Public Employee Press

Media Beat: Books
Katrina: Government fails the people

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, readers turned to John M. Barry’s 1997 book, “Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America” for help in understanding the dimensions of the disaster that hit the Gulf Coast Aug. 29, 2005.

Publishers have flooded us with books on Katrina, but Barry’s can still enlighten us about this part of the world and how government policies, racist practices, and human fallibility can combine to create a perfect mess.

Jed Horne, the metro editor of The Times-Picayune, New Orleans’ daily newspaper, won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage. His book, “Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City,” is gripping. The roles of race, class and government ineptitude are covered, and individual profiles of the people trapped in attics as the floodwaters rose, or stuck in the Superdome with the snakes, the mosquitoes, the heat and 30,000 parched throats transform distant disaster into unforgettable tragedy.

A vivid account by bestselling Tulane historian Douglas Brinkley, “The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast,” shines a harsh spotlight on personalities, politics and policy failures.

To understand the scientific underpinnings of the disaster and the sheer ineptitude of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, readers should turn to “The Storm: What Went Wrong During Hurricane Katrina — the Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist.”

The book, by Ivor van Heerden and writer Mike Bryan, provides an accessible account of how the system that is supposed to protect people from the surrounding waters failed and why. The authors lay out clear explanations about the wetlands, the levees, and the past and still unmet opportunities for government officials to do the right thing.

Eric Dyson’s “Come Hell or High Water: Katrina and the Color of Disaster,” assesses the political meaning of Katrina, but it’s shrill.

“There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster: Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina,” edited by Chester Hartman and Gregory D. Squires, offers essays by economist Heidi Hartman, urban planner Peter Marcuse and other notable experts who examine the policy failures that resulted in Katrina.

— Jane LaTour