[cross-posted from Josh Neufeld's blog]

In commemoration of Hurricane Sandy’s one-year anniversary, Medium is debuting “SuperStorm Stories: A Red Hook Family” (part one), a piece I reported and drew about a Brooklyn family’s experiences during the storm and its aftermath. This segment specifically deals with the family’s love of books (and music), and the horror of seeing some of their most treasured memories destroyed by the “gasoline- and poop-filled water from the Hudson River.” Jim, the dad, speaks memorably about “black-bagging a favorite book” and its resemblance to “a mangled body.”
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I just stumbled upon a long essay about A.D. in the new book Comics and the U.S. South, edited by Brannon Costello and Qiana J. Whitted (University Press of Mississippi, 2012). The essay, “A Re-Vision of the Record: The Demands of Reading Josh Neufeld’s A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge,” is by Anthony Dyer Hoefer, a professor at George Mason University. And a PDF of the essay is available as a free download right here.
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[cross-posted from Josh Neufeld's blog]

It’s been a week since Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast and I’m just now coming to understand how devastating the impact was. A good part of the reason for this disconnect is that I am currently living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for the Knight-Wallace journalism fellowship. (One of the conditions of the fellowship is that you must live in Ann Arbor for the academic year, and you are forbidden from publishing anything professionally during the duration of the program.)

Weirdly enough, the first person I heard from after Sandy passed was Leo, one of the heroes of A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. Obviously, a guy who lost everything in Katrina would be supremely attuned to the effects of the “superstorm” which hit the East Coast. He wasn’t sure whether I was back home in Brooklyn or still away, and was relieved to hear me and my stuff were okay. (Our apartment is on the fifth floor of a building in Prospect Heights—e.g., not near sea level.) In fact, thankfully, my family and pretty much everyone I know well in New York was relatively unaffected by the storm.
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From our very own Leo McGovern, the self-same Leo of A.D. fame, updating us on how he and Michelle weathered Hurricane Isaac, which endangered New Orleans right on the seventh anniversary of Katrina…

We’re all fine and got through the hurricane relatively unscathed. Our power was turned back on Friday evening, so we’re just getting resettled after a couple days of cleaning and what-not.

Michelle and I stayed in the apartment and lost power Tuesday night, and the next couple days weren’t too bad—we’d charged all our devices and were able to ride our iPhone charges til Thursday. We were well-stocked on books (of course), and Wednesday wasn’t too bad—it was perfectly fine sitting next to a window and taking in the breeze. Thursday wasn’t as forgiving, and by Friday afternoon we were debating whether we should grab a hotel room in the city (the French Quarter, as usual, either lost power only briefly or got back up super-quick—it was fully operational Wednesday afternoon, and I guess with some storm cancellations from Decadence Festival there were some openings) but luckily got power back before we made that decision.
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