StoryCorps Hurricane Katrina: Norman

From: StoryCorps
Series: StoryCorps
Length: 02:12

Newspaper reporter Joshua Norman tells girlfriend, Rachel Leifer, about reporting on Hurricane Katrina. Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: StoryCorps Hurricane Katrina: Norman
From: StoryCorps

Norman_small Three months into his new job at the South Mississippi Sun Herald in Gulfport, reporter Joshua Norman, helped cover Hurricane Katrina's aftermath on the Gulf Coast. Norman loaded his car with valuables (photos from Africa, his guitar, passport, board games, beer and whiskey), and parked it in a garage before setting out to report on the storm around Long Beach, Miss., a town he regularly covers. The newspaper's work led to a Pulitzer Prize for public service.

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Piece Description

Three months into his new job at the South Mississippi Sun Herald in Gulfport, reporter Joshua Norman, helped cover Hurricane Katrina's aftermath on the Gulf Coast. Norman loaded his car with valuables (photos from Africa, his guitar, passport, board games, beer and whiskey), and parked it in a garage before setting out to report on the storm around Long Beach, Miss., a town he regularly covers. The newspaper's work led to a Pulitzer Prize for public service.

Transcript

JN: The first day was the craziest, there were lot of people that we ran
into who were just back just to see their homes, people were just
digging, and often it would be just a couple armloads, just whatever
they thought was the most important to carry out, like son's basketball
trophy, a tricycle they gave their two-year-old a couple years ago, you
know, those kind of things. We're wandering around and there was this
old guy standing in the middle of his backyard and he said, "This
neighbor of mine across the street, she lost her son and husband during
the storm. She spent the night at work, when she came back and opened
her door, she saw her husband and baby dead in their living room, they
drowned." And then I said, "Wow, that must have been terrible," and he
said, "Yeah, she's still sitting out front with her son." He led us over
there, and sure enough, there she was sitting on her fr...
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