A (4:08)

At the time, I was a producer, I was a reporter at msnbc. I was an anchor. And they had this saying called, you better have your iron pants on because you were gonna be on the air for hours and hours and hours. And at the time they didn't have that many black reporters. And so you were in the chair and they just wanted you to talk to people who were at the Superdome. Talk to reporters who were at the Superdome. And the more, and the more you heard, yeah. The worse and worse it got, the.

B (4:36)

Worse and worse it got. And thank you for that. You know, even just doing the radio thon, we didn't want to stop. It got to a point where because you just feel like you want to be there for these people. Like you said, once people start telling the stories, they don't want to stop. I'm in New Orleans today. And we, we saw. I came into New Orleans. I went into New Orleans, sorry, two days ago. And when I got there, the doorman said, are you from the Katrina project? And he just thanked me so much. I was like, well, one, how did he know? Two, you know, he was just so grateful. And he started telling his story. I lost my, both of my parents. You know, he told his name, where he's from, because, you know, in New Orleans, it's like New York. We always say our borough or our neighborhood. He said what ward he was from. And it was just so moving. And you just realize like you said, it's so important that we tell these stories and bear witness and elevate these people and what they've been through, especially at a time like this.

A (5:40)

Now that you're a filmmaker, what questions did you have about Katrina and the aftermath that you wanted to see answered in this documentary?

B (5:50)

Yeah, you know, 20 years later, we have a lot of language that we didn't have before. Right. Just common vernacular. So social justice. Right. In a post BLM world, Black Lives Matter. In a post George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, we have the saying say their names. So it was really important for us this go around to make sure that we were talking about the things that we now really use the vocabulary for. Systemic racism, systemic neglect, making sure for us it was really important that we ask people about their personal experience, but also how they felt about the treatment that they received or didn't receive from the government.

A (6:47)

Let's take a couple of calls. Let's talk to Elizabeth from Yonkers. Hi, Elizabeth, thank you for making the time to call, all of it.

D (6:55)

Oh, thank you so much. I love your show. Thanks for taking my call.

A (7:00)

Tell us about your experience.

D (7:02)

Yeah, so I live in Yonkers, so I was a national disaster responder with the American Red Cross and was deployed for 19 days right after Katrina hit to Louisiana. And as we drove from Baton Rouge into the really country in Louisiana, I noticed that I was in the car with people who had very different political views than I did. I'm very liberal and progressive and I thought, well, I have to work with these people. And we talked about it and we work together so well. So well. And it is the last time I remember people working with people from different political backgrounds and views with the common good of our fellow Americans in mind. And I also just wanted to say one of them, I'm originally from the south and one of them was from the Midwest and said years ago that racism existed anymore. And I didn't say anything. But let me tell you what she learned and it brought her to tears and that was really something to witness, you know, it really was. So I just wanted to call in about that.

C (8:27)

Thank you so much for calling, Elizabeth. Let's talk to Jonathan who is calling from Brooklyn.

A (8:33)

Hi, Jonathan, you're on the air.

E (8:35)

Hi. Yeah, that last call was amazing. Thank you for sharing that. Those. So I was studying at the time of Katrina, studying overseas in a graduate program. And it was quite surreal in that my classmates and teachers and friends could not believe what was happening, especially the ones who were local from that country, you know, they saw the news, they heard the stories, and they had had this image forever of America as this strong country with amazing infrastructure, leader of the free world, you know, protecting everyone. They were aghast. It was happening there. And I, I had no answers for them. I felt ashamed. And also, I think I grew up with this naivete that maybe a lot of people do, that our country will take care of us. We're going to be protected and sheltered. And it was just a devastating thing to see and experience and then also be put on the spot, really, to have to try to defend my country when I certainly didn't support the administration at the time or their response or failed response to the disaster.

C (9:41)

Jonathan, thank you for your comment, Lisa. That's a big part of the documentary, how our country responded on the federal, on the local level. The governor didn't get along with the mayor, and then the president was even available at first. Tell us a little bit about what you uncovered with 20 years of hindsight.

B (10:04)

Yeah. So, you know, it's, it's really interesting. General Honore says it best, you know, he who takes response, he who calls a disaster. Right. Takes a responsibility. So if the local, if the mayor says it's a disaster and we so it's his responsibility. If the governor says it's a national disaster, then it's her responsibility. If the president says so, everybody says, listen to your local, your, your state or your federal government. It's really interesting for us, you know, 20 years later, it's the thing about it is that you realize how much bureaucracy affects people and what we were able to at the end of the day, there is a social contract and the government is supposed to work for her people. And when that fails, we are all, whether we're in the area or not, we're disadvantaged. And so it was so important for us to highlight that, because there is all of these narratives about people maybe not looting and doing things and not holding their part of the social contract up, but then you don't want to hold the government responsible. And it was really important in this time for us to say that we need to question the government and we need to expect the government to, as Elizabeth, the caller before said, to work for everyone. Everybody is supposed to work together. Right. In a national disaster. And as we're seeing more and more, it's important for us to make sure that as we're talking about FEMA being dismantled, possibly that the government is doing the right thing, because at the time they were bungling Katrina and we have not learned those lessons. Right. We have someone that is the head of fema, that is an interim person that doesn't have the qualifications. And so if we don't learn this, these lessons, we repeat them.

C (12:06)

We're discussing the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. My guest is Elisa Payne, producer and showrunner of the new documentary series Katrina Come Hell and High Water. It's three episodes. I encourage you to watch all three. One of the things I found interesting, which I didn't know, is that there was a preparedness, a model on a fake hurricane called Pam hitting New Orleans. Tell us a little bit about it and what was learned from it and then I guess what was forgotten by learning from it.

B (12:40)

So a year before, almost to the calendar day, FEMA and the Corps of Engineers did a study, they did assimilation, where they modeled winds of over 100 miles per hour and they did flood simulation, et cetera, in Hurricane Pam. And they said that the levees that were built were only able to withstand a hurricane that was a category three. And so knowing this and knowing that, and also they weren't built so when they could only take a 16 foot storm surge. Right. So if flooding was going to happen, anything above 16ft was going to flood into the city. And so knowing that, and knowing that, anything that if there was going to be a Category 4 or 5 hurricane, that you needed higher flood walls, you needed a plan. Knowing all of this, knowing that it would be catastrophic, knowing that the people at LSU Hurricane center said like we will not be able to sustain even maybe a category three, you know, they still did not make upgrades to the flood walls and they still did not create measures to make sure that if a Category 5 had happened that we'd be able to get the majority of the people out and we wouldn't have the man made disaster that was Katrina. And you know, it's one of those things where maybe if you don't live in a hurricane zone, you don't think it's important. But being that they are in a hurricane zone, having that free intel, having that intel before means that they should have acted on it because they know how much, how many hurricanes they have gotten in the past and how frequent they are.

A (14:35)

There was the Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and people remember it. That did play an issue on whether people decided to stay or go.

B (14:44)

Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean Ivan, it was so Betsy was in, in the 60s, but Ivan happened the year before. And, and Shakespeare talks a lot about it. You know, he says the year before they evacuated a lot of people evacuated because it's not, think about it, evacuate. Right. It's hard to evacuate. It's costly. You know, they have to, there has to be some type of system to say who evacuates when, etc. So you're paying all this money, you're boarding up, you're boarding up your house, you're finding a place to go, you're spending for travel, etc. And the hurricane Ivan the year before did not hit them the way that they thought it was. So as Shakespeare said, a lot of people may have been, their judgment may have been clouded by that, but I, you know, they also were not given the mandatory evacuation in time. You, you know, if you are told 36 hours, if everybody is told in this low lying area that they evacuate 36 hours before, you can't get hundreds of thousands of people out in time. It's the, the highways are going to be like what we saw. The interstate is going to be like what we saw. It was back, you know, wall to wall, a parking lot. And so, and, and then as we all know, gas, that doesn't be, everyone's gassing up, there's no gas available. It just becomes a situation that is, you know, is untenable.

C (16:14)

We're talking about the new documentary series.

A (16:16)

Katrina Come Hell and High Water. It's on Netflix. I'm speaking with producer and showrunner Elisa Payne. Listeners, we want to hear your stories as we mark the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Are you a resident of New Orleans? Did you have friends who were give us a call. 2124-3396-9221-2433.

C (16:37)

WNYC. We'll be right back after a quick break. You're listening to all of it on wnyc.

A (16:52)

I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is producer and showrunner Elisa Payne. We're talking about the new documentary, excuse me, Katrina Come Hell and High Water. It's on Netflix now. You have Wendell Pierce is in this. You have the former New York New Orleans mayor Marc Morial. You have a lot of bold face names, but you also talk to people who lived through it and you talk especially to people who were little kids at the time. What perspective did you want to bring to the story now that they are, they themselves are adults.

B (17:25)

Yeah. It's so interesting. So you start to make this project and of course because our team members, Spike Lee, Sam Pollard, our other producer on this, Geeta Gandabeer, the episode one producer of director had worked on when the Levies Broke and God willing and the Creek don't rise, if God's willing, and the creek don't rise. We wanted to bring back some of the participants that they had had before. While we're filming them, some people behind the scenes, our crew members, one in particular, our production assistant, Tony Landry, starts to tell me behind the scenes her story. And I look at her, and she's a young woman, right about. About 31 now. And I say to her, toni, people need to hear from you. Would you be willing to talk? And she says, well, only if I could bring my mom on. And so she brings her mother on because she needs that support. And then we find out that there's this harrowing story of their family. And then on the other side, their cousin and grandmother was. Was separated from them. And that young man, her cousin Greg, is telling his story. And what we realized was that the young people were holding in so much and seeing these adults really stressed out and not wanting to add to it. And also in their young minds, trying to figure out in all of it, we have Leanne Williams, who was 13 at the time, and she says in the piece her daughter is now the same age. She came, we did a screening for the participants, and she now is 35. And she came and said, I had been holding it in for 20 years, and this has been part of my healing. This has healed me because I get to tell my story. And so we see these young people who grew up in this culturally rich place and were having this idyllic life, not because they had a lot of possessions, just because they had community and culture and generational family, you know, with them. And this catastrophe splits them, splits them up from all of that. And they have been permanently changed. But they want to tell their story because unfortunately, at the time, we weren't really listening, listening to the children, you know, we. We weren't thinking about it. We weren't thinking of a lot. But, you know, so to give them that outlet and to see all that they have become despite and in spite of, I'm just so proud of them.

A (20:11)

You spoke to Soledad o', Brien, who was.

C (20:14)

Worked for CNN at the time, and.

A (20:17)

She has since become outspoken about how the media has. Has done wrong, among other things. What insight did she prove and does she have any regrets about the coverage?

B (20:29)

So, yeah, so Soledad was really great. I think when people say Elisa, well, what is there new about it? I'm always like, there are many revelations, but one of them was having Soledad, who is. Was CNN's darling. You know, she was a Media darling at the time. And she goes down to, she was covering it first in the studio, and then she goes down to New Orleans and she says, I was doing what everybody else was doing. You know, I was in the French Quarter not thinking about these people. It sounds ridiculous now, but these people were living on low lying land and we didn't think about them, that they would be flooded. She talks about the fact that the media was really biased and she did it too. So I think if there was a regret for her, it would be that. Right. So they talked about like looting and all of this stuff. And she covered. She covered this and using the word looting, which we say now is survival. I don't know, if I did not have food for four days, I would certainly be, you know, sometimes people say, oh, well, they took a television, I will take a television, a suitcase, whatever, because I'm using that as a bargaining chip. I don't know what that can get me. Right. So she covered the looting at first, but like, then she had a total360 where she was like, wait, no, this is not correct. And she started putting on air. Look at this coverage. And we put it in the piece. They're saying these black people are stealing, but the white people who are doing the exact same thing found bread and water to eat. But those people were looting. She also told us that, you know, there were people that were making up prominent news figures that were making up news and that her, you know, and they were covering it on other networks and they were saying, her bosses were saying, this person is reporting over here. You need to go there and do the same coverage. They're reporting rapes and these other things. And she would go there and couldn't substantiate it. And thank you to her and others like her for standing up.

C (22:39)

Let's talk to. I believe it is Alicia who is calling in from Brooklyn. Hi, Alicia, thank you for taking the time to call, all of it.

B (22:49)

Hi, good afternoon.

F (22:50)

I just want to say congratulations to the whole team who did this awesome Netflix documentary. I remember being here fresh out of college, watching that news coverage and just wanting to give whatever I could. I think I like sent like whatever they had on the list just for people to get need. So I just want to say this 20 years later, watching this doc, it's super touching, it's super amazing, and it really does highlight all the things that we now know 20 years later and still feel the effects of the people of New Orleans. So I just want to say congratulations. And I did have a Friend who was there and got a retreat from New Orleans before the hurricane hit. So, yes, thank you, Elisa, for doing this.

C (23:31)

Got you a little props there. Thank you for calling in. I don't want to take up. Explain the whole documentary, but the third part really talks about the rebuilding that is done, especially in the black areas, and about programs that seem to have the right spirit but gone terribly, terribly wrong. How would you describe the rebuilding? Was it meant for black people to be able to come back? What was your take?

B (24:06)

So Spike Lee worked on episode three, and I always say that, you know, episodes one and two really did a good job of bringing people up to speed, telling them about the piece, but. And making you feel. Being on the ground with our participants, making you feel really setting up the. The intentional neglect, the failures, the man made catastrophe that it was. So that by the time we get to episode three, you understand why Spike is so incensed and you understand why he is literally and figuratively yelling at you. So I. Yeah, Spike has taken episode three and did what Spike does best. He has. It's made. That episode is the wake up episode, as I call it.

A (25:05)

And why do you call it the wake up episode?

B (25:07)

Well, you know, he has that moment in school days where it's like, wake up, wake up. But it's. It's that he is yelling. He's literally taking the words of Marc Morial and saying, putting them on screen as graphics. He is talking back to the participants, and he is making sure that we hear. And he's emphasizing the words. Right? Like, so there are climate change deniers, and you have Russell Arnore, who everybody is so proud of, who everybody respects for what he does in Katrina. But when he says, you know, we now have a new war and it is on climate change, and Spike emphasizes that, you know, it's important. What after 20 years later, when we talked to Spike about which episode that he wanted to do, he was very clear that he wanted to do the 20 years later part. Right. He didn't want to do the other parts leading up to that. And when I asked him about it and he'd been about repeating some as he gives a little bit of a recap in the beginning, I said, well, you know, we're already doing that. I wanted to. And he said, elisa, I need to do that, because things have not changed for them for the better. Right. The residents. There's. There's not been a lot of positive change for black and brown people and poor people in these areas. And so we need to make sure that this episode is the way it is and it works.

A (26:43)

One of the things I found so interesting is after three hours, it ends on a poem, a woman giving a poem about the whole experience. Why did you want to end on poetry?

B (26:58)

Well, that's Spike's choice, and that's definitely, you know, Spike's creative, but yes, you know, it is. New Orleans is such a beautiful and in so many ways poetic place, Right? It is an artistic hub and visually and orally and sonically. And so it made sense to end on Phyllis saying how she felt 20 years later in this way. And. And it also started with a poem. And it really was great that it was a woman who ended it because there were so many people right before Calvin Mackey, who was Anthony Mackey's brother and a scientist, saying like her, right? Using female pronouns for New Orleans, as so many other people do. So it was. It was apropos that Phyllis was a woman saying all of these feelings of loss and grief 20 years later. And I am so proud to say that when we showed this piece to Phyllis after her being in two other documentaries about Katrina, she said that after 20 years and other projects, and seeing this work gave her her healing that she needed.

C (28:22)

The name of the documentary series is Katrina Come Hell and High Water.

A (28:29)

My guest has been producer and showrunner Elisa Payne.

C (28:32)

Thank you for your work. Really do appreciate it.

B (28:35)

Alison, thank you. Thank you so much. We really hope that your listeners go to see it. It's so important to spread these stories.

G (28:43)

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H (29:13)

This is Ira Flato, host of Science Friday. For over 30 years, the science Friday team has been reporting high quality science and technology news, making science fun for curious people by covering everything from the outer reaches of space to the rapidly changing world of AI to the tiniest microbes in our bodies. Audiences trust our show because they know we're driven by a mission to inform and serve listeners first and foremost with important news they won't get anywhere else. And our sponsors benefit from that halo effect. For more information on becoming a sponsor visit sponsorship wnyc. Org.