A haunting, harrowing look at Katrina’s aftermath

HURRICANE Katrina was the storm some had long feared: a category 5 hurricane that would leave more than 1800 people dead and cause around

US$125 billion worth of damage.

John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) and Carlton Cuse (Lost) have created a haunting adaptation of Sheri Fink’s Pulitzer Prize-winning non-fiction book Five Days at Memorial, which delves into the harrowing story of Memorial Medical Centre.

Almost two weeks after its devastating arrival on August 29, 2005, it was still easier to navigate many of the neighbourhoods of New Orleans by dinghy than car. And as the show opens, health officials arrive at the now abandoned building.

However, among the debris and water damage is a shocking discovery – 45 bodies, split between the chapel and the second-floor walkway. As the investigators quiz veteran internal medicine specialist Dr Horace Baltz (Robert Pine) as to how this could have happened, he recounts the nightmarish 120 hours staff, patients and the thousands sheltering there endured as one of the worst storms in US history took its toll on the 80-year-old building.

In a perfectly-paced opening episode, Ridley and Cuse quite brilliantly set the scene for the human tragedy and drama. While Katrina’s growing intensity and increasingly destructive effect on the city outside is cleverly portrayed via news footage, inside, a terrific ensemble that includes Vera Farmiga (Hawkeye), Cherry Jones (The Perfect Storm), Adepero Oduye (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) and Cornelius Smith Jr (Scandal), brace themselves for a potential influx of transfers and new casualties into an already crowded hospital.

However, while it’s not the first tornado for Baltz and other longserving staff, Jones’ Susan Mulderick is horrified to discover that there are clearly laid out plans for bomb threats and bioterrorism, but that nothing exists for flooding.

Worse still, with the city’s levees failing to hold back the rising floodwaters, it won’t be long before there’s water in the basement. Not only will that mean the demise of their food and fresh water supplies, but, if it reaches four-foot high, it will knock out their generator. Should the city’s power grid also falter – that will plunge them into darkness, with no ability to electronically monitor, or ventilate their patients.

Criss-crossing between departments, crises and growing chaos, Five Days at Memorial reminds you of perhaps the greatest US medical drama – ER. Ridley and Cuse quickly establish the disparate personalities of their main characters, making sure to humanise them, all while still keeping the emphasis on the unfolding disaster.

A storm surge ensures the tension reaches a crescendo, just as the first episode hits its climax, almost guaranteeing you’ll be back for more, eager to find out just how much worse things are going to get – and the ultimate fate of everyone involved.

Shorn of the usual romantic entanglements that dog hospitalset tales like this, Five Days’ singular focus is what truly makes it compelling viewing.

Five Days at Memorial begins streaming on Apple TV+ on Friday.