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It’s been 20 years since category 3 Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Louisiana, on Aug. 29, 2005, and the city’s levees broke, causing catastrophic flooding that killed more than a thousand people.
Katrina is still considered the costliest U.S. hurricane on record at more than $200 billion in today’s dollars. Tens of thousands of New Orleans residents were displaced, and many never returned, moving to other states like Texas and Georgia. The city and the federal government were accused of not doing enough to protect the hardest-hit areas before the storm and to rehabilitate them afterwards because their residents were predominantly Black and brown.
The continued impact of the hurricane comes into focus in a new three-part documentary series, Katrina: Come Hell and High Water, out on Netflix on Aug. 27. Executive-produced by Spike Lee, the series looks back on the catastrophe through interviews with survivors, elected officials from the time, as well as home videos and news coverage. (Lee also directed the 2006 documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.) Here’s a look at the most shocking moments in the series detailing the human cost of Hurricane Katrina.
Weathering the storm
Many of the people living in the most vulnerable low-lying areas of New Orleans were Black and brown residents who did not have the financial means to evacuate and didn’t have a car or access to one.
The Superdome (once the largest indoor arena in the world) opened up to residents who could not evacuate. But long lines prevented many from getting inside.
In the series, Robert Green, who hailed from the Lower Ninth Ward, says he wanted to evacuate to Nashville, but his mother was too sick to leave the city. The lines to get in the Superdome were extremely long, and she was too frail to wait. The area in the arena for special needs residents was not ready yet, so they went back home.
When the storm made landfall, Green recalls being trapped in the attic and his…
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