Oral Histories of Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina is one of the most devastating natural disasters that have happened in the United States. It cost many people to lose their families, homes, and basically anything that they have worked for their entire lives. After viewing a few survivor stories I chose to look further into Printiss Polk. I chose Polk because he was close to my age during the disaster and he has a different perspective compared to what I have heard or seen in the media. Polk was an active survivor and believes that there was a lack of response during the aftermath of the storm. This was also the case in the interview with the Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin. I watched the CNN video clip about the aftermath of the storm and the reporters seemed to leave out most of the gruesome facts. They talked about affects of the storm, including health issues because of the water, but left out what was going to be done to help these people or what these people are doing to survive. Polk talks about how the police were killing people and going over the top instead of rescuing. Families were obviously separated during this time, but it is a lot different when hearing firsthand from someone that experienced it. He talked about how he hopes his mother survived and that he doesn’t know when he will see her again because she doesn’t have a cellphone. I was 15 years old when this disaster happened and I remember hearing about the actual hurricane and the affects of it instead of the perspective of the people firsthand. I feel like the media made a big deal of the situation, but didn’t offer the outsiders a good understanding of what was really happening to these unfortunate people. I believe that the social science approach is the most suitable choice when studying these particular oral histories. The approach observes subjects firsthand and asks questions according to what they are in search of. When viewing these oral histories on Hurricane Katrina it offers us some evidence of what happens in crises like these. It helps us determine how people might act in future natural disasters and prepares us for what may come.

Questions:

1.     Do you believe that there were more deaths caused by the hurricane or by the lack of response during the aftermath?

2.     Did the majority of your friends leave home or did they stick around?

3.     When hearing or listening to the media do you find many false statements?

4.     Do you think that Mayor Nagin did his part during this crisis?

5.     How do you view the country or even the state of Louisiana now that you see how this natural disaster was handled?

By: Caroline Donahue