The Great Deluge

Historian Brinkley (Tour of Duty, etc.) opens his detailed examination of the awful events that took place on the Gulf Coast late last summer by describing how a New Orleans animal shelter began evacuating its charges at the first notice of the impending storm. The Louisiana SPCA, Brinkley none too coyly points out, was better prepared for Katrina than the city of New Orleans. It's groups like the SPCA, as well as compassionate citizens who used their own resources to help others, whom Brinkley hails as heroes in his heavy, powerful account"and, unsurprisingly, authorities like Mayor Ray Nagin, Gov. Kathleen Blanco and former FEMA director Michael C. Brown whom he lambastes most fiercely. The book covers August 27 through September 3, 2005, and uses multiple narrative threads, an effect that is disorienting but appropriate for a book chronicling the helter-skelter environment of much of New Orleans once the storm had passed, the levees had been breached, and the city was awash in "toxic gumbo." Naturally outraged at the damage wrought by the storm and worsened by the ill-prepared authorities, Brinkley, a New Orleans resident, is generally levelheaded, even when reporting on Brown's shallow e-mails to friends while "the trapped were dying" or recounting heretofore unreported atrocities, such as looters defecating on property as a mark of empowerment.
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I remember saying I was so overwhelmed by the coverage of Hurricane Katrina that I never wanted to hear the name again.  Eventually those feelings faded.  I was browsing the audio book section of the local library when I found this book.  I’m glad I decided to give it a try.
Mr. Brinkley was very detailed in his recounting of the Great Deluge.  It was nevver boring, even when he was reciting statistics.   There were many personal accounts of people caught in the bowl of New Orleans.  The horrors they faced are not sugar coated.  Rumors were revealed as truth or fiction.  I learned so much history as well as about the events and timeline of Katrina.
I heard the stories of homeless and home owner, store owner and looter, police and Coast Guard, Mayor and Governor, FEMA director and President.  Each received the praise and criticism he/she deserved.  I didn’t find the book to biased toward one political party or the other, just an honest accounting of facts.
The Great Deluge is a long book, but worth the time.  I highly recommend it.

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