America's Great Storm

America's Great Storm
Author: Haley Barbour
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2015-08-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1496805070

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. America's Great Storm is not only a personal memoir of his role in that recovery, but also a sifting of the many lessons he learned about leadership in a time of massive crisis. For the book, the authors interviewed more than forty-five key people involved in helping Mississippi recover, including local, state, and federal officials as well as private citizens who played pivotal roles in the weeks and months following Katrina's landfall. In addition to covering in detail the events of September and October 2005, chapters focus on the special legislative session that allowed casinos to build on shore; the role of the recovery commission chaired by Jim Barksdale; a behind-the-scenes description of working with Congress to pass an unprecedented, multi-billion-dollar emergency disaster assistance appropriation; and the enormous roles played by volunteers in rebuilding the entire housing, transportation, and education infrastructure of South Mississippi and the Gulf Coast. A final chapter analyzes the leadership skills and strategies Barbour employed on behalf of the people of his state, observations that will be valuable to anyone tasked with managing in a crisis.

Time: Hurricane Katrina

Time: Hurricane Katrina
Author: Editors of Time Magazine
Publisher: Time
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2005-11-15
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9781933405131

On Sept. 2, 2005, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issued a "desperate SOS."His city, one of Americas most historic and gracious urban centers, had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina.Now 80% of it lay underwater, while some citizens huddled on rooftops waiting for rescue, and others turned the flooded streets into canals of anarchy.In the first decade of the 21st century, despair, disease, and death had transformed a great American city into a scene of third-world privation, even as heroic rescue workers battled to save lives, restore order, and aid the suffering. Now Time chronicles the story of the greatest natural disaster in U.S. history in Hurricane Katrina, An American Tragedy.Here, in stunning pictures and gripping first-hand accounts, is the terrible tale of Katrinas deadly wrath and savage aftermath.Here is Americas Gulf Coastfrom New Orleans to Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippiin ruins.Here are the struggling survivors and their valiant rescuers, the looters and the police who fought to control them, the homeless refugees who poured across the southeast, and the resourceful agencies that took them in. It is an epic tale, told as only Time can tell it.Award-winning pictures reveal the scope of the disaster. Oral histories offer unforgettable accounts of natures power and mans resourcefulness.Illuminating graphics show how hurricanes formand why New Orleans flooded.Powerful reporting puts readers on the scene, while insightful analysis explores the questions left in Katrinas wake: could the tragedy have been prevented, and why was aid so late to arrive? Moving and informative, sweeping in scope and ringing with the voices of those who were there, Hurricane Katrina, An American Tragedy is the definitive account of a disaster that will haunt Americans for decades to come.

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina
Author: Jeremy I. Levitt
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2009-01-01
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 080322463X

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast states of Louisiana and Mississippi. The storm devastated the region and its citizens. But its devastation did not reach across racial and class lines equally. In an original combination of research and advocacy, Hurricane Katrina: America s Unnatural Disaster questions the efficacy of the national and global responses to Katrina s central victims, African Americans. This collection of polemical essays explores the extent to which African Americans and others were, and are, disproportionately affected by the natural and manmade forces that caused Hurricane Katrina. Such an engaged study of this tragic event forces us to acknowledge that the ways in which we view our history and life have serious ramifications on modern human relations, public policy, and quality of life.

Storm Kings

Storm Kings
Author: Lee Sandlin
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2014-03-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307473589

With 16 pages of black-and-white illustrations In Storm Kings, Lee Sandlin retraces America's fascination and unique relationship to tornadoes and the weather. From Ben Franklin's early experiments, to "the great storm debates" of the nineteenth century, to heartland life in the early twentieth century, Sandlin shows how tornado chasing helped foster the birth of meteorology, recreating with vivid descriptions some of the most devastating storms in America's history. Drawing on memoirs, letters, eyewitness testimonies, and numerous archives, Sandlin brings to life the forgotten characters and scientists that changed a nation and how successive generations came to understand and finally coexist with the spiraling menace that could erase lives and whole towns in an instant.

Through the Eye of the Storm

Through the Eye of the Storm
Author: Cholene Espinoza
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2006
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1933392185

A pioneering female fighter pilot loses her soul in the Iraq war, only to find it again in the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in this true story of recovery, relief, and redemption on the Mississippi coast.

Isaac's Storm

Isaac's Storm
Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2000-07-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0375708278

From the bestselling author of The Devil in the White City, here is the true story of the deadliest hurricane in history. National Bestseller September 8, 1900, began innocently in the seaside town of Galveston, Texas. Even Isaac Cline, resident meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau failed to grasp the true meaning of the strange deep-sea swells and peculiar winds that greeted the city that morning. Mere hours later, Galveston found itself submerged in a monster hurricane that completely destroyed the town and killed over six thousand people in what remains the greatest natural disaster in American history--and Isaac Cline found himself the victim of a devastating personal tragedy. Using Cline's own telegrams, letters, and reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our latest understanding of the science of hurricanes, Erik Larson builds a chronicle of one man's heroic struggle and fatal miscalculation in the face of a storm of unimaginable magnitude. Riveting, powerful, and unbearably suspenseful, Isaac's Storm is the story of what can happen when human arrogance meets the great uncontrollable force of nature.

November's Fury

November's Fury
Author: Michael Schumacher
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2013-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1452940452

On Thursday, November 6, the Detroit News forecasted “moderate to brisk” winds for the Great Lakes. On Friday, the Port Huron Times-Herald predicted a “moderately severe” storm. Hourly the warnings became more and more dire. Weather forecasting was in its infancy, however, and radio communication was not much better; by the time it became clear that a freshwater hurricane of epic proportions was developing, the storm was well on its way to becoming the deadliest in Great Lakes maritime history. The ultimate story of man versus nature, November’s Fury recounts the dramatic events that unfolded over those four days in 1913, as captains eager—or at times forced—to finish the season tried to outrun the massive storm that sank, stranded, or demolished dozens of boats and claimed the lives of more than 250 sailors. This is an account of incredible seamanship under impossible conditions, of inexplicable blunders, heroic rescue efforts, and the sad aftermath of recovering bodies washed ashore and paying tribute to those lost at sea. It is a tragedy made all the more real by the voices of men—now long deceased—who sailed through and survived the storm, and by a remarkable array of photographs documenting the phenomenal damage this not-so-perfect storm wreaked. The consummate storyteller of Great Lakes lore, Michael Schumacher at long last brings this violent storm to terrifying life, from its first stirrings through its slow-mounting destructive fury to its profound aftereffects, many still felt to this day.

The Great Deluge

The Great Deluge
Author: Douglas Brinkley
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 755
Release: 2009-10-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0061744735

In the span of five violent hours on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed major Gulf Coast cities and flattened 150 miles of coastline. But it was only the first stage of a shocking triple tragedy. On the heels of one of the three strongest hurricanes ever to make landfall in the United States came the storm-surge flooding, which submerged a half-million homes—followed by the human tragedy of government mismanagement, which proved as cruel as the natural disaster itself. In The Great Deluge, bestselling author Douglas Brinkley finds the true heroes of this unparalleled catastrophe, and lets the survivors tell their own stories, masterly allowing them to record the nightmare that was Katrina.

Come Hell Or High Water

Come Hell Or High Water
Author: Michael Eric Dyson
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2010-10
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1458760782

What Hurricane Katrina reveals about the fault lines of race and poverty in America-and what lessons we must take from the flood-from best-selling ''hip-hop intellectual'' Michael Eric Dyson Does George W. Bush care about black people? Does the rest of America? When Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, hundreds of thousands were left behind to suffer the ravages of destruction, disease, and even death. The majority of these people were black; nearly all were poor. The federal government's slow response to local appeals for help is by now notorious. Yet despite the cries of outrage that have mounted since the levees broke, we have failed to confront the disaster's true lesson; to be poor, or black, in today's ownership society, is to be left behind. Displaying the intellectual rigor, political passion, and personal empathy that have won him fans across the color line, Michael Eric Dyson offers a searing assessment of the meaning of Hurricane Katrina. Combining interviews with survivors of the disaster with his deep knowledge of black migrations and government policy over decades, Dyson provides the historical context that has been sorely missing from public conversation. He explores the legacy of black suffering in America since slavery, including the shocking ways that black people are framed in the national consciousness even today. With this call-to-action, Dyson warns us that we can only find redemption as a society if we acknowledge that Katrina was more than an engineering or emergency response failure. From the TV newsroom to the Capitol Building to the backyard, we must change the ways we relate to the black and the poor among us. What's at stake is no less than the future of democracy.