NOLA: The Rebirth Of A City

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, ultimately becoming one of the deadliest and costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.

The Category 3 storm made landfall just east of New Orleans, but its impact on the Crescent City was catastrophic: storm surge overwhelmed the levee system, 80% of the city flooded and more than 1,800 lives were lost across the region. Economic damages soared past $200 billion, and hundreds of thousands of residents were displaced, many permanently.

For survivors, memories of that moment remain seared into daily life. BreArd Snellings, a New Orleans area native who was a child when Katrina struck, recalled that storms had always been part of the rhythm of life in Louisiana. “Growing up, it wasn't something that we feared or was something that you would be worried about,” he said. “Katrina, though, you could kind of feel something was different even as a kid.”

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For legendary blues master Little Freddie King, the storm’s ferocity was unforgettable. “That's the worst storm that ever hit New Orleans,” he said. “And it’s a direct target for New Orleans.” Musician Leon “Kid Chocolate” Brown still remembers the haunting sight of waterlines cutting across homes. “Riding around the city, you could see where the water was. And it was just hard to imagine 11 feet of water in the house that I was living in.”

Those early days were marked by chaos and survival. Oyster farmer Kuzma Tezvich recalled finding the coastline transformed into a graveyard of boats. “The area was littered with boats," he remembered. "One on top of the other, because the tide came up like 25 feet and all the boats was loose, running all over the place.”

Robert Ricks, the lead forecaster with the National Weather Service office in New Orleans during Katrina, said many families lived in extreme deprivation: “Occasionally we saw Red Cross trucks come by, offering meals and drinking water. But for the most part, we were living out of ice chests and off of MREs for about 40 days.”

Long Road Home

As the floodwaters receded, New Orleans faced a stark question: should people rebuild, or retreat? For many, there was never really a choice. “We are resilient,” said Loretta Tezvich, who along with her husband Kuzma, rebuilt their oyster business from scratch. “We want to stay here. We love where we live.”

The city, however, was far from recognizable. Brown recalled returning to find curfews enforced by tanks in the streets. “We were all happy to be able to be back home. But at the same time, everything was so different. You had the military riding around on tanks because there was a curfew. We had to be indoors.”

(MORE: Hurricane Katrina By The Numbers)

Rebuilding was slow and uneven. Some neighborhoods rebounded relatively quickly, but others rose only house by house, or never returned at all.

Bernie Cullen, chairman of Waveland, Mississippi's Ground Zero Hurricane Museum, explained the scale of the challenge: “People ask, why did it take us so long to rebuild? All of our infrastructure was damaged. We had to rebuild electricity, power lines. We had to fix sewage. We had to take care of gas lines. It was crazy.”

In some commercial districts, the losses were permanent. “This area was all businesses, restaurants, people,” said Kuzma Tezvich. “But it’s all gone. None of that came back. People came back, but none of these big businesses came back.”

The landscape of the city changed irreversibly, creating what Brown called “a line in history. Up until the storm hit, that was New Orleans. And after that, that is NOLA.”

Persistent Vulnerability

The federal government poured billions of dollars into New Orleans’ recovery, with much of that investment aimed at preventing a repeat disaster. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System (HSDRRS), a vast network of levees, surge barriers, pumping stations and floodwalls costing more than $14 billion. Completed in 2022, the system is designed to protect against a "one-in-100-year" storm surge.

Still, doubts linger. “I think the levee systems are much improved,” said meteorologist Robert Ricks. “But it’s still rated at a category three type engineering structure. So it begs to see how well it handles a category four or category five storm, if that ever happens. And heaven forbid, if it ever does.”

Beyond levees, Louisiana created the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA), which has completed more than 140 projects, rebuilt barrier islands and restored wetlands. These natural defenses are critical. Without them, the city is even more vulnerable to sea-level rise and stronger hurricanes fueled by climate change.

(MORE: Hurricane Katrina, 20 Years On)

Even with progress, the risk is clear. Since 2020, the parishes in the New Orleans metro area has averaged 17 federally declared disasters each — four times the national average. Recovery remains a moving target in a city where the next storm could be just over the horizon.

Emotional Aftershocks

The physical destruction was immense, but the human toll ran even deeper. Snellings said many residents never recovered from the trauma. “There are so many people who suffered psychological, physical effects from that,” he explained. “Increased rates of cancer, increased rates of suicide, increased rates of mental illness.”

Returning home also revealed uncomfortable social truths. Aaron Wilkinson, a local musician, put it bluntly: “Katrina kind of revealed some warts, some big ones. And I think it forced people to take a look at some of the inequalities that have been plaguing this place, and places like it, ever since it was founded.”

Brown noted how the storm transformed communities, with housing projects torn down and replaced by mixed-income developments that altered the city’s demographics. “It was the same place, but it was like a different overlay of the same place,” he said. For many longtime residents, New Orleans was familiar yet unrecognizable.

And yet, the bonds of survival proved strong. “Going through these natural disasters on a pretty reoccurring basis brings you together,” said Snellings. “It forges a bond, a community built over these shared experiences, these shared traumas. Nothing unites New Orleans faster or more thoroughly than it being us versus anybody.”

Lessons Learned

The disaster also reshaped how residents and officials approach storms. “You have to be a meteorologist if you live here with hurricanes,” said Loretta Tezvich. “You got to be able to watch that pressure go up and down and you know which way it’s moving.”

(MORE: The Sounds Of Hurricane Katrina)

Wilkinson agreed, saying people now take weather forecasts far more seriously: “You do take a longer look at the weather report. You take a closer listen. You keep a much closer eye on it. I think you just, you have to.”

Technology has played a key role in preparedness. Ricks, the meteorologist, pointed to the growth of social media and 24-hour weather coverage. “There is no excuse for anyone to be caught off guard on big events like this,” he said.

Still, some lessons remain painfully relevant. Retired New Orleans Police Captain Tim Bayard remembered how unprepared local agencies were. “The city wasn't prepared. Homeland Security of the city wasn't prepared. Emergency Operation Center wasn't prepared. I mean, give me a break. We had nothing. So we were on our own.”

A City Renewed

Two decades later, the story of New Orleans is one of resilience and transformation. The city is safer behind its fortified levees, greener thanks to urban forestry projects and in some ways stronger for having endured. But scars remain, visible in neighborhoods that never fully recovered, in families that never returned and in the knowledge that the city remains deeply vulnerable to climate change.

And yet, there is pride. “Look at what we can accomplish,” said Snellings. “Look at what we’re doing together. Look at what it means to be a New Orleanian again. The pride, the joy, the happiness of being back, of being good again, it’s an experience like no other.”

For others, the storm became a personal turning point. Louisiana lifestyle photographer Joshua Lee Nidenberg called it “a catalyst… something that gave you a chance to start over, whether you were ready or not.”

Cullen, of the Katrina museum, summed up the feeling shared by many Gulf Coast residents: “Just the sense that we did it, that we were strong, stronger than we ever thought we had to be. But you become strong when you need to be strong. And that’s what we did.”

New Orleans is still, in the words of those who helped revive it, “unique among American cities and among cities in the world. There’s no place like it.”

And twenty years later, the invitation from those same residents stands: come down, see for yourself and let the city buy you a drink.

Weather.com lead editor Jenn Jordan explores how weather and climate weave through our daily lives, shape our routines and leave lasting impacts on our communities.