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Full episode
299: Back from the Dead
Act Three

Friday Night Floodlights

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About fifteen miles from Pearlington, Bay St. Louis and Waveland are other communities struggling to bring themselves back to life. Waveland was pretty much completely wiped out. Bay St. Louis isn't much better. And though you still can't drink the tap water, and some people still don't have electricity, and school won't reopen until November, people wanted something normal in their lives again, and so high school football's back again. Even though there's no school. The Tigers face enormous odds. Over half their team never came back after Hurricane Katrina. Many of the rest are homeless, living on couches, living away from their parents. Their equipment was ruined. Their uniforms taken by refugees from the flood. National Guardsmen are camping on their practice field. This American Life producer Lisa Pollak attended their first game. (18 minutes)

By

Lisa Pollak

More in Homelessness

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729: Making the Cut
Jan. 8, 2021

Act Three: Reluctant Bureaucrats

Reporter Katie Mingle wonders why the 211 hotline in the San Francisco Bay Area for people experiencing homelessness so often turns out to be a dead end for them.
664: The Room of Requirement
Dec. 28, 2018

Act Three: Growing Shelf-Awareness

Lydia Sigwarth spent a lot of time in her public library growing up – all day, almost every day, for six months straight.
446: Living Without (2011)
Sept. 16, 2011

Act Three: The Call Of The Great Indoors

Every week, Chelsea Merz has lunch with a homeless man named Matthew, in the same restaurant.

More by Lisa Pollak

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705: Time Out
May 22, 2020

Act One: Friday Night Floodlights

Lisa Pollak tells the story of a high school football team in Mississippi getting ready to play its first game just a month after Hurricane Katrina upended everything.
507: Confessions
Oct. 11, 2013

Act Two: You Don't Say

A person is accused of a murder he didn't commit.
481: This Week
Dec. 7, 2012

Act Two: Tucson, Arizona

Lisa Pollak goes to the Enchanted Snowfall at La Encantada Mall, where the snow is "98 percent magic; 2 percent soap." (4 minutes)
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