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Burning Words: Podcast Reviews || SPECIAL EDITION: HURRICANE KATRINA STORIES

by Tamara on August 17, 2007

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BURNING WORDS: Podcast Reviews
August 2007 Special Edition

by Tamara Kaye Sellman

Introduction
Welcome to Burning Words: Podcast Reviews, a monthly column reviewing short prose podcasts featuring fiction or creative nonfiction.

What is a podcast? It might be thought of as the 21st Century equivalent to the old time radio show. Using the latest technology, listeners can download these radio shows as media files to their mp3 devices and computers and, with a single click, listen at their own convenience, either through headphones or through a speaker. Most podcasts are free and can be downloaded through various directories such as iTunes, ZenCast and Podcast Alley.

Note: All podcasts reviewed in this column were downloaded to either an IBM ThinkPad or a Creative Zen V mp3 player for listening and review.

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AUGUST 2007 SPECIAL PODCAST REVIEW
HURRICANE KATRINA STORIES

Titles: “Stories from the Storm: Hurricane Katrina Survivors, In Their Own Words” and “The Katrina Stories Project”
Overall Rating: priceless
URLs: “Stories from the Storm: Hurricane Katrina Survivors, In Their Own Words” and “The Katrina Stories Project”
RSS: “Stories from the Storm” RSS and “The Katrina Stories Project” RSS
Language: English
Genre: First-person oral history

Background
I discovered a long time ago the value of oral history for its ability to capture the realities of certain places at certain times. What a gift for everyone who could not be there then. We don’t live in a culture that relies on oral tradition, so these efforts at recording community histories through storytelling fill an ever-increasing need.

As a writer, I often turn to readings of oral histories in order to widen my understanding of specific regions or communities. Now, with the advent of podcasting, all of us have at our fingertips the ability to hear these stories told in the voices of the folks themselves. I cannot imagine a better way to be educated on the realities of certain events than through these audible productions. Film can also capture first-person stories, but film is expensive and requires huge amounts of time and manpower. Podcasting, by comparison, requires little more than interviewers, recording equipment, a few audio technicians and people willing to share.

After Hurricane Katrina, several people came together to record the stories of survivors in podcast format. Two efforts at this are the subject of this podcast review.

First things first.
If you haven’t been to or seen the condition of the Gulf Coast since the hurricane hit, it might seem unbelievable to you that things aren’t completely recovered. Please, think again. From Beyond Katrina:

Nearly two years ago, Hurricane Katrina, aided by the construction of a substandard levee protection system, killed over 1,800 people, damaged 200,000 homes, and destroyed schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, parks, and forest lands. The government’s response to one of the largest disasters in the nation’s history has been ineffective and weak, and is a collective stain on the heart and soul of our nation. Of the 148,000 Louisianans who have applied for aid to rebuild their homes, only 30,000 have received grants, 86,000 Gulf Coast families are still living in FEMA trailers, and 750,000 residents remain displaced.

Don’t let yourself forget.
I think that as time passes, people who do not experience regional catastrophes either cannot bear to hear more stories of tragedy, or they forget how terrible it was and still is for so many people. But forgetting is a tragedy in itself. Things are perhaps a little better in the Gulf Coast today, but the hurricane zone is not healed and rebuilt. The latest TIME magazine gives a clear snapshot of what hasn’t been accomplished, of the problems that New Orleans alone still faces. And don’t forget that New Orleans wasn’t the only place hit hard. In some areas of Mississippi, curbside debris pickup from Katrina damage is only now coming to a close. There are still some 2,000 Katrina survivors from Alabama still living in FEMA campers, with hundreds more doubled up in single-family homes, waiting for funds allocated last summer. People all across the south are still looking for lost loved ones, two years after the fact.

Coming home to the south for many evacuees is still something of a fantasy, and it doesn’t help that misallocation of funds and other bureaucratic nightmares are hindering progress. Just a few days ago, the AP reported that some federal tax incentives for Gulf Coast reconstruction have been reallocated to spur the rebuilding of luxury football stadium condominiums. From the article:

Meanwhile, people still living in FEMA trailers would be happy with “temporary” emergency housing that doesn’t make them sick or burst into flames, and would like to move home if there were homes for them to move to, even if they don’t have granite counter tops and king-size bathtubs.

Too depressing for you? That’s the way you should feel. Not everything that happens in our country is a horseback ride into the sunset.

All you have to do is listen.
If you feel you have heard enough or you believe that the state of recovery in the American Gulf Coast is overdramatized or otherwise inaccurate, that things really are better than they seem, or that people who are still suffering probably deserve it, I cannot recommend it enough: Listen to these podcasts, do some research online, educate yourself, and give thanks that you weren’t a victim of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe.

We are constantly asked, as Americans, to support our troops overseas. We are not constantly asked to think about the terrible strife so many of our regional neighbors continue to suffer through. All I’m asking is that you listen and remember.

General Review
I cannot adequately express in this column my gratitude to those who stepped up to share their immensely personal and intimate stories about going through the hell of a hurricane and its aftermath. While listening, I found myself gripped by so many conflicting emotions: pride, disgust, anger, sorrow, terror, compassion, relief. There were times I cheered out loud while listening, times when tears welled up in my eyes, times when I didn’t think I could break the knot in my throat, times when my breathing came shallow, as if I were watching a horror movie instead.

I listened to both podcasts during road trips and found myself sitting in my car at the end of each drive, unwilling to go about my business until I finished listening to these amazing, memorable stories, all told by folks who were there in the thick of it.

For the rest of us, watching the events unfold on CNN two years ago provided only a pale substitute for the real human drama that persisted well beyond the lens of the photojournalist’s camera. These oral histories in podcast are unscripted, done without any desire to sensationalize the truth. They are the plain, simple truth told by average, ordinary people. You will not find yourself bored with the retelling of this single catastrophic event through the perspectives contained in either collection of podcasts. If anything, you will wish you could hear more stories.

From Stories from the Storm, you’ll “see” these stories unfold through the voices of a nurse, a restaurant reviewer, a couple in a “weeping” brick house in the French Quarter, a teenager, and a horse farmer, among others. From The Katrina Stories Project, you’ll hear from a judge and his family, a good-natured couple who went through the worst of hell and back, the stories of several elderly folks who lost everything, residents of some of the more historic places in New Orleans, and still others.

These stories will haunt you. They will also leave you breathless with the way they capture the resilience and community spirit of the American people.

For these reasons, I give both of these podcasts a “priceless” rating.

Many thanks go to the thoughtful and compassionate folks who put together these important collections, including Carter Hooper, Celia Collins, Scott Shepard and all the countless unnamed people who have helped make these podcasts possible.

There are just five recordings for each series, but within each recording you will hear stories from more than one person. I simply can’t, in good taste, pick my “favorite” stories when all of these accounts are so critical for illustrating the horrors of surviving both the physical trauma of a hurricane and the tangible and sociological collapse of a major urban center in its aftermath.

Please listen to them all; together, these two productions comprise diverse, wide-ranging perspectives that will warm your heart even as they send chills down your spine.

NOTE: Always check content ratings for individual episodes of all podcasts; some may not be work-safe or family friendly.

Want to help?
Here are some organizations you can contact if you’re interested in learning more about how you can help.

Katrina Information Network

Brookings Institute Reading Room, Hurricane Katrina

Institute of Southern Studies Katrina Reconstruction Watch

Imagining America’s Katrina Resource Page

International Humanities Center Katrina Stories Project

Book Relief, rebuilding libraries and literacy in the South

Southern Revival: Deep Magic For Hurricane Relief (100% of proceeds benefit Gulf Coast library reconstruction)

© 2007, TKS

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