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Maine
Farmhouse Journal |
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Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf coast on August 29, 2005 as a Category 4 hurricane, causing massive destruction to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Katrina was the most destructive and costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States. More than one million people were displaced and more than 1,300 people died. The hurricane caused more than $130 billion in damage, damage that will take years to recover from. The Mercury News in San Jose, CA commented, "Not since the Dust Bowl of the 1930's or the end of the Civil War in the 1860's have so many Americans been on the move from a single event."
Allen Crabtree has had three Katrina disaster relief assignments with the American Red Cross. In September and October 2005 he spent nearly three weeks in Louisiana as a Red Cross volunteer assigned to Public Affairs as a writer. In January and February he was assigned for three weeks at Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. as a writer working on the Six-Month Katrina Anniversary Report Challenged by the Storms, and in February and March he was redeployed to New Orleans as a writer for his third Katrina assignment. While in Lousiana on his first and third assignments he wrote stories about the Red Cross disaster relief efforts, traveling the state and interviewing victims of the hurricane from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. He was teamed with Red Cross photographer Tom Jacobson to tell some of the stories of Hurricane Katrina disaster relief work done by the American Red Cross in Louisiana. Here is a collection of the stories he wrote in 2006 for the Red Cross, for Maine newspapers and a daily journal he posted as a blog to MaineToday.com for his assignment to Louisiana.
Last updated March 25, 2006
Copyright © 2006, Allen Crabtree |
