In keeping with our commemoration of the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, here's another book to add to your reading list :

Brinkley : A day earlier, the name "Katrina" had conjured whimsical images of a Gaelic ballad or a Vegas cocktail waitress. A close friend of mine, in fact, was named Katrina. There was no menace in the echo. Perhaps if the storm had been named "Genghis Khan" or "Attila the Hun" or "Caligula," I would have fled. But now, as the raging Mississippi frothed with primal madness, gushing around Algiers Bend, ripping open the huge riverfront warehouses where Mardi Gras floats were stored, it was clear that Katrina was no mere hurricane or flood. It was destined to be known as "the Great Deluge" in the annals of American history. Read on...

NPR has an interview with Douglas Brinkley in their archives, speaking of gathering the oral histories that helped make up The Great Deluge. The Great Deluge Oral History Project is still collecting oral histories of Katrina survivors.