was able to walk around outside. I had never seen anything like it. There was glass everywhere from the buildings that made up the Central Business District (CBD) and the cars that lined the streets. The street signs were not only toppled but also mangled. The sign from the Hyatt lay in the middle of the street.\r\n\r\nBreakfast and dinner were all they served. We had little to eat but I was grateful. We all were. I ate my biscuit and strip of bacon like Emeril Lagasse had made it himself. Hyatt staff were doing the best they could do not only feed us but accommodate us. One night we had a chicken wing and a fish stick for dinner. We had heard the people at the Superdome had it much worst. We had little food. They had none. Water became the hottest commodity. Surely, help was on the way. The President has signed a state of emergency declaration even before the storm hit. Hopes were high. We had made it.\r\n\r\nSince we had no power, I had taken to watching out for the mayor, who was staying in the same hotel. When he would come in, media would swarm him and I would follow. It was the only way I could get information. I would return to talk to other families who, in turn, would talk to still other families. This was the only way we could disseminate information. The mayor was frustrated. He worried about the levee breaking and complained of FEMA bringing in “too many chiefs and not enough Indians.” The mayor contented if the levees broke, we would be in big trouble.\r\n\r\nI waited for people to band together, help each other out. Those I had seen checking in the day before had come prepared with cases of bottled water, snack foods and canned goods. Many elderly people needed help. People were running out of medication. There was a woman a few blankets away who had her 4-day old baby with her. She had come straight from her c-section to the hotel before the storm. Another family had a pregnant woman, her husband, two sweet girls and grandma as well. \r\n\r\nIt occurred to me, I had only spoken once in two days when I asked one of the kids if she wanted some paper to draw a picture. She had been complaining to her mother, she wanted to go home. It seemed no one had a friend, no one to lean on. No one would share a bottle of water or offer a comforting touch. I wondered if e-mails and cel phones had conditioned us to become socially inept. I had plenty of time to think about the conditions of society and how we had come to treat each other with little regard if our worlds did not intersect. I wondered if had we been a society that cared more about each other in every day life, if compassion would have eliminated desperation.\r\n\r\nTuesday brought a whole new hurricane. My strategy of getting information proved to be a curse. Reporters shared stories of women in the Superdome who had been raped, kids who had been kidnapped and molested, stabbings and looting. The mayor was now well beyond frustration. It seemed selfish to ask him how we were all going to get out of there. All I needed was to get on a plane to be out of this nightmare. Others would not escape so easily. Losing their homes and possessions was just the tip of the iceberg. Their prison was a lifetime of hardship, struggle and the criminalization that accompanies poverty. I was losing hope in an escape and in mankind.\r\n\r\nThere was a bit of relief when the hotel gave us our rooms back. We had no air conditioning, no running water and little space, so a mattress seemed a gift from God. My back was killing me and I missed my boys at home and ice. God, I missed ice! They said it was 100 degrees and the only air were got was what came in through the broken windows of the atrium. We slept in the hallways to get the breeze at night but that ended when the police who were staying in the hotel came barreling out of their rooms in the middle of the night, guns drawn, to save us from the looters who were trying to storm the hotel lobby.\r\n\r\nWednesday proved no better. Although, I was able to reach my sister in San Francisco, she was frantic and I felt horrible for having put her through all this. To me, it seemed harder on her than it was for me. The unknown was worst and the images she had seen on CNN were no comfort. \r\n\r\nThere was a plan to evacuate us after they had gotten all the people out of the Superdome but more people kept coming to the Dome and hotel guests were being pushed further and further behind. It seemed fair because in the scheme of things, we had it better than those at the Dome. With floodwaters holding us captive, nightmare stories from reporters and the mayor’s anger, I needed some community, some sense of hope, someone to care. \r\n\r\nThursday was my breaking point. I had not seen the mayor all day and I was convinced he abandon us. Any other government official never even acknowledged us or those in the Dome, so I knew not to expect anything from them. I thought I was either going to die in the hotel or die in the streets trying to escape. The buses that were promised had never come. I had not had water for three days. The stench on the third floor where food was served was horrid because the bathrooms on the same floor had not been flushed for days. Meals were depressing. We ate in the dark. The older people wear a look on their face that seemed to welcome death. The heat was beyond belief. I could not touch my hand to my face without being completely disgusted at my own fifth. The water I had stored in my bathtub to flush the toilet and take sponge baths was gone. We had taken to filling buckets of water (and broken glass) from the hotel pool and lugging up to our rooms just to have something to flush the toilets. I was on the 12th floor. I had limited myself to only using the bathroom once a day. Every time I looked out the window over my neighbors in the Dome, I knew better than to complain. \r\n\r\nI was finally able to talk to my sister that day. She was losing hope as well. My strength and patience were gone. I wanted to escape. I had to get back home to my boys. With armed guards at the door and all hell breaking loose beyond there, I had no hope but still my sister helped me come up with my own evacuation plan. If I could just get to the bridge (not even two miles) I could walk to the next town (26 miles away). To take the main streets would have been too dangerous with the “looters.” I could not take my luggage because that would draw attention to the fact I was a tourist. I would carry my credit card in my shoe and hope I could swim through the floodwaters. I would have to memorize our escape route in case I lost my map. I had planned to leave first thing in the morning (we had hoped looters would still be asleep).\r\n\r\nFriday morning’s alarm was not expected. The air raid sirens went off in the hotel and we were all told to head down to the third floor to evacuate the hotel. THE BUSES HAD FINALLY ARRIVED! National Guard was everywhere. After hours of waiting in the lobby, we waded through the floodwaters and got on our bus using the National Guard as our shields. Not even the bus driver knew where we were headed. I did not need my own evacuation plan from the night before.\r\n\r\nWe ended up in Dallas. Texas bought on the criminalization of the hurricane. Mesquite Police just outside of Dallas escorted us off the highway. Under the premise of serving us dinner, they made us get off the buses and go through metal detectors. While we snacked on water, fruit and cookies, police searched our bags and luggage (we were forbidden to take anything off the bus). We were delayed two hours. The message was clear, we were something to be feared no matter what we had been through. \r\n\r\nAs they dug through my luggage, I wondered if our bus full of Black riders would have gotten the same treatment had they not been Black. It was a scene I was all too familiar with living in East Los Angeles. Every young man of color had this same story. I wondered if the looters back in New Orleans would have looted if they had water and food right after the hurricane instead of two days later. Were they really looters or just desperate? I wondered if the “looters” where really looters or people who had been pushed to their breaking point after years of being ignored and forgotten because they were poor. I wondered if communities of “the have-not’s” would have reacted differently if “the have’s” had higher taxes to provide a better education, better social services and more opportunity for everyone. There was little I would not have done to get a bottle of water. Had my kids been with me, I certainly would have gone “too far.” \r\n\r\nFinally, after being turned away from two shelters, I had enough. I was lucky enough not to need a shelter. I just wanted off the bus and in a taxi to the airport. Selfish as I felt, I wanted to go home. I was forbidden to get off the bus at first but after much discussion with local police, I was finally released. \r\n\r\nI am grateful to be reunited with my kids, protected by my big sister; back to a job I love, surrounded by good friends, caring colleagues and mild weather. But I feel guilty about leaving so many behind who have nothing. Beyond material possessions, there is something very damaging about not having that place we call home no matter how humble that place may be. Am I my brother’s keeper? Certainly, but will contributing to a good cause really restore what we lost in New Orleans? I am not convinced. I think we need to stop fearing each other and start building not only homes in New Orleans but communities in our own backyards.