Graphic Novel - Drowned City - Kate

Kate

 

 

                The non-fiction graphic novel, Drowned City Hurricane Katrina & New Orleans by Don Brown tells the story of the devastating effects of the infamous, Hurricane Katrina on Monday, August 29^th.  While people in New Orleans are instructed to evacuate, 200,000 remain to wait out the storm.  45,000 people are rescued by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and Coast Guard while oil, flying cockroaches, mosquitoes, and gnats swarm around them, as well as poisonous snakes within the water.  Twenty thousand people take shelter in the superdome and three thousand at the convention center, while an evacuation is promised, “Federal, state, and city officials can’t decide how to share responsibility” (Brown, 2015, p. 67).  Meanwhile, people starve and live in squalor, yet President Bush doesn’t receive the reports of how bad the conditions truly are.  Finally, on Saturday, September 3^rd, hundreds of busses reach New Orleans to take people to shelters and the National Guard patrols the streets. “But the city didn’t snap back to life. By 2012, only 80% of New Orleans’s residents had returned” (Brown, 2015, p. 90). However, those that have returned were protected from Hurricane Isaac by the enormous storm surge barrier that has been built since Katrina.

The author did a tremendous job of explaining how Katrina grew, while including facts and figures on the dramatic effects, but also included dialogue from many different people to provide a story element for the reader as well.  For example, a FEMA worker stated, “When I have a nightmare. It’s a hurricane in New Orleans” (Brown, 2015, p. 7).  As an animal lover, I was pleased that the author addressed the fact that people were forced to leave their animals behind and that FEMA now allows people to bring their pets with them.  Don Brown also shows, without pointing fingers, that disaster relief efforts could’ve been handled better, especially when President George W. Bush praises FEMA director Michael Brown saying “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job” (Brown, 2015, p. 83).  Given that the author’s illustrations portray the deceased face down in the flood water, children pumping and oxygen mask to keep a person alive, and the images of police shooting a gun as evacuees try to walk over the bridge into the next town, this calls for a recommended audience of upper middle school - adults.

Don Brown's website: http://www.booksbybrown.com/

 3 Views On A Tragedy: Reporters Recall First Days After Katrina http://www.npr.org/2015/08/29/435623921/3-views-on-a-tragedy-reporters-recall-first-days-after-katrina 

Before and After Photos

http://www.nola.com/katrina/index.ssf/2014/08/hurricane_katrina_then_and_now.html 

Videos Show New Orleans 10 Years after Hurricane Katrina

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/08/28/watch-videos-show-new-orleans-10-years-after-hurricane-katrina

Bibliography

Brown, D. (2015). Drowned City Hurricane Katrina & New Orleans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.