Cornelius Smith Jr in Apple series

Written by John Ridley and Carlton Cuse, the series is set at a New Orleans hospital in the five days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall.

Actor Cornelius Smith Jr will feature opposite Vera Farmiga and Adepero Oduye in limited series Five Days at Memorial for Apple TV Plus. The show, which will chronicle the events in the immediate aftermath of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina in the US, is based on non-fiction book Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Pulitzer Prize winner Sheri Fink.

Written by John Ridley and Carlton Cuse, the series is set at a New Orleans hospital in the five days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall. Amid rising flood waters, stifling heat and failing power, exhausted caregivers at the hospital were forced to make life-and-death decisions that would haunt them in the years to come.

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Smith Jr will essay the role of Dr Bryant King, an internist and one of the few doctors of color at the hospital, who finds himself very much in the middle of the crisis. Farmiga will play Dr Anna Pou, the doctor on duty at Memorial when the storm hit, while Oduye will star as Karen Wynn, the nurse manager of the hospital’s intensive care unit and the head of its ethics committee.

Ridley and Cuse will also serve as directors for the series with Fink on board as the producer. ABC Signature is the studio. Smith is best known for his series-regular role as Marcus Walker on ABC show Scandal.