Did Dr. Anna Pou, a surgeon at what was then known as Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, get “Sully”-ed? Was she a valiant physician undeserving of attacks on her ethical character and crisis management? Or, in the cruel aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, did she cross every known ethical, medical and legal line?
“Five Days at Memorial,” the eight-part limited series now streaming on Apple TV+, dramatizes many more questions and real-life characters. The series unfolds against a larger maelstrom of gutless mismanagement and abdication of responsibility on the federal, state and city levels in the wake of Katrina.
The floodwaters that breached the levees left so many, betrayed and isolated, to die. What happened in this particular building — 45 corpses were found days later in the hospital chapel — is both a lament and a warning to those who will face the next Category 5 hurricane.
