Before this class, I had never learned about Hurricane
Katrina. Everything I knew about it I had learned in seventh grade from
television broadcasts I watched with my family during and immediately after the
storm. I thought I knew everything there was to know about the storm. The
levees in New Orleans broke, many areas of the city were flooded and a lot of
people died. The movie “Trouble the Water” was shocking because it provided
first hand accounts of how backwards our country is. Instead of supporting the
people of New Orleans, the United States turned their back on them. The
destructiveness of Hurricane Katrina was a result of the failure of so many
people. Personal narratives help illustrate the devastating effects these
failures can have on people.
In the documentary, Kym’s brother
was trapped inside of a New Orleans prison during the storm. According to an
article published in Humans Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/news/2005/09/21/new-orleans-prisoners-abandoned-floodwaters)
hundreds of prisoners were abandoned in the cities prisons, with nothing to eat
or drink for days “as floodwaters rose toward the ceiling.” During the four to
five days that the prisoners were trapped the generators died and the toilets
backed up, so they were left to drown in small, dark cells that were filled
with human waste. When the prisoners were finally evacuated, 571 men were unaccounted
for.
As
is the case with most natural disasters, stories of human resilience have
emerged. Inmates that were held in the common areas helped other prisoners out
of their cells. They comforted each other and tried to get help. According to
the article, “Many
of the men held at jail had been arrested for offenses like criminal trespass,
public drunkenness or disorderly conduct. Many had not even been brought before
a judge and charged, much less been convicted.” The story of the prisoners is
just one of many blatant human rights abuses that occurred during and after
Hurricane Katrina.
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