Unbowed by Disaster, a Survivor Bounces Back

GONZALES, La., Sept. 4 -- The story of how Anya Maddox got out of New Orleans two days after Hurricane Katrina hit and then talked her way into a job at the Waffle House in this small town 45 miles northwest of New Orleans is a tale of grit, ingenuity and raw endurance.

She escaped New Orleans by walking, running, swimming and finally climbing into the cabin of a big truck.

"I came in and said, 'Y'all hiring? I need a job,' " she recalled. "I just started busing tables. They four or five tables that needed cleaning. I asked the people in the back to give me a towel."

She is 23 years old, and there's a reddish tint to her dreadlocks. She is sitting out back of the Waffle House located on State Highway 30, in a slip of shade next to the garbage bin. Maddox allows as how she usually doesn't smoke, but the hurricane hit, and now there's ash forming on the cigarette in her left hand.

"I been getting $10 tips," she says brightly. "And I ain't even waiting on tables. I'm just nice to people. Southern hospitality."

Now and then she turns her head slightly to the left. A cacophony of voices comes from women and children looking over the outdoor railing of the Budget Inn motel. Most of them, like Maddox, have arrived from New Orleans after a desperate breakaway from the city. Her lot, however, at the moment at least, seems a touch more stable than theirs. There are tips to add up after her shift and her own safety to be grateful for.

She was sitting in a dishwashing uniform, black pants and white top with a bibbed cap atop her dreadlocks, and tiny name tag, which says Queen -- the nickname she likes to go by.

Once, she was a student at Dillard University, studying criminal justice. There were hopes to land a job in the Louisiana prison system, but she never got hired.

"There's so much racism and classism in New Orleans," Maddox says. "It's not what you know, but who you know. I had a job at the Whole Foods on Veterans in April, but got laid off in July."

The Friday before the hurricane -- even with the ominous weather reports -- she managed to put in five job applications. By the next day, however, she began figuring she better bolt.

"My car wouldn't start, though," she continues. "It was the car my grandmother left me before she passed away. A '98 Olds Regency. It was just broken and torn and down."

She thought she might, someway, get to higher ground. "Then I had, like, a revelation: 'New Orleans is going to go.' "