Big Easy to Big Empty: The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans
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DVD Cover Information
Artist: Greg PalastDVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 30 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-06-05
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Disinformation
Movie Reviews of Big Easy to Big Empty: The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans
Movie Review: What you didn't know, but should, about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina
Summary: 4 Stars
This story is filmed at the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in August of 2006 and it explores 3 basic themes in its short run. It begins with a look at the evacuation of New Orleans and continues on to why the massive flooding occurred the way it did and eventually ends up investigating why previous residents don't return home.
Much of this material was not reported by mainstream media and was kept quiet by the government for reasons that will become very clear shortly. Starting off with evacuation, the Bush administration hired a private contractor, Innovative Emergency Management (IEM), to accomplish the planning of evacuating New Orleans of which they were paid a half a million dollars. Due to their substandard efforts, approximately 127,000 people were left behind and many died in the ensuing storm and floods. Greg Palast actually goes to the IEM headquarters in Baton Rouge and finds that no evidence of an evacuation plan really existed and gets no cooperation or answers from company executives. Upon further research, he does find that IEM makes large donations to the Republican Party though. From the words of a former city councilman of New Orleans in this segment, two words describe this entire mess rather distinctly - `Reckless Negligence'.
Taking a close look at the flooding of New Orleans and the poor levee situation reveals some interesting and disturbing information also. When Greg Palast visited the Louisiana State University (they have some of the best hurricane experts in the nation), he talked to a weather expert there that created a superior evacuation plan that FEMA and Washington refused to look at before it was too late. He also determined that, long before the hurricane hit, the levee height was too low and they would probably fail altogether in a major storm. Again, the government turned a blind eye. And finally, FEMA waited until long after the levees collapsed to notify the New Orleans emergency operations center.
The third portion of this story may end up being the most inflammatory of all due to its sinister implications. Upon returning to New Orleans, many residents arrived at their former apartment buildings to find the doors and windows sealed with metal plates and some were even warned off the premises by law enforcement officials. Mind you, these are dwellings that were never touched by storm water or flooding and many of them are still in pristine condition. The fact of the matter is this - these residences are on prime real estate property between the downtown New Orleans business district and the French Quarter. It seems that for years, the city and speculators wanted these people out of this area and Hurricane Katrina was the excuse they needed. For all intents and purposes, it appears that someone wants to transform the climate of New Orleans to a degree that will benefit some but will eventually end up hurting many more.
`Big Easy to Big Empty', although too short in my opinion, is a thought provoking and disquieting documentary for the most part. Even though there isn't any debate or counter-point shown from the government's side, you wonder if it is really needed knowing their lackluster efforts in helping people after this disaster occurred. Furthermore, it seems that Greg Palast may have been right on the money with all this information here and he was starting to make Washington nervous. So much so that after the first broadcast of this film, the Department of Homeland Security tried to file a criminal complaint against him in the form of `filming critical infrastructure' but the charge was later dropped. It really makes you wonder.
Summary of Big Easy to Big Empty: The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans
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