Lucille D. Duminy
Hurricane Betsy Survivors Oral History Project
Nilima Mwendo conducted these interviews in 2003 with residents of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward who survived Hurricane Betsy when it made landfall on September 9, 1965. Interviews focus on the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood from the 1930s and 40s, when the area was only partially developed and rural, to the early 2000s. Interviewees discuss their experiences during the hurricane, the evacuation of the neighborhood, disaster relief from the state and federal government and Red Cross, and the hardships they and other residents encountered in the months and years they spent rebuilding their homes and lives after they returned to the neighborhood. Interviewees describe the neighborhood before Betsy and discuss changes in the community after the storm. Several interviewees also discuss social activism and advocacy for the neighborhood in the 1960s and 70s.
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Transcribers: Tonya Breland and Heather Sellers
Auditor: Osahon Abbe
Editor: Erin Hess
Lucille D. Duminy moved into New Orleans' Ninth Ward around 1949. She survived Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and rebuilt her house and life there.
Scope and Content Note
Duminy discusses her childhood, living in the Ninth Ward in the 1950s and 1960s, her ordeal in surviving Hurricane Betsy, her encounters with relief agencies afterward, Hurricane Camille in 1969, and other hurricanes.
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