Almost 20 Years After Katrina, a Filmmaker Visited New Orleans. Everyone Told Her the Same Thing.

Newsweek

a day ago

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A visitor in New Orleans might frolic around the French Quarter, revel in Mardi Gras culture or get lost in a blues performance. When trying to track down the tastiest jumbo, it is easy to forget the trauma that meanders the Mississippi. But for residents, there is no getting away from the impacts of Hurricane Katrina, which still haunts the city two decades on.
Filmmaker Traci A. Curry visited Essence Festival in 2023, a behemoth of Black American culture hosted annually in the city. She soon uncovered a startling truth, uttered by pretty much everyone in New Orleans—from Uber drivers to bartenders.
"What was interesting was that all of them said some version of the same thing, which was that for those of us who come to New Orleans as visitors, it looks and feels as the New Orleans we all know. The one of our imagination. It's the Mardi Gras, it's the drinking, it's the food, it's the music.
"But for us, they describe this bifurcated experience of the city—of before Katrina and after Katrina, that continues to this day," Curry told Newsweek in an interview at the London pre-screening of the upcoming five-part documentary Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time, premiering July 27 on National Geographic and streaming July 28 on Disney+ and Hulu.
Anthony Andrews and Traci A. Curry during a Q&A event at the London pre-screening of "Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time".
Anthony Andrews and Traci A. Curry during a Q&A event at the London pre-screening of "Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time".
Lydia Patrick/Lydia Patrick
It soon became clear to her that the city's recovery is somewhat surface-level. Curry's series—a five-part documentary—peels back the veneer of post‑Katrina New Orleans to reveal the lingering scars.
A Man-Made Disaster
Most Americans remember the mayhem when Katrina made landfall off Louisiana on August 29, 2005. Broadcasts aired stampedes of people trapped in the Superdome, overhead footage of submerged streets, and looted grocery stores. Now, the storm is memorialized as a "man‑made" disaster, noting the failure of the emergency response and the maintenance of the aging levee system that was supposed to protect the low‑lying neighborhoods from being utterly deluged.
Curry told Newsweek: "So many of the things that happened during Katrina and the story that we tell were not things created by the storm. They were things that were revealed and exacerbated by the storm," noting how it disproportionately impacted poorer Black communities.
A mandatory evacuation order was put in place; tens of thousands of the city's 480,000 residents fled, but more than 100,000 remained trapped. Many made their way to the Superdome, which descended into unbridled chaos as survivors were left without means to survive.
Stranded New Orleans residents gather underneath the interstate following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Stranded New Orleans residents gather underneath the interstate following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
KTVT - TV/KTVT - TV
"When you're talking about class and race and, you know, all these things—so much of the reason that there were so many people left behind is because they could not afford to evacuate...So just because you are working class and don't have money, you are more likely to perish during Katrina," Curry added.
A crowd of stranded New Orleans residents are gathered outside of the Superdome following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
A crowd of stranded New Orleans residents are gathered outside of the Superdome following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
ABC News/ABC News
The Personal Stories
Curry and her team sifted through hundreds of hours of footage to reframe the narrative of Katrina with humanity.
Curry explained during a post‑screening Q&A hosted by Anthony Andrews, co-founder of arts company We Are Parable: "I used to be a news producer, and I understand how it goes. If you're on a deadline, you get your shot and go. If you run the same footage of one guy taking the TV over and over, that becomes the story."
But she believes something more nefarious took place, too: dangerous stereotypes against Black people were perpetuated, dehumanizing victims of the unfolding tragedy.
"There's a pre‑existing narrative about Black people in the U.S.—violence and pathology—that the media can easily lean into. News cycles don't incentivize a nuanced human story," she said.
A military helicopter arrives to rescue stranded New Orleans residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
A military helicopter arrives to rescue stranded New Orleans residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
John Keller/John Keller
The Oscar-nominated director counteracted this with personal and individualized footage.
"You can either look at footage, look through hundreds of hours and see like shirtless Black men running crazy and say like, 'That's a criminal,' or you say 'that's a human being that's trying to survive' and allow that to inform the storytelling, which is what I and the team did," she explained. "You as the audience member must look into the eyes of the human being."
Personal stories include that of Lucrece, a mother trapped in her attic with her children. Her daughter wrote their names on the walls, believing they were going to die. They were rescued by boat, but had to confront her haunting reality, a submerged city.
Lucrece Phillips, resident of the 8th Ward at the time of Hurricane Katrina, who shared her harrowing rescue story in the documentary series.
Lucrece Phillips, resident of the 8th Ward at the time of Hurricane Katrina, who shared her harrowing rescue story in the documentary series.
Disney/National Geographic/Disney/National Geographic
"There's a point at which she sees the body of a dead baby in the water. She says, 'Stop the boat, we have to get her.' The man goes, 'We have to focus on the living,'" Curry recalled.
Lessons Learned?
Fast‑forward 20 years and New Orleans is a city forever etched by disaster. The Lower Ninth Ward was completely decimated by Katrina, and today the area once populated by working‑class Black residents remains largely vacant.
"It looks like it just happened," Curry said. "There's footage in the fifth episode we shot last year: block after block of concrete steps leading nowhere—houses that no longer exist. That neighborhood has never recovered."
Meanwhile, gentrification has "turbo‑charged" the displacement of the original community, as rising housing costs transform shotgun doubles into Airbnbs with skyrocketing rents.
Natural disasters are still having devastating effects. Before production wrapped, Hurricane Helene made landfall in September 2025, causing extreme flooding in Asheville, North Carolina.
Crushed vehicles and storm debris sit along the Swannanoa River in a landscape scarred by Hurricane Helene on March 24, 2025, in Asheville, North Carolina.
Crushed vehicles and storm debris sit along the Swannanoa River in a landscape scarred by Hurricane Helene on March 24, 2025, in Asheville, North Carolina.
AFP/Getty Images
"There were different weather events—the fires in Hawaii and Los Angeles. All very different. Katrina was singular in many ways, but we've seen the same contours: a weather event exacerbated by man‑made environmental impacts, an infrastructure unfit to sustain it, and harm that disproportionately affects the most vulnerable. As severe weather worsens with climate change, this will only continue unless we center the needs of the most vulnerable before the storm," Curry warned.
Curry added that, while Katrina's impact is New Orleans‑centric, similar inequalities plague other communities—like the predominantly Black "Cancer Alley" upriver, where higher-than-average cancer rates have been blamed on factory pollution, or neighborhoods saddled with heat‑intensive data "server farms" and tainted water.
"Katrina's story just has so much to teach us about related issues that are continuing to happen today. I hope people wake up," she added.
Highlighting this point is footage of President George W. Bush flying over the apocalyptic scenes of New Orleans. The series cuts in near‑identical footage from 1965's Hurricane Betsy—when the Lower Ninth Ward was submerged similarly—yet that time President Lyndon Johnson came immediately, and emergency operations began at once.
Curry notes that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), whose response was heavily criticized, has since learned from Katrina and adjusted policies to better serve those most vulnerable before a storm. But today the agency faces significant financial cuts, and its survival hangs in the balance as political pressures threaten to dismantle the system altogether.
Yet the bigger story Curry wants to tell—decades on from disaster—is one of community.
"Even in the most inhumane conditions, when all of these systems had failed and civil society broke down, these people did not lose their humanity. They held onto it, expressed it through care for one another, and used whatever agency they had to maintain the tight bonds of kinship and community that characterize New Orleans."