Floodlines

Atlantic  writer Vann R. Newkirk II began reporting this eight-part Hurricane Katrina podcast long before the pandemic. In it, he revisits a familiar story through the voices of several who experienced it—a local radio host, a nurse, a civil engineer and a 14-year-old girl, among others stranded in New Orleans after the hurricane. He contrasts their on-the-ground experiences with those reported by the media to the nation at large: newscasters initially obsessed over looting in the city rather than the immense suffering happening in the Superdome, a portrayal which, he argues, contributed to delays in relief effort. The series slowly builds to an interview with then-FEMA director Michael Brown ,  one of the few government officials who agreed to talk to Newkirk ,  confronting him with not only a list of logistical missteps but wrenching accounts from New Orleans natives ignored and left to suffer. It’s a master class in the tough interview. Listening in 2020, it’s hard not to draw comparisons between the way George W. Bush’s administration handled an unexpected disaster and the way that Donald Trump’s administration responded to the pandemic. In both cases,  Black Americans bore the brunt  of the government’s failures, paying with their safety, their jobs and their lives.