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A review by xxstefaniereadsxx
The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley
emotional
informative
slow-paced
4.0
Hurricane Katrina was an Atlantic hurricane that made it to Category 5 strength before making landfall in New Orleans. Other areas were damaged severely by this Hurricane, but this book has a specific focus on New Orleans. The strength of the storm did decrease in the hours before inundating New Orleans in many ways. The storm did plenty of damage from being a strong storm, but the flooding caused by the storm was the real killer. Levee walls and other flood protection systems failed. The city is below sea level to begin with, and water rushing in from the failed levees and then having no place to dissipate left the city in a state that would be the equivalent of sticking it in a bowl of water. Lack of preparation and warning were also factors in this catastrophe, and the response from the government was underwhelming, to put it nicely.
I have read several books and watched several things about Hurricane Katrina in the years since it happened. This happened my senior year of high school, which really dates me, but I remember it very clearly. We had a lot of students transfer in after the storm, because they had to leave Louisiana. I remember all of the images on the news, but hearing the personal stories is even more devastating that seeing everything on television. I thought this book did an amazing job relaying the personal experiences of human beings that lived through this event and suffered in the squalor afterwards. It is unreal to me that, even today in 2023, people are still not finished with cleanup from this particular storm or are still living in FEMA trailers. I just watched something about that not long before I started reading this book. The author did a lot of work to write this book, and the comprehensive nature of it is evident. I got this because I like disaster books, but it is a very valuable book about this event for the historical record.
I have read several books and watched several things about Hurricane Katrina in the years since it happened. This happened my senior year of high school, which really dates me, but I remember it very clearly. We had a lot of students transfer in after the storm, because they had to leave Louisiana. I remember all of the images on the news, but hearing the personal stories is even more devastating that seeing everything on television. I thought this book did an amazing job relaying the personal experiences of human beings that lived through this event and suffered in the squalor afterwards. It is unreal to me that, even today in 2023, people are still not finished with cleanup from this particular storm or are still living in FEMA trailers. I just watched something about that not long before I started reading this book. The author did a lot of work to write this book, and the comprehensive nature of it is evident. I got this because I like disaster books, but it is a very valuable book about this event for the historical record.