Fred Powell Quotations

We took Amtrak down there. We were trying to get out before the hurricane, but Amtrak stopped running early. There were no flights out. All the rental cars were gone. We had no way out.

It hit at around 1 a.m., ... The mayor had been on TV telling everyone to get to higher ground, but I knew as much about getting around in New Orleans as I know about Mars.

Both the hotel workers and their families, and the tourists, were fed and given water in food lines, ... Food and water were growing scarce. On the 30th, it was announced that 10 buses were on their way.

They found two Louisiana Swamp Tour Vans that were charging $40 apiece,

It was awful, ... We thought of all the people we'd met and faces we'd seen, and wondered if they survived. The morning after we got out, everyone was being shoved into the Superdome.

Everyone fell apart, ... Hundreds of people. Women were crying, people yelling, people visibly panicking.

I'll never know how they got us out. They knew every street that wasn't flooded, and drove around 'til we finally came up on the main roads that were open. We still had to get out and move trees and things in our way.