Her story is horrific. Absolutely heart-breaking.
http://2theadvocate.com/stories/090405/new_soul001.shtmlNeville: My soul is New Orleans
Singer Charmaine says city, music will come back
By JOHN WIRT
Advocate staff writer
Resting Saturday at a friend's quiet home in Southdowns, Charmaine Neville was a world away from the despair and desperation that surrounded her New Orleans home last week.
Before Hurricane Katrina and breaks in the city's levee system brought a great city to its knees, Neville lived on Pauline Street in the city's Ninth Ward.
A singer, Neville is a member of one of New Orleans' great musical families. Her father, Charles Neville, performs with uncles Aaron, Art and Cyril in the Neville Brothers band. She estimates the musicians in her family number well over 100. In New Orleans, she said, every neighborhood and every family has musicians.
Many of the city's musicians were out of town when Katrina hit, Neville said. She, however, had recently returned from a tour.
What's more, she added, she could not afford to leave when residents were told to evacuate. Many others in New Orleans, home to thousands of poor residents, were in the same boat.
"It wasn't that I wanted to ride out the storm, believe me," Neville said. "Two days before the storm hit, I had spent every penny I had saved getting a new roof put on my house. I didn't have any money. I didn't have a car.
"When they said the storm was coming, I barricaded myself in the house and prayed. Many people in my neighborhood stayed because they didn't have resources. We did not stay because we wanted to be looters or martyrs. We stayed because we had to."
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