Lost in Katrina
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
"Lost in Katrina is powerful! It is the human experience during the worst storm in America's history. Mike Schaefer has captured the stories of those who not only miraculously survived, but went on to become heroes."--Angela Hill, WWL-TV anchor, New Orleans
"Mike Schaefer listens. And because he listens so well, we get to hear the real stories of Katrina and St. Bernard Parish. I've seen the aftermath there with my own eyes and thought what must it have been like when the storm hit, when the floods came? Now we know. And what a story."--Harry Smith, CBS News"When friends ask me what Katrina was really like, this is the book I'll recommend to them. The individual stories Mike tells, of survival and loss, desperation and heroism, perfectly capture the unreal chaos that was Katrina. Even if, like I did, you think you know all about the storm and its aftermath, you'll find something new, and, no doubt, inspiring, in this book."--Tracy Smith, CBS News correspondent
This book offers insightful, emotional accounts of life before, during, and immediately after Hurricane Katrina in a parish that seemingly disappeared from the government's sight. While President Bush was shaking hands with FEMA director Michael Browne ("Brownie," as he will long be remembered) on the fourth day after the storm, St. Bernard Parish was struggling to salvage what they could.
As the rest of the world watched the worst of humanity emerge on television, ordinary people did extraordinary things to save the parish that found itself almost completely submerged in floodwater. Heart-wrenching stories of the human will to survive offer an inside perspective on what it means to be a survivor of Hurricane Katrina.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this powerful work, Schaefer talks with residents of the New Orleans parish he was raised in, St. Bernard, which was among the hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina, suffering a 25-foot storm surge that wiped out schools, businesses and thousands of homes. An executive producer at New Orleans CBS affiliate WWL-TV, Schaefer uses the residents' own words to tell harrowing, moving stories from the first seven days of the disaster. He includes personal stories from unsung heroes and average victims, as well as accounts of more well-known scenes of tragedy like St. Rita's Nursing Home, where 34 bodies were found. Alongside dozens of stories from the ground, Schaefer's day-by-day account also relates his own impressions as an eyewitness; for the better, he leaves criticism of the government's rescue effort between the lines, letting the deteriorating situation speak for itself. Among struggling rescue crews and government administrators, residents clinging to rooftops, undersupplied evacuees and ferocious weather (one evacuation center volunteer kept waiting for the roof to get blown off ), Schaefer focuses on neighbors helping neighbors, ordinary folks doing the extraordinary and, of course, what the residents lost. Infuriating and inspiring, Schaefer's chronicle is a beautifully wrought up-close-and-personal examination of the worst natural disaster in recent American memory. With 7 maps and 20 photos.
