That we got blamed for. I was living at the time in a three bedroom apartment and thank god for that because even though i have six children and 11 grandchildren, the amount of people that was in my house during the storm was 22 because i could not refuse anybody of shelter, okay . We were packed in like sardines. During this time my 22yearold daughter had a threemonth old baby, this child cried constantly because she was uncomfortable, she cant stand being hot. I had a pregnant 22yearold that is in labor as i speak, you know, im praying for her and her baby, okay . I am the grandmother of 11 children, to watch my grandchildren walking and falling in the filth was too much to take, okay . I am now living in college station, texas where i have started a new life. The most wonderful place on earth as far as im concerned. Im not going back to new orleans at least not now. However, we wont be missed because were not wanted there anyway. I know this and everyone above the age of 18 should know it. Believe me, our problems didnt start with katrina. Katrina was more of a blessing than anything because she gave us the opportunity to get out. Last thursday i went back to new orleans to see what could be in sad i was shocked to see how people were living and being treated in fact i have a list of names and numbers that im willing to give to anybody in here who is interested. Theyre not getting the resources, or the services that we are, okay . And i really think somebody should check in to it. When i was in new orleans at one, on one of the jobs, i was a Career Development specialist, i was used to sending people out to go to work, used to giving, telling people, helping people get bills paid. When i got to my house to new orleans 4 30 thursday morning i was locked out. Before the day was over, my 20yearold was locked up. You understand . Never been to jail a day in her life. She tried explaining to the police what was going on, they locked her up anyway. Because you know, one thing we know about new orleans, its a money city, you know . They wouldnt care if had you something to eat a place to stay, just give me your money, okay . And so like i said, when i got, there my locks was changed, ive had other family members to go home, find eviction notice, other folk to come home and their stuff is on the street. Those people have to pay back rent for when the storm hit for houses that they werent even in. I think its really sad, okay . I have, i have personally, nobody cares about each other in new orleans. Okay. I think the politicians in new orleans first must stop stealing and robbing the city because thats definitely whats going on. And in order to rebuild new orleans i think every elected official should be replaced starting with the president. Fema and Homeland Security failed us. We did not get quality information in a timely manner, we were just a city destroyed and we were left to twist in the twilight zone. No one cared except those around us in the same situation. We had to depend on each other. My decision was difficult, but i had to leave my home of 53 years and my grandchildren had to go too. I have six children and that is six households that had to leave new orleans. We returned to new orleans and i thought we would maybe get the idea to stay. But that didnt happen. Nothing happened to change our mind. Like i said when i arrived at 4 30, i was locked out and by 7 30 that night my daughter was locked up. We explained, what we were doing but like always, the police didnt listen. You know, i had to leave my daughter in jail in new orleans. I had to leave her in jail. Because i had to return the u. S. Haul truck and i just secured a job in texas and i dont want to lose that. I love my city, you know, i feel my presence and the presence of my family and the existence of my culture has made new orleans a loving, exciting and educational place to learn and joy and grow. Its hurting to realize we have such a rich culture taken away us from. I see no future for the city and no one is giving us hope. The saddest part is that the children of new orleans and this nation will never know the richness of a area that was built on love and caring. Thank you for your time. Thank you, thank you very much. Ms. Hodges. Thank you for being with us. First of all, i would like to thank the committee and congresswoman cynthia, my mothers second to baby sisters name is cynthia and i feel so close to you already, thank you all. First of all, i would like to offer condolences to the approximately 10,000 people who lost family members in what certainly appears to me to be a mass act, an account of genocide and an ethnic cleansing, i would like to cover condolences to ms. Gen dough lynn steward and her family who on december 10th will be burying four of their family members who drowned, a sister, her sister and her three nieces who drowned as a result of the city of new orleans being abandoned by our very own government from the very highest level t very lowest. I would also like to appeal to my brother carl hodges, who is still missing. If you are out there and if are within the sound of my voice, if anybody knows where my brought is, please contact the red cross. We love you, we miss you and we are so worried about you. Anyway, im chair of a committee called cause way concentration camp. Cause way concentration camp arose directly from the harsh military treatment and detention fascist style under the i10 in Jefferson Parish at the cause way exit. I came from a family of musicians, civil rights workers and human rights workers. Before katrina we were planning a musical family reunion. I had taken time off from pursuing a law degree to care for my sick grand dad. I was also in the process of working with Community Leaders on setting up music and art workshops for youth to provide meaningful activities after school. The manual i was writing for the workshop was severely damaged in the flood. By the grace of god i managed to get out a portion of the outline so i can do it again. I have also started a new project, which is about my experience as a detainee at the interstate 10 highway at the causeway exit. To begin with, a few general points. The failures of the president of the United States, the governor of louisiana, Kathleen Blanco and the mayor of new orleans, nagin need not be pointed out as they have already accepted responsibility for their roles in abandoning their very own citizens, their constituencies, the people who elected them and pay taxes to pay their salaries to protect us, they abandoned us. The people of new orleans were stranded in a flood and were allowed to die. What happened to us was foreseeable and it was preventable. The military personnel was stationed just 40 miles outside the city. They could have moved in and gotten people out sooner. People were allowed to die. People did not need to die. Our military has the capability. I have seen the military prepare and ride out for desert storm, for ours and hours, a good four hours every massive vehicle imaginable passed over. Particularly in the 9th Ward Area where so many, an a a majority of the people died, there is what was once called the port of embark indication, they have massive ships. They have military hospital, america has military hospitals and medical personnel. They should have moved in and moved people out first. They should not have allowed the worst of the worst to happen and new orleans was basically turned in to a mass grave and then tried to move in and clean up the aftermath. There was so many people who were murdered by the military and the police for trying to survive labeled as criminals. And were murdered and i saw on cnn where the politicians said that would not count all of the bodies. They would not count the bodies who were murdered by police and military personnel. Well, they should count the bodies. These bodies, a lots of them voted, their families voted, they paid taxes. They are human beings, they deserve to be counted. I mean if we dont count all these bodies and what are we talking, a mass grave somewhere . A mass burning somewhere . These bodies should be accounted for. In my neighborhood in the water area, one of the first areas where i heard floating bodies, where i tutored and mentored young people. Where we had barbecues and we got along like families, we looked after each other on a daily basis. A lot of my neighbors are unaccounted for, a lot of my neighbors are dechld i saw the first living person in my neighborhood roughly about a month ago. But i want to speak a little more in detail about the concentration camp situations, the military, after having told thaws there was nothing they could do for us, and the local police and there was no help for us over the radio we heard that they had designated socalled evacuation points. My brother and my nieces nieces fiancee set out to find evacuation points and they stayed gone a very long time and we were very worried about them. When they returned they said that had been detained on the gretna bridge and they had been turned around and were not allowed to pass through that area in order to locate evacuation camps. Evacuation points. Our situation was one such that we became aware of some Senior Citizens who had been abandoned in a brand new federally funded facility. A lot of them had life threatening illnesses. They had been without medication for days. We shared our provisions with them that they had gotten together for the storm. Once the police began to tell thaws there was no help for us and our provisions ran low, i took some bricks that had been blown down from a building across the street from a Grocery Store and i poured some color rocks on them and cleaned them up and fashioned a stove and some people from the community brought some food that was still good from their freezers and i moved some of the tables from indoors because the building was still continue tam contaminated with flood water answer i bleached the tables and set up a hand washing and dish washing station, washed food, took very long to do because it was just like living off the land basically. And we got it all done. We cooked and we fed people. And encouraged people and we flagged down police and asked for help and told them we had people with life threatening illnesses, we had one man who was an amputee. They insulted us when they werent telling us they had no help for us, they couldnt help us, they insult us and told us that they should have gotten out. I told my baby brother when we located a friend who still had gas and she said that we could cook dinner, you know, for teld letter i because we were trying to at least feed them and keep them alive until we can get help. So i instructed my baby brother, Steven Hodges to flag down any official vehicle that you see and let them know that we need medicine, we have sick people and we are afraid the lose these people to die. My brother flagged down a police car and asked for help. They used racial slurs and dirty obscenity, they cursed him and threatened to blow his brains out and when he turned around to walk away he said one Police Officers said i started to blow that niggers brains out and the other one said you should have. My brother walked away and he said, i said look, we just going to have to get out of here. The director for this boyd manor in algiers came in the day before the storm, told the Senior Citizens to get out, then she took the keys to their brand new state of the art bus and abandoned them. So we took it upon ourselves to care for them because that was the only care that they could get at the time. So in the meantime, my brothers got back and we eventually had to command dear a van, try to get somebody to rig it so we could get started and get the sick to the socalled evacuation points. And among us was a pregnant woman with two small children. We bought to the evacuation points and you know, the military, they, you know, they were kind of nice to us at first, though we were wondering why all the m16s, looked like we just stepped in to a war. Why all the guns . We didnt see any first aid kits. All we saw was water and guns. Now, the u. S. Coast guard search and rescue team were frustrated, they were furious, said they cannot want to stand around holding guns on people, they were ordered to stand and hold guns on see vac wees when they wanted to be rescuing people from drownings and plucking people up out of the contaminated water and from rooftops, yet they were ordered to stand there and hold war weapons, weapons that had the capability of mass destruction, the weapons that they had upon them was capable of killing a lot of people at close range. So anyway, they told us that they would take to us shelters where we could get help and get the seniors to help. And they loaded us up on these military trucks, then they declared the city of new orleans, Orleans Parish and Jefferson Parish a war zone and it still didnt sink in that we were the surprise conners of war. Once we got to this place, the people who said this guy from the u. S. Coast guard, his name was louis, they plucked him off from a coast guard ship off the coast of venezuela and brought him in to help without because eaves search and rescue specialist. When they brought to us this wide open outdoor space on the highway, on the highway. And they said that buss would come in and that they would get out the sick and the elderly and special needs people first. And louis, i saw he moved out some groups of people in wheelchairs and sick people and said he would move our group out next because we had people who were critically ill. He said he would position his car directly across the highway from us and leave on the lights so that we could see him in the event that any among us needed anything before he could move us out. Well, i saw a vehicle across the highway from us but the lights never came on, we never saw him again, the one person who was there to actually help people, he just vanished, we never saw him again. The next morning all we saw was what appeared to be a bunch of hardened read neck scowling and growling at us in military uniforms, just hostile, full of hatred and pointing guns at us and treating us worse than prisoners of war. Over 100 degree, in over 100 degree temperatures we were forced to stand out in that hot sun with 100 humidity, we exposed to skin cancer, we were tortured with sleep deprivation, they created a garbage dump and made us live on it and sleep on it and flew helicopters over our heads and blew the garre gej, the muck and the toxic meyer back in to our faces. We left body bags behind. We had to fake a labor on a pregnant woman to get them to move her and her two children out. The elderly, the amputee for a whole day and a whole night they refused to give us food and water for people who could not fend for themselves. Myself, my family and other people, we had been circulating through camp trying to see about people, you know, who couldnt get up and fends for themselves. And as of the night that we got out of there, they still refused to give food and water to us to see that people got it who needed it and they would not feed people and they pushed us away with guns and told us not to come back asking anymore. I have been told to wrap it up. This is not a situation that i can describe in five or ten minutes and i dont want to overextend my time, but i will answer questions, but i say this we have been exposed to genocide by ethnic cleansing, the rights of our children have been violated, womens rights against discrimination have been violated, our economic, social and cultural rights have been violated, our human rights have been violated, our rights against torture have been violated, our rights as prisoners of war within the scope of the geneva have been violated, mike grant workers rights violated, both express and implied arise directly from the failure of the United States government to eliminate an apart tied practices and other forms of oppressive practice against poor and working poor citizens of the United States who are mostly africanamerican or otherwise people of color. These violations are historical and continuing. This is a formal request that this situation being blamed on the hurricane be further investigated. This should never have happened anyplace, especially in america. And certainly should never happen again. Some people are shocked to hear me say concentration camp, but if you have ever seen any footage of the hitler concentration camps in world war ii, i assure you that is what happened to us at the very lowest level, all the way up to the level of some people dying and pregnant women losing babies. Thank you. Gumbo variety of ingredients to make good gumbo east Bank West Bank uptown downtown lakeside riverside, men, women, old, rich, poor, protestant catholic, Orthodox Jews muslims, hindu, straight, gay, oh, my goodness. Would you please accept this. The second gift is from saints Augustine Catholic church the oldest. Bill that enslaved people in the city, with love and respect, you take this. I didnt go anywhere. Why . Because i didnt have to. I live in america. Im free. Does that sound strange to anybody in 2005 . I hope not. Hurricane even had it named after me, im 60. Sxxty. Years old. , ive lived through, i guess at this point, thousands of hurricanes. Why are we so excited about hurricane . Katrina didnt do this. Lets get very, very clear. Katrina didnt do this. The islams of america the isms, that we got to get rid of including ism, ism, almost like xat end of prescriptions means poison we need more monday where is the place around the corner please somebody order up some more paper with ink on it put the nominations on it is this really going to be about this . As i was told i was coming here the neighbors started comeing by with their comments. And they want some answers, how you doing . God bless your heart for being here. Because i was looking for you where the rest of them dont they know we still with our all basic services, would you let them know that for me, please. I said saw what they did to you so it could try to attempt to complete this genocide. Where i live but i live in america. My neighbors want to know where the children are. What insane group of people separated parents from their children . My neighbors want to know where their children are, somebody find out. Oh, and our whole Community Want to know wheres our deceased we know they are dead. We downtown just to chance this year yall, 15yearold first man you all probably saw on television accusing accuse of looting looking for his 15yearold sons body, or teghamilton, coleman, please find him so are susso we can have some closure. We need