Douglas Brinkley is a professor of history and director of the Roosevelt Center at Tulane University in New Orleans. He is the author of The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (William Morrow, 2006), which tells the story of the great storm through the eyes of its survivors and examines the failures […]

The American Red Cross is teaming with African American religious and civic groups to train volunteers who will be ready to help when future disasters occur. The Red Cross has sent trainers to work with groups from the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the NAACP.

Norbert Samuelson is a professor of religious studies at Arizona State University in Tempe, where he is an expert in Jewish philosophy and thought.

National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster helps voluntary organizations work together to train and plan for disaster response. NVOAD, based in Alexandria, Virginia, also helps build connections between the voluntary groups and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Brenda Muñiz is author of the report “In the Eye of the Storm: How the Government and Private Response to Hurricane Katrina Failed Latinos,” completed for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), a national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. It was issued in February 2006.

America’s Second Harvest is a network of more than 200 food banks and food-rescue groups coordinated by Craig Nemitz. By the end of November 2005, America’s Second Harvest, based in Chicago, had sent more than 1,900 truckloads carrying close to 59 million pounds of food to survivors of Katrina and Rita.

Alan Steinweis is a professor of history and Holocaust studies at the University of Vermont. He directs the school’s Center for Holocaust Studies and is an expert on the history of Nazi Germany.

Mark Roseman is a professor of Jewish studies and history at Indiana University in Bloomington, where his specialties include the history of the Holocaust.

Gary G. Porton is a professor of religious studies, history and literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he teaches courses in American Judaism, Jewish customs and ceremonies and the Holocaust.