Column: Two Dallasites take part in National Geographic documentary on Hurricane Katrina

Two Dallas residents with ties to the Hurricane Katrina disaster participated in a recent National Geographic documentary about the storm that will air this year.

Imani Williams, a Hurricane Katrina survivor, and author Lynette Norris Wilkinson, who grew up in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, which the storm devastated, were on the Toronto set when the documentary was filmed, showing how people and buildings stand up to Mother Nature.

The documentary is the latest of various projects that the nonprofit National Geographic Society has produced about the August 2005 storm.

Williams told her harrowing story of survival — wading barefoot in dirty, neck-high water, not knowing if she would live or die — in the documentary, which was filmed around Thanksgiving.

Wilkinson was invited to witness the filming because she helped the society locate survivors she had come to know while writing Untold: The New Orleans 9th Ward You Never Knew, the Sankofa Literary Society’s 2010 Book of the Year.

The as-yet-untitled documentary also will feature survivors of other disasters including tsunamis and tornadoes.

To learn more about the book and documentary, visit hurricanekatrinastories.com/blog . To reach Wilkinson, call 972-283-0586 or email author@hurricanekatrinastories.com.