Katrina: Come Hell and High Water

While good and informative for E1 & 2, E3 dragged. I learned more from watching the National Geographic doc, "Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time." Some crossover with interviews of same people. Still, being a fan of NOLA and visited many times, I learned a lot. I found it especially interesting about the "recovery" of the area. And Commander Honore' is my new favorite person. He was a bad@$$.

If you're around my age, you'll remember watching the news back in 2025 and being shocked by what happened to New Orleans, an iconic place submerged in water.

This documentary explores the buildup to Hurricane Katrina, the devastating effect it had, and its legacy. Episodes one and two are incredibly good; they will shock you, appall you, and make you consider why the country turned its back on New Orleans. You'll wonder if things would have been different had it been another state.

Episode three has some fascinating content, but it's a bit of a mess and too long; it's a frantic conclusion poorly thrown together. You'll come away with the certain knowledge that there are some incredible and resilient people in New Orleans, but they are a people who were failed by their government.

Some of what I saw in the second episode made my blood boil; it felt as though I was listening to something from a hundred years ago.

I urge you to watch it; episodes one and two are essential viewing.

8/10.

Like others have said, episodes 1&2 are the actual documentary. Episode 3 feels like they handed it off to a new director, and he said "I'm just redoing this my way". We followed people's stories through episodes 1&2 only to never hear about them again. We never checked back in on the people at the hospital, for example.

I was really wanting some actual explanations on what happened, and we didn't get that. "Here's how the levees broke" or "here's how they weren't built right". Both of which were addressed by Hulu's

I don't disagree with the arguments made by the series, but it's evident what the angle of the show was from episode 1. For me, that lowers its value as an actual documentary. I like being presented with the evidence and what happened and being left to make my own decisions.

Watching the Hulu documentary right after Netflix's is jarring. It really makes it feel like Netflix left out the stories of many people, such as first responders. For example the Chief of Police. His story is extremely impactful to the events overall, and is never even mentioned on the Netflix show....

1 & 2 are very effective documentaries - presenting facts and telling stories of real people and their struggles during a natural tragedy. Spike Lee completely destroys this by turning to opinion, discussion and theory.

Why would he not look at the work of the other creators and produce something that is coherent with the rest of the series??

He is clearly a narcissist - I say this as the other documentaries leave it to the people who suffered this tragedy to recount their journeys of survival. This final documentary ha Spike regularly interjecting, trying to show that he is 'part of it' or some such. The guy is insufferable and I hope that he is never allowed near important and factual film making ever again.

This is a mostly well-made and well-paced documentary that powerfully details the devastating and moving stories of what happened during Hurricane Katrina.

The first two episodes are excellent, but the third feels like a letdown-shifting focus to hype a climate agenda and overshadowing the other important points that key voices are trying to make.

And Brad Pitt... fix the shoddy homes you built for people.