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Compiled by Cheré Coen, Unitarian Church of Baton Rouge, La.

Film and television
To get an excellent overview of what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, including issues such as racism, classism, political bipartisanism, and environmental neglect, see the Spike Lee’s “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts” (HBO Documentary Films). It’s a four-hour documentary but worth every minute. It’s safe to say this is the most definitive work on the disaster yet made on film. For information, a preview, and airing times on HBO, visit www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whentheleveesbroke .

For a wonderful historical perspective of race relations throughout New Orleans’ 300-year history, watch the “American Experience: New Orleans,” www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/neworleans .

Nonfiction
New Orleans Times-Picayune metro editor Jed Horne, a 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for his coverage of Katrina, has written Breach of Faith, Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City (Random House, 2006). The book not only covers the disaster and its aftermath, but features wonderful stories of the people who survived the storm.

The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley (HarperCollins, 2006). Brinkley’s book was one of the first to be published about the disaster and features dozens of first-person accounts of the tragedy. There are many stinging political stabs in this book and a few minor errors, but overall it’s a massive, impressive book. For more of a balanced look at the storm, try Jed Horne’s Breach of Faith.

The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America’s Coastal Cities by Mike Tidwell (Free Press, 2006). The author of Bayou Farewell, Tidwell maintains his diagnosis that global warming, environmental destruction by the oil and gas industries, and the levee systems by the Corps of Engineers are destroying Louisiana’s coastline, making the state susceptible to more Katrinas. Fixing the levees addresses the symptoms, Tidwell said, but not the cancer that is coastal erosion and global warming.

Wall Street Journal reporters Christopher Cooper and Robert Block have published an account of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, one that focuses primarily on the bungled relief efforts of the federal government. Disaster, Hurricane Katrina, and the Failure of Homeland Security (Times Books) chronicles the FEMA debacle that led to thousands of people not being rescued from the floodwaters in the days immediately following the storm’s landfall. All cities are equally unprotected, the authors insist.

Times-Picayune Pulitzer-Prize winning reporters Mark Schleifstein and John McQuaid have coauthored Path of Destruction: The Devastation of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms (Little, Brown, and Co.). The duo were part of the Picayune’s special coverage of “Washing Away,” a series of articles the newspaper published a few years ago that predicted a catastrophic hurricane overwhelming New Orleans’s levees. Schleifstein’s stories on Katrina were among those honored with 2006 Pulitzer Prizes to the Times-Picayune for Public Service and Breaking News Reporting.

Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and Natural, Racial and Economic Disasters by Michael Eric Dyson (Basic Civitas Books) offers a searing assessment of Hurricane Katrina in terms of race. Dyson provides the historical context of race issues in New Orleans in relation to Hurricane Katrina, offering personal interviews from those who survived the storm. According to the publicity material on this book, “despite the cries of outrage that have mounted since the levees broke, we have failed to confront the disaster’s true lesson: to be poor, or black, in today’s ownership society, is to be left behind.” Dyson offers facts and researched intellectual underpinnings of positions in the debate.

Americans at Risk: Why We Are Not Prepared for Megadisasters and What We Need to Do Now by Dr. Irwin Redlener (Knopf), founder and director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, claims we are not prepared as a nation for megadisasters such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita. He brings his years of experience with disasters and health care crises to this analysis of our nation’s approach to disaster readiness — or lack thereof.

Geographies of New Orleans, Urban Fabrics Before the Storm by Richard Campanella (Center for Louisiana Studies) is an encyclopedia of geographic knowledge about everything New Orleans, from ethnic neighborhoods and settlement patterns to what the Yellow Pages says about the city. Equally fascinating is his first-person account of riding out Hurricane Katrina in his Ninth Ward home and experiencing the city during the fateful week that followed.

The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina — The Inside Story From One Louisiana Scientist by Ivor Van Heerden and Mike Bryan looks at Hurricane Katrina from a scientific point of view, particularly on the failure of the levee system. Van Heerden was seen many times on television as codirector of the LSU Hurricane Center.

Fiction
Tubby Meets Katrina by Tony Dunbar, a New Orleans lawyer who sets his recurring character in New Orleans after the storm.

The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish by Elsie Blackwell is an outstanding novel about an elderly man awaiting the arrival of Katrina while reminiscing about the flood of 1927, when those in power in New Orleans dynamited the levees and inundated his home parish. Well-written and gripping and all too similar to what happened in 2005. Some folks in the Ninth Ward believe their levees were dynamited during Katrina, although the levees that were blown up in 1927 flooded St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes.

Other books include:
Hurricane Katrina: An American Tragedy and Its Aftermath by Time Magazine.

Hurricane Katrina: CNN Presents: State of Emergency by CNN News with an introduction by Ivor Van Heerden.

Hurricane Katrina: The First Seven Days by D. M. Brown.

Katrina: Stories of Rescue, Recovery, and Rebuilding in the Eye of the Storm by the Associated Press, Susan M. Moyer, editor.

Hurricane Katrina: Through the Eyes of Storm Chasers by Jim Reed and Mike Theiss.

Through the Eye of the Storm by Cholene Espinoza.

On Risk and Disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina by Ronald J. Daniels, Howard Kunreuther, and Donald J. Kettl, editors.

The Storm: Students of Biloxi, Mississippi, Remember Hurricane Katrina compiled by Barbara Barbieri McGrath (Charlesbridge).

Online
The Times-Picayune newspaper of New Orleans has done two excellent examinations of Katrina’s flooding of New Orleans and Louisiana’s disappearing coastline, both special sections offering interactive maps and videos. You can view both at www.nola.com .