The Toxic Lessons Of Hurricane Katrina
A Look At Louisiana & The Mississippi Gulf Coast 20 Years After The Floodwaters
This week marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, causing catastrophic flooding and resulting in hundreds of billions in damage, death, and displacing tens of thousands of people. The massive category 3 storm flooded 80 percent of New Orleans, devastating neighborhoods like the Ninth Ward and teaching lessons about environmental justice and vulnerability.
The damage and loss of life in Louisiana and Mississippi were staggering, with significant impacts extending into the Florida panhandle, Georgia, and Alabama.
Who can forget the images of thousands of people crammed into the Superdome or the knee-high soup of brown water swirling with debris throughout the city or residents stranded on rooftops waiting to be rescued?
The image of then-President George W. Bush flying over the wreckage on Air Force One became a symbol of inadequate and disappointing support from the federal government. You can see the image here.
(You know my stance on politics: we’ve seen environmental disasters unfold under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Flint, Michigan, and the BP Oil Spill happened during the Obama years.)
In addition to its tragic human toll, Katrina left an environmental toll as well with oil spills, storm debris, damaged sewage and water treatment systems, abandoned housing, and widespread mold.
An array of nearby chemical plants, petroleum facilities, and contaminated sites, including Superfund sites, got drenched in floodwaters, along with service stations and dry-cleaning businesses, using hazardous chemicals that may have been released into the environment.
We learned about the gaps in research and the inability to accurately assess exposures to potential chemical contaminants given the extended lag time between exposure and assessment, and the lack of investment in longitudinal cohort studies. You can read a longer assessment here.
Months after the floodwaters receded, New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward was still covered with a dark layer of mystery dirt.
“That is sediment that came from the contaminated industrial canal,” Pam Dashiell, a neighborhood activist and long-time resident of the Lower Ninth Ward told NPR in 2006. “The sediments in the industrial canal were absolutely contaminated. Our neighborhood association had a study done (before Katrina) that found all kinds of toxic sediments, heavy metals—arsenic lead—far above the standards of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. And post Katrina all of those chemicals were found in the soil."
In the days that followed the storm, the Big Easy had no electricity or running water; cellphones and other forms of communication didn’t work, including 911 emergency call centers. Food and water were scarce. Drinking water services took more than 14 months to resume.
Federal, state, and local officials were unprepared. Twenty years later… What have we learned?
Major Environmental Lessons From Katrina
New Orleans is a place known throughout the world for incredible music, food, and fun times. It’s also a major city located below sea level; with the Mississippi River to the south, Lake Pontchartrain to the north, and Lake Borgne to the east, the area is prone to flooding from the river, the lakes, and the Gulf of Mexico. Development of a system to protect the city from flooding began when the city was founded in the early 1700s, but that system was overwhelmed when Katrina hit. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers removed 250 billion gallons of water from the city in 53 days, but it’s taken decades to fully integrate the lessons from this storm.
Everyone Deserves Access To A Clean Environment
Environmental advocacy and activism are not just about protecting the natural world; it’s about protecting people. If you believe that everyone deserves fair protection from environmental and health hazards, including natural disasters, then you believe in environmental justice.
While the current administration has directed federal agencies like the EPA to close environmental justice offices and cease environmental-justice related programs, Hurricane Katrina, and many others storms since then, remind us why “protection for all” is so important.
At the time of the storm, more than one in four New Orleans residents were living in poverty. While some argued that evacuation notices were called too late to be effective in New Orleans, many people lacked transportation or money to leave their homes.
Due to historical discrimination, including redlining and racial segregation of neighborhoods, people of color are more likely to live in homes and communities that are less resilient to natural disasters. This is caused by limited wealth, proximity to floodplains, less resilient and aging infrastructure, more structurally unsound homes and buildings, and a lack of savings for emergencies. For these reasons, communities of color are more likely to bear greater risk and damage from natural disasters.
~from the Center for American Progress, an independent nonpartisan policy institute that is dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans.
The neighborhoods hardest hit by flooding were predominantly Black and Vietnamese-American neighborhoods in the city, which were originally established on reclaimed, low-lying, areas bordering wetlands.
In addition, several studies, like this one and this one, show that the federal response to natural disasters is inequitable, with Black disaster survivors receiving less government support than their white counterparts even when the amount of damage and loss are the same.
The color of your skin, the amount of money in your bank account, and your zip code should not determine whether you have access to clean water and an environment that’s safe to live in.
The Failure & Rebuilding Of The Levees
The American Society of Civil Engineers called Katrina the “the worst engineering catastrophe in U.S. history” and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers later acknowledged its levees were “a system in name only.”
The complicated system of pumps and levees were supposed to keep the city dry. This system was intended to protect the city against hurricanes, but the levees were never designed to protect against the most severe hurricanes. Additionally, the responsibility to maintain the levees became split between a variety of local organizations, which allowed for gaps and weaknesses in the flood protection system.
Many of the city’s 350 miles of levees failed during Katrina. A 288-page evaluation published in 2009 found many flaws, including inadequate designs, decisions made during construction and more.
Shortly after the storm, Congress authorized $14.6 billion for a Hurricane Storm Damage Risk Reduction System, providing a 100-year storm surge–defensive wall across the Louisiana coast to help New Orleans prepare for stronger storms. It helped during Hurricane Ida in 2021.
Despite these investments, the system still faces challenges today as sea levels around the city are rising by about half an inch every year, while the city is sinking. Some sections of the levee system have lost almost 2 inches each year, which is faster than the rate of change that the Corps projected when it built the system.
The Trump administration has eliminated funding for the Corps and FEMA for key resilience projects and levee inspections.
The Need For Nature-Based Solutions
The storm highlighted the critical importance of natural barriers. The wetlands and bayous are not just essential to the identity of New Orleans; they help protect the city from hurricanes and storm surges.
In 2024, the Central Wetlands Reforestation Collective received $1.2 million in federal funding to restore wetlands bordering the Lower Ninth Ward.
“In this area, there has been this history of building infrastructure and disconnecting the community from the natural environment,” Austin Feldbaum, Hazard Mitigation Director for the City of New Orleans told NOAA in 2023. “So it’s important for us to reconnect the two.”
Outreach efforts for the replanting work and design project have been led by the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development. The center helps educate residents about the environment so they can contribute to restoration work and advocate for projects that address their needs.
“Healthy wetlands are a part of Louisiana’s multiple-lines-of-defense strategy—the levees alone are not the full solution to coastal risks,” Feldbaum said.
Other groups like The Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana are addressing wetlands loss by mobilizing volunteers and stakeholders to plant tens of thousands of trees, build rain gardens and bioswales and replace traditional lawns with native plants.
And the city itself is investing in more green and gray infrastructure to help reduce flooding.
Preparing for Disasters Before They Happen
In the two decades since Hurricane Katrina, major policy reforms strengthened disaster response, bolstering the capacity of the FEMA with specific environmental components.
A comprehensive 228-page government investigation revealed a cascade of preventable failures. Federal levees collapsed during and after the storm, while officials at every level of government fumbled evacuations, rescues, and emergency housing. The conclusion: most deaths and destruction could have been avoided.
Just two weeks after the storm, then FEMA-director Michael Brown resigned.
The political response split into two camps: abolish FEMA or reform it. Instead of starting from scratch, in 2006 lawmakers chose to reinvest, expanding FEMA’s funding and authority while requiring that its director be an expert in disaster management.
Then in 2018, Congress passed more FEMA reform, establishing a special fund to pay for disaster preparedness projects across the country, including flood walls, wildfire protections, and tornado warning systems. President Trump, then in his first term, signed that bill into law.
This shift was considered a good thing, as it costs far less to upgrade infrastructure before a disaster than to pay to fix it later.
We must expect more catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina, and possibly worse ones. We can’t undo past mistakes, but we can learn from them and better prepare for the future.
While policies have evolved, implementation and enforcement continue to face challenges. The current administration argues that federal spending on disaster relief is wasteful. FEMA employees wrote to Congress earlier this week. The letter titled the “Katrina Declaration,” warns that the admin has reversed much of the progress made in disaster response and recovery since Hurricane Katrina.
Communities and individual citizens can do their part to prepare. This is why I continue to talk about having a water plan in case of emergencies.
I’ve mentioned many community groups that continue to work in New Orleans and a few more include:
Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN)
Deep South Center For Environmental Justice
Join efforts locally by donating time, money, or other skills. It may not feel like much, but these orgs rely on volunteers who care about the community to keep these efforts alive.
Did you live through Katrina? What do you remember? Share your stories here.
Thank you!