Big Easy to Big Empty

Subtitled “The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans,” muckraking investigative reporter Greg Palast's short but hard-hitting Big Easy to Big Empty visits the forgotten city on the eve of the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, where he finds more obstruction than reconstruction underway. In fact, only 170,000 of the half-million exiled New Orleans residents had returned at the time of filming (Palast interviews one woman who lived in an essentially unharmed project building, but is now barred from reentering her perfectly habitable domicile because—Palast argues—the property sits on prime real estate that the city has been trying to buy back for years). Palast interviews an LSU Hurricane Center official about the U.S. government's early knowledge that the levees had broke (which the Bush administration failed to share with local officials—reckless negligence that contributed to the drowning of scores of people); tries unsuccessfully to interview staff at I.E.M., a private contractor hired by the federal government to draft an evacuation plan; and surreptitiously films FEMA's giant trailer park situated in the middle of nowhere (residents can take a free bus that only goes to one destination: Wal-Mart). Despite government incompetence, Palast still finds individuals and organizations, such as the Common Ground Collective, committed to stopping the political machine from turning New Orleans into “a whiter, more Republican tourist town—‘Six Flags Over Louisiana'.” While Palast (the author of Armed Madhouse) is unquestionably a liberal provocateur, this is a sobering report (and a pretty persuasive one for those who attended ALA's annual conference in the city in 2006). DVD extras include a half-hour interview with Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman, extended interview clips, and a booklet featuring an essay by Palast. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)