It was my first tropical winter, and the culture of New Orleans had me in slow motion shock, writes Andrea Maio, a filmmaker who lives in Benzie County. I arrived there on Christmas Day, after a tough boat trip down the Mississippi river. My boat had broken down in a nearby town and left me stranded from my family for the holidays, so I rented a car and drove with my dog into the city. There, I found a dingy bar on Decatur Street offering free Christmas dinners to all of their customers. They didn’t mind dogs in the bar, so I brought in my lab mix Butch and sat, and drank with the regulars. When the levy broke and New Orleans started to enter its nightmare, all I could think about were the dogs. The wild pack on my block, the puppy left in the park, the neighbors chained up rottie, all seemed more helpless than the thousands of people who were suffering. I know it was a crazy reaction, but it must have been easier than thinking about the true scope of what was happening. The truth was that thousands of people were suffering due to the inhumanity of people towards other people. For years we knew what could happen. For years nothing was done.