The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast

This book gives you minute-by-minute detail & transports you to before, during & after Hurricane Karina & how it affected the people, and how our government did not have a clue, or did not care. I live in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, yet while reading this book, I found myself checking my floor & roof for water leaks. The author's detail is incredible.

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina tore into Louisiana and Mississippi much as Hurricane Andrew did to Florida over a decade earlier, wreaking devastation across the Gulf Coast. As one eyewitness is quoted, "the hurricane was like watching God and the Devil fighting...with Godzilla as referee." Aside from the massive destruction, the storm also ripped open social, economic, and political divisions nationwide and became a media spectacle impossible to forget. Tulane professor and historian Douglas Brinkley, well known for his histories Boys of Pointe Du Hoc and Tour of Duty and a native of New Orleans, delivers the first comprehensive and detailed analysis of the disaster, moving from politician to police, rescuer to rooftops. Brinkley weaves together a gripping narrative of stories at all levels of the disaster. Analyzing the days prior to landfall, Brinkley details the multiple factors that merged together to produce the "perfect storm" that so devastated the region. The warnings from the National Hurricane Center were coming fast and furious, the danger clearly portrayed, but still people waited to leave. He faults the major political players like Mayor Ray Nagin, Governer Blanco, and Mississippi Governer Barbour for delaying mandatory evacuation orders and having no comprehensive evacuation plan in place to remove those who didn't have transportation, mainly the poor and elderly. Nagin receives an especially critical eye, as does the the New Orleans Police Department. Leaving no stone unturned, Brinkley hits the politicians in FEMA, DHS, and in Washington for their failures to understand the seriousness of the storm's impact and react accordingly. In doing so, Brinkley acts with the critical eye of a historian rather than of partisan politics. In this story no politician is a hero. Brinkley's admiration is for the men and women of the Coast Guard, the NOLA homeboys, the Cajun Navy, and the other ordinary Americas who took part in the relief effort. Having experienced the horrors of Katrina first hand in the city of New Orleans gives Brinkley's writing a perspective unmatched by current scholarship and media. When he discusses the flood waters rising, the streets slowly sinking under a brown wave, and the misery of the people stuck in it, he is speaking from first hand experience. Brinkley was there from beginning to end, suffering through the storm with other residents, taking part in rescue efforts, and recording the stories that would make up a big part of this book. Though he does not discuss his personal experience, his perspective gives the book an instant credibility and lends weight to his analysis of what went right and what went wrong. There are moments when his survivor's anger competes with the historian's judgement, but that emotion gives the narrative its power. Having been written in under a year there are sure to be elements of the story that are left untold, much to Brinkley's regret as he notes in the introduction. In later

I have been filming a documentary regarding Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath entitled "New Orleans Story." We interviewed Mr. Brinkley when he was writing his very first chapter of The Great Deluge. Douglas was very engaged in the investagative process and was eager to learn all that we had discovered and were discovering during our one on one interviews with key players to this historical disaster. We also interviewed Douglas Brinkley a few days before he released his book to the public. Having now read the book, I must verify through our own on-camera interviews with many of the same individucals (such as Mayor Nagin, Governor Blanco, former Fema Director Michael Brown), that Douglas' reported accounts have merit. The information was taken directly from those who were in the best position to opine. Yes it is true that others have different perspectives, but we have yet to see any evidence that dispute the accruracy of the content of The Great Deluge. As a fellow New Orleanian who also worked to chronical the events in as much of a contemporaneous manner as possible, I wish to congradulate Douglas Brinkley on his efforts. I further strongly recommend The Great Deluge.

"The Great Deluge : Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast" certainly pulls no punches in its across the board criticism of all concerned parties. While most at the time turned this into a societal battle of rich vs. poor, white vs. black, Author Douglas Brinkley has more than enough ammunition to aim at President Bush, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, Michael Brown, the former FEMA director, Mayor Ray Nagin, and Governor Blanco. In fact a war of words has erupted between Brinkley and Nagin in light of some of the comments Brinkley makes about Nagin. Some of Brinkleys accounts needlessly border on the melodramatic. There was no extra drama that needed to be added to the actual and factual accounts of what happened to New Orleans. The human tragedy speaks for itself. Readers will experience many layers of feelings as they read the book. You'll shed tears over the loss of life, be angered by the poor response from all factions, and rejoice in the triumph of spirit in how the people endured, and how hard rescuers worked. Brinkley successfully avoids falling into politicizing this disaster and no one who reads the book thoughtfully can accuse him of having an agenda other than wanting to tell the true story. Thankfully he is smart enough to let so many of those directly involved...the survivors...and the rescuers...tell their own stories. The various running narratives, and 700 plus pages can make it a bit of a chore at times to follow but this is a story that needed to be told and told truthfully.

Brinkley succeeds at honestly and objectively recounting what happened, what went right, and what went wrong during what will long be remembered as a moment when government at all levels failed us, but ordinary citizens rose to the occasion. Nobody who deserves criticism is spared, and that is how it should be. The opening portion of the book describes how the Louisiana SPCA efficiently evacuated hundreds of animals well in advance of the storm. The subtle message? A small private organization made up mostly of volunteers had a coherent and effective evacuation plan, but the government did not. More than just a recitation of what happened, Brinkley describes at length the history of New Orleans, particularly with respect to more than a century of attempting to protect the city from flooding. He also covers the gradual coastal erosion that made New Orleans much more vulnerable to catastrophic flooding. This helps the reader better understand why the city flooded when Katrina hit. As the title notes, Brinkley also covers the Mississippi Gulf Coast, which was so often lost in media reports at the time, partly due to lack of access to those areas and also due to the large scale drama unfolding at the same time in New Orleans. This is an important book. The details of this chapter in American history need to be accurately recorded for ourselves and for future generations. Brinkley has succeeded in doing just that.

Speaking as a first reponder who has witnessed many of these events personally, I must say that no other individual has shed more light on the true events following the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as historian Douglas Brinkley. Cutting through the governmental cover-ups, deception and lies, Brinkley gets to the heart of the matter in this refreshingly honest and straight forward account of what was really happening at the time. Brinkley allows the reader to share the human ordeals of the true heroes as he recounts the personal experiences of Coast Guard and Wildlife & Fisheries personnel, and citizen first responders. These are their stories as seen through their eyes and told in their own words. Unafraid to hold accountable those still in power, The Great Deluge allows the reader to escape the masterful spin of FEMA and The Bush Administration as well as attempts to hide Ray Nagin's mental breakdown during the Cresent City's most crucial hours. Thank-you, Mr. Brinkley. You have given your city, country, and state one of the greatest gifts they could receive, the truth.