Not Just The Levees Broke. Phyllis Montana-LeBlanc

[Phyllis]

The reason why I wrote my memoir; "Not Just The Levees Broke." My Story During and After Hurricane Katrina was to save my life. After appearing in Spike Lee's HBO documentary; "When The Levees Broke" in 2006 and I read a poem, same as book title, Spike introduced me to the senior editor at Simon and Schuster and I began to write. I wrote from my soul, my tears, my fears and the absolute devastation of surviving the breach of the levees in New Orleans. It was a survival tool for me and although I've had many so-called critics saying it was not a good book, I've had more who actually understood what I was saying and why. Unless you were there with me, I don't see how you can insult me with how my memoir should ahve been written. But like I said, more folks "got it" than didn't and that was my purpose...to take the reader, first hand, through Hurricane Katrina from beginning to end. My life is much better now. It was great before Katrina and now it's better. So, a tragedy turned into a triumph for me and lots of other people. We are still fighting(almost 5 years now) for a hospital in our living area. We are now homeowners, me,husband and yorkie, Brooklyn and doing what we can to continue rebuilding our city. My husband is a crane operator, rebuilding the floodwalls in the city and I'm doing a small angel networking thing by talking to the people and hearing what they need. The New Orleans Saints won the Superbowl and lifted the city to heights unknown. We love them. We've come far, but we have more to go, wayyyy more.

[Marsha]

Phyllis, I just started reading your book this morning. I picked it up as a "remainder" book at Borders. I lived in N'awlins in the early 1990s for 13 months. I left only because I could not find a job because of the poverty, and I did get robbed twice. But, despite that, I have good memories. N'awlins was a special place to me. I haven't visited since Katrina happened, so I do not know how it changed, but when I was living there, what I fell in love with were the people. Maybe it was because of the poverty, but people had the time to sit down and talk to me for hours just about anything really. I'm living in Austin, TX now and people here do not give me the time of day. I'm looking for work here now, but the economy is crap everywhere so I do not know where to go anymore. I picked up your book because of what happened to N'awlins: the floodings, the broken levees and the change to people's lives, effected me greatly even though I was miles away in Caifornia at the time. I will let you know what I think of your book. Thanks for writing it. Marsha