Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans on August 29, 2005, producing 125-mph winds and a massive storm surge that overwhelmed levees. Tens of thousands of residents remained in the city, many unable to evacuate due to poverty or lack of transport. Floodwaters rose to eight feet in places, forcing families to climb to rooftops and parking garages for safety. Emergency services and infrastructure failed as power, medical care, and basic services collapsed. The storm caused about 1,200 deaths and left extensive physical destruction and psychological trauma, with poor and predominantly Black neighborhoods bearing the greatest burden.
In the early hours of August 29, 2005, Arnold Burks woke to the sound of screams as 125-mile-an-hour winds whipped through his neighborhood. When Hurricane Katrina hit, the 13-year-old was one of the roughly 100,000 people still in New Orleans, a city in Louisiana near the US Gulf coast. Many couldn't afford to leave or didn't have a car. Burks' dad and older brother chose to rough it out at home, and he stayed with them.
New Orleans sits on low-lying marshland, much of it 6 feet (1.8 meters) below sea level. Its levees had been built to withstand a Category 3 storm but couldn't cope with Katrina's huge surge. When the levees broke, water engulfed the city. Burks and his family were forced to flee. The water was 8 feet deep, and since Burks couldn't swim he clung to a tire as they made their way to the top of a nearby parking garage. He passed a neighbor's house with only the roof visible.
The storm claimed some 1,200 lives and left New Orleans underwater for weeks. During that time the city's infrastructure collapsed, power was out and medical care was unavailable. Many of the city's poor and predominantly Black neighborhoods were disproportionately affected. Residents experienced increasingly dire conditions as they waited to be rescued. Thousands sheltered in the city's Superdome stadium, which many reports described as unsanitary, overcrowded and unsafe.
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