Educational Media Reviews Online

Saints Rising explores the lingering impact of Hurricane Katrina on multiple aspects of life in New Orleans—the mental health of children and adults, community relations, housing, jobs, homelessness. The storm and subsequent levee failure exposed the full panoply of urban issues plaguing American cities only to be followed by the disastrous failure of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide relief for the victims. The children suffer from PTSD, anger management issues and depression; they saw and heard sights that no child should ever have seen or heard.

Common Ground Relief, a local grass roots non-profit manages to fund medical and pro bono legal clinics as well as food relief, and repairing and rebuilding assistance all without any government assistance. The legal assistance is of particular importance since the city and parish passed ordinances requiring that property be cleaned up and yards maintained. Those properties deemed derelict are condemned and slated for demolition, yet often the owners don’t receive notification. Many of the city’s residents perceive this process as an intentional land grab.

Sakua Kone, spokesman for Common Ground Relief, insists there is, “no need for any disaster to turn into a tragedy.” Unfortunately that’s exactly what happened in the aftermath of Katrina. Using footage of storm damage and interviews with a broad sampling of the city’s people, Saints Rising proves an excellent over view of the myriad problems arising out of the levee failure and subsequent botched relief efforts. Recommended for all collections.