Spike Lee documentary has serious omissions

I finally saw When the Levees Broke, Spike Lee's 4-hour HBO documentary on what happened in New Orleans after Katrina made landfall. It is difficult viewing, to be sure; in fact, some of the scenes are horrific.

After the documentary was previewed, there were complaints that it focused only on African Americans. Others who had seen it questioned these complaints, since plenty of Caucasian victims are interviewed, and their stories are told in depth.

The answer lies somewhere in between: Despite the appearance of many white Katrina victims (or, more accurately, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers victims) in the documentary, there is no mention made of the Lakeview section of New Orleans. The white people featured (that is, those who are victims of the storm)--with the exception of one--all lived in the lower ninth ward or in St. Bernard Parish.
Lakeview is almost all white and is a middle class neighborhood with some wealthy sections. And while it is true that the people who live in Lakeview, as a whole, have more resources than the people who live in the lower ninth--nevertheless, many of them lost everything. To drive through Lakeview is not as shocking as driving through St. Bernard or the lower ninth ward, but it is still a scene of devastation.

I think Lee should have included a segment on Lakeview. His defenders say that he had to focus on what he needed to focus on in a given amount of time, but that given amount of time was four hours, and he could have included a major part of New Orleans that was destroyed.

However, that is not my main objection to an otherwise gripping piece of documentary work. The shocker is that in the entire four hours, there is no mention made of the thousands of dogs, cats, birds, horses, and other non-humans who lost their lives and their homes when the levees broke. There is no mention made of the heartbreak people suffered when the government literally threw their pets into the street. There are no scenes of drowning and starving cats and dogs. It is as though the only victims of Katrina were humans.