Monday, February 11, 2008
.................Surge
After the Deluge
Here is a panel from Josh Neufeld's graphic novel about Hurricane Katrina, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. To read the serialized chapters from the beginning, go here or here.
In October 2005, shortly after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Neufeld spent three weeks as a Red Cross volunteer in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi and later did a book, Katrina Came Calling, about his experiences. Smith magazine wanted to tell the story of Katrina from the POV of people who lived through it. After reading Neufeld's book, editor Larry Smith contacted Neufeld, and the two traveled to the Gulf Coast to do the audio/video interviews that became the research for the graphic novel. The characters are real people with dialogue taken from direct quotes. Many panels have links beneath to relevant sites.
Here is a panel from Josh Neufeld's graphic novel about Hurricane Katrina, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. To read the serialized chapters from the beginning, go here or here.
In October 2005, shortly after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Neufeld spent three weeks as a Red Cross volunteer in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi and later did a book, Katrina Came Calling, about his experiences. Smith magazine wanted to tell the story of Katrina from the POV of people who lived through it. After reading Neufeld's book, editor Larry Smith contacted Neufeld, and the two traveled to the Gulf Coast to do the audio/video interviews that became the research for the graphic novel. The characters are real people with dialogue taken from direct quotes. Many panels have links beneath to relevant sites.
The wall of water that destroyed Biloxi, leaving a devastated landscape resembling Hiroshima, did not wash away my memories of staying in the White House Hotel at 1230 Beach Boulevard where my family vacationed during the 1940s. Fans whirred in the heat, while footsteps echoed down the hall. In the gaming room near the lobby my brother struck it rich with a cascade of coins, as he recalled, "Slot machines were in a small room off the lobby. I put some nickels in and won. All these nickels came falling out. I filled up all my pockets in my short pants. I ran by the front desk and told the desk clerk, 'I hit the jackpot.' He or she said, 'You weren't supposed to play those.' I kept on going toward our room."
Smells of oysters and the sea drifted through the open window in our first floor room overlooking the shade of the hotel's rocking-chair front porch, the towering white Corinthian columns, the manicured sunlit lawn, the shimmering ocean. I could cross Highway 90, run the length of the wooden pier and gaze over the Gulf of Mexico (which Tennessee Williams renamed the Gulf of Misunderstanding in Sweet Bird of Youth). On grey rainy days one could see far distant lightning over water. The history of the hotel is captured in the pre-Katrina website, White House on the Gulf. The site details the $23 million restoration that was underway when Katrina struck.
Comments:
<< Home
So many details that I like rereading. Should be packaged with the Spike Lee documentary, When the Levees Broke.
Post a Comment
<< Home
