In the early hours of August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans with 125-mph winds while about 100,000 residents remained in the city. Many residents lacked means to evacuate. Floodwaters rose as levees, designed for a category three storm, failed against Katrina's surge, submerging low-lying areas. Arnold Burks and his family clung to a tire and escaped to a parking garage as water reached eight feet. The storm killed about 1,200 people and left New Orleans underwater for weeks, causing infrastructure collapse, power outages, and medical disruptions. Poor, predominantly Black neighborhoods suffered disproportionate impacts, and thousands sheltered in overcrowded, unsanitary stadiums.
New Orleans sits on low-lying marshland, much of it six feet (1.8 meters) below sea level. Its levees had been built to withstand a category three 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.
Katrina happened 20 years ago, but the storm has cast a long shadow on the lives of Burks and the thousands of other children now adults who lived through it. The storm claimed 1200 lives and left New Orleans underwater for weeks. During that time the city's infrastructure collapsed, power went down, 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.
Collection
[
|
...
]