[Read by Johnny Heller]Ten years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana, journalist Gary Rivlin traces the storm's immediate damage, the city of New Orleans's efforts to rebuild itself, and the storm's lasting effects on one of this nation's great cities.Much of New Orleans still sat under water the first time Gary Rivlin glimpsed the city after Hurricane Katrina. Four out of every five houses -- 80 percent of the city's housing stock -- had been flooded. Around that same proportion of schools and businesses were wrecked. People living in flooded areas of the city could not be expected to pay their property taxes for the foreseeable future. How could the city possibly come back? This book traces the stories of New Orleanians of all stripe -- politicians and business owners, teachers and bus drivers, poor and wealthy, black and white -- as they confront the aftermath of one of the great tragedies of our age.

How do survivors recover from the worst urban flood in American history, a disaster that destroyed nearly the entire physical landscape of a city, as well as the mental and emotional maps that people use to navigate their everyday lives? This question has haunted the survivors of Hurricane Katrina and informed the response to the subsequent flooding of New Orleans across many years.Left to Chance takes us into two African American neighborhoods—working-class Hollygrove and middle-class Pontchartrain Park—to learn how their residents have experienced “Miss Katrina” and the long road back to normal life. The authors spent several years gathering firsthand accounts of the flooding, the rushed evacuations that turned into weeks- and months-long exile, and the often confusing and exhausting process of rebuilding damaged homes in a city whose local government had all but failed. As the residents’ stories make vividly clear, government and social science concepts such as “disaster management,” “restoring normality,” and “recovery” have little meaning for people whose worlds were washed away in the flood. For the neighbors in Hollygrove and Pontchartrain Park, life in the aftermath of Katrina has been a passage from all that was familiar and routine to an ominous world filled with raw existential uncertainty. Recovery and rebuilding become processes imbued with mysteries, accidental encounters, and hasty adaptations, while victories and defeats are left to chance.

Product Description: An enlightening book about the 2 devastating hurricanes that struck Louisiana in 2005 and the heroic efforts of many to rescue victims of the storms. Katrina was the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, leaving New Orleans severely flooded and more than 1,800 people dead...read more

Product Description: When Hurricane Katrina hit Mississippi on August 29, 2005, it unleashed the costliest natural disaster in American history, and the third deadliest. Haley Barbour had been Mississippi’s governor for only twenty months when he assumed responsibility for guiding his pummeled, stricken state’s recovery and rebuilding efforts...read more

Product Description: On August 25th, 2005, one of the deadliest and most destructive hurricanes in history hit the Gulf of Mexico. High winds and rain pummeled coastal communities, including the City of New Orleans, which was left under 15 feet of water in some areas after the levees burst...read more

A journalist offers a collection of his columns detailing his own experiences living through Hurricane Katrina, the stories of other city inhabitants, and the struggle to rebuild in the wake of destruction, tragedy, and death.

Product Description: Donald Colletti and Jimmy Pitre are forced to flee their flooded houses as Hurricane Katrina devastates their beloved city of New Orleans. But rather than seek shelter, the two brave men put their lives on the line to rescue hundreds of their neighbors...read more

Product Description: A dynamic and all-encompassing account of one of the most destructive storms in US history.This Scholastic Discover More special takes you straight into the eye of Hurricane Katrina. How did Katrina form, and how was it tracked? What was the time line of events? Why was it so devastating? How did people survive? When were essential services restored? How were lives repaired and towns rebuilt? And how can we prepare for another monster storm on this scale? With scientific studies and eyewitness accounts, jaw-dropping infographics and children's personal stories of survival and heroism, this is the essential Katrina reference for young readers...read more

Product Description: In 2005, Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in US history, left devastation from Florida to Texas. This title in the Perspectives on Modern World History series examines the disaster and its aftereffects including mass flooding and; This series provides multiple views of momentous events in recent history; each book helps readers develop critical thinking skills, increase global awareness, and enhance their understanding of international perspectives about historic events...read more

Neither government programs nor massive charitable efforts responded adequately to the human crisis that was Hurricane Katrina. In this study, the authors use extensive interviews with Katrina evacuees and reports from service providers to identify what helped or hindered the reestablishment of the lives of hurricane survivors who relocated to Austin, Texas. Drawing on social capital and social network theory, the authors assess the complementary, and often conflicting, roles of FEMA, other governmental agencies, and a range of non-governmental organizations in addressing survivors' short- and longer-term needs. While these organizations came together to assist with immediate emergency needs, even collectively they could not deal with survivors' long-term needs for employment, affordable housing, and personal records necessary to rebuild lives. Community Lost provides empirical evidence that civil society organizations cannot substitute for an efficient and benevolent state, which is necessary for society to function.

Product Description: Across the globe, devastating disasters have changed the course of history. This title brings Hurricane Katrina to life with well-researched, clearly written informational text, primary sources with accompanying questions, charts, graphs, diagrams, timelines, and maps, multiple prompts, and more...read more

Product Description: Second Line Rescue: Improvised Responses to Katrina and Rita chronicles the brave and creative acts through which Gulf Coast people rescued their neighbors during the chaotic aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Ordinary citizens joined in with whatever resources they had...read more

Product Description: "So lovely to look at, so pleasant to hold, with a bit of intrigue or insight on every page."—The Times-PicayuneThis book of essays and art was compiled in the fall of 2005 while the writers were living in exile and watching their city drown...read more

Product Description: Edward J. Blakely has been called upon to help rebuild after some of the worst disasters in recent American history, from the San Francisco Bay Area's 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake to the September 11 attacks in New York. Yet none of these jobs compared to the challenges he faced in his appointment by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin as Director of the Office of Recovery and Development Administration following Hurricane Katrina...read more

Product Description: Katrina was not just a hurricane. The death, destruction, and misery wreaked on New Orleans cannot be blamed on nature’s fury alone. This volume of essays locates the root causes of the 2005 disaster squarely in neoliberal restructuring and examines how pro-market reforms are reshaping life, politics, economy, and the built environment in New Orleans...read more

Product Description: At last, former Under Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Brown—infamously praised by President George W. Bush for doing a "heckuva job" in the wake of Hurricane Katrina—tells his side of the response to one of the greatest natural disasters to occur in the United States...read more

Product Description: Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005. Commentary and analysis typically focused on what went wrong in the post-disaster emergency response. This forward-looking book, however, presents a more cautiously optimistic view about the region's ability to bounce back after multiple disasters...read more

Product Description: Assessing the damage left by Hurricane Katrina in social, cultural, and physical terms, the essays in this volume suggest that the nation’s long and historic engagement with the Gulf Coast has entered a new era.While many of the essays analyze Katrina in terms of the relatively recent past, others explore how reaction to the hurricane’s aftermath is rooted in the region’s history...read more

Product Description: 2009 Finalist: USA Book News Best Books! 2008 Bronze Medal: ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year! 2008 Nominee: Merial Human-Animal Bond Award! 2008 Premier Book Award Winner! 8 State Hurricane Kate is the unforgettable story of the powerful bond between a cattle dog rescued from a rooftop and the woman who wouldn't give up on her...read more

Product Description: The school's history through interviews, pictures and stories.