E-mail a friendJames Silas & Shantrell Talton
airdate September 6, 2005
James Silas and Shantrell Talton survived Hurricane Katrina. With his wife and three children, Silas evacuated on a make-shift raft in 8 feet of water. While evacuating, his daughter bumped into their dead neighbor's floating body. Talton was stranded on her two-story complex with 21 others for two days, before finally being rescued by a stranger in a boat. She was forced to put her ailing mother in a truck with strangers, in order to be evacuated and receive medical attention.
James Silas & Shantrell Talton
Tavis: We're joined tonight by two victims of Hurricane Katrina, two survivors, in fact. James Silas, a father of two, was able to survive in New Orleans for a few difficult days at the Superdome. He and his family are now safe in Houston, but his brother is still among the missing. Shantrell Talton is a single mother of three. She rode out the aftermath of the storm at the convention center in New Orleans before making her way out of town. She, too, is missing a family member. In her case, her cousin. James and Shantrell join us tonight from Houston. I'm glad to have you both here. Shantrell, how are you?
Shantrell Talton: I'm okay. And...
Tavis: Well, that...
Talton: ...and yourself?
Tavis: I'm doing well. Thanks for asking. That's awfully kind of you to ask how I'm doing given what you've been through, but I thank you. Let me ask how you found yourself at the convention center. Take me back where I, tell me what ward you live in...
Talton: Okay.
Tavis: ...and how you found your way to the convention center.
Talton: Okay. Well, we started off in, in an area what is called Pontchartrain Park because my aunt has a two-story house, so we thought that we would be safe there, but the, when the water came, it started rising so fast that we got stuck on the second floor. So, we continued to go out into the roof. Once we got to the roof, on the radio they kept on telling us to wave a white, something white so that they would see us. And we kept, we were up there for two days flagging T-shirts and everything and the planes were passing but nobody would stop for us. We were up there for two days and two nights. So, a guy in a boat came and he picked us up. He made two trips because there were so many of us, he made two trips to come back and get us. He took us to dry land and we made it to my sister's house. My sister's house didn't take on any water, so we figured that we could stay there, but while we were there, the city cut the water off.
So that left us no alternative but to walk to the interstate where they told us that we would be picked up, which seemed, which came to be an untruth because we walked the interstate and we sat on the interstate for hours and nobody came to pick us up. We stood out there so long that I put my mother, who is a diabetic, on a van with a bunch of people that I didn't know so that my mom wouldn't go into a diabetic coma. That is how I got separated from her. So, when we finally realized, when night fell, that no one was coming for us, we started walking. So, we walked maybe at least, at least, Tavis, 20 miles, without exaggeration, we walked 20 miles to the convention center. And, they had us under the impression that when we got there that they were going to take care of us. But when we got there, they didn't have any water, any food, no, the restroom facilities were filthy because they cut the water off.
And people, at that point, I think they got outraged because they were called there under false pretenses thinking that we were going to get water, and food, and shelter. We got shelter, but we didn't have water and food. So the people, at that point, they broke into the kitchens which led, which led to the National Guards coming in and stopping them from taking the food and the drinks that they were trying to take only to survive because they didn't have anything for us to eat or for us to drink.
Tavis: How did you get from, there are so many things I want to ask you, I didn't want to interrupt while you were telling me the story. Let me go back, a couple things right quick, though. Actually, let me go forward before I go backward. How did you get, eventually, out of the convention center to Houston?
Talton: We met up with some friends and we, we got a moving van and we packed everybody into a moving van, into the back of a pickup truck, and we drove to Houston ourselves. No one in New Orleans helped us get to Houston. We...
Tavis: When you say, when you say everybody, how many people we talking, Shantrell?
Talton: At least 40.
Tavis: How many folk, take me, let me go back now. How many folk in your family were on that roof for two days?
Talton: 20, 21 of us.
Tavis: 21 of you. Do you know the man who came along and rescued you?
Talton: I don't know his name. All I know is that he lives on the street where my mother lives. He gave us his address because we told him that we were so appreciative that when we get on our feet that we would send him something, but he said that was not what he was doing it for, that he was doing it because he was doing it out of the kindness of his heart.
Tavis: Mm. James, tell me, first of all, let me welcome you to the program. I'm glad to have you on as well, sir.
James Silas: Thank you, sir.
Tavis: Glad to have you here. You are a father of how many?
Silas: I'm a father of two, sir.
Tavis: Father of two. Tell me how, tell me about your story, your, what ward you're from and how you made your way to the Superdome.
Silas: Well, as far as the wards are concerned, which has really never meant anything to me, but I'm from the Sixth Ward, sir.
Tavis: Okay. I'm only, I'm only asking to get a sense of where you live. That's why I'm asking.
Silas: Okay. I'm in the Sixth Ward and that was one of the heavily hit...
Tavis: Absolutely.
Silas: ...areas of the flood, sir. It, actually, the day of the storm, actually, the day prior to the storm, they was telling about mandatory evacuations, but if you just look at New Orleans' history, no one ever took the storms serious, okay? But the day after the waters rose about five feet in the house, and once it got about five feet in the house, we decided we were going to leave. Okay. Once we got to that part, we got, got outside of the house, we got in the water, which was about eight feet high, we made, my son and I made a makeshift raft out of somebody's wooden gate, and we started wading down through the streets, which took us like maybe two and a half, three miles. And we were, everything was fine until, you know, I put my wife and my daughter on the raft, my son and I was pushing. At certain points, we had to actually paddle with our feet. You know, one of our neighbors, which is a good friend of my wife, unfortunately, passed away and she was floating in the water, and she bumped into, her body bumped into the side of my daughter, and that's when we started having the real problems.
My daughter just, basically, she broke down and, you know, and my son and I took everything we had to keep my wife and my daughter together. And after that, we kept just rowing on to the Superdome. And then we got to the Superdome, the water at certain points, it was really high. You know, I don't know the heighth (sic), I don't know the width, the inches, I'm not a scientist. I don't know. And we got to Claiborne and to Main and we went under the bridge with this makeshift raft. Finally, the water got low enough and we left the raft with all of the belongings we had, which was basically the shirts and the clothes on our backs, and walked up a little while up on the Claiborne overpass and we got to the interstate and we walked up. And there was, we were thinking we were safe but there were thousands of people, thousands, literally, thousands of people on the interstate and they were sleeping out there. And we were passing by, I'm thinking about the body that my daughter bumped into. We got on the interstate, there were...
Talton: More bodies.
Silas: Hundreds of bodies. And...
Talton: Bodies were everywhere.
Silas: And we got to the Superdome and I'm, I'm telling my children I watched the Superdome since 1974, I believe in this place, and I believe in that place. I'm thinking this is the place of refuge. And I told my wife, who is mentally disabled, my daughter is the same way, my son, and okay, this is a place of refuge. I'm a forklift operator by trade. I'm thinking, okay, this is it. We get to the Superdome, we go through this thing with the Army Air Corps, the Army, we get in there and (unintelligible), okay, we're safe. And the very first night you realize you're not safe. Okay, you've got gangs of, of, of, of thugs running through the, through the Superdome. I'm not blaming these kids, okay? These kids are trying to survive, okay? And then you got up in there and, that one time, at stick, sticks and bat point, that they were, they stole my wife and my family and my kids' food. You know, I would defend my family, sir, against another man, but I can't defend my family against 20 people.
And then we were up in there and you're hearing about rapes. I saw, I saw so many things that I would really rather forget. I saw this one guy who they accused of, as being a rapist. This guy wasn't a rapist. There was a gang of thugs that literally beat this guy to death. And, sir, let me tell you something, you don't know what horror is until you hear a man screaming for his life. You don't know what horror is. And then, then the next couple of nights, we're hearing about rapes, murders, Air Guardsmen being shot and killed.
Talton: (unintelligible).
Silas: You're hearing people jumping off the mezzanine, not because anyone is chasing them, you're hearing about people jumping off the mezzanine in the Superdome. And if you don't know the (unintelligible) Superdome, it's almost a mile, a half a mile up in the air.
Tavis: Yeah, yeah. I know it well.
Silas: They're jumping off because they couldn't take it anymore.
Tavis: Let me...
Silas: On our way out, we saw, on our way out of the Superdome, after that, nights of horror, there was a fire. The kids set a fire in there because they wanted out. These kids are not bad. These are great kids. They are not refugees, they are survivors of a storm. They are American citizens. But on our way out, there, there is one reason that they are not talking about the, the death toll in New Orleans, because I'm saying to you today, sir, that the death toll in New Orleans is going to reach a hell of a lot higher, excuse me, I'm sorry, than 10,000. On our, my wife and I, and all of our neighbors, on our way out of the Superdome, we watched a makeshift morgue.
The night prior to that, there was a gentleman who said he was a prisoner, came, sit down next to my wife, and I was ready to get with him and, you know, defend my wife. And the man sat down, he had on nurse's outfits and smocks, and he just sit down and he cried. He said, 'I'm a prisoner from Orleans Parish Prison.' And I said, 'Man, what's the matter?' He looked in my face, he said, 'Man, I can't take it.' On our way out, he told us about, on our way out, we saw bodies at the bottom of the Louisiana Superdome as far as the eye can see. The Louisiana Superdome is a makeshift morgue.
Tavis: Let me ask you, and your stories are so powerful and I, I want to shift gears here slightly, just if I can. Shantrell, to you first.
I, I hear the harrowing nightmare that you have endured. I want you both to know, as I said at the outset of the show, that I went to, I was in New Orleans over the weekend, and I had the pleasure, or the opportunity, I should say, of being able to get aboard a Black Hawk helicopter that the military provided for me and Mr. Gordon, who will be on this program here momentarily, and we were able to fly over the city. And so, when you were telling me about sitting on that rooftop for two days, I know exactly what you're talking about. I saw it 50 feet above the rooftops that you all slept on for two days. Let me ask you, after hearing these harrowing stories, what you plan to do now. How you're going to go forward. What are your plans now? I want to move forward if I can.
Silas: Be strong. Be strong.
Talton: I plan, my, personally, my plan is to never go back to New Orleans because I have never been treated so bad in my life.
Tavis: So, you don't ever want to go back, even though that's your home?
Talton: And that is my home, and I never thought I would ever want to leave, and I'm never going back. I'm never going back for the simple fact they treated us like savages.
Tavis: Who do you blame for that?
Talton: Oh, I blame, personally, I blame Mark Brown because it shouldn't have taken him six days to send us supplies.
Tavis: You mean Michael Brown, the, yeah.
Talton: Michael Brown.
Tavis: The FEMA director.
Talton: The man who runs FEMA.
Tavis: Yeah, right.
Talton: That is who I blame.
Tavis: Right.
Talton: I don't, I praise Ray Nagin to the highest. I don't understand how Arlene's Parish is always the last parish to be evacuated, and we are the, in the most danger.
Tavis: Yeah. Let, well, I want to wish you all the best, Shantrell. Let me go to James before I let you go, James. And I'm curious as to, as to what your plans are now. Are you going back to New Orleans at some point? Are you...
Silas: Sir, I'm, I'm a New Orleanian.
Tavis: Right.
Silas: Okay? What I'm going to do here in Houston, I'm going to take care of my wife and my children. I'm going to find me a job, which I, I have, hopefully, already, and I'm going to survive here until my city is open, and I'm going back to my city and I'm going to rebuild my city, okay?
Tavis: Well, I appreciate and I respect both points of view. I appreciate you both coming on. The thoughts and prayers of me and my entire staff, and I know all those watching this program, are with you.
Silas: We appreciate you having us on, sir.
Tavis: You are authentic American her...s for surviving this (unintelligible).
Silas: And we are Americans, sir. We are not refugees.
Talton: We are not refugees.
Silas: We are American.
Talton: I am a tax-paying citizen, and I...
Silas: That's right.
Talton: ...and I don't like the fact that I am called a refugee.
Silas: Don't call me a refugee.
Tavis: And, well...
Talton: I'm not a refugee. I am a survivor and I am a US citizen.
Tavis: As we say in the black church, and the church said, amen.
Silas: Amen.
Talton: Amen.
Tavis: We'll say amen to that. James, all the best to you. Shantrell, all the best to you as well.
Silas: Thank you, sir.
Talton: Okay. Thank you.
Tavis: Glad to have you on.
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