Product Description

America and the world were stunned in August 2005 as Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed New Orleans. Shocking images seared the national consciousness: a city under water; entire families pulled from holes chopped in rooftops; children begging for water outside the convention center; hundreds of people waiting for days in hundred-degree heat alongside an interstate for buses that seemed never to arrive. To grasp how Katrina could happen in twenty-first-century America, you have to understand the untold backstory of the catastrophe, from New Orleans’s centuries-long flirtation with disaster, to the heroic attempts by a handful of local scientists and officials to sound warning bells, to the ignorant and misguided decisions by politicians, bureaucrats, and engineers that set the stage for the catastrophe. In PATH OF DESTRUCTION: The Devastation of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms (Little, Brown and Company; August 16, 2006; $25.99), John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, give a full account of the storm and the dreadful inadequacies that existed prior to 2005, an indictment of the officials at all levels who failed to act, and a scientific investigation into why these huge storms have only just begun.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #683749 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

About the Author
John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein wrote the New Orleans Times-Picayune's award-winning series 'Washing Away,' the definitive account of the Gulf Coast's grave hurricane risks. They were also the lead reporters on a series about global fisheries that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1997. Schleifstein abandoned his Lakeview home in the flood but remains in the New Orleans area.

Customer Reviews

I second that WOW!
This is an amazing book, a real page turner. I lived in Louisiana for eight years, and the book really captures a lot of the history, the culture and the realities that led up to the tragedy that befell my beloved former home on my birthday last year.

The narrative is riveting without insulting the intelligence of the reader.

The tragedy of Katrina began many years earlier, and this book helps place events in context. Fully a third of the book recounts history prior to the first raindrops hitting Louisiana.

The book steers a nice balance. It is deep enough to illuminate the political, economic and engineering factors that created the mess, but not so dry as to make it stuffy. It really presents a compelling case study in public policy and illustrates how important geography is to understanding our future.

It is clear that the authors' familiarity with the subject going back several years helped with the background portion of the book. These guys really know this stuff.

This should be a model for a popular account of a major event.

I know that some people may be unhappy that the book skirts over material supporting the second half of the title ("Coming Age of Superstorms") and others may object to any discussion of that topic, but I think that the authors do a good job placing their argument within the framework of mainstream thinking about climate change.

My only complaint is that I wish that there were more maps.

Wow!
I was amazed at how much information was included in this book -- broad historical perspective, day-by-day, hour-by-hour accounts of the days immediately following the storm -- both what was happening in New Orleans and what was happening in Washington, plus scientific background on how hurricanes form. I highly recommend it!

Thoughtful, Informative and Readable
Path of Destruction provides an in-depth background to the geographic, technical and political contributions to the Katrina disaster. It describes the natural challenges of settling on the active Mississippi delta, the innately human bone-headed attempts to protect settlements on an increasingly vulnerable marshland, and the classic political forces (farces?) over the centuries that made problems worse, and it does it all in a very readable way.

I grew up in New Orleans, and visit family there often, so I thought I understood the growing threat from hurricanes, yet McQuaid and Schleifstein filled in the gaps, and corrected common misconceptions; it is impressively well researched. (The horrendous tale of the response to the great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 alone is worth the price of admission.)

This is what I would call a "crossover book": Even if you're sick of hearing about Katrina-this and New Orleans-that, this book is interesting and readable enough to earn space on your "classic studies of human behavior" bookshelf.