{"id":44951,"date":"2022-08-14T09:29:03","date_gmt":"2022-08-14T09:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/a-tale-of-hurricane-katrina-hell\/"},"modified":"2022-08-14T09:29:03","modified_gmt":"2022-08-14T09:29:03","slug":"a-tale-of-hurricane-katrina-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/a-tale-of-hurricane-katrina-hell\/","title":{"rendered":"A tale of Hurricane Katrina hell"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"\">\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\">Did Dr.  Anna Pou, a surgeon at what was then known as Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, get \u201cSully\u201d-ed?  Was she a valiant physician undeserving of attacks on her ethical character and crisis management?  Or, in the cruel aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, did she cross every known ethical, medical and legal line?<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\">\u201cFive Days at Memorial,\u201d the eight-part limited series now streaming on Apple TV+, dramatizes many more questions and real-life characters.  The series unfolds against a larger maelstrom of gutless mismanagement and abdication of responsibility on the federal, state and city levels in the wake of Katrina.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\">The floodwaters that breached the levees left so many, betrayed and isolated, to die.  What happened in this particular building \u2014 45 corpses were found days later in the hospital chapel \u2014 is both a lament and a warning to those who will face the next Category 5 hurricane.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\">Warning: While often gripping, the series, covering a nearly two-year time span, is <i>note<\/i> the propulsive \u201cER\u201d-style experience promised by the trailer.  The first five episodes, broken down neatly by Day One, Day Two etc., constitute a stark drama of waiting.  Waiting for floodwaters to receive;  for power and hope to be restored;  for private health care administrators to do the right thing.<\/p>\n<div data-id=\"social-embed-youtube\" class=\"oembed-response-alignment flex flex_justify_center\">\n<div class=\"embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9 block-margin-bottom\">\n<div>\n<p><div class=\"ast-oembed-container\" style=\"height: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Five Days at Memorial \u2014 Official Trailer | Apple TV+\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Az81r01YwLw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\">The final three episodes shift gears into the story of how Louisiana Department of Justice officials investigated the events involving Dr.  Pou, played by top-billed Vera Farmiga, and her colleagues under barely imaginable duress.  What makes \u201cFive Days at Memorial\u201d worth seeing, in a cold-creeps way, is its emphasis not on nobility or venality but everything in between.  Series creators, writers and (splitting the first five episodes) directors John Ridley and Carlton Cuse aren&#8217;t trying to do \u201cKatrina: The Limited Series.\u201d  They use Memorial as a metaphor for the entire Katrina tragedy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\">The series is based on Sheri Fink&#8217;s 2013 book \u201cFive Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital.\u201d  (The hospital is now the Ochsner Baptist Medical Center.) Ridley and Cuse make the necessary character intros speedily and well in episode one.  With the hurricane six hours away, Pou is planning for an inconvenience of \u201cthree days at the most.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\">On the upper floors of Memorial, a separate, for-profit hospital, LifeCare, is overseen by the very pregnant Diane Robichaux (Julie Ann Emery).  Cherry Jones, splendidly honest and dimensionally moving as always, portrays her Memorial counterpart, Susan Mulderick.  They&#8217;re nominally in charge of disaster preparedness.  At one eerie point in \u201cFive Days at Memorial,\u201d Mulderick desperately flips through a manual, searching for the hurricane scenario that does not exist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\">The storm hits, the floodwaters rise and then, on Day Two, prescription.  But then the levees give way, and conditions become a nightmare.  The long-delayed helicopter rescues of patients require many flights of stairs inside the building (the power&#8217;s out) and then, on the roof, two sets of rickety metal stairways up to a helipad that has not been used in nearly two decades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\">Other key characters, notably Pou&#8217;s colleague  Bryant King (Cornelius Smith Jr.) and registered nurse Karen Wynn (Adepero Oduye), become the viewer&#8217;s eyes and ears.  As \u201cFive Days at Memorial\u201d proceeds, the conditions of those stranded in a sweltering, malfunctioning hospital mirror what&#8217;s happening mostly off camera.<\/p>\n<div class=\"figContainer\">\n<figure class=\"image__FigureImage-sc-1w1bxrn-0 figImage \"><picture class=\"Image__StyledPicture-sc-8yioqf-0 iKCNis\"><source srcset=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/resizer\/tCvNdmJYEW-UGarZKmzMEYdfGzY=\/1440x0\/filters:format(jpg):quality(70)\/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com\/tronc\/66LJKVHJRZDYXCCHPLVTUA3ICI.jpg\" media=\"screen and (min-width: 992px)\"\/><source srcset=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/resizer\/0bB00xodWum1VjYfKKMk6qVxy8s=\/1024x0\/filters:format(jpg):quality(70)\/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com\/tronc\/66LJKVHJRZDYXCCHPLVTUA3ICI.jpg\" media=\"screen and (min-width: 768px)\"\/><source srcset=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/resizer\/wWqLYjDs0gneO6X7M4U6XneG9Tw=\/768x0\/filters:format(jpg):quality(70)\/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com\/tronc\/66LJKVHJRZDYXCCHPLVTUA3ICI.jpg\" media=\"screen and (min-width: 0px)\"\/><\/picture><figcaption class=\"figCap_\">\n<p class=\"ImageMetadata__MetadataParagraph-sc-1gn0vty-0 hdnmjV image-metadata\"><span>Adepero Oduye and Cherry Jones costar in &#8220;Five Days at Memorial,&#8221; the limited series premiering Aug.  12 ten Apple TV Plus.<br \/>\n <\/span>(Russ Martin \/ HANDOUT)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\">Though hardly the fault of Wendey Stanzler, who directed episodes six, seven and eight, the series as written morphs into a very different affair after episode five.  An assistant Attorney General Arthur \u201cButch\u201d Schafer (Michael Gaston, excellent) and his Medicaid Fraud Unit colleague Virginia Rider (Molly Hager) learn that some patients did not die of natural causes.  At this point \u201cFive Days at Memorial\u201d goes into full legal procedural, with a simple mystery to be solved, centered mostly on Pou&#8217;s actions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\">These later episodes of \u201cFive Days at Memorial\u201d favor spooky, vaguely Expressionistic flashbacks where we learn what really went down.  They&#8217;re a bit much.  Now and then, the series blows its budgetary wad on conspicuous digital depictions of horrific destruction, including the roof blowing off the Louisiana Superdome.  These tactics have a way of distancing, rather than intensifying, the human drama Ridley and Cuse achieve successfully elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\">\u201cCorporate is doing everything they can,\u201d Mulderick reassures a colleague at one point, and the way Jones murmurs that line, you hear tiny warning bells of despair.  What an actress!  So is Farmiga, who does everything she can to complicate her character&#8217;s motivations and actions, even when the series makes up its mind about Dr.  Pou so we don&#8217;t have to.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\"><b>\u201cFive Days at Memorial\u201d \u2014 3 stars (out of 4)<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\">Content rating: TV-MA (language, thematic elements)<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\">Running time: Eight episodes, approximately seven hours total<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\">How to watch: Premieres Aug.  12 ten Apple TV Plus<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\"><i>Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\"><b>mjphillips@chicagotribune.com<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\"><i>twitter<\/i> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com@phillipstribune\/\" target=\"_blank\"><b>@phillipstribune<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 fxgoSg body-paragraph\"><i><b>Big screen or home stream, takeout or dine-in, Tribune writers are here to steer you toward your next great experience.  Sign up for your free weekly Eat.  watch.  Do.  newsletter <\/b><\/i><i><b>here<\/b><\/i><i><b>.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Did Dr. Anna Pou, a surgeon at what was then known as Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, get \u201cSully\u201d-ed? Was she a valiant physician undeserving of attacks on her ethical character and crisis management? Or, in the cruel aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, did she cross every known ethical, medical and legal line? \u201cFive Days &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/a-tale-of-hurricane-katrina-hell\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A tale of Hurricane Katrina hell<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":43250,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/five-days-at-memorial-tells-the-harrowing-story-of-a-deadly-choice\/","url_meta":{"origin":44951,"position":0},"title":"&#8216;Five Days at Memorial&#8217; Tells the Harrowing Story of a Deadly Choice","date":"August 12, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"It was tense and sweaty on the set of \u201cFive Days at Memorial,\u201d the new Apple TV+ limited series about systemic and personal failure at a New Orleans hospital in the days after Hurricane Katrina. 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