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" After Katrina devastated his hometown, Douglas Brinkley was not content resting safely in Houston. Leaving his wife and two toddlers on dry Texas land, the Tulane University history professor returned to New Orleans to become part of the rapidly forming civilian rescue effort. He and his compatriots launched into the floodwaters to help whomever they could, wherever they could. His book, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, chronicles the disaster and its aftermath. As a citizen of New Orleans, what was the hardest sight to see? The floodwaters around us as we were on rescue missions were just filled with bloated corpses. You had to take your paddle and just push them away. But we didn&amp;#039;t know what to do with the dead because we had to prioritize the living. It left me with a grim and painful visual that I carry in my head and can&amp;#039;t get rid of. Was there a sense of camaraderie among the stranded residents and the rescue workers? Yes. The people who remained in the bowl of New Orleans had to become first responders after the storm. There was no Federal Calvary coming, so waiters, mechanics, teachers, laborers, dishwashers - average Joes - became action heroes. They went into poisoned floodwaters, not worried about their own lives, and rescued people with Alzheimer&amp;#039;s, dementia, asthma, blindness and on and on. In addition to the Coast Guard and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, these people were rescued by and large by a group I call the NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana) Homeboys. Why did you come back to New Orleans? I couldn&amp;#039;t stand seeing the images on CNN of my neighbors in despair and dying. When it was clear that there were no FEMA buses emptying the Superdome, and that there was no Red Cross in New Orleans, it was necessary that regular people quickly got in to try and help. When you live in New Orleans, you have the advantage of knowing the geography and the areas that would flood the worst. Sure enough, I&amp;#039;d head to those areas and there&amp;#039;d already be an impromptu boat launch to go save people. What do you want to see happen to help New Orleans better survive intense hurricanes? I want to see levees built for Category 5 storms. I want to see a public works project that&amp;#039;s backed with energy and money, like the Dutch did when saving their land from the seas. We need to have a sense of security. New Orleans is a gem of America-it&amp;#039;s a great architectural and cultural Mecca and we need to protect it. Only Category 5 levees will do. Patchwork Category 3s are just another leeway to disaster.  Do you see a long-term disaster preparedness education helping? I think so. Post-Katrina, I think you&amp;#039;ll find people evacuating much quicker when they see storms brewing around the Gulf Coast. I think they&amp;#039;ll recognize a Category 3 storm as being a killer, not just something you can button down the hatch and wait out. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a1974/4219891/>