Five Days at Memorial

The first 5 episodes are dedicated to the actual events at the hospital and those ones are great. First episode is intense; the rest are a bit slower in nature but are a very interesting watch. It's great to see how everything went down when the hurricane hit.

The last 3 episodes are dedicated to the aftermath of everything, from the hospital to the decisions made at the hospital. These are not bad necessarily, but they move at a sluggish pace and are ultimately not even half as interesting as the hospital episodes.

I really feel like they could have shortened the first 5 hospital episodes into 4, and the last 3 aftermath episodes into 2 for a total of 6 thought out episodes. It really starts to repeat itself at those points, but it is still a fine watch, especially if you are particularly interested in hurricane Katrina.

First off, Cherry and Vera are fantastic in this. After the pandemic, watching this story gives me chills. Such a good story to be told. Highly recommend.

Dark and brilliant docudrama, or is it dramadocu, that takes a good hard look at how humans fare in crisis, showing the best of us and the worst, but most importantly showing our prismatic human reaction to inevitable death. There is no editorializing here, which makes it so profound. Depending on your moral ground you'll pick your own heroes and villains, and wonder what you might have done.

I like the fact that they keep out of politics and moralizing and let the audience makes it's own decisions.

The acting is superb, the dialog is real, the Direction doesn't flinch, and a for sure Emmy winner.

You might binge watch this, but the story is very intense and you really need a break after an episode. I watched the first two together and the others separately. My comments are only on these first four. The acting is excellent. The Direction is excellent. The story is heartbreaking. Local authority is unprepared and non existent. The lack of local, state and federal assistance is criminal. A hard lesson that hopefully improved every hospital emergency plan as well as individual, family, corporate, local, state and federal emergency plans dealing with any disaster. You feel drained after watching each of the first four episodes.

This series shows how those in Memorial hospital faced such terrible conditions and decisions and how bad choices were made during hurricane Katrina. It frustrated me to see the coastguard going in to pick up people and yet when the next one came no one thought to bring provisions like food and water and medications needed for those still there. The lack of human compassion is evident as is the procrastination. Even the woman in charge of the hospital is clueless and makes very bad decisions. It is an insight into how bad aid is given when it happens on the US doorstep and how truly inhumane they can be. Sad to watch.