Oracle Online

After learning that the storm would make landfall in a matter of days, Williamson contacted a friend in Arkansas and asked for refuge from the storm. By Saturday afternoon, she was on the road to Arkansas and to safety.

Williamson said some of her neighbors and friends from the area were not very nervous initially, and that as far as she knows, they decided to ride out the storm. Williamson has since learned that some of her friends made it out safely, but she is still waiting to hear about several others.

“I am following things as much as possible and am trying my best to stay involved. I just hope that I don’t see [the] body of someone I know on the news,” Williamson said.

Williamson was especially thankful to learn that all of her students left the Center together and are now safe.

“It was a real relief that to know all my students had been evacuated, and that’s a luxury that few teachers in New Orleans have,” Williamson said.

Williamson believes that she fared the storm well, gathering what few things she had in her house, but is also “very frustrated to see how [the evacuation] played out.” Especially frustrating for Williamson was the fact that buses were not arranged for people who had no means of escaping the city. Williamson said that even if they had been able to evacuate by bus, there were no shelters being set up to house the evacuees.

According to Williamson, the poor and people of color have very little political pull in New Orleans. “The federal response was too late, and mired in bureaucracy. It really brings to light a lot of issues of race and class that New Orleans and the rest of the United States are struggling with,” Williamson said.

Williamson is currently back in the Twin Cities temporarily, and may travel to Baton Rouge in the future to teach students displaced by the storm, but no plans are yet certain. Williamson also hopes that students get involved in donating to grassroots relief programs, to aid in the reconstruction process.