![]() ![]() Alan Chin, a freelance photographer based in New York City.īarbara Davidson-The Dallas Morning News (L-R) Akia Huddleston, 7, Barbara Tart Shepard, and Genoveva Tart embrace as the coffins of Genoveva’s husband and son are lowered into the ground during the burial service Sept. I hope that I documented her plight with dignity and compassion, and that she was able to recover a normal life. She declined to be re-photographed or to grant any interviews other than to say that she had no recollection of the time she had spent in those awful conditions. Hendricks was denied this fundamental part of the American dream as an elderly lady.Ī year later, Eric Gay of the Associated Press, who had also photographed her several days before I did, when she was in better shape, located her living with her son in Houston, Texas. in search of a better life like so many immigrants, and succeeded in small measure, at least, to live long lives in peace secure in the knowledge that they had become citizens in a country that would protect them if the worst ever happened. When I look at my photograph here, I think about my own mother and grandmother, who survived civil war, Japanese invasion, and revolution when they were young women in China. Rita’s nursing home, and everywhere else. Hendricks and all of the other people most at risk? As we know, many died needlessly at the hospitals, at St. If it had been that easy for me, a civilian photojournalist, why had it been so impossible for the combined search and rescue efforts of the government and the military to bring succor to Ms. I had flown to Baton Rouge and rented a car and driven into New Orleans having no more problems doing so than I would have at any other time. Her ordeal brought home to me how terribly the disaster response had failed, because it is hard to imagine any scenario in which the safety of the most vulnerable – the very old, the very young, and the ill – would not be paramount. She looked weak and exhausted when I saw her the morning before, so I took only two photographs, because I did not want to be any more intrusive than necessary. ![]() Police officers killed a man trying to flag them down for help virtually in front of her, and there was little food or water until the day before she was finally evacuated on September 4, 2005. ![]() Milvertha Hendricks, wrapped in an American flag blanket, was 84 years old when she spent almost a week on the sidewalk in New Orleans, along with thousands of other people huddled near the Convention Center in the scorching heat after Hurricane Katrina. Michael Appleton, a World Press Photo winner and photojournalist based in New York City.Īlan Chin 84-year old Milvertha Hendricks wrapped in an American flag blanket after spending five days on the street at the Convention Center. People like Quintella Williams and her then nine-day-old baby girl, Akea, shown here, and tens of thousands of others, were essentially left to fend for themselves for days because of the failure of the government to properly respond to the disaster. Instead of sending buses to remove people from the city the day after the storm, the government sent in the National Guard and unneeded SWAT teams from around the country. It was a depressing scene, made all the more depressing by the fact that it didn’t have to be that way. Many chose to gather outside the ravaged stadium rather than endure the smell and spookiness inside. With no power or running water, it was a dark and rancid place to be. The Superdome was the epicenter of the calamity that was the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Michael Appleton A stranded Quintella Williams holds her nine-day-old baby girl, Akea, outside the superdome in New Orleans, La. ![]()
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