Traci A. Curry: The intention in the beginning was Hurricane Katrina 20 years later, that was it. And the way we informed it was type of as much as me. So, I kind of needed to type of craft a imaginative and prescient about how we have been going to strategy the story. As a result of it is a large, sprawling story that has many shifting elements that may be informed in lots of other ways. And what’s fascinating is that premiering it right here at Essence Competition was type of a full circle second for me. As a result of I used to be right here two years in the past on a panel for a earlier sequence, understanding that I used to be about to start out on this. I used to be like, effectively since I am in New Orleans, let me simply discuss to some New Orleanians, to get their perception about this. I simply type of began speaking to love those who I met, like workers right here on the conference middle. I talked to my Uber driver, I talked to the particular person, all of whom have been from New Orleans. And I mentioned, pay attention, I’ve the chance to direct this sequence, it is about Katrina 20 years later.
What do you guys assume is vital for folks to know? What was fascinating to me was that each one of them, folks that do not know one another, all of them mentioned the identical factor. Which was that, you guys who are usually not from right here, you come to Essence Competition, you come to Mardi Gras, you come to Jazz Fest, you benefit from the metropolis. And to you all, New Orleans feels the identical, proper? It is the identical New Orleans that we have at all times type of identified. However for us, who’re from right here, New Orleans is just not the identical. For us, who’re from right here, we speak about this metropolis as earlier than Katrina and after Katrina. And so, for me, that type of turned a light-weight bulb on.
As a result of I understood that there are some issues that individuals who stay right here perceive about what Katrina meant, that the remainder of us do not know. I feel there is a tendency for these of us who skilled it at Essence, or yours, or type of Washington, D.C., to recollect it as one thing that occurred to America. It wasn’t one thing that occurred to America, it was one thing that occurred to New Orleans.
To the those who stay on this metropolis. In order that understanding that I actually first began to get right here actually knowledgeable our strategy to the sequence, which was to say, make the people who find themselves from right here the consultants of their very own expertise, and permit their voices to be those that inform the story about what occurred. It has been 20 years, and I am certain there have been quite a few documentaries centering about this, sequence and so forth.
Did any of that come to thoughts once you have been placing this collectively, in order that individuals who have seen their share of documentaries and flicks or no matter, do not say, I’ve seen this already, what am I getting that is new?
Traci A. Curry: Sure. That was positively the forefront of my thoughts, proper? And I feel one of many issues that comes throughout very clearly in our first episode is that clearly all people is aware of the varied failures that have been related to Katrina, proper? There was a failure of all of those establishments and programs, there was a failure of the levees. I feel what was much less obvious on the time is that is additionally an environmental justice story, proper? There are these layers that we peel again within the sequence, and one of many issues that got here very obvious to me once we first began eager about easy methods to inform the story is that sure, the levees broke and uncovered the town to the flood that got here in, however earlier than the levees broke, there had been a pure barrier that protected New Orleans and the Louisiana coast from the total entrance of hurricanes, which is to say the wetlands and the coastal lands that existed proper off of the coast of the land within the Gulf of Mexico.
And many years earlier than Katrina ever got here right here, that land had been disappearing. I feel the statistic is one thing like a soccer subject each hour of that land had been disappearing for many years, and that was due to man-made impacts on the surroundings. That was due to the dredging of the oil and gasoline business that destroyed that land, proper?
You may have this huge environmental affect pushed by local weather change that impacts an infrastructure that is not ready to take care of it, and the result’s that the people who find themselves essentially the most susceptible on the entrance finish are the least more likely to get well on the again finish of the story, proper? And for me, that was a brand new revelation and in addition one which I feel may be very instructive about the place we discover ourselves as we speak. As a result of the opposite factor that turns into clear 20 years later and that we clarify in our sequence is that whereas Katrina was a unprecedented occasion, it was not singular within the sense of the way in which that these tales have continued to play out, proper? You may have excessive climate occasions pushed by man-made impacts on the surroundings, comes up in opposition to infrastructure that fails as a result of it wasn’t designed, and the individuals who expertise essentially the most hurt and are the least capable of get well are the people who find themselves most susceptible on the entrance finish of the story.