''Floodlines'' is an eight-part podcast miniseries about

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...

hosted by Vann R. Newkirk II and produced by ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

''.

Background

The podcast explores how the New Orleans Police Department, the

Federal government of the United States The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...

, the

Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...

, the

United States Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

, and the

news media in the United States Mass media are the means through which information is transmitted to a large audience. This includes newspapers, television, radio, and more recently the Internet. Organizations that provide news through mass media in the United States are coll ...

were all responsible for exacerbating the crisis. The first episode focuses on the story of Le-Ann Williams who was a fourteen-year-old girl living in the Sixth Ward of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. In one of the episodes Newkirk interviews Michael Brown from the

. Comparisons were made by ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' magazine between how the

George W. Bush administration George W. Bush's tenure as the 43rd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2001, and ended on January 20, 2009. Bush, a Republican from Texas, took office following a narrow victory over Democratic in ...

handled the hurricane to how the

Donald Trump administration Donald Trump's tenure as the 45th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican from New York City, took office following his Electoral College victory o ...

handled the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

Production

Vann R. Newkirk II, Katherine Wells, and Alvin Melathe spent a year researching, writing, and producing the eight-part miniseries. The podcast is the first long-form narrative podcast produced by ''

''. The whole miniseries was released on March 11, 2020. Each episode is between 22 and 53 minutes long. The podcast used a mix of interviews and archival content.

Reception

During an interview on '' Fresh Air'',

Nicholas Quah Nicholas Quah is a journalist for Vulture and is the creator of the Nieman Lab newsletter Hot Pod News. Career Quah was the creator of the ''Hotpods'' newsletter. Quah worked for BuzzFeed in 2015 while writing the newsletter. Vox Media acquir ...

—a writer for ''Vulture'' and the creator of ''

The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts. The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media' ...

'''s podcast newsletter ''Hot Pods''—commented on the show saying that "It's fantastically written, tightly composed and it sounds like a million bucks."

Wesley Morris Wesley Morris (born 1975) is an American film critic and podcast host. He is currently critic-at-large for ''The New York Times'', as well as co-host, with Jenna Wortham, of the ''New York Times'' podcast '' Still Processing.'' Previously, Morr ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' commented on Newkirk's role in the audio documentary stating that he "narrates and interviews with a warm inquisitiveness and sly skepticism. People seem incapable of being anything less than honest with him." Vince Mancini—the senior film and culture writer for ''

Uproxx ''Uproxx'' (stylized in all caps) is an entertainment and popular culture news website. It was founded in 2008 by Jarret Myer and Brian Brater, and acquired by Woven Digital (later renamed Uproxx Media Group) in 2014. The site's target audience ...

''—also commented on Newkirk's role, stating that he "does a wonderful job of not just telling stories from in and around Hurricane Katrina ... utsynthesize them into a fuller understanding of what actually happened".

Awards

References

External links