A Book a Week - The Great Deluge

Book Thirty of the Book-A-Week Quest

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

by Douglas Brinkley (2006)

I don't even know where to begin with this one. So many thoughts...angry thoughts running through my head. This will most certainly be just a stream of consciousness rant.

There's a good line at the end of the book in which Brinkley discusses the "lethal ineptitude" of former President George W. Bush, FEMA director Michael Brown, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco's reactions to the devastating Hurricane Katrina that touched down on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in late August 2005. All of those folks, in one way or another, messed up...really, really badly. Whether it be Bush's seeming lack of compassion in the days following the event, or Chertoff and Brown's idiotic running of vastly important government agencies, or Blanco's timidness, or Nagin's utter stupidity, they all screwed up. Let's not even delve into the fact that for years local politicians had been taking money that was supposed to be allotted to improving the levee system of New Orleans and shuttling the funds off to various ridiculous frivolities.

To me, however, the biggest blame goes to Mr. Nagin. For the days leading up to the hurricane's landfall, Nagin simply wouldn't evacuate New Orleans. He was too worried that hotels would sue him for asking for a mandatory evacuation. Can you believe it? I sure can't. Add to that, he was telling his constituents that they would be fine. You've got this huge hurricane heading straight for your city (which is significantly below sea level) and everything's gonna be fine. While you're at it, Mr. Nagin, could you please keep those busses that you're going to be using in the case of an evacuation in a low-lying area so they'll get flooded, too? Oh, you did that? Thanks. Had Nagin taken the steps necessary to evacuate his townsfolk, I can't help but think things would've turned out better.

But, then again, the people of New Orleans voted the guy to a second term as mayor in 2006. So, instead of getting angry at Nagin, maybe I should get angry at the INSANE people in New Orleans. Those same insane people who didn't want to leave their town because it meant "so much to them." Those same insane people who turned into looters in the aftermath of the storm. Those same insane people who were shooting at rescue workers. These people were nuts! Sure, not all of them, and probably not even most of them, but a few bad eggs can spoil it for everyone, and that certainly seems to have been the case here.

Still, despite some of the New Orleanians' stupidity, they suffered horrifically. When the levees broke in the days following Katrina and they flooded low-lying areas, it was devastating. Can you imagine water being so high that if you were in a canoe, you would have to duck under traffic lights as you were riding? Just unfathomable to me. I can't picture having to rush up to my attic worrying that the water was going to rise TWO FLOORS and drown me. The scope of the devastation is just mind-boggling. Mind-boggling.

As a book itself, The Great Deluge is full of personal stories...too full, if you ask me. Brinkley could've trimmed the book down by about 200 pages and it would've been a much better read than the current 600+ page edition. Still, it was absolutely worth the read. It's shocking to me (and absolutely wrong) that I really had forgotten about this horrific event that happened just about four years ago. How is it that it's left my memory? An entire city ruined and it's merely and afterthought to me. And I know I'm not the only one. What does that say about me? And what does that say about a society and bureaucratic system that let a whole city down?