The Great Deluge Audiobook By Douglas Brinkley cover art

The Great Deluge

Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

The Great Deluge

By: Douglas Brinkley
Narrated by: Kyf Brewer
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $17.09

Buy for $17.09

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

In the span of five violent hours on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed major Gulf Coast cities and flattened 150 miles of coastline. Yet those wind-torn hours represented only the first stage of the relentless triple tragedy that Katrina brought to the entire Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Mississippi to Alabama.

First was the hurricane, one of the three strongest ever to make landfall in the United States, 150 mile per hour winds, with gusts measuring more than 180 miles per hour ripping buildings to pieces. Second, the storm-surge flooding, which submerged a half million homes, creating the largest refugee crisis since the Civil War. Eighty percent of New Orleans was under water, and whole towns in southeastern Louisiana ceased to exist. And third, the human tragedy of government mismanagement, which proved as cruel as the natural disaster itself.

In The Great Deluge, best-selling author Douglas Brinkley, a New Orleans resident and professor of history at Tulane University, rips the story of Katrina apart and relates what the Category 3 hurricane was like from every point of view, while recognizing the true heroes.

Throughout the audiobook, Brinkley lets the Katrina survivors tell their own stories, masterfully allowing them to record the nightmare that was Katrina. The Great Deluge investigates the failure of government at each level and breaks important new stories. Packed with interviews and original research, it traces the character flaws, inexperience, and ulterior motives that allowed the Katrina disaster to turn the Gulf Coast into a scene from a war movie or a third-world documentary.

©2006 Douglas Brinkley (P)2006 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Americas Environment Natural Disasters Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Science State & Local United States Weather War
adbl_web_global_use_to_activate_webcro805_stickypopup

Critic reviews

  • Audie Award Finalist, Non-Fiction, Abridged, 2007
Factual Account • Wonderful Storytelling • Brilliant Writing • Critical Analysis • Perfectly Matched Voice
Highly rated for:
All stars
Most relevant  
I liked this one. I wish it went a little deeper. I wish it got into a few more individuals and what they did. I would have liked to know what it was like for someone who simply got out in time and came back to find all their stuff looted and/or wet.

Fun and interesting, wish it had a few more facts.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Brilliant writing & a perfectly matched voice for narration. Not only wonderful storytelling to get lost in, but a factual account of New Orleans that more people need to hear.

Wonderful, Brilliant, Consuming

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

The narrator was perfect. Loved the tone and pitch of his voice. He kept the book interesting

Exceptional!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I loved it. Will listen to again and again. I will recommend to friends. 😁

I loved this!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Provided a different perspective on the subject of Hurricane Katrina. Eye opening and informative. Would recommend to anyone interested in Hurricane Katrina.

A different view on a national tragedy

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I lost my home in Lakeview to Katrina and the federal, state, and local bureaucrats. This abridged version of The Great Deluge is a good introduction for anyone interested in a clear picture of what happened before and after Katrina. The unabridged text offers a much more complete description as it contains supporting references. My one big complaint about the audio version: it would have been nice if they had hired a narrator who bothered to study local pronunciations. That probably only matters to a local.

A good start

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Good story and well read. Book moved through a description of the storm's effects and then was appropriately critical of the response by the government. However, the author also highlighted response aspects that performed well. For some reason, there are moments when very unnecessary music is played. Audiobooks do not need musical enhancement for the sake of drama, in my opinion.

Music??

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and I experienced the catastrophic aftermath of Katrina personally. My best friend lived in the lakefront area of New Orleans. She had 10 feet of water in her house for three weeks. Her home and all of her family belongings were completely destroyed. Her home is now only a shell.

Much of New Orleans still remains totally devastated. Many areas of the Mississippi gulf coast still looks like Berlin after World War II.

This book reveals how the federal, state, and local governments completely failed the citizens of Louisiana and Mississippi after Katrina. Unfortunately, the incompentence still exists at all levels of government. One year later, the situation is no better than Douglas Brinkley describes in the days after Katrina. For those of you who are skeptical, just remember, it could also happen to you.

I have reviewed the unabridged version of the book and discovered that the abridged audio version leaves out a lot of facts that enlighten the reader about what really happened. I hope an unabridged audio version of the book will be released soon.

Unabridged version

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

What would have made The Great Deluge better?

This abridgement is far too short. The Recorded Books unabridged version is 24 CDs long, while this version is only 6 hours or so. I like Kyf Brewer's voice and delivery, and Douglas Brinkley's book is amazing, but the editors sliced and diced far too much for the full impact to be felt with this version. I stopped listening to this one after about 1 hour and ordered the unabridged version used online.

Way too short for a great deluge.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This book was merely lines and summaries of famous literary works. Waste of money.

The Great Deluge

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews