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NOTES FROM NEW ORLEANS: What It Costs To Be Cynthia Willard Lewis
The tall male anchor towered over her, making her look even smaller in her ill-fitting clothes and shoes, an obvious fast-dash mall purchase so many of us made those first weeks after we ran away from home. Her voice was like pralines, rich and buttery, flowing with polysyllabic political phrases and yet…beneath her elected official demeanor, her heartbreak was so visible, so palpable, it was unnerving.
Next to attorneys and meter maids, politicians are the leading lepers of our society, easily dismissible as crafty, insincere and ego-inflated. But there’s something in Cynthia’s tireless, Terminator-like commitment to her disastered district that warrants a deeper examination. In my seven months of chasing hurricane stories, I have yet to attend one event in District E where the council lady wasn’t present - Baton Rouge Monday nights, Uptown Thursday evenings, the Ninth Ward and New Orleans East on Saturdays, rallies and demonstrations on the holidays. Of course, she has plenty reason to be busier than most catastrophe managers in this town. The entire flood-ravaged area of New Orleans fits neatly within the borders of her district - as if Job’s test was designed specifically for her.
I’d heard she was one of those who’d lost everything. And that she is divorced. So I couldn’t help but wonder…if she’s at every district event, in addition to regular office hours and city council meetings, plus fielding calls and visits from literally thousands of residents and business owners looking for answers on how to rebuild their lives, with no spouse to help carry her load, when did she ever find time to deal with her own drowned life?
Cynthia’s an intensely private woman, which is probably why it took me seven months to get a sit down interview with her.
“Are you yourself dealing with housing issues? Did your house flood out?”
She paused. After an hour and a half of interviewing her on the politics of the disaster, this was a turning point for her, for both of us. She’s currently running for re-election, is clearly emotionally raw, and weighs very carefully any personal information she reveals to the press. She could bullshit me, end the interview - or share her vulnerability.
“Yes…I lost my home,” her voice dropping a register - no more rich pralines. “My parents lost their home. My parents lived in Gentilly. I lived in New Orleans East. And um…”
“And where’s you family?”
“My son and daughter are now living in Harvey, and I’m living in a FEMA hotel room…with my parents…” Adding somewhat bitterly, “waiting to get evicted everyday. Of my eight brothers and three sisters, only one’s house is still standing. Everyone else’s is being repaired. Everyone was displaced. Houston, Dallas, South Carolina, Atlanta...”
I could see her starting to retreat back inside. I gently coaxed her to continue.
“It’s painful to talk about it so I generally don’t focus on it because if you reflect on what you’ve been through, you will momentarily have to pause… We’ve all lost our support base. We’ve all lost our physical homes. We’ve all lost our spiritual churches until most recently. So my history is being eliminated as my present is being challenged.”
“In addition to that, um…I never left the city. Initially, I went to Baton Rouge. But I couldn’t stay in Baton Rouge. The day the waters came, I returned alone that night and ended up seeking refuge at the 4th District (police station in Algiers) where I stayed for four days. I came back that same night because it was my city and it was my district. And if there was anything that I could do hands on that would make a difference, I had to be there.”
“At the Fourth District, I was able to help in a civilian way…, organizing some of the wives of the police officers to care for the community members who came looking for food, seeking water, or just looking for information, taking notes – “Give this note to my husband. If they come in, he’s at the 7th District, he’s at the 5th. Please let them know where I am.” All of that as well as the families who were being moved to the Convention Center and trying to calm them down, mothers who needed milk for their babies, children who were scared and just needed some kind of person not in a uniform to tell them that it was going to be okay.”
“And the officers themselves, who needed encouragement and support, with the constant question, “When are they (the National Guard) coming? When are they coming?” And to which I would just say, “They’re coming. And we’re going to get through this.” Because it was four days and our police had no back up. And about the second or third day, even our firefighters were under attack (by civilian gunfire). And this was real. This was the heroics of the men and women that I saw and the reality that…even in the midst of what they were going through, their own families were being disconnected. No communication, no way of talking to one another, um…it was…it was pretty challenging.”
“About that fourth day, the lieutenant told us we needed to get out of the fourth district. I had no vehicle. So we ended up hustling a ride to Baton Rouge. And uh…and from there everyday, we went to the command center for about the next week. We were helping to direct Wildlife and Fisheries, verifying that all the senior citizens complexes had been checked, and that the police were finally getting the relief and equipment they needed. The National Guard was arriving and so we were certainly getting into a more aggressive law enforcement modality in terms of arms and equipment and things of that nature. So at that point, it truly became a police presence versus an ability to serve the needs of civilians.”
“(Then) we were able to (take) the helicopter rides. It was um…very disturbing to see all of the water, only the rooftops, to um…visually see and to actually smell the changes to the environment. Um…and then to be on ground and understand what the waters had done…and from that point, to go into a search and rescue mode. Constantly pushing to make sure that every building, every possible neighborhood, had been inspected and that as much human life as possible could be rescued.”
There were no communication tools. Cell phones weren’t working, phone lines were down. Even our police didn’t have equipment. For those first four days, my parents were just so distraught, thinking something had happened to me. And uh…once they found me, it was this emotional outburst of relief.” Recalling her father, she teared up, smiling, “I remember my dad saying, “I just knew you were resourceful enough! I just knew you were going to be okay…”
“…As my parents were looking for me, they were also looking for my brother, who we later found in South Carolina. For two weeks we did not know where my brother was. Calling everywhere, just as many other families were, from the FEMA list to the Red Cross list, just calling and searching everyday. Calling his friends, calling people…He had stayed at my parent’s home and was evacuating people. So he got caught up in the waters and…because he had been in the water, he ended up with a lot of internal damage, sores on his legs, a pancreatic infection. He was ill and in the hospital and that’s why for so long we didn’t know where he was.”
Brightening, she says, “But he’s doing much better, fully recovered, you know um, and um…has a story to tell like everybody does. We’re very proud of him.”
“Is everyone going to return to live in New Orleans?”
“Yeah! (laughs) Everybody’s trying to get back. But like many other families, they lost their jobs. My mother’s a teacher, my sister’s a counselor, I have another sister who’s a teacher. They were laid off and now only one is working as a teacher. So she’s been able to get her job back. Everyone is seeking employment. So that’s the reality, not just the challenges of homes and housing, but the challenges of employment where there’s been a lot of downsizing.
But all that takes a toll on people and I just really, you know, pray to the Lord that the physical and emotional devastation that this community is somehow rewarded and restored at the end of the day. Because we’ve had so many people to lose their lives – 1,100 now and more found everyday. Continuously hearing reports of friends who’ve suffered heart attacks and strokes and/or getting reports of catastrophic illnesses, rises in cancer, the tremendous disconnection from their medical protocol…, the fact that we’ve lost 6,000 of our physicians. All of those things continue to wreak damage and pain on our city, on our humanity, and so there has to be some point of restoration and of healing. And that’s what I’m fighting for…that the loss be a point of our history and not of our present and future. And that everyday, we have greater gains that build us as a united New Orleans.”
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The week prior to my interview with Cynthia, my pastor gave a sermon about naysayers and slanderers who attempt to discount or belittle you, without ever knowing what it costs to be you. I couldn’t help but think about what it must cost to be Cynthia, to see all that you love, family homes, community members, landmarks, history, mementos, identity, swallowed by the mud and floodwaters, to be scorned by political colleagues and land developers, the press, even some constituents who scoff at her demands for restoration of her entire district including the devastated Ninth Ward, doing everything she can to help her residents recover their lives, even as her own life continues to hemorrhage.
There’s a saying in New Orleans these days: ‘The hurricane showed you who your real friends are.’ When I see Cynthia, fighting on sheer faith and will against incomprehensible odds, I see a love for our city that’s as real as it gets. And the cost of hers - of all our sacrifices, she contends, will be paid for by faith.
…That at the end of the day, all that we’ve lost will be restored.
Deborah Cotton is a freelance journalist and public speaker based in New Orleans, covering on-the-ground stories of the city’s recovery and chronicling the rebuilding efforts of the historic Ninth Ward. She can be reached at Deborah.cotton@gmail.com.
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