"...A Native Son Now."

.


Anderson Cooper revisits New Orleans heroes for CNN K+5 special

Published: Saturday, August 14, 2010, 3:09 AM

“CNN Heroes” and New Orleans seem made for each other.

Since 2008, the ongoing cable-news-network feature — which culminates with a nationally televised Thanksgiving night broadcast honoring community activists around the world — has repeatedly shone its bright spotlight on people with Hurricane Katrina ties.

For a Katrina anniversary special airing at 6:30 p.m. Saturday (August 14), host Anderson Cooper revisited all three:

Liz McCartney, co-founder of the St. Bernard Project, who was honored as CNN’s Hero of the Year in 2008; Derrick Tabb, founder of The Roots of Music program and a Heroes Top 10 honoree in 2009; and Tad Agoglia, who founded The First Response Team and was a Top 10 honoree in 2008.

“He essentially goes around the country right after a disaster strikes and gets in heavy equipment and clears the roads and allows the real first responders to get in,” said Kelly Flynn, senior executive producer for the CNN Heroes initiative, of Agoglia. “He’s there before the first responders.

“He was inspired by Katrina to quit what he was doing and just do this for his living. He has since lived in a truck and traveled around the country to hurricane sites, flood sites, Haiti. He’s been working on the Gulf oil spill.”

The special is “basically New Orleans through their eyes five years later,” Flynn continued. “A couple of them take you on a tour around the areas in which they work. Derrick Tabb goes back to his former junior high school, which is still in shambles since Katrina. It hasn’t been rebuilt. He takes us back there and talks about how important music programs are to kids in the city, and then you see how his program is just thriving.”

The Heroes program was founded to elevate recognition of change-invested individuals above the din of ever-breaking news and busting (political) chops that otherwise overwhelms the cable-news dial.

“Our program started because there were these amazing stories of people around the world … doing things to help their communities, going above and beyond,” Flynn said. “We call it everyday people changing the world. It was tough to fit their stories into a 24-hour news cycle. Sometimes it’s hard to get that good news on, so we decided we wanted to make a special place for it.

“The program has taken on a life of its own and built a community that we didn’t expect. We’ve had people who decided they were going to take their family down and help Liz McCartney build homes in New Orleans.

“Social networking, I have to say, the Facebooks and Twitters, have really spread the word of our program even more, and gotten people even more engaged. Once people are familiar with our program and watch the program or watch any of our pieces online to learn about these folks, they’re really inspired and really interested in passing on the word that this is happening out there.

“With ‘CNN Heroes’ you always come away with a sense of hope. ‘If that person can do that, I can too.’ ”

The same could be said for Saturday’s special, Flynn added.

“I think the show will demonstrate that (New Orleans) is not all fixed, but because of people like Derrick and Liz and Tad, it’s on its way to getting better,” she said. “Anderson is passionate about that, too, that the city is coming back and has a future life that is even brighter than the past.

“He’s practically a native son now.”