Trouble the Water

Saw Trouble the Water, a documentary which follows Kimberly Roberts and her husband as they try to survive hurricane Katrina. We start off meeting her at the superdome where a red cross volunteer is wearily telling her to keep the front area clear. There is no one else in the front area which is giant and desolate. This sets the tone of the film. Poor black people are treated as criminals and nuisances by the very agencies set up to protect and help them. This documentary is not really about Katrina, Kimberly Roberts is too great a woman, too powerful a personality to let a disaster define her. But the hurricane and its apathetic aftermath loom large.

The film has a strong current of anger and frustration running through it, contrasting clips of Kimberly watching the storm gathering, wistfully wishing she could afford a car, with clips of then-president Bush smiling and basking in waves of applause. As the levees burst and people are stranded, reporter Julie Chen tells us what this means for the price of gas at the pump. The indifference for the suffering of these poor people is palpable. That said, this is an angering, yes, but also an uplifting film.

As Kimberly's neighborhood sinks under water, her brother and her husband ferry children and sick old women over to their attic, where they have blankets and food and water. Kimberly's husband later marvels at how it brought people together, that even his most hated enemies helped save his family's life that day. For many we speak to it's a fresh start which poor folks have precious few of. In the end of the film, when the water recedes and new housing is being built, we feel they'll be okay. There's a parting shot at a tourism-bureau woman who smilingly proclaims that most tourists don't like to be reminded of disaster all the time, and that the picturesque French quarter is all back to normal, just in time for Mardi Gras! We feel these people, who have nothing but each other, will do alright, not because of the smiling apathy of Red Cross and FEMA and the Federal Government, but in spite of them.