A Smaller, Whiter, Less Affordable New Orleans

by Joseph Williams

“Katrina: 20 Years Later” is Word In Black’s series on Hurricane Katrina’s enduring impact on New Orleans, and how Black folks from the Big Easy navigate recovery, resilience, and justice.

Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans, the waterlines from the once-in-a-generation storm are still visible. Not on the shotgun houses that were gutted, or bulldozed, nor on the gleaming, glass-and-steel high-rise towers looming over downtown.

The floodlines linger in numbers: census data showing a declining Black population; skyrocketing rents driving out the working class; vacant lots dotting neighborhoods that never came back — and the families who never did either.

Two decades after the costliest natural disaster in United States history slammed into the Gulf