There is certainly the presence of danger and urgency felt as when you are listening to the podcast. First, you are put in the perspective of Le-Ann Williams. Next, you are put in the perspective of Mark Schleifstein, the climate reporter. He warns of the dire dangers, having predicted three years earlier of a big storm hitting New Orleans, Louisiana.
The production design of the podcast instills imminent fear and danger and desire to produce even mere anxiety of the listener. It sort of transports you to that historic day. What I liked was the interview and how complete it was and how it made this woman Le-Ann Williams relive that dreadful day.
The words and the eloquence of the sentences and how descriptive Williams’ retelling is all evoke a strong sense of depression-like symptoms and that crawling feeling in the spine you get when awoken in the middle of the night to rumbling thunder and flashes of lighting. How the city of New Orleans was not prepared for Katrina was evident from the start.
All of the residential areas are in wetlands, where the water has nowhere to drain out. The most memorable moment of this podcast episode is when the storm finally hit the city, and it was disastrous the way the witnesses said it was like, the wind howling, the constant rain, the winds picking up and all occurred during the nighttime which makes a hurricane ten times scarier. Lives were lost and the homes were destroyed.
The windows breaking and everyone shuddering in fear to get to safety, it was truly one massive and historic hurricane. The story structure is also good, how it starts preluding the horrible events that were about to unfold and the night it arrived in New Orleans, Louisiana.
I would say the only thing missing is the great effects and more eyewitness interviews but it delivers on storytelling and the sound effects too of the podcast were made for the purpose of the viewer being transported there.