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Film Description: "Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time" is a National Geographic documentary series that explores the human stories and systemic failures surrounding Hurricane Katrina, particularly focusing on the aftermath and the disproportionate impact on marginalized communities. The series examines the storm's devastating effects on New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast, highlighting the racial and socioeconomic disparities laid bare by the disaster.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Please welcome to the stage, Senior Entertainment Editor at Essence,
00:07Ogla Jones.
00:19Good afternoon everyone, how y'all doing?
00:21Ooh, that was a powerful episode.
00:24What did y'all think?
00:31My name is Ogla Jones, I'm the Senior Entertainment Editor here at Essence,
00:35and I'm also a native of New Orleans, which makes this project particularly special for me.
00:40Now, here to discuss the compelling series in the episode that we just watched,
00:45I want to welcome Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, writer, and director of the Nat Geo series Hurricane Katrina,
00:52Race Against Time, Miss Tracy A. Curry.
00:55New Orleans residents and contributors to Hurricane Katrina, Race Against Time,
01:00Mr. Shelton Alexander, Lucretia Phillips, and Lynette Boutte.
01:04Thank y'all.
01:06Thank you, advocacy board.
01:20Thank you so much.
01:26Thank you, Tracy Howard.
02:28I'm up here on this stage for the work that you've done.
02:30It's a story that needed to be told, and thank you so much.
02:32I really appreciate it.
02:38Tracy, what motivated you to tackle a project of this magnitude, especially two decades
02:43after the event?
02:44Well, when I sort of had the opportunity, or I knew that I would have the opportunity
02:50to, is this, can you, hello, is it, is it what?
02:54Hello.
02:56Yeah, okay, okay.
02:56I thought y'all were saying you couldn't hear back there.
02:59So when I knew that I had the opportunity to tell this story, I'm always, I do a lot
03:05of historical stories, and I'm always curious when I approach it, is there, what new is there
03:11to say?
03:11Or how can we, from a modern perspective, understand something different about it?
03:16And so that was sort of the first thing that I was really curious about that drew me to
03:20this, is the opportunity to do that.
03:22And weirdly enough, this is sort of a full circle moment for me, because I was here two
03:26years ago for a different panel, for a different show, when I knew that I was going to start
03:30working on this.
03:31And so I just started talking to folks that I met here, at the convention center, like
03:35people who are working here, the Uber driver, the restaurant server, and basically saying,
03:41like, you're from New Orleans, and I have the opportunity to tell this story, what is
03:46it that you think that people should understand that they don't know?
03:50And what was interesting is that these are all different people that don't know each other,
03:53and they all said the same thing, which is some version of, you know, those of you
03:58that come here from elsewhere, for Essence Festival, or Jazz Fest, or Mardi Gras, to
04:03y'all, New Orleans feels like the same New Orleans that you've already always known.
04:06But for us, the city has been irrevocably changed by Katrina, and that we think of it
04:12as a before Katrina, and after Katrina.
04:15And that really kind of sat with me, because I think the way that we, who were just voyeurs
04:20to this, remember it, is as something that happened to America, and it was very clear to
04:25me, this is not, this is something that happened to this place, and these people.
04:29And so for me, the opportunity to try to restore the narrative back to the people who are from
04:34here was just something that I couldn't pass up.
04:37So that's why I was really excited about the opportunity to do this.
04:43Shelton, I really appreciate you too, my brother, because you started filming before
04:47the storm hit, and then you kept recording inside the Superdome.
04:50What made you want to pick up the camera that day?
04:52Yeah, first of all, man, I would say I was a poet in the city, and I traveled a lot and
05:02performed and spoke and stuff like that.
05:04So it was kind of one of those things, like if you really was able to follow it, like I
05:08was actually so-called headed to Baton Rouge.
05:11So it didn't matter where I was going to be at, I was going to have a camera rolling, just
05:15kind of document, and even when I got to the Superdome, it was kind of like, you know,
05:19I'm just going to be like, hey, what's going on, man?
05:21We're in the Superdome, you know, a couple of days, you know what I mean?
05:24We'd be out of here.
05:26And then, I don't know, but it was one of those things when I left home, I also had to
05:32consider the most important things.
05:34And I had a camera, I had three, four batteries, and I had like a bunch of tapes.
05:39Like I couldn't bring all the photos.
05:40I couldn't bring all the videos and scrapbooks.
05:43We lost a lot of that.
05:45But I knew if I had those live images, I would be able to capture it.
05:48But once again, I didn't think this was going to happen.
05:51And then as soon as it started thundering and the rain started coming through, I was
05:55like, whoa, I got to preserve the time and stuff like that.
05:59And then it turned into something.
06:00I just started kind of like following different things that was happening.
06:04So I knew I was like, kind of like a reporter on the ground, but just doing it so like people
06:09could really know what happened and now.
06:11Yeah, we needed that too, brother.
06:14Lynette, you've become a big voice for restoring the culture of New Orleans.
06:19What's kept you going all these years?
06:22Resilience.
06:25The fact that this is the only place my family has ever lived.
06:30Hold your mic up.
06:32Hold your mic up.
06:32Just hold it close to that.
06:33Oh.
06:34Okay.
06:36My family is originally from New Orleans.
06:38If anybody asks me where your people are from, they're from New Orleans.
06:42You know, no other place on both sides of my family.
06:45So where I live and where I was when the storm came in is where I grew up.
06:54So I wasn't going anywhere.
06:57I went through Betsy.
06:58Betsy stopped on St. Bernard Avenue.
07:00So anything that came above St. Bernard Avenue, we knew that our water level was four feet,
07:08nine inches.
07:09So I wasn't going to get that kind of water up there.
07:13It hadn't had that kind of water up there since 1924.
07:16So everybody else was leaving.
07:20All my siblings that lived in the city were like, you've got to come over here to St.
07:24Tammany.
07:26They didn't get my mom out of the house until Saturday because she was also refusing to leave.
07:32And she actually had four feet of water in the house by the time the 17th Street Canal was
07:38decided to be blown up.
07:40But anyway, no, it's serious.
07:43I was one of the people who had a portable TV.
07:46And I'm a news junkie.
07:47So I'm watching the news.
07:49And they're talking.
07:51You use dynamite in a man-made canal that has concrete?
07:56Because one of the slabs had slid down?
08:00They had a flat boat with sand, which was what they were supposed to be doing,
08:06and put in the sand where that particular breach was.
08:09Instead, they used dynamite because they couldn't get the boat past the concrete.
08:14That's when we got the water.
08:17All right?
08:18I didn't have water in my—well, one of the houses I had.
08:22I didn't have water in the house that I was staying in.
08:25And so I didn't think I needed to leave.
08:29But, of course, the militia.
08:32It wasn't the police.
08:33It wasn't the National Guard.
08:34It was a militia.
08:37They were in a flat boat with AKs.
08:39And they came to the location and told us we had to leave.
08:44And I'm like, I'm in my house.
08:46So we had to leave.
08:47They gave us misinformation as to where to go.
08:52And when we got to the place that they told us to go to, there was nobody there.
08:57So that meant we had to track back to get to higher ground because we were in at least six, seven feet of water over that way.
09:05So we were holding on to a boat to just get to where we were going.
09:11And if you know anything about New Orleans, you can imagine what's under houses that are up off the ground that were built in 1875.
09:21So everything was floating.
09:24You know, so the only thing we were worried about were the older people that were from the neighborhood that we needed to get them to higher ground.
09:33But as far as the looting and things like that, like I said, if you were going and you're looking for food, that's not looting.
09:43That's survival.
09:44Right.
09:45Right.
09:45Okay?
09:46Right.
09:46So when you are dumb enough to go on Cadill Street and you're carrying a 60-inch TV, you're going to plug it in.
09:58That's right.
09:58All right?
10:00And so when I saw that, I'm just like, this is a dumbass.
10:03Right.
10:04You know, if you had two or three bags of groceries, I would say, hey, bro, go on.
10:09But you carrying electronics?
10:12We didn't have any electricity in the city.
10:14So why are you carrying electronics?
10:15Right.
10:16All right?
10:17Go and help somebody else.
10:19And that's what I had.
10:20We were lucky for those three days that we were still at the house.
10:24The young men in the neighborhood, and where I, at that time, where the part of the city I lived in, which is the Treme, was the killing field.
10:35All right?
10:36You heard gunshots every day.
10:40When Katrina hit, you want to know how many gunshots I heard that whole time?
10:45One.
10:47One gunshot.
10:49And my neighbor came back and I said, what's going on?
10:51He said, this guy was trying to hit the store up for something, and the guy shot in the air.
10:59I said, okay.
11:00That was it.
11:02You know?
11:03But we took care of each other, because those same young men who we thought of as thugs would come over and say, say, ma, you need some water?
11:12Which I had the water and food, because, like I said, I'm a child who went through Betsy and Camille and everything else,
11:19so I knew what to have in the house.
11:22But these kids were still coming to find out if I was all right.
11:25So, as far as the shootings and things like that, they're absolutely correct.
11:31They weren't, what General Honoré said, they weren't shooting at the helicopters.
11:37Yeah.
11:38They were shooting in the air.
11:39And there was so much misinformation that there were people who died that should not have died.
11:44Right.
11:45So, misinformation is not the best thing for you to have when you're in a position of fear and destitute.
12:04Because when you're destitute, your fear may turn into anger, and then you end up having a problem,
12:11because you're going to hurt somebody, or somebody's going to hurt you.
12:13That's right.
12:16So, Lucretia, the opening scene in Episode 3, it was really difficult to get through,
12:22so I couldn't even imagine witnessing it, like, firsthand.
12:26With this particular series, how did it feel having to revisit your firsthand experience of Hurricane Katrina?
12:33What was that process like for you?
12:35Well, the process was triggering, first of all.
12:38It brought me back, but thank God, through therapy and my family, and I just really wanted to get this story across,
12:48because it's been so many lives for so long, and people believe in that.
12:52You know, we were this type of way, everywhere we went, nobody wanted us.
12:59We got shipped to Texas.
13:01Yeah, the buses finally came, but then when they shipped us to these different places,
13:04they were like, we don't want these refugees.
13:06I'm like, refugees?
13:09We were born here in the United States.
13:11How the hell could we be refugees?
13:14We're being mistreated, going to jail, getting tickets for the first time in your life.
13:20You know, there was no transportation in some of these cities where they sent us.
13:25So how could you get a job?
13:28And you're still not getting any help.
13:30FEMA hasn't given you anything yet.
13:33So you're just stuck somewhere else.
13:37So you just dropped off and stuck.
13:39We were just dropped off in Texas.
13:41And again, I'd like to appeal to those children that were in the Hyatt with me.
13:47If you remember my face, if you remember Miss Lucretia, those four and five kids that they took from me in Dallas because I wasn't their guardian,
13:55please find me, contact National Geographic, contact Disney Plus, any of the entities so I can know you guys all right.
14:08Because I still haven't slept well, not knowing where these kids are.
14:17These kids didn't have parents.
14:19They were in a hotel with us.
14:21And we held them down.
14:23We made sure they ate.
14:25I slept with my leg across them.
14:28Don't move.
14:29I don't know what's going on in this hotel.
14:31I don't want you guys to go anywhere and get lost.
14:33You don't know where your parents are?
14:34I'm your parent right now.
14:36So stay right here.
14:37Sit your ass down.
14:38You're not going wandering around this hotel.
14:41So when we got to Dallas, when they finally picked us up from the hotel, I had a broken neck and a broken back.
14:50I had just had surgery August 17.
14:53So when these people ushered me onto a bus at gunpoint, I couldn't walk.
15:02I had just had surgery.
15:03I had a cast arm from up under my breast to my waist.
15:06So I was walking like a mummy.
15:08And they were like, hurry up.
15:09Hurry up.
15:11Get on the bus.
15:12I was like, I'm moving as fast as I can.
15:14Along with having these children and my children and my relatives.
15:19I'm like, okay, we're getting on the bus, sir.
15:21We're getting on the bus.
15:22Please calm down.
15:24We get on the bus.
15:25And when we get to Dallas, they took those kids away from me.
15:28They're like, are you there guarding?
15:30And I'm like, no, but they've been with me, you know, for the last four or five days.
15:34I don't know who their guardians are, but we'll find them through Red Cross.
15:38You know, just let them go with me.
15:40Because by this time, I've contacted relatives in Dallas.
15:43And I'm like, they're coming to pick us up.
15:44And we're taking these kids.
15:48No.
15:49So I don't know where they are.
15:50So you guys will probably be like 30, 31, 32, however old you are now.
15:57Find Ms. Lucretia, please, and let me know you're okay.
16:02Tracy, I want to talk specifically about episode three.
16:11It really shows how quickly the media shifted its focus from survival to chaos.
16:16As a storyteller, how did you decide which moments needed to be shown and why?
16:21Well, so like I was saying before, just my sort of original thought after kind of talking
16:28to the people here was restoring the narrative to the people.
16:33And so part of what we wanted to do during this episode is to kind of unravel the narrative
16:39as it existed at the time and then allow all of our people who were in the series and
16:46by proxy the people who were in the city to tell the truth about what happened.
16:52And for me, both in this episode and across the series, we really wanted to center the humanity
16:58of the people of this city.
17:00And so it's why we focused on the young boy and the superdome who was doing what he could
17:06to rescue people.
17:08It's why we focused on Lynette's story of those people who were in the media images
17:13at the same time.
17:14It's sort of the stereotypical young black male thug, right?
17:18And there are all these sort of pre-existing narratives that very neatly slotted into the
17:23story that the media was trying to tell about the people of New Orleans.
17:27And the stories that we focused on complicated and challenged that and insist upon the audience
17:34seeing these young men and all of the people as human beings, as citizens.
17:39You see in some of the footage a young man who, again, the visual is he's a young black man.
17:46He's shirtless, right?
17:48And so in that pre-existing narrative, that's the problem.
17:52And he's saying, Grandma, Mom, this is your son.
17:56I'm hurting, right?
17:57You have to see him as a human being in that clip.
18:00And so that intention really was driving the whole series.
18:05But in this episode in particular, the pre-existing narratives that we wanted to put out there
18:10and then unpack and complicate those stories.
18:14I know me personally, Hurricane Katrina was one of the hardest things I had to deal with in my life
18:21because my life had to keep going even though all these things were so uncertain.
18:25Shelton, I wanted to ask you, what inspired your decision to even want to participate in this series
18:31and bring up those old memories like that?
18:35Yeah, I'm going to say, man, it's, I don't know, God called me to do this.
18:39You know, it's one of those things where, like, people ask me, like, why were you at the Superdome?
18:44And my response was, like, ask God.
18:47You know what I mean?
18:47Like, it was a reason I had that video camera, too, because we do exaggerate a lot here, a lot of hyperbole.
18:55You know what I mean?
18:55And so I knew God knew that, like, I needed to get out there at a certain time.
19:00He also knew that I needed to be able to show some things because people wouldn't have believed that.
19:05I would have been saying, oh, yeah, I mean, this happened, this happened.
19:07And, you know, we start marching and singing around the Superdome in our darkest hour.
19:11People wouldn't have believed that because we have so much hyperbole, you know what I mean?
19:15And so it's important, man, to keep on telling it.
19:19Like, I've been a poet.
19:20I've been a writer.
19:21I had a premonition about this when I first started writing.
19:24I was kicking it for the city of New Orleans, writing about storms that's coming.
19:29And I'm going to say it came full circle.
19:30If you check my work, you'll see that I kind of predicted this storm.
19:34I didn't make you sound crazy.
19:36But you've got to listen to my poetry, and you've got to hear what I was saying.
19:39Just like in that film, I said, I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know the water's going to come.
19:46I didn't know how the water was going to come because it really wasn't the storm that wiped us out, right?
19:51It was the water.
19:52And so when you've got that spiritual connection with the Most High, you're going to just place you where you need to be.
19:58I was there for a reason.
19:59And it's always important, like any opportunity.
20:02And I've been in other films before and sharing poetry and stuff like that.
20:06And, like, yeah, that's my job right now.
20:10And God sent me to do this, and I'm going to just keep doing it as long as I can so people can know that.
20:16Yeah, man, we was better than what they wanted us to be.
20:19We was, you know what I mean?
20:21Like, we God-fearing people.
20:23Amen, brother.
20:25Yeah.
20:27So for my last question, Tracy, what do you hope people walk away with after watching this series,
20:32especially the people that didn't live through Katrina?
20:36I feel like I sound like a broken record.
20:39And part of it is I'm just kind of biased at this point because I just think at this point,
20:43this city and the people here are just the best people anywhere.
20:47I've been a lot of places.
20:48But I think people, again, who watch this as a boy of yours have a vague remembrance of, like,
20:56oh, the city was underwater, and there was, like, chaos and crime and all of these things.
21:01And what I hope people understand is what I know that those of us in this room know
21:06and that what the trailer so beautifully articulates is that everything broke, right?
21:12The levees broke.
21:14The systems that were supposed to support and care for people broke.
21:17The people did not break, right?
21:20That's right.
21:21And there was every reason to, right, in a circumstance like this for people to just, like, lose it.
21:26And, like, that is not what happened.
21:28And so to me, I just hope people understand how remarkable and extraordinary it was that in these circumstances
21:36that were dehumanizing the people did not lose their humanity of this city.
21:42And I know that resilience is a word that people get tired of here in New Orleans because this sort of idea that you must survive all things and endure all hardships is, like, people get tired of that, right?
21:53And also, there's just something special and extraordinary about the way that people handled this with grace, with faith, these ties of kinship and community
22:05that although people were displaced from their physical neighborhoods and homes, those ties stayed strong.
22:10People kept in community with one another wherever you were.
22:14If you were in the Superdome, if you were on the interstate, if you were in the attic of your home, wherever it was, people maintained the thing that makes New Orleans so special,
22:24which are these close ties and kinship and community.
22:26And I think that we did a good job of making that very clear.
22:30And so that's, if anything else, I hope that's what viewers take away from this.
22:34Beautiful, beautiful.
22:35Yes.
22:37Thank you, Tracy.
22:39Well, thank you so much, Lucretia, Ms. Lynette, Tracy, and Shelton.
22:44To see the full series of Nat Geo's Hurricane Katrina Race Against Time, be sure to tune in to the series,
22:50premiering on Nat Geo July 27th at 8, 7 Central, with three back-to-back episodes, and on July 28th,
22:56when all episodes will be available to stream on Disney Plus and Hulu.
23:00Please show love to all the panelists and make sure you watch the documentary.
23:05Thank you, everyone.
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