The Great Deluge
Written by Douglas Brinkley
Narrated by Kyf Brewer
4/5
()
About this audiobook
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 was 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 refugee crisis since the Civil War. Eighty percent of New Orleans was under water, and whole towns in southeastern Louisiana ceased to exist. And third, the human tragedy of government mismanagement, which proved as cruel as the natural disaster itself.
In The Great Deluge, bestselling author Douglas Brinkley, a New Orleans resident and professor of history at Tulane University, rips the story of Katrina apart and relates what the category 3 hurricane was like from every point of view, while recognizing the true heroes.
Throughout the book, Brinkley lets the Katrina survivors tell their own stories, masterfully allowing them to record the nightmare that was Katrina. The Great Deluge investigates the failure of government at each level and breaks important new stories. Packed with interviews and original research, it traces the character flaws, inexperience, and ulterior motives that allowed the Katrina disaster to turn the Gulf Coast into a scene from a war movie or a third-world documentary.
Douglas Brinkley
Douglas Brinkley is the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and Professor of History at Rice University, presidential historian for the New-York Historical Society, trustee of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. The Chicago Tribune dubbed him “America’s New Past Master.” He is the recipient of such distinguished environmental leadership prizes as the Frances K. Hutchison Medal (Garden Club of America), Robin W. Winks Award for Enhancing Public Understanding of National Parks (National Parks Conservation Association), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Lifetime Heritage Award. His book The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He was awarded a Grammy for Presidential Suite and is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates in American studies. His two-volume, annotated Nixon Tapes recently won the Arthur S. Link–Warren F. Kuehl Prize. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and three children.
More audiobooks from Douglas Brinkley
American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tour of Duty Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Cronkite Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5American Heritage History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Boys of Pointe du Hoc Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Quiet World: Saving Alaska's Wilderness Kingdom, 1910-1960 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5JFK: A Vision for America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to The Great Deluge
Related audiobooks
Katrina, Mississippi: Voices From Ground Zero Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKatrina: A History, 1915-2015 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Stands in a Storm: Three Days in the Worst Superstorm to Hit the South's Tornado Alley Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nine Lives: Mystery, Magic, Death, and Life in New Orleans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Into the Storm: Violent Tornadoes, Killer Hurricanes, and Death-defying Adventures in Extreme Weather Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Report from Ground Zero: The Story of the Rescue Efforts at the World Trade Center Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Circus Fire Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Quiet World: Saving Alaska's Wilderness Kingdom, 1910-1960 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Executing the Rosenbergs: Death and Diplomacy in a Cold War World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Impending Crisis: America Before the Civil War: 1848-1861 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coolidge Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5William Howard Taft: The American Presidents Series: The 27th President, 1909-1913 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America's Hurricanes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lindbergh Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Days in January: Dwight Eisenhower's Final Mission Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ground Truth: The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Shot All to Hell: Jesse James, the Northfield Raid, and the Wild West's Greatest Escape Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5History Decoded: The Ten Greatest Conspiracies of All Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Dark Night in Aurora: Inside James Holmes and the Colorado Mass Shootings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, the Model, and the Murder that Shook the Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5TOWERS: 9/11 Story Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Year of Dangerous Days: Riots, Refugees, and Cocaine in Miami 1980 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Public Enemies Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Crack in the Edge of the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5JFK Has Been Shot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5