I'm Jane Marie, and this is the dream. This week marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina hit our

southern coast. At the time, I was a very junior producer at this American life. I'd only reported

one piece ever, and it was about a shop in Chicago that sold spy gear. Nothing like reporting on a

natural disaster. About a week after the flood, Ira Glass,

Lisa Pollock and I went to Houston to tape at the Astrodome, which had become a massive shelter

where folks who had lost their homes were convened to find new ones, or to get medical care,

or food, or rest. I brought Lisa in to look back on our time there

and to revisit that reporting,

the pieces we made 20 years ago,

which you'll get to hear. Let's back up to, you know, before the levees broke, it was still like a big story, you know, like the storm was bad.

And we had started brainstorming of like how we wanted to cover the hurricane.

And of course, the rules of what gets on this American life are weird.

And I don't remember who pitched going to Houston, but it was like we were just having these brainstorm meetings kind of every day at that point.

I feel like it would have been us.

I mean, well, because I want to go there. I want to go someplace where something's happening.

The first thing I think I learned when we were planning this is like, because we had such a hard time finding a vehicle at a hotel.

Remember that?

We had to drive around in that moving van that didn't have seats in it.

Yes, I forgot about that.

We were in like a budget rental van, moving van, because it was the only vehicle we could find.

And so we flew into Houston.

We got the moving van. And so we flew into Houston, we got the moving van,

...