Download The Wind in the Reeds: A Storm, A Play, and the City That Would Not Be Broken AudioBook Free
From acclaimed acting professional and maker Wendell Pierce, an insightful and poignant family portrait of family, New Orleans and the transforming electricity of art work. Around the morning of August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina barreled into New Orleans, devastating many of the city's neighborhoods, including Pontchartrain Recreation area, the home of Wendell Pierce's family and the first BLACK middle-class subdivision in New Orleans. The hurricane breached many of the city's levees, and the resulting flooding submerged Pontchartrain Recreation area under just as much as 20 feet of water. Katrina left New Orleans later that day, but also for the next three days the water held relentlessly gushing into the city, plunging eighty percent of New Orleans under water. Practically 1,500 people were killed. About half the residences in the town had four feet of water in them - or even more. There was no electricity or clean water in the city; looting and the break down of civil order soon followed. Tens of thousands of New Orleanians were stranded in the city, with no way out; many more evacuees were displaced, with no in the past in. Pierce and his family were a few of the blessed ones: They survived and were able to journey out the storm at a relative's house 70 mls away. If they were finally permitted to come back, they found their house in tatters, their area decimated. Heartbroken but resilient, Pierce vowed to help restore, and not merely his family's home, but all of Pontchartrain Park. In this powerful and redemptive narrative, Pierce includes the stories of his family, his city, and his background, why they are all worth keeping and the critical importance art work played in reuniting and revitalizing this unique American city.
