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20 Years After Katrina, New Orleans Is ‘at a Tipping Point’

August 29, 2025
in News
20 Years After Katrina, New Orleans Is ‘at a Tipping Point’
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​E​rander Guss-Lee, a security guard, stood outside an auditorium in New Orleans​ one night this week, hearing fragments of ​​​a documentary about Hurricane Katrina that was being screened: Clips of news anchors in the days after the storm, straining to describe the destruction and human suffering. ​Tearful recollections.​ Saxophones sounding mournful but defiant notes.

​Ms. Guss-Lee ​just wanted to go home. She was proud of her city — no question. ​But​ she was not eager to relive Katrina and all the misery that followed.

“We’re still here,” she said. “Believe that.”

New Orleans had survived, which ​was not necessarily a given in those early days and weeks ​after the devastating storm. The city looked as if it had been annexed by the Gulf of Mexico, thousands of people were languishing in a damaged Superdome that had become “a shelter of last resort,” and a sluggish and chaotic federal response stoked fears that they had been forgotten.

But as the city marks the 20th anniversary of Katrina this week, mere survival, for many residents, does not feel like enough.

After the flood and the trauma, New Orleans was flush with financial resources, big ideas and hope that some of its worst and most pernicious problems might have washed away for good. The city might not only stagger back to life, but get better governance, better flood protection, better schools, better police. Two decades later, much of that hope has gone unrealized.

New Orleans has taken pride in its ability to endure; just in the past few years, it suffered a deadly terrorist attack on Bourbon Street, another hurricane that knocked out power and disrupted trash collection for weeks, and a pandemic experience that paralyzed the city’s economy and led to one of the nation’s worst surges in violence. But many residents want it to strive for a higher standard than simply hanging on.

“We can’t be complacent,” said Markethy McClellan, who runs an air-conditioning repair business in the city’s Seventh Ward. “All of us deserve better.”

The unpopular mayor, LaToya Cantrell, was recently indicted on charges of using public funds to facilitate a romantic relationship with her bodyguard, a city police officer. Many residents said in interviews that her office had seemed disengaged for years; voters will elect a new mayor this fall. The city’s dilapidated infrastructure remains a constant source of anger. And its population keeps shrinking.

“Traffic lights aren’t working, the streetlights aren’t working, the drainage pumps aren’t working, and City Hall is not working,” said Edward Chervenak, director of the University of New Orleans Survey Research Center. “People feel that the city is at a tipping point, and that if we don’t get this next mayoral election right, we’re going to spiral downward.”

By the fifth anniversary of Katrina, residents were getting back on their feet, and by the 10th, the city was gradually rebuilding, with positive momentum as more people returned. At 20 years, that optimism has been replaced with widespread concern about the city’s livability, even in light of recent bright spots, like a significant drop in the murder rate.

Home and auto insurance premiums have soared to unaffordable levels. The city has about 120,000 fewer Black residents than it did before Katrina. The homeownership gap between Black and white residents, which narrowed in the first five years after the storm, is growing again.

Locals have criticized the city for becoming too economically dependent on tourism, which mostly provides low-wage jobs.

“You see that?” Charles Taylor, 37, said near Bourbon Street, pointing at the tourists who were having a boozy outing nearby. “That’s who this city caters to.”

Lamar Gardere, executive director of the Data Center, which has published reports on the quality of life in New Orleans 10 and 20 years after Katrina, said that data does not support a completely bleak picture for the city. Some infrastructure has improved since Katrina, he said, including the drainage system, which moves more water than most cities in the country.

He compared the city’s arc to its N.F.L. team, the Saints, who won the Super Bowl in 2010 but have recently had subpar seasons, leaving fans disillusioned.

“The same is true for our city, because the expectations aren’t high, and we know we don’t have the same resources we’ve had before,” Mr. Gardere said. “But we know we can be successful.”

Still, New Orleans is facing headwinds. The Trump administration is setting aside efforts to combat climate change, which poses particular risks to low-lying coastal communities. The White House is weighing whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency should even play a role in disaster recovery.

Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, scrapped a project this year that was meant to restore the wetlands of coastal Louisiana, which serve as a natural buffer protecting New Orleans against hurricanes but have vanished at a staggering pace.

“What remains a mystery,” said Chandra McCormick, a resident of the Lower Ninth Ward who has photographed the city for decades, “is where are we heading?”

Besides frustration, what many in New Orleans seemed to be feeling this week was a sense of bewilderment about how much time had passed.

Larry Robinson, 65, sat on a foldout chair on a bustling sidewalk in the French Quarter one day this week, looked at the sunny yellow paintings he was trying to sell to tourists, and considered what 20 years meant to him.

His mother had drowned during Katrina. He was now the same age she was when she died.

“I remember I was in jail at the time, far from New Orleans, and when they told me what happened to my mother, it took me a few seconds to catch my breath,” he said.

He wasn’t sure what else to think about the anniversary, except to note that “time is a son of a gun.”

At an art exhibition about Katrina on Sunday night, crowds of people studied photos that Carlos Talbott had taken of his beloved New Orleans after the storm, depicting its destruction. But Mr. Talbott, 58, said he was more interested in looking toward the city’s future — so much that he had declined to participate in the exhibition until the last minute.

“Something unbelievably horrible happened to us,” he said. “But the Earth doesn’t stop, right? We’re still going.”

Katy Reckdahl and Rick Rojas contributed reporting.

Eduardo Medina is a Times reporter covering the South. An Alabama native, he is now based in Durham, N.C.

The post 20 Years After Katrina, New Orleans Is ‘at a Tipping Point’ appeared first on New York Times.

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