The devastation of Hurricane Katrina was an attention-getter
in more ways than one, as it in some ways put natural disasters back on the map
in terms of info-tainment. If people love stories of adversity and triumph tinged
with human suffering (or is that the other way around?), clashes of man and
nature provide the most basic of said conflicts. Those that doubt can check out
Surviving the Dust Bowl and The Hurricane of ’38, two engrossing new
titles out on DVD from WGBH.
takes as its subject a nameless storm that rose up in September of that year, winding
its way from the western coast of
the
predicted it would blow itself out at
The coastal forecasts from
to
“fresh southerly winds” with some cooler, rainy weather. But the storm didn’t
blow itself out at
it suddenly began an unexpected sprint north along the coast, and in the
process turned into one of the most devastating storms ever recorded in
America
and property damage at the time was estimated at over $300 million, with thousands
of homes destroyed and the Montauk Bay’s entire fishing industry scuttled for a
season.
Running 52 minutes, this American
Experience presentation blends survivor interviews with a wide array of jaw-dropping
historical footage to chronicle the lives of fishermen, residents and
vacationers the day before the storm, and follow their stories through one of
the greatest natural disasters to befall the eastern seaboard. Interview subjects
Ed Ecker, Anne Moore, Minton Miller, Patricia Shuttleworth and particularly Stuart
Bartle — all children at the time, ranging from six to 17 years of age — make relaxed
guides through this turbulent tale, which features eerie echoes of the same
sort of governmental incompetence that would plague the response to Katrina; a junior
weatherman’s correctly mapped trajectory was ignored two days before the storm,
no warnings were issued and, after the fact, the National Weather Bureau
absolved itself of responsibility, saying that “New Englanders wouldn’t have
heeded warnings,” since they weren’t used to hurricane advisories.
Experience special Surviving the Dust
Bowl is set seven years earlier, in 1931. That year, the rains stopped and “black
blizzards” began — powerful dust storms carrying millions of tons of stinging,
blinding dirt. The storms swept across the panhandles of
and
and eastern portions of
and
taken a thousand years per inch to build suddenly blew away in only minutes.
One journalist traveling through the devastated region dubbed it the “Dust Bowl,”
and the name stuck.
scant DVD-ROM material for educators, each of these titles comes with a static
menu screen and five chapter stops. They may seem like staid offerings on the
page, but what each of these specials share is a tightly written script — by Thomas
Lennon and Michael Epstein, with narration by David McCullough — that allows
for the human element to come through while not sacrificing the streamlined
march of finely honed statistical data that helps frame and contextualize these
disasters. That, along with details like a
that they’d have to “fend for themselves,” only to be swept away off her porch
minutes later, is what makes these titles so compulsively watchable.
Video has released many critically acclaimed public television programs, including
the Emmy Award-winning The Miracle of
Life, plus bestsellers like The
Elegant Universe, The Jane Eyre
Masterpiece Theatre Collection and Commanding
Heights: The Battle for the World Economy. Alongside these presentations, recent
releases include Percy Julian: Forgotten
Genius, The Hidden Epidemic: Heart Disease in
America and Global Warming: What’s Up with the Weather?, a NOVA documentary which tackles the subject of
the Earth’s climate future with a fair-minded and even-keeled tone and
responsibility. To order these titles or any other DVD release from WGBH
Boston Video, phone (800) 949-8670 or visit
their eponymous Web site’s shop by clicking here. B+ (Movies) C- (Discs)