About the Crisis Leadership Forum

To better understand the leadership dimensions of crisis situations, the Center for Creative Leadership convened a forum with formal and emergent leaders who played a role in Hurricane Katrina. We overlaid this conversation between crisis leaders with the perspectives of discussants with expertise in disaster, terrorism, public health, and leadership. This blog site is intended to continue this conversation.

To read the report on the Crisis Leadership Forum, please click here.

To read CCL's Leading Effectively newsletter on the Forum, please click here.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Stories from Katrina from StoryCorps

The magnitude of massive disasters makes it possible to lose sight of the thousands of individual tragedies that form a heartbreaking quilt of loss and enduring grief.

The StoryCorps oral history project has captured some 35,000 life stories from everyday people since 2003, including many from Katrina. These accounts, often deeply personal remembrances told to a loved one, are archived at the Library of Congress and occasionally featured on National Public Radio.

The stories about Hurricane Katrina are moving. In one story, Douglas deSilvey talks about losing his family -- wife, daughter, mother-in-law, and father-in-law -- in the flood. In another, a news reporter talks about the painful scenes he encountered in the wake of Katrina and shares the burden of having to walk away from a mother who pleaded for help for her two-year old child.

1 comment:

Amy said...

Thank you so much for spreading the word about StoryCorps; hearing reactions to our stories and project means so much to the organization. I thought you might like to know that we have recently launched do-it-yourself tools to make recording meaningful conversations more accessible to everyone, even if they are not able to visit a StoryCorps MobileBooth to record their story. Our website, http://www.storycorps.net, has tools, tips, and a free downloadable guide for interviewing a friend or loved one.

Thank you again for your post,
Amy
StoryCorps