Washoe County Library System

Amid the ruins of New Orleans, ordinary people--musicians, chefs, residents--find themselves clinging to a unique culture and wondering if the city that gave birth to that culture still has a future.

Ten years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana—on August 29, 2005—journalist Gary Rivlin traces the storm’s immediate damage, the city of New Orleans’s efforts to rebuild itself, and the storm’s lasting affects not just on the city’s geography and infrastructure—but on the psychic, racial, and social fabric of one of this nation’s great cities.

In 2005, Brandon Darby became an overnight hero when he traveled to Katrina-devastated New Orleans and braved toxic floodwaters to rescue a stranded friend. Soon after, he co-founded Common Ground, a successful grassroots relief organization. But over the next few years, he began hiding a shocking secret. After two young protestors were arrested at the 2008 Republican National Convention, Darby revealed that as an FBI informant he had been instrumental...

New Orleans, 38 months after. The city's musicians, chefs, Mardi Gras Indians, and others continue to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But the promise of recovery, heightened by the historic election of a new president, is tempered by sobering economics, continued police corruption, and the ongoing specter of violence and crime. In these five final episodes of Treme, New Orleans' protagonists strive to build their own legacy...