Letters of Support
>>>November 10, 2009
Dear Mr. Woods:
I’d like to thank you for the Contraflow Project and the tremendous contributions your work continues to make toward a fuller understanding of Hurricane Katrina. It is hard to imagine a more significant moment in American history. Society is indebted to anyone who takes the time, resources and patience to unearth its many dimensions.
As a writer and researcher, I have some experience with the enormity of your task. The book I edited on Katrina, After the Storm: Black Intellectuals Explore the Meaning of Hurricane Katrina, was released on the anniversary of the deluge. At the time, much was not known about many of the important details. As the years have passed, many accounts of the disaster have assumed certain facts. However, your work demonstrates that many core assumptions of the disaster were not understood and remain unknown to many.
Therefore, I am grateful for the obvious sacrifices you have made in remaining curious and tenacious long after many sincere inquirers had left the scene. Your work will constitute a critical foundation for future research, policy and public understandings. It joins an important tradition of journalism and historical scholarship. I wish you luck in its distribution.
Sincerely,
Professor of Law
Rutgers School of Law (Newark)
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>>>August 31, 2009
Michael D. Woods
9550 S. Eastern Ave., Suite 253
Henderson, NV 89123
Dear Michael:
I am so proud of your incredible effort in bringing to light the ACTUAL occurrences, during the response to Hurricane Katrina. Your thorough investigation and research has provided for the only unbiased account of the disaster response efforts conducted during the first week of the hurricane. You provided the readers with information that was not publicized by the media; important information that, if known, would have changed the viewpoints of many viewers or readers (e.g., That First Responders were not on the scene until a week later; that people were treated differently, due to race, SES, etc.).
I belong to a very dedicated group of professionals (DMAT, CA-4), who did all they could to help all people in need, during the first two weeks after the hurricane (in conjunction with other Disaster Medical Assistance Teams). We were pre-staged, prior to the hurricane hitting (at the airport) and were set-up to receive evacuees, as soon they were transported (via helicopters, planes, buses, and cabs, ambulances, and private automobiles). THANK YOU for reporting the actual events, untouched by sensationalism, bias, or political influence and for bringing to light the people who worked so diligently to help those in need.
I sincerely recommend your book (CONTRAFLOW: Six Degrees of Separation Following Hurricane Katrina, the Greater New Orleans Flood and the Second Evacuation) to those individuals who are interested in hearing what really happened in New Orleans, during this most tragic disaster.
Very Truly Yours,
Clinical Psychologist
San Diego, CA
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>>>June 2, 2008
“To Whom it May Concern”
This is a letter of support for the research conducted by Michael Woods on the rescue, evacuation, and recovery stages of Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Woods has used a broad range of research methods, including extensive use of oral histories with a focus on military personnel and federal responders. His initial findings provide a unique interpretation of the events and break new ground for social scientists, historians, and policy makers.
The public is currently encumbered by an incomplete and distorted view of the events that transpired after August 29, 2005 in New Orleans and the subsequent evacuation, largely because the current presidential administration has refused full disclosure of documents relating to the rescue and evacuation and no congressional hearings have been conducted that used the power of subpoena to obtain a full account of the events.
Most popularly accepted accounts of what occurred “behind the scenes” are journalistic and based on cursory interviews with agency or military leaders with a vested interest in defending their roles: little attention has been given to the testimony of rank-and-file first responders who were in a position to have a better understanding of what occurred on the ground and are not constrained by personal career ambitions.
I have reviewed a great deal of Mr. Wood’s research and discussed his research methods and conclusions with him, and I find his research thorough, careful, and detailed. His tentative conclusions are balanced and well thought out. I think publication of his work will change the way the nation views the events and will improve government and non-government organization’s disaster response policies and procedures in the future. His findings will also be a lasting and important asset to historians and social scientist in the future.
Sincerely
Lance Hill. Ph.D.
Executive Director
Southern Institute for Education and Research
Tulane University
MR Box 1692, 31 McAlister Dr.
New Orleans, LA 701118
(504) 865-6100 ext. 1
fax (504) 862-8957
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>>>May 19, 2008
To Whom It May Concern:
As a longtime geographer and author of a number of books on the historical geography of New Orleans, I have been impressed by the scope and thoroughness of Mr. Michael Woods research on the stages of response and evacuation of the city during the week after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
While much research about that event and its impact on the city and nation has been published, few if any investigators have reconstructed the exact chronology, geography, and nature of the response and evacuation in the chaotic days after the storm.
I enjoyed working with Mr. Woods in mapping out the responders’ paths into New Orleans and found him to be an extremely thorough and meticulous researcher. I support his efforts in making the Contraflow project a reality. It tells an important story and will constitute a significant contribution to the public body of knowledge.
Sincerely,
Richard Campanella
Associate Director for Geographical Analysis
Assistant Research Professor – Earth and Environmental Sciences
Center for Bioenvironmental Research
102E Alcee Fortier Hall
Tulane University
New Orleans, Louisiana 70118
tel 504-862-8453
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>>>March 28, 2007
To Hazards Research Center, Boulder, CO :
From: Irving “Jake” Jacoby, MD, CDR
DMAT San Diego CA-4
RE: Support for Author of book based on original research on Katrina
I am the team commander of the CA-4 Disaster Medical Assistance Team, which is a Type I DMAT, affiliated with NDMS. Since 1994, I have deployed on over a dozen federal disasters in the continental US and its possessions, and was one of the first teams in to New Orleans, and deployed on Tuesday night, Aug 30th to the New Orleans Airport. Our activities, and those of NDMS, which consisted of over 7,000 DMAT and response team volunteers, were not mentioned in any of the first four books I have read that have been published on the Katrina response.
An author, Michael Woods, of Henderson, NV has contacted me and over half a dozen of the commanders of the DMATs involved in the Louis Armstrong Airport Hospital/Medevac Center established by NDMS immediately following Katrina, including WAZ-1 , TX-4, OR-2 and NM-1 and CA-6 DMATs. He has spent money travelling around, on his, to various sites and interviewed team commanders, responders from DMATs, military folks, and has been doing this for over six months. He has approached me to assist him in finding funding, and I would like to know if there are any grants or funds available to assist him in completing and writing up his research. His interest is in the first two weeks, and has found ample information to counteract the claims that the federal government didn’t do anything, by highlighting the evacuations and the medical care given to the approximately 3,000 evacuees from hospitals and nursing homes, and rescues off rooftops. Would his efforts merit consideration for one of the disaster spot grants of $5,000, that are available thru your Center, to allow him to continue on with the information he has collected, since it has now become almost a full time job for him to prepare his manuscript and continue following leads. We have given him our support in arranging for meetings with team members who worked in the airport, including those who set up and managed the Expectant area, the morgue, and the medical tents setup within the airport.
Please advise, and if so, I would appreciate finding out about the application process for him to apply for such funding.
Sincerely,
Jake Jacoby, MD, FACP, FACEP
–
Irving “Jake” Jacoby, MD, FACP, FACEP, FAAEM
Commander, DMAT San Diego CA-4
HHS/OASPR/OPEO
Attending Physician, Dept. of Emergency Medicine, and
Medical Director, Emergency Preparedness and Response,
University of California , San Diego Medical Center, San Diego, CA
Associate Director, UCSD Hyperbaric Medicine Center, San Diego, CA
Clinical Professor of Medicine & Surgery, UCSD School of Medicine, La Jolla, CA
200 West Arbor Drive
San Diego, CA 92103-8676
eMail:< ca4cdr@san.rr.com>
24 hour STATUS/Information Line for DMAT San Diego CA-4 : 619-543-6216
Leaving a Message will activate pager.
WEB SITE: www.dmatca4.org
