Four years ago, Hurricane Katrina caused enormous damage to the city of New Orleans, most of it the consequences of a natural disaster and the chaotic governmental response. But some of the damage was also the result of quick and desperate decisions people made as they struggled in the wake of the storm. ProPublica has published two very different in-depth investigations that explore the often life-changing actions local residents took. We hope you’ll take the time to read those two reports to see what lessons we can learn from how a few people reacted.
In the last 24 hours, we’ve received quite a few requests for more information about Sheri Fink’s "The Deadly Choices at Memorial" [1] investigation, which we co-published with the New York Times Magazine. Some of those questions were answered in recent interviews Fink did about the story. This morning she was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe [2] (click on "Learning from Katrina’s mistakes, four years later" if it doesn’t load) and WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show [3]. You can also listen to her interviews on NPR’s All Things Considered [4] and KPCC’s Patt Morrison [5]. Fink will be on KCRW’s To The Point [6] with Warren Olney this coming Monday (8/31) to continue the conversation.
We also encourage you to take a look at some of the related multimedia features [7] we did, such as this schematic of Memorial Medical Center [8] that helps you see what the staff had to contend with.
Late last year, we published A.C. Thompson’s "Post-Katrina, White Vigilantes Shot African-Americans With Impunity" [9] in partnership with The Nation magazine. Last night, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 [10] followed up on Thompson’s investigation in a report that can be seen here [11]. And be sure to read the updates that Thompson wrote about some of the new evidence that has come to light about the shootings [12].
If you have questions that have not been answered, or if you have tips that you would like to share, please write to us at QandA@propublica.org [13].