Eyes of the Storm: Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: The Photographic Story

by Dallas Morning News

Book Overview

The Dallas Morning News had more staff photographers on the scene when Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast at the end of August. These Pulitzer Prize-winning photographers caught every aspect of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1589793595
• ISBN13: 9781589793590
• Release Date: December 2005
• Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 10.0" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

The Ring (and Sting) of Truth

I was shown this book today, by a woman who survived 10 days in the attic of her flooded home in New Orleans after the levy broke. As we leafed through the book together, tears rolled down her face. Pointing to the photos, she occasionally remarked, "This man was my neighbor," or "See her? That's my friend." She recounted horror after horror that she had endured, even wondering if those dogs in the picture were the same ones she saw gathered around a man's body--they weren't just inspecting it. My friend stayed in her house because she refused to leave her pets--a dog, birds, and fish--behind, and it almost cost her own life. Her photo appears in the book too. She looks like she's flashing the finger, but she was, in fact, holding it up to a medic so he could take a sample of blood after she had the first of two heart attacks in the storm's aftermath. She might as well be flashing it, though. She has nothing good whatsoever to say about the way the Bush government handled the crisis. I can't judge whether a book captures the reality of a situation unless I've been there myself. She lived through Katrina and the flood, though, and she says this book shows exactly the way it was. I believe her.

eyes of the storm

A very rich and rewarding experience of viewing behind the scenes of a vast tragedy. Disappointed in sparse comments.

Eyes of the Storm, a review by Deborah Kossich, Fort Dearborn-Chicago Photo Forum

"Oh, the humanity, the humanity!" Herb Morrison, a newscaster for radio station WLS who was covering the arrival of the German airship Hindenburg as it docked at Lakehurst, NJ in 1937, wailed those famous words as the dirigible exploded and was consumed by flames within minutes. Morrison made no attempt to conceal his shock and horror at the tragedy unfolding right before his eyes. I can't help but wonder how Mr. Morrison would have reacted had he witnessed the nightmare that occurred in New Orleans and the surrounding environs in the late summer of 2005. Eyes of the Storm, a book of images made by the staff of The Dallas Morning News, tells an epic tale of shock and horror, hope and caring, survival and ultimate triumph in pictures so poignant and powerful that additional comment is all but superfluous. Shock and Horror It all started innocently enough, in the usual manner of tropical systems. A wave of wind far out in the mid-Atlantic coalesced into a slowly swirling depression and strengthened into a tropical storm that was given the name Katrina. Predictions were that Katrina would reach Category-1 strength, as defined by the Saffer-Simpson scale, with rotating winds in the 74-95 mph range and probably lose steam as it crossed Florida. But apparently no one told Katrina. After emerging into the Gulf of Mexico, the storm exploded almost literally overnight, briefly reaching Category-5 status (winds 155+ mph), easily the most powerful storm of the young century, taking dead aim at New Orleans! And the nightmare was just beginning, for three weeks later Hurricane Rita, taking nearly the same track as Katrina, struck the Texas border, just to the west. Songs of Sorrow August 29, 2005, high noon local time. Katrina has roared inland after coming ashore earlier in the day, devastating the Gulf coast from Mississippi to the Texas border and effectively turning New Orleans into an arm of Lake Ponchartrain. If any image from the immediate aftermath of Katrina's rampage can be called iconic, it's the one on page 19. A classic composition puts a man in a red shirt, clinging to the roof of his home, squarely in the viewer's face. An in an almost laughably ironic comment on modern technology's effectiveness - or lack thereof - in the face of Nature's wrath, a satellite dish perches on the house next door, in the opposite corner of the frame. "Almost, thy plausibility/Induces my belief." From Indian Summer, a poem by Emily Dickinson, this line is the perfect epigram to an image spread across pages 24 and 25, showing what appears to be a collection of tiny rectangular tiles, laid out as if to be placed in a mosaic. But look more closely. Do you see the flood waters? Can you see what those "tiles" really are - not tiles at all, but the roofs of homes in a flooded neighborhood? On page 53, in Gulfport, MS, a lonely wheelchair washed up on the beach makes me wonder what happened to its owner. It also makes me wonder what my own wheelchair

Eyes of the Storm: The Story in Pictures of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

Excellent review and awesome pictures of the destruction that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita left. Some are very graphic. Very emotional.