In DROWNED CITY, author and artist Don Brown takes on the tragic and controversial events that changed and destroyed the lives of thousands of New Orleans residents forever. On August 29, 2005, a devastating storm swept up New Orleans. It killed more than 1,400 people, and the ones it spared were left scarred and broken. As it does with all big storms, the National Hurricane Center gave this monstrous calamity a name: Katrina.

Katrina drowned and crushed thousands of citizens as the water rose up to 20 feet. The people of New Orleans screamed for help, but help did not come. Officials did not quickly respond to the suffering and it seemed like the support they needed had failed to arrive. Ordinary people who owned boats rescued as many people as they could until the National Guard finally came. People were not allowed to bring their pets onto the rescue vehicles, and the cats and dogs were left to starve. President George Bush merely watched from a plane as the chaos continued. 

"Every drawing was so beautiful and expressive that I couldn’t help but feel like I knew the people of New Orleans personally. "

Brown wrote and illustrated a gripping story about the tragedy of Katrina. The full color, full page panels depicted the people swimming in the rivers that used to be avenues and the helicopters that finally came to the rescue. Every drawing was so beautiful and expressive that I couldn’t help but feel like I knew the people of New Orleans personally. 

DROWNED CITY is extremely well-researched. Brown used real quotes and (often shocking) exact numbers and figures of the volume of water levels, death tolls and rescue vehicles. His three-page bibliography and source notes contained books and articles that few could read in a lifetime. 

Although DROWNED CITY was relatively short (96 pages), it taught me more than a 300-page text book ever could, and it was far more intriguing. Its succinct and clear sentences describing the beautiful artwork on each page made it gripping and easy to understand. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know the inside scoop about Hurricane Katrina.