Overview

Ten years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana, journalist Gary Rivlin traces the storm's immediate damage, the city of New Orleans' efforts to rebuild itself, and the storm's lasting effects not just on the city's geography and infrastructure-but on the psychic, racial, and social fabric of 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. Then a staff reporter for the New York Times, he was heading into the city to survey the damage. The Interstate was eerily empty. Soldiers in uniform and armed with assault rifles stopped him. Water reached the eaves of houses for as far as the eye could see. Four out of every five houses-eighty percent of the city's housing stock-had been flooded. Around that same proportion of schools and businesses were wrecked. The weight of all that water on the streets cracked gas and water and sewer pipes all around town, and the deluge had drowned almost every power substation and rendered unusable most of the city's water and sewer system. People living in flooded areas of the city could not be expected to pay their property taxes for the foreseeable future. Nor would all those boarded-up businesses-21,000 of the city's 22,000 businesses were still shuttered six months after the storm-be contributing their share of sales taxes and other fees to the city's coffers. Six weeks after the storm, the city laid off half its workforce-precisely when so many people were turning to its government for help. Meanwhile, cynics both in and out of the Beltway were questioning the use of taxpayer dollars to rebuild a city that sat mostly below sea level. How could the city possibly come back? This book traces the stories of New Orleanians of all stripes-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 and reconstruct, change, and in some cases abandon a city that's the soul of this nation.

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9781504720175

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Reviews

Johnny Heller's strong voice lends authority to veteran journalist Rivlin's detailed account...Heller is an accomplished narrator. His performance is as compelling as the forest of details will allow. The aftermath of Katrina is one of the most important American case studies of the twenty-first century. -- AudioFile Raises important questions about the role of race in the response to natural disasters. -- Library Journal A sprawling, epic tale, filled with cold numbers and heartbreaking scenes of loss and devastation. It's also an insightful, accessible saga that follows a wide cast of participants...He skillfully balances out the human elements with concrete details. -- Publishers Weekly Deeply engrossing, well-written, and packed with revealing stories...A magnificently reported account of life in a broken, waterlogged city. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Rivlin's reporting allows him to paint deep portraits of his characters and explain relationships. -- Miami Herald A gem of a book-well-reported, deftly written, tightly focused. -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch Rivlin sweeps from street to boardroom in this history of the aftermath. -- Nature Rivlin's valuable book is among the first to relate, in clear and scrupulous detail, the decisions that have brought us this far and to identify those who made them...Rivlin is a sharp observer and a dogged reporter. -- New York Times Book Review Once upon a time, this tour might have ended more cheerfully, with John Kennedy Toole's weird and wonderful novel A Confederacy of Dunces. -- Huffington Post As with the finest works of journalism, Rivlin's book deploys the tools of his trade to illuminate the segment of history he examines. -- USA Today The vividly-told and haunting Katrina is vital...for understanding how divisions of race and class are perpetuated across America today. -- Michael Eric Dyson, New York Times bestselling author Rivlin, one of our finest journalists, chronicles it all in superb and riveting detail. This is something we have to know, discuss and absorb-before the next storm comes along. -- Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times bestselling author

Rivlin, one of our finest journalists, chronicles it all in superb and riveting detail. This is something we have to know, discuss and absorb-before the next storm comes along. -- Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times bestselling author The vividly-told and haunting Katrina is vital...for understanding how divisions of race and class are perpetuated across America today. -- Michael Eric Dyson, New York Times bestselling author As with the finest works of journalism, Rivlin's book deploys the tools of his trade to illuminate the segment of history he examines. -- USA Today Once upon a time, this tour might have ended more cheerfully, with John Kennedy Toole's weird and wonderful novel A Confederacy of Dunces. -- Huffington Post Rivlin's valuable book is among the first to relate, in clear and scrupulous detail, the decisions that have brought us this far and to identify those who made them...Rivlin is a sharp observer and a dogged reporter. -- New York Times Book Review Rivlin sweeps from street to boardroom in this history of the aftermath. -- Nature A gem of a book-well-reported, deftly written, tightly focused. -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch Rivlin's reporting allows him to paint deep portraits of his characters and explain relationships. -- Miami Herald Deeply engrossing, well-written, and packed with revealing stories...A magnificently reported account of life in a broken, waterlogged city. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) A sprawling, epic tale, filled with cold numbers and heartbreaking scenes of loss and devastation. It's also an insightful, accessible saga that follows a wide cast of participants...He skillfully balances out the human elements with concrete details. -- Publishers Weekly Raises important questions about the role of race in the response to natural disasters. -- Library Journal Johnny Heller's strong voice lends authority to veteran journalist Rivlin's detailed account...Heller is an accomplished narrator. His performance is as compelling as the forest of details will allow. The aftermath of Katrina is one of the most important American case studies of the twenty-first century. -- AudioFile

Author Information

Gary Rivlin is the award-winning author of Fire on the Prairie; Drive By, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; and The Plot to Get Bill Gates, among other works. A two-time Gerald Loeb Award winner, he has worked as a writer and reporter for the New York Times, Industry Standard, East Bay Express, and the Chicago Reader, and his articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Salon, Newsweek, and Wired, among other publications. Johnny Heller, winner of dozens of AudioFile Earphones Awards, is a two-time winner of the prestigious Audie Award for best narration and was named a top voice of 2008 and 2009 and selected as one of the Top 50 Narrators of the Twentieth Century by AudioFile magazine. He has been a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award winner from 2008 through 2013.

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