This is one of the craziest stories I have heard about Hurricane Katrina. Glen Pitre was in the midst of making a documentary of what might happen if a hurricane should hit New Orleans. It was meant to be a cautionary tale about the region's ailing levees and wetlands, then Katrina struck and the rest is a tragic history. But the tale does not end there, Pitre, who owns a home in New Orleans, borrowed a helicopter from Universal Pictures, which was filming Miami Vice in Florida, to be sent into the region to record what was happening. Because the helicopter had the fake police logo's, they were not "shooed"away like the rest of the media.

But Pitre was unprepared for what he saw, bodies littered the roadside and people begging for help. Very soon, they moved from filmmakers to rescuers as they started "to give out food and sodas from their van to parched residents. They offered their radios to those who were desperate for communication. They rescued a Labrador retriever that had been trapped in a home. The dog, now named Hurricane, lives in Los Angeles with a photographer."

The film was shot in IMAX but Pitre is undecided what to do as he has not been able to wrap his mind around all of this. When it does come out, the film tentatively titled Storm on the Bayou will easily be the biggest and most important IMAX film ever to be released.

(via CinemaTech)