Throughout Beyonce's music video there are multiple scenes that relate to The natural disaster, hurricane Katrina. This is one of the opening scenes to Beyonce's music video. Formation is largely based the aftermath of the 2005's Hurricane Katrina which ruined the city of New Orleans. Due to the flooding of the Mississippi river this lead to people homes being destroyed and lives being lost. In fact, 1800 people sadly lost their lives. In this opening scene of Beyonce's video we clearly see that the surroundings are flooded and the houses are underwater, this reminds us how bad the floods was. We see Beyonce standing on top of the police car this implies authority because at the time of the floods the lack of government support was not enough as promises had not been kept and by standing on top of the car it shows power. In another scene of Beyonce standing on top of the police car further on in the video she stands proudly with her arm straight up, this action show a black power movement representing anti-segregation which originated from the 60's. In this clip we see that there are no close surrounding so it almost implies that she's on her own island like the statue of Liberty showing independence and power.
A problem raised during the floods was that the federal support form George Bush did not arrive quick enough therefore this meant that people felt that they had to sort themselves out, whilst loosing everything due to the floods. Furthermore, another problem raised was that black people was less fortunate than white people. Black home owners felt discriminated because of the insurance program used to help people rebuild houses. It was noticed that if you were a black home owner then your house was valued less than a white home owner so therefore they suffered more. Overall everyone in New Orleans suffered but black people in particular suffered badly. In the rebuilding process 100,000 African Americans left the city and this lead to a gentrification of the city therefore the cultural aspects of the city was lost.
Further on in the video we see a clip from 'That B.E.A.T' documentary. Showing the devastating aftermath of people homes being turned upside down. By showing images from a documentary like this gives a sense of authenticity. It also gives us an insight on how traumatising the natural disaster was for people who lived in New Orleans at the time it happened. In this picture we also get to see how deep and how far the floods were apparently 80% of New Orleans was flooded. Due to most people not having home the Superdome was opened to welcome the homeless and thousands of people stayed there until they had somewhere els to stay during the massive rebuilding of the city. This scene bellow shows Beyonce dancing in an empty swimming pool, this could of been referred to the Superdome as that became the emergency centre for the locals.
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