By Sonam Hamilton

ABC News Radio correspondent Alex Stone uses an oil drum as a work table while covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Photo by Kevin Rider, ABC

ABC News Radio correspondent Alex Stone ('03) looked down at the little boy, just 3 or 4 years old, in the Convention Center in New Orleans.

"He put his arms up for me to pick him up, and all he kept saying is, 'I'm hungry.' There was nothing I could do," he wrote in an e-mail to the School. "I didn't have any food."

Stone said he spent two weeks in New Orleans immediately after Hurricane Katrina had dealt its devastating blow to the Crescent City and the adjacent gulf coast.

"And so many people asked us for help, and we promised them we would do what we could. I will never stop wondering what happened to them.

"The human suffering was unimaginable," he wrote. "People were starving; they were dying on U.S. streets. There were bodies all over the streets and sidewalks, and the bodies weren't picked up for weeks."

Conditions were dicey for reporters. Food was scarce and people were desperate.

"Little food (mainly military MREs, short for meals ready to eat), no showers, no sense of security in an environment where people would do anything for a car or for some food," Stone wrote.

Doctoral student Michael Miles discusses what she learned about rumors and race in flooded New Orleans. Research partner Duke Astin points out worst-flooded areas of the city. Photo by Michael Alosi.

His colleague, Jim Hickey, a correspondent for ABC News, told him that the smell of dead bodies, the empty streets and the suffering all reminded him of Beirut.

"For me, New Orleans was far worse than covering the tsunami," Stone wrote. "The Thai government quickly moved the bodies into morgues, and there were not masses of suffering people left to die."

Stone said his biggest shock was that this was all happening in the United States.

"It was like being in another country, walking around the convention center and the Super Dome," he wrote. "None of us could believe we were still in our own country."

Katherine Wojtecki ('99) was on the story for more than a month for CNN.

"I was there right after it happened, so I was sleeping in RVs. I was in Mississippi for about four days and then in New Orleans for about three weeks," she wrote in an e-mail to the School.

"I have covered a lot of things for CNN throughout the years, and this was by far the most memorable."

Natalia Zea ('02), a reporter for WOAI-TV in San Antonio, was in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie when the hurricane hit. Her news team was stranded in its hotel for two days.

"The water was up to 4 feet," she wrote in an e-mail message. "We were stuck there with sheriff deputies from Jefferson Parish. We went without power or water for days."

ABC News Radio correspondent Alex Stone reports on the progress of New Orleans evacuations from a freeway overpass immediately after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast. Photo by Kevin Rider, ABC News.

Her TV crew did telephone interviews and told stories of survivors who made it to their hotel, Zea said. She said she interviewed a man who had been rescued from his rooftop by the Coast Guard, only to be left on a freeway overpass with 70 other people.

"I'll never forget that interview," she wrote. "They started walking, and a few elderly people died on the way. That man is forever changed."

When the 17th Street Canal levy broke, Zea said she and her team evacuated to Baton Rouge where they covered stories of refugees.

"It affected me deeply," she wrote. "I just forgot I was a reporter for awhile and took in the humanity of it all."

How local journalists coped was one question Professor Meg Moritz, documentary filmmaker and associate dean of graduate studies at SJMC, went to New Orleans to answer. She received one of two Quick Response grants given by the National Hazards Center at CU to researchers at the School to study the effects of Katrina. Instructor Paul Daugherty (MA '93) accompanied Moritz to Louisiana as the photographer on the project.

Moritz and Daugherty said they spent five days in southern Louisiana and collected more than 15 hours of footage. The pair interviewed 15 local and national broadcast and print media journalists. In addition to talking to professional journalists, they also conducted shorter interviews with local citizens, including New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin. One common thread Moritz and Daugherty said they heard from local journalists was an increased feeling of camaraderie with their colleagues.

"We heard a lot of description of how much they've bonded," Moritz said. "They felt like they had been through a war together." Despite their personal losses, local journalists reported a feeling of pride in providing a public service and a sense of how important their job was, Moritz said, adding that she heard "lots of stories of journalists putting down their cameras to help."

San Antonio WOAI-TV reporter Natalia Zea, left, makes her way through New Orleans-area floodwaters with station photographer Victor Garza. Photo by R.A. Quiroga.

Moritz and Daugherty also collected information about the local media's organizational preparedness for the hurricane and its aftermath. They found that some media outlets had effective disaster plans already in place and were able to continue service without interruption. Others were forced to find alternative solutions quickly.

Moritz was particularly interested in the effects of personal loss on the journalists covering the flood. For example, one journalist in New Orleans that she interviewed left his house to go to work, only to have it destroyed in the flood. His wife had to take their children to Alabama to find a school for them.

"It's hard to imagine continuing to do your work in the midst of such loss," she said.

Michelle Miles, doctoral candidate in media studies at the School, also received a Quick Response grant from the National Hazards Center. She and Duke Austin, a doctoral student in sociology at CU, received funding to study "Race, Class and Gender Differences in Governmental Response following a Natural Disaster."

Their formal research tool incorporated demographics and questions about experiences during and after the hurricane. They were surprised at the importance of rumor in the aftermath of the storm.

"It did not take long to get an appreciation for the role of rumor," Miles said. "It was unbelievably pervasive." Austin and Miles found that rumor was an important factor in decision-making for the residents of New Orleans. They discovered that racial differences proved to be the most profound division.

San Antonio WOAI-TV reporter Natalia Zea, right, and station photographer Victor Garza prepare to wade through New-Orleans area streets to cover hurricane damage. Photo by R.A. Quiroga.

"Communication would break down along racial lines," Miles said. "It became very difficult for people in authority to communicate with people of other races." She and Austin said they believe that lack of understanding had an enormously negative effect on the survivors of Katrina.

"Potential miscommunication is one thing in a day-to-day situation. In a crisis, it becomes a matter of life or death," Miles said. "The majority of relief workers in New Orleans were white, and some had very little sensitivity to cultural differences."A lot of trauma could have been avoided with a more diversified response team, she said.

Miles and Austin reached Louisiana on Sept. 30, four weeks after the hurricane hit. Moritz and Daugherty arrived two weeks later. During their time in the city, both teams stayed in the Garden District, part of the 20 percent of New Orleans left unflooded. They were never far from the devastation, though.

"Nothing in the research we had done prepared us for what we encountered," Miles said. "The enormity of the destruction in the gulf region is not something we've created the media to represent. The television screen is too small." Moritz commented on the "toxic disaster" of the flooded areas and how surprised she was at the sheer power of the storm.

The precarious situation in New Orleans was still very much in evidence when faculty members Paul Daugherty and Meg Moritz went to New Orleans to conduct research. Photo courtesy Paul Daugherty.

Miles described her first visit to New Orleans' Ninth Ward in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. "When we got out of the car, we were hit with the smell of rotting flesh. We had to take a step back," she said.

Daugherty described the intense emotions he had in New Orleans. "My arrival felt like a very surreal experience. At times I was overcome with grief and sadness. It was one of the hardest shoots I've ever had."

Stone evaluated the experience similarly. "I will spend the rest of my life remembering what I saw in New Orleans," he wrote.