While writing this article on the 20-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I found myself experiencing writers block, as the devastation of the hurricane and the legacy that followed are too difficult to condense into one piece.

Anniversaries of Hurricane Katrina have often been used by the news media to broadcast images and video footage of New Orleans under water alongside the devastation that followed the storm and levee breaches. 

However, for us native New Orleanians, there is no such thing as an anniversary because not a day goes by where we do not talk about Hurricane Katrina. 

If you ask anyone from the city who was around before Katrina where their high school letterman, class ring or even their baby pictures are, there is a possibility they will respond with “Katrina took it.”  

I remember seeing houses spray painted with an “X” and other symbols. At the time, I assumed those symbols were graffiti tags, but I later discovered they signified that the house had been searched.  

“Katrina Babies” became a term to describe two generations of kids in New Orleans — those who were born just before the storm hit and those who were born just after.
Many of those born after were likely born outside of the city because the storm displaced their families. 

Even though the city of New Orleans has improved since Hurricane Katrina, Black and lower-income neighborhoods are still visibly affected by the storm.  

“Systematically, Black people have it harder … Natural disasters just worsen the conditions … It’s a privilege just to evacuate, but for Black people it’s not as easy because of systemic racism,” Marrero native Christen Clark said.

For New Orleanian Justin Green, a junior at Tulane, this social disparity has heavily impacted his family’s way of living.  

“I had to see just what was left over after Katrina … looking at the empty Plaza Lot, where the Lake Forest Shopping Center was, the abandoned Toys “R” Us, just a lot of different abandoned buildings that left me wondering ‘what was’ in terms of the image and the life of New Orleans East before Katrina,” Green said.

From time to time, I overhear Tulane students talk about how convenient the campus location is — as everything is within walking distance. They are unaware the rest of New Orleans does not experience that luxury. For me, as someone who lives in New Orleans East, the grocery stores, hospitals and many other businesses that made New Orleans East “the place to be” for Black folks now only exist in abandoned buildings and vacant lots.  

For St. Bernard Parish native Bree Naquin, her neighborhood before Katrina was made up of mostly older, lower middle-income families. Despite Naquin living outside of Orleans Parish, she relates to the sentiments New Orleanians express.  

“If you were to look at St. Bernard before Katrina and after Katrina, it’s a completely different place,” Naquin said. “There were so many different stores, there were so many activities for people. It’s stuff that we don’t see now. You have to go 30 to 40 minutes just to do something with your family or go to a nicer restaurant … After Katrina happened people just didn’t rebuild here … they didn’t want to.”

Not only were Black residents disenfranchised by the lack of aid, but other lower-income residents were affected as well.  

“I’ve had people literally tell me, ‘Oh you live in the hood, just by the looks of it,” Naquin said. “That just shows how much of an impact Katrina can have on a place. You go from a neighborhood [being] very lively, and then people are saying you live in the hood.” 

Clark also shared her perspective of Hurricane Katrina as a Black woman from New Orleans in comparison to being a student at Tulane.  

“When I have conversations at home about it, my family members are from here, they’ve experienced Hurricane Katrina [and] Betsy. They’ve experienced so many federal failures … so it’s like the conversations are ‘I didn’t know how bad it was’,” she said.  

Their ignorance referring to the storm is very apparent, as I’ve heard Uber drivers discuss how much they hate driving some Tulane students around because they always refer to the rest of New Orleans as “the ghetto” and “sketchy.” 

“The Tulane Bubble is very real,” Clark said. “When a lot of non-locals come to Tulane, specifically white kids from the West Coast and East Coast come to Tulane they don’t know how bad Hurricane Katrina was or they don’t want to take the time to understand how bad it was.” 

In reflecting on the 20-year anniversary, I find myself feeling frustrated with the government failures that led to my city being under water through the levee breaches. At the same time, I feel the resilience of my people. Despite Hurricane Katrina and the government failures that followed, my city has remained rich in culture and community. For Tulane students especially, it is important to educate and inform yourself about how such a catastrophe — whether you perceive it as something from a long time ago or something you never knew was that bad — still affects the city that you live in today.