Katrina Survivor Saw Everything Go Wrong in the Superdome and Filmed It (Exclusive)

When Shelton Alexander first purchased his mini Sony camcorder in 2004, his only intention was to record slam poetry. 

But after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans in August 2005, the poet instead captured the experience of overflowing sewage, humidity and darkness in the Superdome.

Now, 20 years later, that footage lives on in NatGeo’s Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time documentary. 

In an interview with PEOPLE, tears well in Alexander’s eyes and his voice breaks at certain points as he recounts the lack of information and how helicopters circled above the stadium where tens of thousands of storm survivors massed in its wake, hoping for salvation.

“They say time to heal all wounds, that’s not the case,” says Alexander, now 50. “Some things are never going to heal. I couldn’t breathe. My anxiety was high. I felt like I was about to have a heart attack.”

His father built First Asia Baptist Church in St. Bernard Parish in 1974, the year that Alexander was born. He spent his childhood in the Sunday school classes his mother taught and heard the hymns his grandmother sang as the president of the choir. He was raised surrounded by faith — a spiritual grounding that would later serve as an anchor to carry him through the floods which nearly drowned his hometown.

Alexander played football at St. Bernard High School, earning a scholarship at Northwestern State University of Louisiana. After a fractured wrist, he felt God guiding him elsewhere. He joined the Marines in 1997, wanting to take his son out of New Orleans and travel. He returned on June 1, 2001. 

“I had a premonition,” he says. “It’s weird, but at the tim, I was going through a divorce. Me and my son got on a bus. When we pulled up at the Greyhound station, it started raining and it didn’t stop raining for 11 days.” 

St. Bernard’s Parish had been hit hard by Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, its heavy rains sweeping through the Gulf Coast. The culmination of his divorce, along with a close friend losing his younger brother to murder stirred significant emotions within Alexander — spurring him to begin writing poetry. 

“I haven’t looked back ever since,” he says. “It became my career.”

In 2005, he documented himself staring at the weather forecast while narrating the potential destruction and chaos that was to come.

Previous hurricanes had threatened to wreak havoc on New Orleans. However, Alexander knew Katrina felt different. 

“Something in my spirit told me man, we have to leave,” he says. “I remember looking at my mom in the eyes, I said, ‘If we stay, we will die together.’ When she saw the tears in my eyes, I think that’s when she surrendered.” 

The former marine decided to head to Baton Rouge, La. He drove with less than half a tank in his pickup truck and a $20 bill that his mom’s friend had given him for gas. 

“All the gas stations was all locked up,” he says. “Even if you had some money, you wasn’t going to be able to do nothing with it.” 

Sitting in traffic, Alexander’s fuel indicator began dropping lower and lower. He kept filming, his camera showing the moment it dawned on him that his attempt at leaving New Orleans was futile. 

“I did know about the shelter [at the stadium],” he says. “I thought we’re in the biggest place in the city. We’re in a Superdome. What could go wrong?” 

The Superdome was kept in the dark. Illuminated only by four holes in the roof, it lacked air conditioning and information as people questioned the safety of their loved ones and who was in charge.

“It started getting more muggy in there,” Alexander says in the documentary. 

The toilets began to overflow and “the smell was getting worse” he continued.

In the footage from his camcorder, wind whips the rain so heavily it appears like mist through the clear glass doors of the stadium. 

“Once I got there, I started feeling really weird,” he tells PEOPLE. “It seemed like we was all walking towards a funeral.”

The National Guard informed those sheltering in the dome that they’d be receiving food and began handing Meals Ready to Eat (or MREs). Alexander used his prior experience in the Marines and “held workshops” on how to assemble them. 

“They could have told us to not give the MREs to the children because they have a pack that’s a burning mechanism that heats up the food really, really hot,” he says. “It could burn you really bad and definitely take out the matches. Nobody did that.” 

Problems continued.

“There was people standing around a power generator charging up their phone,” Alexander says. “A man just came and shut down the generator. He didn’t tell us why. People were upset. People trying to get in touch with their loved ones.” 

However, Alexander makes it clear that at no point, in his experience, were there rapes or murders within the Superdome that housed 30,000 people during the storm. 

“We got a chaplain ministering to us,” he says. “We all needed hope and he provided that.”

“We weren’t just tearing each other apart, fighting and all this other stuff,” he says. “We was mad. We was upset. Despite how harsh our conditions was, we still had pride and we had dignity.” 

Alexander says he feels there was a severe lack of urgency in evacuating people after the storm had passed, however. “They don’t want to let us out,” he recalls. “They keeping us held against our will. I’m watching helicopters drop off thousands of people all day long all night. You hear helicopters all day.” 

He gestures to a fan spinning above him during his PEOPLE interview. 

“I got the fan on right now that sounds like a helicopter almost,” he says. “It still rings in my ears.” 

Alexander was finally able to leave the Superdome with 20 others, crammed in his pickup truck and headed to Baton Rouge. But he saw reminders of the experience in everything. 

“With the AC unit outside, it sounded like a helicopter,” he says. “I was still hearing choppers in my head.” 

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He relocated to Houston in 2019 after 13 more years in New Orleans, working as a creative writing teacher living in the FEMA trailers.

He says he felt deeply moved by the rebuilding efforts of the volunteers.

“God wanted me to be there,” he says. “He wanted me to tell this story. I just respect all the elements of the spirit world and I hate to be so repetitive about that, but that’s what people remind you of about me as they hear me — mention God from the beginning to the film to the end of the film.”

“After the spirit moves me and some tears flow from my eyes,” he adds, “I’m able to wipe.”