#Katrina10: Nation Remembering the Hurricane and Its Continuing Aftermath
by Janell Hazelwood

September 1, 2015

#Katrina10: Nation Remembering the Hurricane and Its Continuing Aftermath

Today marks the official last day that Hurricane Katrina ravaged through Louisiana. Local communities there, as well as across the nation, have been highlighting the continuing aftermath of a devastating storm that left broken levees, hundreds of thousands of displaced residents of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, and more than $100 billion in damage. The storm began Aug. 23, 2005 as a tropical depression which turned into a hurricane by Aug. 29. Though neighboring states were affected, the most damage was concentrated in New Orleans, and left some of the poorest residents of the region; many people of color, in devastation.

[Related: What Hurricane Katrina Can Teach Us About Insurance and Credit Card Debt]

Due to the hurricane, nearly 2,000 people died and about 90,000 square miles of the United States was affected.

President Obama highlighted issues in the region via a live-stream message:

“When the hurricane struck on August 29, 2005, more than 80% of the residents had evacuated, leaving behind the most vulnerable—those with neither the means nor money to flee,” La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO of W.K. Kellogg Foundation, wrote in an exploration of the foundations efforts in improving lives in the region. “New Orleans was predominantly African-American (67%) and 27.9% of the city’s households were in poverty, including nearly 40% of the city’s children. More than 1,800 people died because of the storm, 123,600 people left the city and never returned, and the black population dropped to 60%.”

Residents have relocated to states across the U.S., with some sharing stories of triumph via news and others still struggling to overcome. The catastrophe aftermath also led to a total overhaul of New Orleans’s civic government, as the term of its mayor, Ray Nagin, ended in 2010. He would later be convicted for related crimes of fraud and corruption before and after Katrina.

Commemoration efforts continue today, and many have highlighted pivotal moments during the disaster as well as the issues that still remain in the region a full decade after the storm hit via social:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


×