Zeitoun Downfall

In the history of the United States of America, Hurricane Katrina was known as one of the worst hurricanes in the world. The hurricane was a combination of tropical waters and gushing winds. It was the vicious hurricane that caused severe damage to the citizens of the United States of America. The amazing city known for its southern style, Cajun cuisines, jazz music and its celebration of Mardi Gras will never be the same. New Orleans, Louisiana was changed forever in August 2005 when this category five hurricane left the city devastated. The catastrophic storm tore through the city of New Orleans and surrounding areas destroying everything in its path and killing hundreds of people.

In the novel, Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, the main character, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, is an immigrant of Syria who stays in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and is arrested due to the suspicion of looting, but really is arrested because of his race and how he looks. Zeitoun’s faith and loyalty to his community and home is tested through the many obstacles of Hurricane Katrina and including his religion, racism, and his very own dignity. The author, Dave Eggers who is also the speaker in novel, proves all examples of Zeitoun’s challenges credibly in the text.

In the late summer of 2005, a terrible tragedy occurred that changed the lives of many in the south-east region of the United States. A Category 3, named storm, named Hurricane Katrina, hit the Gulf Coast on the 29th of August and led to the death of 1,836 and millions of dollars’ worth of damage (Waple 2005). The majority of the damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana. Waple writes in her article that winds “gusted over 100 mph in New Orleans, just west of the eye” (Waple 2005). Not only was the majority of the damage due to the direct catastrophes of the storm but also city’s levees could no longer hold thus breaking and releasing great masses of water. Approximately, 80% of the city was submerged at sea level. Despite the vast amount

The devastating and deeply rooted traumatic effects of Hurricane Katrina will live in the psyches of the people of New Orleans and beyond for generations to come. Katrina was the largest and third strongest hurricane to make landfall in the United States barreling in as a Category 5 with up to 175 mile-per-hour winds and a 20-ft storm surge that would create a humanitarian emergency with the likes never before seen in the United States. This hurricane caused unimaginable death, destruction, and displacement, leaving a known death toll of 1,836 and an unknown number thought to be washed out to sea. The real truth is we will never know exactly how many people lost their lives during Hurricane Katrina.

Can you imagine sleeping in a tent on the the flat part of the roof? and during the day trying to save others while fighting the high polluted water with not only trash but dead people that once was shared this beautiful state. I couldn’t help worry about his wife Kathy, not only because she was alone with her four kids but if that’s not bad enough for her she is given a hard time because since she converted, her hijabb brought a lot of controversies not only to the citizens of American but to her own family as well. If that’s not enough to keep you in the edge of your seat I was worried along with her when she couldn’t get a hold of him, especially when she called her own home and some stranger answered her call. If I were her I would’ve lost it thinking the worst. The story soon looped into something more overwhelming than the simple tale of the hurricane Katrina. Zeitoun was arrested in his own home by six officers and it broke my heart that he actually thinks that they are there to help him, little did he know that they were there to hurt him and falsely charge him with looting. Obviously he was treated with the upmost unfair treatment because he was Muslim. He was immediately sent to a makeshift prison and wasn’t even allowed to have his one call, of course, had he been American this wouldn’t be the case.

When the Hurricane was coming his family left for a safer area, but Zeitoun wanted to stay with his house because he worked hard to get where he was. Zeitoun wanted to try to protect his house in anyway possible. After all the damage was done and New Orleans was submerged in water and nearly completely destroyed, Abdulrahman Zeitoun was asked by his wife to leave the area and go to a safer place. But Zeitoun being the person he is, decided to stay and to help out anyway possible. He canoed around helping those who needed it.

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast at daybreak, “pummeling a region that included the fabled city of New Orleans and heaping damage on neighboring Mississippi. In all, more than 1,700 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of others displaced.” (Laforet, New York Times)

On the morning of August Twenty-ninth, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region. The storm brought the water to about twenty feet high, swallowing eighty percent of the New Orleans city immediately. The flood and torrential rainstorm wreaked havoc and forced millions of people evacuate from the city. According to the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, Katrina caused approximately one hundred and eight billion dollars in damage. Hurricane Katrina was one of the most destructive disasters have ever occurred in the United States, but it also revealed a catastrophic government at all levels’ failure in responding to the contingency.

Is it worth risking your life to protect your belongings and property when a Category 5 hurricane is barreling towards your city? Is it right to disregard reports about a storm because in past experiences the news has been wrong? In Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, a man named Zeitoun decides to let his family evacuate New Orleans without him so that he can stay behind and protect his several homes, business, and personal belongings from Category 5 hurricane Katrina. Once the hurricane passes, and he survives, the city turns into chaos. The streets turn violent and the great city turns into a third world country. The power goes out for weeks, and there is no water. The breakdown of all authority gets him arrested and he is soon thrown behind bars. Zeitoun should have evacuated New Orleans with his family for not only did he put his business in front of them, but also his shortsightedness almost left his children without a father. Zeitoun’s belongings and business items are all replaceable, but a father is not.

In this paper I read the Essay that Abe Louise Young wrote about “The Voice of Katrina Part One”. In this Essay at its core is about Hurricane Katrina, which was a massive hurricane that hit in 2005. It caused massive damage and destruction along the Gulf coast from Florida to Texas. Hurricane Katrina will always be remembered for hitting New Orleans, Louisiana, when the levee system failed leaving 80% of the city flooded and destroyed. Hitting the worst parts of New Orleans such as the 9th ward, already being one of the poorest areas in Mississippi. Much of the Essay talks about the people of New Orleans, Abe being a new graduate started Alive in Truth: The New Orleans Disaster Oral History and Memory Project, her goal she state’s is to

Hurricane Katrina is one of the U.S’s most catastrophic events, and this was due to the number of people who were killed and displaced. Most of those effected most harshly by the storm were those that were of the poor community, which in New Orleans was mostly black. These people were not able to evacuate the storm, and also had the most trouble to try to rebuild after the storm. Tia Lessin and Carl Deal’s documentary on Hurricane Katrina, Trouble the Water, portrays Hurricane Katrina in a different light, one that constantly get ignored by the popular media. By answering five main questions based on this documentary, a close to accurate portrayal of Hurricane Katrina can be made.

Futhermore, crime in New Orleans increased drastically. On September 1, 2005, victims of Hurricane Katrina reperted crimes of rape and domestic violence. The violent crimes left corpses lying on the ground everywhere in the city. “We have individuals who

It is pretty poignant, yet honest to say that the hurricane Katrina has long derived an almost obsessional attention from Natasha writer. In “Beyond Katrina: A meditation of the Mississippi Gulf Coast”, Tretheway has purposely pictured the devastation scenario from witnesses’ narratives; hence her story could speak for many stories of people who are less visible, whom we cannot see struggling against the aftermath - the stories we may not know about how tenacious the return of Gulf Coast communities was from those tremendous sufferings they miserably faced up to.

"Who are you?"(Eggers 206) were the first words that Abdulrahman Zeitoun heard from the police officers that had surrounded him and his friends with their guns drawn as he walked out of 5010 Claiborne that he owned. He had been stopping by the house to use the telephone once a day to call his wife Kathy, who was in Arizona with their four children to escape Hurricane Katrina, a catagory 5 hurricane that had hit New Orleans, the city they lived in. Abdulrahman Zeitoun had stayed home to protect his many properties that he and his family had required in the sixteen years since he had moved to the city. He was a general contractor and owner of Zeitoun Painting Contractors, LLC. He also owned several rental houses around the city and had

In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina vigorously tore apart the U.S. Gulf Coast Region killing at least 1500 people, ranking at the third deadliest hurricane in United States history. Author of Survival and Death in New Orleans, Patrick Sharkey (2007), looked specifically at data on New Orleans residents that perished during Katrina in an attempt to look at the communities that were most affected by this unfortunate disaster. The storm took the largest toll on the elderly population and by African Americans, who he argued were overrepresented in comparison to whites. The toll was not only physical but mentally damaging as well, due to the overwhelming amount of loss to their homes, family members, pets, and childhood neighborhoods in which