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Twenty years ago, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, and the levees designed to protect New Orleans failed. Huge swaths of the city flooded, and 1,600 people were trapped inside Charity Hospital. Physician Erica Fisher was working in Charity’s emergency room at the time, and she and her colleagues fought for days to keep their patients alive.
Host Flora Lichtman speaks with Dr. Fisher, now an emergency medicine physician at University Medical Center in New Orleans, about Hurricane Katrina and the vulnerability of our healthcare systems in the face of disasters.
Plus, science writer Maggie Koerth joins Flora to share other science news the week, including the link between heat waves and aging, updated COVID vaccine guidelines, the ancient origins of human mucus, and the possibility that dwarf planet Ceres could once have sustained life.
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Meet the Producers and Host
About Charles Bergquist
As Science Friday’s director and senior producer, Charles Bergquist channels the chaos of a live production studio into something sounding like a radio program. Favorite topics include planetary sciences, chemistry, materials, and shiny things with blinking lights.
About Rasha Aridi
Rasha Aridi is a producer for Science Friday and the inaugural Outrider/Burroughs Wellcome Fund Fellow. She loves stories about weird critters, science adventures, and the intersection of science and history.
About Flora Lichtman
Flora Lichtman is a host of Science Friday. In a previous life, she lived on a research ship where apertivi were served on the top deck, hoisted there via pulley by the ship’s chef.