The Daily Campus

Issue date: 3/4/09 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Kevin McQuade Valen Diaz, a 3rd-semester individualized health inequalities major, mediates a discussion on the ineffective response following a documentary about the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

"I ain't go to church," said Kimberly Roberts as she prepared to weather the worst of Hurricane Katrina. "But I pray."

Weeks later, there may have been no church to go to - but Roberts kept her faith.

That spiritual courage was one of the great engines that drove "Trouble the Water," an Oscar-nominated documentary about Hurricane Katrina's landfall and aftermath shown in the Student Union theater last night. Hosted by the Honors Council, the viewing aimed to promote awareness about the situation in New Orleans, along with raising money for the group's alternative Spring Break trip to the city.

"From talking to people, asking 'Where are you going for spring break?' I don't think anyone has any clue of what happened in 2005, let alone what's happened since then," said Kathleen Carey, a 3rd-semester animal science major.

The documentary tells the story of Roberts and her husband, who joined a group of their ninth Ward neighbors to survive the worst that nature and an unresponsive government can throw at them. Blending video taped by Roberts herself with news segments and variety footage put a powerful human face on a disaster that, for many Americans, has been a numbers game.

"Having your entire world completely devastated [is unimaginable]," said Caroline Roji, a 2nd-semester physiology and neurobiology major. "Before the showing, the impression I had was that, you know, you lose your possessions, but for them it's completely alien. It's another world."

Mingled with this humanity was a scathing look at the government response to the disaster.

For Shanado Williams, a 2nd-semester biology major, the documentary's depiction of "big brother" was sobering. "Trouble" shows FEMA aid checks being lost in a network of bureaucracy, helpless emergency dispatchers and military troops barring homeless citizens from warm beds.

"Government is up here in the beginning, but during a disaster, they're down [low]," said Williams. "You can't rely on the government."

The film equipped students with a powerful flip side to this depressing coin: a humbling sense of perspective and duty. In the discussion after the showing, many students felt awed by the courage of Roberts and her compatriots.

"I'd take away a lot more humility [from the showing]," Carey said. "We may think we're somehow better [than others], but there's no way to say we'd be able to do what [the Katrina survivors] did, for ourselves and for our neighbors. Money and good grades can't prove that."

This is the second year for the Honors Council's alternative Spring Break trip, which is open to Honors and non-Honors students alike. Despite the program's relative youth, over 50 students are already making the trek, said Valen Diaz, a 4th-semester individualized major in health disparities, who facilitated the discussion.

Diaz added that students will work to rebuild parks and playgrounds on the trip.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools