Author Description

2007 Audie® Award Finalist - Non-fiction, Abridged in The Span Of Five Violent Hours On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina Destroyed Major Gulf Coast Cities And Flattened 150 Miles Of Coastline. Yet Those Wind-torn Hours Represented Only The First Stage Of The Relentless Triple Tragedy That Katrina Brought To The Entire Gulf Coast, From Louisiana To Mississippi To Alabama. first Came The Hurricane, One Of The Three Strongest Ever To Make Landfall In The United States -- 150-mile- Per-hour Winds, With Gusts Measuring More Than 180 Miles Per Hour Ripping Buildings To Pieces. second, The Storm-surge Flooding, Which Submerged A Half Million Homes, Creating The Largest Domestic Refugee Crisis Since The Civil War. Eighty Percent Of New Orleans Was Under Water, As Debris And Sewage Coursed Through The Streets, And Whole Towns In South-eastern Louisiana Ceased To Exist... publishers Weekly historian Brinkley (tour Of Duty, Etc.) Opens His Detailed Examination Of The Awful Events That Took Place On The Gulf Coast Late Last Summer By Describing How A New Orleans Animal Shelter Began Evacuating Its Charges At The First Notice Of The Impending Storm. The Louisiana Spca, Brinkley None Too Coyly Points Out, Was Better Prepared For Katrina Than The City Of New Orleans. It's Groups Like The Spca, As Well As Compassionate Citizens Who Used Their Own Resources To Help Others, Whom Brinkley Hails As Heroes In His Heavy, Powerful Account-and, Unsurprisingly, Authorities Like Mayor Ray Nagin, Gov. Kathleen Blanco And Former Fema Director Michael C. Brown Whom He Lambastes Most Fiercely. The Book Covers August 27 Through September 3, 2005, And Uses Multiple Narrative Threads, An Effect That Is Disorienting But Appropriate For A Book Chronicling The Helter-skelter Environment Of Much Of New Orleans Once The Storm Had Passed, The Levees Had Been Breached, And The City Was Awash In Toxic Gumbo. Naturally Outraged At The Damag