Hurricane Katrina, one of the most devastating and costly tropical cyclones to ever impact the country, devastated the southeastern United States on August 29, 2005. New Orleans, bearing the force of Katrina, was in a state of chaos. Government aid did not reach the city until several days after the storm made landfall. Many people argue that this delay in government aid forced the people of New Orleans to migrate out of the city or caused tons of looting because of the governments lack of communication with it's citizens. I was not prepared for how shocking Zeitoun by Dave Eggers would be. It is a story about Hurricane Katrina, but it is not shocking in graphic depictions of misery and death. Instead, it is the story of a Muslim family where the husband stays behind during the storm to take care of the house. He takes a canoe through flooded streets, helping stranded people and handing out bottles of water. Yet, he ends up being arrested and held in a prison without due process. Later, we find out he was charged with looting. Why? Because he was standing in a house near some stereo equipment. During his arrest, he was told nothing about what was happening, and was denied a phone call to his wife, arraignment, or medical care. I believe that government aid to the city should have arrived in a much more organized and prompt manner than it did.

             After the hurricane struck, the government decided to build jails to hold inmates and looters. Giving them all sorts of redundant charges. According to the novel Zeitoun, Zeitoun's wife Kathy listens the radio while she is in the car reporting thousands of National Guardsmen were being sent to the region, about one-third of them directed to maintain order (Kathy 105). The only thing these Guards were doing was arresting people and sitting on their behinds. An addition, also in the novel Zeitoun describes how the jail was so elaborate, "built with series of long cages (Zeitoun 218).