As the nation commemorates the devastation of Hurricane Katrina on the 20th anniversary of when the category five storm plowed into New Orleans, the May family could be considered one of the lucky ones.
They were blessed to have survived the storm without casualties or bodily harm. They also had a stable living situation for the entire year that they were displaced. But their lives changed forever because of Katrina.
When the levee gave way that put the home of Richon May Wallace’s parents and siblings in the Ninth Ward under 20 feet of water, she was living in St. Louis.
“To have your family home basically washed away, you just feel lost,” Wallace said. “I mean, it’s like, ‘Where do I go? What is home now?’”
At the time she had spent a few years here. Wallace, then May, arrived after graduating from Dillard University. She came to pursue acting as part of the St. Louis Black Repertory Company’s professional acting internship program. She stayed because of the life she was able to make for herself as a performing artist and educator. Because of our shared French influences and overall warm demeanor of the people, St. Louis quickly felt like her second home.
As the storm approached, Wallace was being updated on her city’s status through constant communication with her immediate family – until her phone was stolen.
The communication lapse was extremely temporary. Through her replacement phone, Wallace learned that her family was able to successfully evacuate, but they would be starting over.
“My paw-paw was a proud homeowner,” Wallace said. “For him, home was the building. For my dad, home was the city. And for me, home is the people.”
The generations of family legacy that rooted the Mays within the city was gone in a flash. Which is why August 30 is the date that sticks in her head in addition to August 29, 2005 – the day Katrina touched down.
“There was the storm and the pandemonium,” Wallace said. “But then there was the aftermath of knowing there was nothing to go back to – that’s when the reality of what had happened set in.”
Wallace’s mother, Berssetta May, had been paying close attention to news and weather reports about Katrina. Friday morning, they said the storm was coming. As far as she knew, the storm was way out in the gulf and wouldn’t make it to New Orleans. By Saturday night, they were being told the storm was coming directly towards the city and residents should be thinking about evacuation.
May was torn about whether she should leave.
‘I was like, ‘I don’t want to go,’” May said. “Because every time we do leave, the hurricane would shift and we wouldn’t have any problems. You know the hurricane is a possibility, but you still don’t want to spend money – that you don’t have – only for everything to turn out fine.”
Her instinct told her to leave. Thankfully, she listened. May and her four children packed up as a caravan and headed to Georgia to stay with her sister who lives in the Atlanta region. Her husband thought it would be best to try to ride out the storm.
“I told him, ‘You can stay here if you want to, but we’re leaving,’” May said.
And so they did. A drive that normally takes her just under seven hours took more than fourteen.
Wallace convinced her dad, Rickie May, to go. He left a few days later. He made it out just in time to beat the storm, but he was caught up in the trauma of gridlocked interstates and gas stations running out of fuel. Wallace wanted her family to come to St. Louis and be with her.
“I had just made it to Georgia, and it was such a stressful trip that I didn’t feel like going for another ride,” May said. “I was exhausted.”
More than a month passed before she was able to see what was left of her city.
“It was like a black and white photo,” May said. “Everything was gray. There was no color.”
There was one exception, the big red X that appeared on houses.
“They would indicate whether or not they found any bodies in the house and put the date that the home was inspected,” May said. “They had to go through each house to see if there were any bodies in the house, because there were people who couldn’t get out.”
More than 1,300 lost their lives as a result of Katrina. May is convinced had she not trusted the inner voice that told her to evacuate, she would have been one of them.
“You could see the marks where the water was on the homes – and I’m five feet even – and I thought, ‘I don’t think I could have survived this,’” May said. “There is no way possible I could see me swimming in that kind of water. And even if I could have made it out of the water, if I had been caught up in everything like so many others, I think I would have just died.”
May feels that the government failed New Orleans with their storm preparedness and response to the immediate aftermath.
“They were not prepared – I guess nobody was,” May said. “But by the grace of God we were able to come back and rebuild. We are still not at 100 percent, but our city is back.”
The grace of God and the resilience of New Orleanians.
“We live different – and we love different,” May said. “When people come to New Orleans, even when it’s just to visit, we wrap our arms around them and everybody’s welcome. A disaster happened, but we still came back in the streets dancing – because that’s just us.”
After a year in Georgia, the Mays returned to New Orleans. A few years after that – and a stint of living in Chicago – Wallace returned home. She’s been back for more than a decade.
According to her, the city is still going strong and as charismatic as it has always been. Wallace believes it is because her hometown has a “a charm and that withstood the water and all of the devastation.”
“New Orleans people, we are different,” Wallace said. “We talk like we’re singing. We walk like we’re dancing. And we have a spirit that can’t be kept down.”