After the levees broke.

Like most Americans, I was sickened by what I saw happening in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. After the images of suffering in the Superdome, and bodies left to rot in the streets of New Orleans, it was hard to imagine it getting any worse. As the storm surge subsided, a flood of books has appeared, attempting to explain just what transpired in late August 2005. Among the hefty (The Great Deluge by Douglas Brinkley), the scientific (The Storm by Ivor van Heerden and Mike Bryan) and the official (A Failure of Initiative by the select committee appointed by the House of Representatives), I went with Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City by Jed Horne. Metro editor of the Times-Picayune, Horne is well-versed in New Orleans' culture and politics, elements just as important to the course of disaster as weather reports and evacuation plans.

Mixing personal accounts with commentary, Horne creates a vivid portrait of a city ill-served by its elected officials well prior to 2005, and fully documents the continuing failures after the storm. Harshest criticism is reserved, of course, for the inept bungling by FEMA and the Bush Administration, but the Army Corps of Engineers, mayor Ray Nagin and the Orleans levee board each receive damning evidence of misplaced priorities or downright fraud. Horne also dispels many of the misconceptions created by the media, calling into doubt the images of rampaging gangs bent on looting any and all stores, and the supposed lawlessness at the Superdome and Convention Center.

This isn't a book to read if you want something calming--I often found myself wanting to throw it through a wall in frustration at the ineptitude of those in charge. But Horne also includes stories of perserverance--the ordeal of Patrina Peters, who survived on the roof of her flooded home during the storm, heroic efforts at isolated hospitals, the grassroots effort Common Ground which stepped in when the Army and the aid organizations refused. Most of the second half of the book is an examination of the efforts to determine which direction the new New Orleans needs to go. This part lags a bit in terms of storytelling, but represents the more important questions resulting from Katrina: is it right to allow people to rebuild New Orleans as it once was, even when the previous chapters revealed a city seriously in need of reform and overhaul? Horne makes the case for a new city, but for New Orleans to rise again, the events recounted in Breach of Faith demonstrate that it will be a long, drawn out prospect, requiring much more than staunching holes in the levees.