Hurricane Katrina Aftermath Is Both Reverberating and Amplifying 20 Years Later

"We're joined now in New Orleans by independent journalist Jordan Flaherty, who was in New Orleans when the hurricane hit, returned to the city soon after being evacuated, to help with relief efforts and to report on what was happening in the streets, particularly to the poor Black communities that were most affected by the hurricane. He's won awards for his reporting on people left behind in the New Orleans city jail after the hurricane and is the author of Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six. He's joined us many times over the years."

""It's devastating," says Flaherty, warning that the aftermath of Katrina is not only reverberating, but amplifying, today. "The support for the oil and gas industry, the heightened climate change, hurricanes getting bigger, hurricanes getting stronger, less land to protect us in the city, less infrastructure to support us, less of a social safety net ... less ways to afford to live in the city, in this country.""

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 devastated New Orleans and overwhelmed the city's infrastructure, accelerating long-term dispossession of primarily Black residents. Corruption and mismanagement in the years after the storm diverted aid away from affected communities and slowed recovery. Racist media narratives contributed to the criminalization and marginalization of Black New Orleanians. Ongoing support for oil and gas, intensified climate change, larger and stronger hurricanes, coastal land loss, weakened infrastructure, and a fraying social safety net have compounded economic precarity and reduced affordable housing options, amplifying displacement across the city and the country.

Read at Truthout