>Mike,
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>>I have been watching Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke" with my daughters, an hour at a time. It's great stuff but that's about as much as I can take at a time.
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>I'm not sure what that Spike Lee one is, but I recorded a Discovery program on Katrina earlier this week... an all these people they interviewed that were caught in it were just sort of amazing fools IMO. Someone talking about not having her mom's diabetes medicine, no food... umm people you live in a flood disaster prone area aren't you expected to be responsible for your own emergency preparedness? Why wait for a bozo mayor or governor to declare an evacuation order? The darned storm was coming for a long time.
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>There was another program on a couple of nights later on levee systems around the world. It showed an elevation cross section of New Orleans compared to the Mississippi River and Lake Ponchatrain, about 10% of New Orleans is above the normal levels of those two bodies of water. I was suprised that Sacramento is in the same sort of flood risk from the rivers that surround it.. and those guys are just a richter 5 earthquake during spring snow melt away from catastrophy.
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>A lot of people in the US need to have a higher sense of personal responsibility and grasp the concept of "higher ground".


Dave, please watch the show. I think it will leave you with a more nuanced view. Some of those caught in the storm should have evacuated, agreed. (Given that an estimated 25% of the N.O. population was unable to evacuate due to infirmity or lack of access to transportation. And add to that the thousands who went to announced bus pickup points along I-10 and waited for days -- DAYS! -- before any buses came). Others stayed out of a New Orleans native's sense of joie de vivre or fatalism, take your pick. Spike really captures the city's history, particularly the melting pot within a melting pot -- whites, blacks, creoles, French-Canadians, Native Americans all mixed together -- and the pervasive sense of music in New Orleans culture. In a sense he gives a civics lesson on the sly, distracting us with a documentary about a hurricane and a flood.

What I liked most among many good things was the voices of the ordinary New Orleans residents who drive this oral history. There are a few famous figures, including some highly criticized public officials like the mayor, the governor, FEMA, and the Army Corps of Engineers. (Spike, who remains off camera throughout other than one interjection, must be a sweet talking dude to have gained their participation). The ones who stick with me are ordinary New Orleans residents who pop in and out. By the end of the four hours and 15 minutes you feel like you know them, and want to know them better. They come from every walk of life, high and low. Through them we sense what it was really like to be there. It ends sweetly with all the interviewed participants introducing themselves in front of picture frames. The most common phrase by far is "Born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana."