Everyone, seemingly, has a story to tell about Hurricane Katrina: of the violence and looting that were rumoured to follow it; at remembering the pathetic images of displaced people, overwhelmingly black people; of being quizzical upon seeing the Dali-esque pictures of floating cars and submerged dwellings. But above all, the Katrina story is one framed by the notorious and abysmal levels of government incompetence, political chicanery, and backslapping (memorably tackled by CNN correspondent Anderson Cooper), alongside the wonkdom of federal and state agencies. It is such political inertia and incompetence that exacerbated an already dire situation, and it such political failings, and all their attendant implications, that this work attempts to scrutinize. It is then a work that begins, quite sensibly, to question in what sense Katrina was a ‘natural’ disaster.  

After the Storm is a collection of ten essays, for the most part elegantly written, cogently argued, and insightful in their delivery. Ten of the thirteen people who contributed to the project are among America’s leading black law professors (the remaining three are two historians and a professor of political science). Following introductory remarks by Charles Ogletree, it is clear the work is united by a common concern for what Katrina reveals about contemporary race politics and racial thinking, as well as what lessons scholars might take from this period and apply to similar incidents in the future. Although identified as ‘black intellectuals’ what unites these scholars more than race is their common concern for those worst affected by the storm, and their wish to see genuine political reform. And if the work crackles with political energy, these currents are generated by the work’s circuitry of serious scholarship.

The essays are uneven in length, quality, intended audience, and readability, and frequently one has the sense of having read the piece, either earlier in the collection or in the deluge of reportage that oozed from news bureaus in late 2005. Thankfully though, many of these essays are highly entertaining, and a number will surely stimulate further, more sustained thinking about the broader issues of race and class in contemporary American society. Much has been written about the graphic images of those affected by the storm, and in particular the infamous labelling of almost identical photographs, with one black person identified as a ‘looter’, a white couple described as having ‘found food’. Turning their attention to this incident, Cheryl Harris and Devon Carbado do an impressive job of unpacking the meaning of these now infamous captions. Michael Eric Dyson, one of the few historians to be included in the collection, similarly pens a provocative essay on the migratory consequences of the storm.

As with any collection of essays, agreement is not a prerequisite for impressive scholarship. This is certainly true here, and two of the collection’s most accomplished pieces--that penned by John White, and the essay that directly follows it, written by the UPenn political scientist Adolphe Reed--are in basic disagreement about what took place in Louisiana, how to analyse those events, and what they might mean for future (progressive) political strategies. Such extreme perspectives works well within the collection, pointing up the fact that even those who share similar political agendas, and intellectual backgrounds, can differ so fundamentally as to how to proceed. In contrast to many of the other contributors, Adolphe Reed argues that to dwell on the racist nature of government decision-making processes, or the disproportionate suffering faced by New Orleans’s black community is politically and analytically futile. To charge racism, Reed insists, is imprecise and provides a “concluding judgment rather than a preliminary to a concrete argument.” [65] His alternative strategy which would complicate narratives of race and class, demonstrating the futility of the market is one race theorists ignore at their peril.

A foreword written by distinguished legal scholar, Derrick Bell, is relatively predictable in the points it raises, chiefly being an attempt to work out how to apply the branch of analysis developed by Bell in the late 1970s to the events of 2005. Not, of course, that such a perspective is inevitably a bad thing, but just that such a perspective has a number of distinct, and well-known limitations. It is these failings--in particular, the belief that racism is a natural, unchanging, and eternal feature of the American past and future - which explains the confusion apparent in an otherwise poetic essay by Anthony Paul Farley. It is a real pity Farley’s essay was included in this collection, even more so that it was inserted as the tailpiece of the work, for with its pat observations, and ill-considered adherence to the critical race perspective, Farley helps perpetuate the view that racialised modes of analysis are characterized by flabby thinking and shrill demands. Farley’s opening contention that “whiteness is wealth and wealth lives above sea level in New Orleans” [147] is challenged by John White’s point that some affluent white people also lived below the levee banks; Farley’s revolutionary chants insisting “the new beginning is…accomplishable by those who have only their empty hands” [158] disrespects other scholars’ points that those affected by the storm were not only “vulnerable” but else “powerless”. As the historian Clement Price notes: “Recent scholarship does indeed suggest that poor people are disproportionately at greater risk during disastrous episodes like hurricanes and floods”. [73] But above all I found Farley’s essay to be morally duplicitous, though by no means unusual, with his shudders of orgasmic pleasure at the thought of the pending revolution not really ringing true with his tenure as a law professor at a prestigious university. 

With the exception of passing references to the Great Flood of 1927 that struck the Mississippi Delta, and the book’s dedication to the affected citizens of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, After the Storm suffers for its preoccupation with the Pelican State, neglecting to discuss the storm’s impact on communities other than those of New Orleans and Baton Rouge. It might have been useful, and instructive, had a comparison been done with relief efforts in the neighbouring Republican-stronghold of Mississippi.

While this collection automatically recommends itself to anyone interested in the events of August 2005 and their aftermath, the occasionally knotty prose of some authors, and the complexity with which many develop their arguments, makes the work more academic text than general interest piece. Already the literature on both Hurricane Katrina and the government’s handling of the debacle is voluminous, and ever growing, leaving this text to win its plaudits on the basis of its unique perspective, and mostly measured analysis. Those looking for eyewitness accounts of the storm and immediate aftermath would be better advised to pick up a copy of New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Jed Horne’s collected dispatches, Breach of Faith [2006], or, for the most illuminating narrative overview, Michael Dyson’s recent Come Hell or High Water [2006].

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You might also be interested to read Jeanne-Marie Kenny's personal memoir of New Orleans before Katrina