Lost in Katrina

In this powerful work, Schaefer talks with residents of the New Orleans parish he was raised in, St. Bernard, which was among the hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina, suffering a 25-foot storm surge that wiped out schools, businesses and thousands of homes. An executive producer at New Orleans CBS affiliate WWL-TV, Schaefer uses the residents' own words to tell harrowing, moving stories from the first seven days of the disaster. He includes personal stories from unsung heroes and average victims, as well as accounts of more well-known scenes of tragedy like St. Rita's Nursing Home, where 34 bodies were found. Alongside dozens of stories from the ground, Schaefer's day-by-day account also relates his own impressions as an eyewitness; for the better, he leaves criticism of the government's rescue effort between the lines, letting the deteriorating situation speak for itself. Among struggling rescue crews and government administrators, residents clinging to rooftops, undersupplied evacuees and ferocious weather (one evacuation center volunteer “kept waiting for the roof to get blown off”), Schaefer focuses on neighbors helping neighbors, ordinary folks doing the extraordinary and, of course, what the residents lost. Infuriating and inspiring, Schaefer's chronicle is a beautifully wrought up-close-and-personal examination of the worst natural disaster in recent American memory. With 7 maps and 20 photos. (Sept.)