The Katrina+5 Spectacle
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Aug 27, 2010 at 6:02am
Ray Nagin is back! Mike Brown is back! Footage of desperate people on rooftops is back! The national media can't help themselves, it's anniversary coverage, get the old footage (and the old pinatas) out, and run 'em by one more time. Predictable, no? That's why I thought this would be a good time to release a documentary film that has the temerity to ask the one unasked question about all of this: Why? Why did this disaster envelop a great American city (watch it, I live in New Orleans)? The answer, as you'll see Monday when "The Big Uneasy" shows nationwide for one night only, is profoundly non-political on the level of our normal current discourse, and yet....
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May '10
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
I blame Tipper Gore. Never gotten over Al going all swollen and crazy.
May '10
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
So give us a sneak peek Harry. What's your thesis? Is it a cauldron effect of failed policy and politics? Or is their a villain in your story? Did Montgomery Burns supply the concrete for the levies?
May '10
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
Bizzarely, my nickname among college roomies was Monty. (honest!) Cause I couldn't open a window one time. And tortured innocent creatures.
Jul '10
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
The press has never been properly chastised for their racist take on the supposed Superdome atrocities. .
You will recall that there were a couple days' worth of breathless stories about the rape and murder of innocents - even babies, it was said - by thugs preying upon refugees in the 'dome.
Turned out not to be true, but the press at all levels, hearing the rumors, just assumed it must be.
Question: Had the stadium been filled by, say, middle-class white folks from Minneapolis, would the press have reacted with the same credulity?
Hey, I'm talkin' to you Geraldo!
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
We were taping Wheel of Fortune in New Orleans the weekend before Katrina. We cancelled the Sunday taping and our great crew barely got the set dismantled and removed in time to leave. Had they not, there would have been the bizarre juxtaposition of Convention Center suffering amidst a giant multi-colored wheel and a puzzle board. Happily, Harry, we're returning to New Orleans in the spring to tape again.
Edited on Aug 27, 2010 at 8:35amAug '10
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
The media saw the hurricane in the Gulf, they saw the hurricane damage along the coast, they assumed it was a hurricane story. They left soon thereafter. The media had easy freeway access to the Dome and the Convention Center. But they couldn't find their way to St. Bernard Parish, housing totally destroyed by floodwaters, white folks on their roofs for four days of searing hot, no food, no water. The media congratulated themselves for stern lectures to Mary Landrieu, but almost nothing--barring a couple newspaper stories--about the results of two independent forensic engineering investigations into why the thing really happened.
Jun '10
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
The failed levees around New Orleans failed either from bad design, bad construction, bad maintenance, or all three. If you remember the bridge in Minneapolis that fell into the Mississippi River, they eventually discovered that the failure was a flaw in the original design. Certain gusset plates were only half as thick as they should've been. That was a bad design decision, made by civil engineers in the early 1960s (before computer simulation,) that didn't show results until one afternoon rush hour in 2007.
Aug '10
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
Just saw a cable news Katrina plus 5 report--still act as if Lower Ninth Ward only part of New Orleans that was devastated. You might ask, will they never learn? And you know the answer.
May '10
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
My wife and I had the distinct privilege of attending the screening of the "Big Uneasy," in Washington, D.C. It is an excellent documentary, highlighting the inadequate design of the levees. It is aptly titled, "The Big Uneasy," because the levees are being rebuilt using the same engineering flaws. This was not a natural disaster, but rather a human design error. This thought-provoking documentary will leave you feeling quite "uneasy" about another possible disaster due to faulty engineering. Bravo to Harry!
May '10
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
I suspect that Mr. Shearer, in addition to discussing the design problem (see Popular Mechanics for a good summary) is also going educate us on the Levee Board and how local corruption and the Corps of Engineers wasted money for 20 years on graft and corruption.
Time and channel, please?
Jul '10
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
New Orleans is an "error" that goes all the way back to its founding as a disaster just waiting to happen.
Sentiment is lovely, but a sane cost-benefit analysis would have us write the city off as the wrong place for habitation.
May '10
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
I look forward to seeing the documentary.
It sounds like the film focuses on poor construction of the levees, but the mere existence of some of the levees poses a problem. The Mississippi River is not allowed to deposit as much sediment into the Delta as it once did, though Gulf currents are just as strong and constant. The result is that the Delta is shrinking... and, with it, New Orleans' natural barriers. I've read that the levees are not entirely responsible for the erosion, but they are a significant factor.
I was pleased to see that the Houston media, in their anniversary coverage, talked about Mississippi's recovery efforts as well (even if they did focus on casinos to the exclusion of small businesses).
Aug '10
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
New Orleans is built in the wrong place? You think we should build the main port on the river that drains 2/3 of the North American continent in, say, Phoenix? Every river delta port in the world is built at or below sea level, and NO is, even now, half at or above sea level. Many of the houses that were flooded off their foundations were 10-12 ft above sea level. Sea level had nothing to do with this disaster.
Re: levees: you're conflating the River levees, which did not fail but which do indeed impair the replenishment of coastal wetlands (solution: diversions) with the "Hurricane Protection System" levees and floodwalls, which failed catastrophically in more than 50 places 5 years ago.
Jul '10
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
As I recall, it was President Bush's fault.
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
Harry, as an old Cajun who grew up in Baton Rouge and has had a lifelong love affair with New Orleans, thank you very much for your work. Does it seem to you that any lessons are being applied to the rebuilding, or is this invincible ignorance writ large?
Jul '10
Re: The Katrina+5 Spectacle
New Orleans corrupt? Well, I never.