Why those who stayed stayed and why they might now want to leave: Jarvis DeBerry - NOLA.com
Sunday morning August 28, 2005, a tiny fraction of the members of Christian Unity Baptist Church showed up for an early morning service. Elizabeth Tillman, a 24-year-old mother of two, was there that morning. She lived in Harvey and had caught a bus to report to work as a housekeeper at the Ritz Carlton on Canal Street. She had only had her job for three weeks, and with a 5-year-old and a 1-year-old, it was important to her that she keep it. That's why she faithfully reported to work that Sunday morning. " But when she arrived some time before 8 that morning she was told to go home. I've thought of Tillman every time I've heard people badmouthing New Orleanians and calling people stupid for being in town when the levees fell apart. First of all, there wasn't much time between our hearing that the hurricane could come and the hurricane landing on the Gulf Coast. Second, Tillman is one of many people I've met who thought leaving would cost them their job. hurricanes predicted to hit the city would always turn away from the city at the eleventh hour. The irony is that the skeptics predicting the storm would turn and hit Mississippi were right. Our levees fell apart. Prayer and fellowship weren't the only things Tillman was seeking as she walked from the Ritz Carlton to church that Sunday morning. Source: www.nola.com
