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  • Harry Shearer, Director
  • Executive Producer: Harry Shearer, Producer
  • Producers:Karen Murphy, Producer
  • Christine O'Malley, Producer

About the Project

Almost five years ago, the world saw news coverage of a disaster in New Orleans. The coverage said it was a natural disaster that primarily affected poor black people. On both scores, the coverage was wrong.

Now nearing the fifth anniversary, humorist and New Orleans native Harry Shearer finds the investigators who poked through the muck as the water receded to find the evidence that proved what really caused the flooding of 80% of a unique city, as well as a whistle-blower who says the same mistakes may be impeding the "new improved" system for protecting New Orleans. Along the way, you'll also learn the answers to such New Orleans FAQs as "why would people choose to live below sea-level?"

Laced with stunning computer imagery that takes you inside the structures that failed so catastrophically, and boasting never-before-seen video of the moments when New Orleans began to flood and of the painstaking investigations that followed, "The Big Uneasy" is designed to mark the beginning of the end of five years of ignorance about what happened to New Orleans - and what could happen to other American cities, similarly "protected."