When Hurricane Katrina tore into the Gulf Coast of the United States on 29 August 2005, it was not merely a storm – it was a brutal unveiling of the US’s deepest vulnerabilities.
With winds howling at 195km/h, the Category 3 hurricane did not just devastate the city of New Orleans – it shattered lives and exposed systemic neglect.
Over 1,800 lives were lost, hundreds of thousands of people were uprooted and an entire region was plunged into chaos.
“I had watched the news, but I didn’t grasp the full scope of devastation,” Dr Samantha Montano told RTÉ News.
“….the message was very strong – that ‘you’re on your own’.”
In the days after the hurricane struck, Dr Montano, an expert in emergency management, went to New Orleans to assist with recovery efforts.
“Every street corner had flooded homes and mountains of debris. Everyone needed help.”
Lower Ninth Ward residents stranded on the roofs wait for rescue boats
Twenty years on, those haunting images of submerged homes and rooftop rescues remain etched in the minds of those old enough to remember it.
Despite an evacuation order issued a day prior, between 100,000 and 150,000 residents – many of them elderly, poor, and black – were unable to flee.
“60% of people living below the poverty line didn’t have a car,” Dr Michael Powelson, a history professor at California State University, said.
Faced with the looming threat of the hurricane, airlines, car rentals, and bus companies shut down their services entirely, unwilling to risk damage to their equipment.
There was an assumption that people could simply pack up their lives, drive away, and wait for the storm to pass in hotels. But over 40% of New Orleans was living on minimum wage.
“George W Bush was the president, and the message was very strong – that ‘you’re on your own’,” Dr Powelson said.
People walk through high water in front of the Superdome in New Orleans
Light streams down through the ceiling of the Superdome, illuminating people taking shelter in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
As floodwaters surged through the city, 30,000 people took shelter in the Louisiana Superdome, a stadium that had hosted several Super Bowls.
Temperatures soared to almost 30C and the damaged dome invited in the heat – and essentially sealed it inside.
While most people died from drowning,150 people passed away from medical emergencies such as strokes and heart attacks brought on by the conditions after the hurricane.
As the city’s electricity faltered in the aftermath of the hurricane, hundreds of refrigerators and freezers across the stadium became breeding grounds for food rot – and that filled the air with an overwhelming stench.
In the stadium’s toilets, not a single toilet was left working, thanks to the failure of the stadium’s water pumps. Every sink was left unusable and dry.
Some 80% of the city was inundated with floodwater – leaving those who chose to shelter at home with no choice but to stand on their rooftops waving their arms to plead for help.
But, as residents clung to rooftops, desperate for rescue, it became clear that the flooding wasn’t simply the result of a powerful storm – it was the consequence of choices made long before Hurricane Katrina arrived.
The Army Corps of Engineers built concrete levees along the Mississippi River to help ships navigate, but those levees disrupted natural flood protection.
Meanwhile, oil and gas companies dug canals and laid pipelines that destroyed wetlands and forests – natural barriers that had previously shielded New Orleans from storm surges.
“Everything was dark and grey. Everything was dead. No crickets, no sound, no birds.”
Sandy Rosenthal, founder of Levees.org, has spent years advocating for accountability and reform.
“If Katrina had hit 100 years earlier,” Ms Rosenthal said, “those natural defences would’ve reduced the flooding dramatically.”
As a result of Hurricane Katrina, the Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction was introduced in 2013.
The $14bn project was built to last 50 years. The system takes into account rising sea levels, sinking land and stronger storms.
It also includes features to make it more resilient, like reinforcing levees to prevent erosion if they’re overtopped. The Army Corps of Engineers also supports restoring coastal wetlands, which act as natural barriers against storm surges.
While these long-term protections are a positive example of a lesson learned, it came at the expense of 1,800 lives, and the people who were left to pick up the pieces after the hurricane.
In the days following the storm, survival became paramount.
“Where will I live? How will I eat? Where will I work?” Ms Rosenthal recalled.
When she snuck back into the city, she found a ghost town.
“Everything was dark and grey. Everything was dead. No crickets, no sound, no birds,” she said.
The scale of destruction was intensified by failures in governance. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was delayed in responding.
“FEMA wasn’t meeting people’s needs,” Dr Montano said.
“They weren’t coordinating with state and local officials or the federal government. Resources weren’t arriving fast enough.”
Michael Brown, then head of FEMA, resigned amid widespread criticism.
A temporary FEMA Disaster Recovery Centre is seen in April 2006 in New Orleans
Years later, FEMA continues to face uncertainty. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump floated the idea of eliminating the agency altogether.
Though the proposal stalled, it triggered instability. Over 2,000 staff have been fired or quit – and the agency has lost top leadership.
There is confusion around funding, and about which money is available for state and local governments.
This money is not only needed for response and recovery, but also for preparedness and mitigation.
“With climate change accelerating, we need more investment. I don’t see that happening.”
The idea that the US government has learned almost no lessons from Hurricane Katrina and is leaving itself open to more natural disasters may be shocking to some people, but this is not the first time the government ignored warning signs.
A year prior to Katrina, government agencies performed a simulation exercise called “Hurricane Pam” for a hurricane of similar strength hitting New Orleans – but these agencies failed to learn important lessons from the exercise.
The Department of Homeland Security, which is supposed to coordinate the relief efforts for all disasters – natural and man-made – had been more focused on the terror threat since the agency was created post 9/11.
So, when FEMA went under its control, it lost some of its stature and found itself in a period of transition, which contributed to the failures that occurred during Katrina.
“Our infrastructure is still poorly maintained,” says Tatyana Deryugina, a finance professor at the University of Illinois. She is sceptical that meaningful change has been made.
“With climate change accelerating, we need more investment. I don’t see that happening.”
Katrina was not just a tragedy. It was a failure of infrastructure, planning, and equity.
Despite the devastation and the urgent calls for reform, many argue that the US has yet to fully absorb the lessons it offered. With more climate-related disasters on the rise, it seems as though history is doomed to repeat itself.
“Some real concerning decisions have been made by the administration,” said Dr Montano.
“They would suggest we are not in a position at all to respond to an event the size of a Hurricane Katrina again.”