Hurricane Katrina Chronicled In Book By SHSU Students
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| Cover of book done by graduate students. |
Hurricane Katrina had a devastating impact on New Orleans and
the Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana Gulf Coasts, and now
a book written by Sam Houston State University students tells
its story as never before.
The book was written and edited by members of Paul Ruffin's
editing and publishing class and published by the Texas Review
Press.
That Rough Beast, Its Hour Come Round at Last follows
Hurricane Katrina from its beginning as a tropical wave in the
Atlantic through its eventual dissipation off the coast of eastern
Canada.
The costliest hurricane ever to strike the United States, and
one of the most deadly in terms of human life, on Aug. 29, 2005,
Hurricane Katrina completely destroyed stretches of the Mississippi
Coast and was indirectly responsible for the devastation of
large sections of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward.
An extremely wide storm, its landfall effects were felt from
Louisiana as far east as Mobile, Alabama; in fact, most of the
structures on Dauphin Island, off the Alabama Coast, were totally
demolished or badly damaged.
Though a number of books have been written about Katrina, That
Rough Beast is unique in its presentation of never-before-published
pictures of the damage of the storm and through interviews with
victims who survived Katrina but lost nearly everything they
owned.
The photographs and interviews in the book came from materials
gathered by Ruffin, who visited the Mississippi Coast and the
Lower Ninth Ward not long after the storm and wrote a number
of feature articles about his trip, and from work done by SHSU
graduate student Michael Dunican, who visited those areas and
Dauphin Island in 2006.
The students who wrote That Rough Beast—Heather
Andrews, Tameika Ashford, Joshua Bowen, Brandon Cooper, Lesley
Cort, Michael Dunican, Steven Rydarowski, and Melanie Sweeney—did
all the research on the storm, wrote the text, chose the photographs,
laid out the interior of the book, and designed the cover.
“It was a major project,” said Josh Bowen. “We
had so much material to sort through to make certain we got
the chronology of the storm right, and together Dr. Ruffin and
Michael had nearly a thousand photographs we had to go through
and sort out for inclusion in the book.”
The book begins with the early history of the storm, then focuses
on Louisiana, particularly the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans,
then Mississippi, then Alabama. After covering those areas,
with over a hundred photographs graphically illustrating the
devastation of Katrina, the book follows the storm’s wrathful
swath across the United States and into Canada, where flooding
and tornados caused damage in a number of states and two Canadian
provinces.
The book concludes with the story of the plight of the animal
victims of the storm, with a number of heartrending photographs.
An appendix and glossary are provided at the end to familiarize
the reader with terms associated with hurricanes.
“Those students worked really hard on that book,”
said Ruffin. “They learned an awful lot about what goes
into writing and designing a book. The best part of it all is
that they have a book now that they can call their own. I just
hope that I’ll be sending them royalty checks, the way
I did for Mascot Mania, the highly successful book
my students in that class did three years ago.”
Ruffin said that SHSU student involvement with Katrina is not
over. This fall's English 533 class will produce a book on the
impact of Katrina on churches along the Mississippi Coast, complete
with before-and-after photographs, the history of the restoration
of the churches, and interviews with ministers and members of
the congregations.
“My interns and I have been gathering raw materials for
nearly a year now," he said. "It ought to be a really
good project, and I’m hoping that the thousands of members
of those congregations will buy copies of the book. You always
have to think in terms of what will sell. The more books we
sell, the more we can publish.”
Copies of That Rough Beast, Its Hour Come Round at Last
may be purchased from the Texas Review Office, 152 Evans Building
on campus, by phoning 936.294.1992, or through the Texas A&M
Consortium, phone 800.826.8911. It is also available on line
at amazon.com.
—END—
SHSU Media Contact: Frank
Krystyniak
Feb. 29, 2008
Please send comments, corrections, news tips to Today@Sam.edu.
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