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episode 1: dan bright

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New Orleans resident Dan Bright was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and released in 2004. He is a father of four. Shortly before Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Dan was arrested again and brought to Orleans Parish Prison on misdemeanor charges.
 
In this podcast, Dan tells us about his arrest and surviving the storm in OPP.

As the storm pounded New Orleans, the guards abandoned the building, leaving Bright and his fellow inmates to break out of their cells to save their lives. With no more than their strength and a metallic mop wringer, the inmates were able to break through iron gates and thick plastic windows.
 
Waiting for them outside the prison were a handful of guards in boats. The guards led the inmates to the Broad Street overpass, where Dan and the other inmates were forced to wait in the hot sun without food or fresh water for four days before being transferred to the overcrowded and shamefully mismanaged Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in Saint Gabriel, Louisiana.
 
Below are photos of Orleans Parish Prison after the storm, taken exclusively for Voice of Witness.

	Templeman 1 and 2, with watermark indicating where floodwaters settled
	A cell in Orleans Parish Prison
	Before abandoning the building, guards left buckets of water like this one for inmates to drink from
	Inmates pried open gates to get out
	In some cases, trapped inmates were forced to rappel down the prison walls
	A tier door with watermark
	Bright and his fellow inmates broke glass windows and doors after guards abandoned them
	Inmates padded broken glass with mattresses to ease their escape
	Bright describes kicking cell doors like this one for hours in order to dislodge them