AMY GOODMAN: As we walked along Esplanade Avenue, we bumped into one of his neighbors, who was also a holdout. She was standing in front of her home. She had been walking a dog that had been left behind in the storm. This is Sandra.

SANDRA: The sooner they get people back in here into the French Quarter, the better the French Quarter is going to be. They’re very durable people here. A lot of what we see is strictly cosmetic that can be attended to here in the Quarter. I’m not saying the other parts of the city. But there’s absolutely no damage to my house. I mean, it’s a little inconvenient, but I’m not going to leave my house because of some inconvenience.

AMY GOODMAN: What’s your name?

SANDRA: My name is Sandra.

AMY GOODMAN: Have they told you to leave?

SANDRA: Yes. They have told us to — well, we had some storm troopers come into our house at 3:00 in the morning the other night. I didn’t tell you about this, banging on the door with sirens. It was kind of like being in Germany — Nazi Germany. They came with guns and told us we had to leave our home. And very, very nasty, and said they would come back the next day and drag us out of our homes. We have gotten in touch with the authorities. They cannot do that. There’s no reason to. Our house is in perfectly good shape. We even have a swimming pool. We are doing very fine. They can’t make us leave our homes.

AMY GOODMAN: Sandra was afraid to tell us her last name. She lives with a bartender and his wife. She went on to describe what happened.

SANDRA: They did ask for his name, his family. And they wanted his identification and such, so it was strictly harassment, because they didn’t realize there was someone else living in the building and was witnessing this. And so, they were just doing it to harass him because he said negative things about the administration, present administration, which — hey, we’re Americans, aren’t we? We do have that right.

And so, they came in the middle of the night with guns, military, threatening, and I witnessed the whole thing, and they said they were going to come back and drag him out the next day. I mean, this is more terrifying than the looters who were shooting in our building at the beginning of last week. So, you know, we’re not going to stand for that. And we have talked to a lot of bigwigs up at the government. And this administration is not going to terrify the citizens. And he was offered a lot of help to get New Orleans back on its feet, which he denied, and they went to other parishes, and now they have electricity, and they are running again, and we are not.

AMY GOODMAN: They offered who money?

SANDRA: They offered assistance from different countries to the Mayor of New Orleans. And he rejected it. So, they went and they offered it to other parishes.

AMY GOODMAN: Sandra says she’s not planning to leave, and she wants the electricity turned on.