EXCLUSIVE: Peacock on Monday announced Hope in High Water: A People’s Recovery Twenty Years After Hurricane Katrina, a new documentary from Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy-winning journalist Trymaine Lee, which is set to premiere on the platform on Friday, August 22.
Previewed in a trailer above, the doc finds Lee returning to New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where he first reported on Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest disasters in American history, as part of the Times-Picayune newsroom. Two decades later, Hope in High Water traces the arc of recovery through the voices of those who never left: local leaders who have spent many years not only rebuilding but reimagining the systems that failed their communities long before the storm.
From the frontlines of the floodwaters to the front porches of those who stayed and rebuilt, the doc weaves together intimate storytelling, archival footage and unflinching reporting to reflect on what recovery has meant and what it still demands. With a focus on health, education, food access and environmental survival, it uplifts the persistence and vision of educators, organizers, farmers and families to create lasting change from the ground up, offering a portrait of a region still in motion, where progress is real and the work continues.
Said the doc’s director, Lee, “‘Hope in High Water’ is about what it means to have your entire world upended and still find a way forward. This is a story I’ve been living and telling for 20 years. From reporting on the devastation on the ground and in real time to returning with a new lens, I hope this documentary reminds people that while the waters may have receded, the fight for equity and belonging continues.”
Made possible with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the doc is directed by Haimy Assefa, who also produced for Blue Black Studio, alongside I Am Somebody Media. The film is hosted and exec produced by Lee, an MSNBC contributor who has spent the last two decades reporting on the collision of race, power, politics and violence. Time and again, he’s returned to New Orleans to gauge Hurricane Katrina’s enduring impact on Black communities in the Gulf South. His new book, A Thousand Ways to Die: The True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America, is slated for release via St. Martin’s Press on September 9.
