StoryCorps Hurricane Katrina: Burkhalter

From: StoryCorps
Series: StoryCorps
Length: 01:37

New Orleans Pump Station workers Rufus Burkhalter and Bobby Brown remember the night Hurricane Katrina hit. Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: StoryCorps Hurricane Katrina: Burkhalter
From: StoryCorps

Burkhalter_small Rufus Burkhalter, 61, and his friend and co-worker Bobby Brown, 58, are water-pump operators at Pumping Station No. 6 along the 17th Street Canal in New Orleans. In the days after Katrina hit, Burkhalter and Brown risked their lives inside the station, continuing to work even after the levees broke. Pump Station 6, in Orleans Parish, is one of the world's largest pumping stations. Brown's home in the Lower Ninth Ward was submerged and destroyed, and everything inside Burkhalter's home was severely damaged by the rising water. The pair have worked together for more than 20 years.

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Piece Description

Rufus Burkhalter, 61, and his friend and co-worker Bobby Brown, 58, are water-pump operators at Pumping Station No. 6 along the 17th Street Canal in New Orleans. In the days after Katrina hit, Burkhalter and Brown risked their lives inside the station, continuing to work even after the levees broke. Pump Station 6, in Orleans Parish, is one of the world's largest pumping stations. Brown's home in the Lower Ninth Ward was submerged and destroyed, and everything inside Burkhalter's home was severely damaged by the rising water. The pair have worked together for more than 20 years.

Broadcast History

This was not broadcast.

Transcript

BB: My name is Bobby Brown, I'm 58-years-old.

RB: My name is Rufus Burkhalter, and Bobby and I is co-workers together
for over twenty years. During the night of the storm, I was the operator
that was pumping. He was kind of my back-up when the storm hit that
night, you know.

BB: Yeah. Do you remember when we was inside and we was looking out the
window?

RB: And there was half of our roof...

BB: ...off the station, yeah.

RB: And it was raining just as hard in the station as it was outside and
we had to scufflebag that to try to cover some of that electrical switch
gear. We'd a been blown up if that water would have hit those
transformers. I do remember, even after we couldn't pump no more, I
thought I was dreaming for awhile. I thought I saw bodies, dead bodies,
in the water...

BB: ...yeah...

RB: ...and floatin.

BB: I don't think that was no dream.

RB: And you know what? It's go...
Read the full transcript