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City Adrift: New Orleans Before and After Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was a stunning example of complete civic breakdown. Beginning on August 29, 2005, the world watched in horror as―despite all the warnings and studies―every system that might have protected New Orleans failed. Levees and canals buckled, pouring more than 100 billion gallons of floodwater into the city. Botched communications crippled rescue operations. Buses that might have evacuated thousands never came. Hospitals lost power, and patients lay suffering in darkness and stifling heat. At least 1,400 Louisianans died in Hurricane Katrina, more than half of them from New Orleans, and hundreds of thousands more were displaced, many still wondering if they will ever be able to return. How could all of this have happened in twenty-first-century America? And could it all happen again?
To answer these questions, the Center for Public Integrity commissioned seven seasoned journalists to travel to New Orleans and investigate the storm’s aftermath. In City New Orleans Before and After Katrina, they present their findings. The stellar roster of contributors includes Pulitzer Prize-winner John McQuaid, whose earlier work predicted the failure of the levees and the impending disaster; longtime Boston Globe newsman Curtis Wilkie, a French Quarter resident for nearly fifteen years; and Katy Reckdahl, an award-winning freelance journalist who gave birth to her son in a New Orleans hospital the day before Katrina hit.
They and the rest of the investigative team interviewed homeowners and health officials, first responders and politicians, and evacuees and other ordinary citizens to explore the storm from numerous angles, including health care, social services, housing and insurance, and emergency preparedness. They also identify the political, social, geographical, and technological factors that compounded the tragedy.
Comprehensive and balanced, City Adrift provides not only an assessment of what went wrong in the Big Easy during and following Hurricane Katrina, but also, more importantly, a road map of what must be done to ensure that such a devastating tragedy is never repeated.
To answer these questions, the Center for Public Integrity commissioned seven seasoned journalists to travel to New Orleans and investigate the storm’s aftermath. In City New Orleans Before and After Katrina, they present their findings. The stellar roster of contributors includes Pulitzer Prize-winner John McQuaid, whose earlier work predicted the failure of the levees and the impending disaster; longtime Boston Globe newsman Curtis Wilkie, a French Quarter resident for nearly fifteen years; and Katy Reckdahl, an award-winning freelance journalist who gave birth to her son in a New Orleans hospital the day before Katrina hit.
They and the rest of the investigative team interviewed homeowners and health officials, first responders and politicians, and evacuees and other ordinary citizens to explore the storm from numerous angles, including health care, social services, housing and insurance, and emergency preparedness. They also identify the political, social, geographical, and technological factors that compounded the tragedy.
Comprehensive and balanced, City Adrift provides not only an assessment of what went wrong in the Big Easy during and following Hurricane Katrina, but also, more importantly, a road map of what must be done to ensure that such a devastating tragedy is never repeated.
- GenresNonfictionCities
184 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2007
3 people are currently reading
50 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 25, 2008
While There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster examined the who's and why's of Hurricane Katrina, "City Adrift" took on the how and what. This book is a good piece of journalism and a fast read that tells the story of exactly what happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina: the levee failures, the makeshift hospitals on highways, the current housing crisis. Wetland destruction, climate change, and pollution are treated upfront in the first chapter.
Criticism doesn't address overarching structural issues like racism, but instead focuses on the middle layer of guilty people and organizations: government corruption, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Red Cross, the insurance companies. Individual stories of survival and destruction replace the statistics found in some of the other Katrina books I've been reading. There are two 10-page photo spreads.
This book hurt to read.
Criticism doesn't address overarching structural issues like racism, but instead focuses on the middle layer of guilty people and organizations: government corruption, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Red Cross, the insurance companies. Individual stories of survival and destruction replace the statistics found in some of the other Katrina books I've been reading. There are two 10-page photo spreads.
This book hurt to read.
September 23, 2018
If you want to understand want to happen before, during and right after Hurricane Katrina, read this book. The book addresses the failures of a number of systems: the environment; the Army Corps of Engineers' failures with the levees; FEMA and other emergency preparedness systems; social services, such as the Red Cross, health care, politics, housing and insurance.
The book was a project of the Center for Public Integrity, and each chapter is a long-form piece from excellent journalists. The writing is sharp and engaging, and the editing is fantastic. The moment I felt like a subject started to go on too long, I'd turn the page and the chapter would have its last few paragraphs.
You'll oscillate between rage, sadness and frustration. It's a lot like the experience of living in New Orleans.
The book came out in 2007, and there is a certain amount of information that needs updating. I wish they'd do a second version! Yet, it a great overview of what happened, how the city knew it could happen and how the hurricane exposed a multitude of ineffective services and systems.
The book was a project of the Center for Public Integrity, and each chapter is a long-form piece from excellent journalists. The writing is sharp and engaging, and the editing is fantastic. The moment I felt like a subject started to go on too long, I'd turn the page and the chapter would have its last few paragraphs.
You'll oscillate between rage, sadness and frustration. It's a lot like the experience of living in New Orleans.
The book came out in 2007, and there is a certain amount of information that needs updating. I wish they'd do a second version! Yet, it a great overview of what happened, how the city knew it could happen and how the hurricane exposed a multitude of ineffective services and systems.
February 3, 2009
OK, I am hardly unbiased -- my employer, the Center for Public Integrity, was part of creating this book, and Jenni Bergal was a co-worker. That said, it's an important and thoughtful look at an infuriating waste of human life, induced by incalcuable stupidity.
June 16, 2007
This is for those that want to hear more about the Katrina story. Great Journalism.
February 29, 2012
recommended!
June 28, 2012
Well written overview of the tragedy including analysis of government on all levels, health care system, insurance industry, etc. Good first book if you're looking for answers.
September 21, 2013
Sobering Reports on the state of the levees, the policy behind their building, the deficient medical response, politics in New Orleans, etc.
October 13, 2015
Part of the problem of Hurricane Katrina is the geographic placement of New Orleans in a place it should have never been built. So many lives were lost and so many people were displaced. Some business was never able to return and more people are in poverty.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews