When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts

Act I sets the scene; as the hurricane nears the Crescent City, some residents leave town, while others stay behind, figuring they'll just ride the storm out (Mayor Ray Nagin's "mandatory evacuation" order rings fairly hollow, as there's no public transportation provided for the many who don't own vehicles and thus couldn't get out even if they wanted to). The real problems begin after Katrina makes landfall on August 29, 2005. Displaced New Orleaneans crowd into the Superdome, soon to become a living hell for those stuck there; the incredibly poorly engineered levees break, flooding some 80 percent of the city; and people start dying by the hundreds, victims of drowning, lack of food, water, and medicine, and other causes.

Act II finds the survivors struggling to keep it together while the federal, state, and local assistance they've been promised fails to show up.

Act III traces the dispersal of the so-called "refugees" (as one man puts it, "Refugees? You mean they took away our citizenship, too?") all over the country, not knowing where their families, friends, and neighbors are, or even if they're still alive.

Act IV deals with the slow rebuilding of the city while insurance companies refuse to pay claims and money keeps going toward the Iraq war effort instead.

A never-before-seen chapter in Spike Lee's HBO documentary event that recounts the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005.