“Bloated corpses bobbing in the streets. Entire communities scoured down to the sand, scarcely one brick atop another. The Superdome and Convention Center, proud symbols of urban greatness, bursting with human misery. Police taking aim at desperate survivors . . .”

Bloated corpses bobbing in the streets. Entire communities scoured down to the sand, scarcely one brick atop another. The Superdome and Convention Center, proud monuments of urban ambition, bursting with human misery. Police taking aim at desperate survivors. Veteran newscasters visibly enraged by officials’ smug incompetence. And over everything, the appalling power of man-made inequality to compound natural disaster.