All Praise Shade
Every year, heat takes more lives than floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes combined. The fatalities can sometimes go unnoticed, perhaps because the danger is invisible: There's no twister that uproots a neighborhood and no flood that sucks it underwater, nor billions of dollars in property damage. Instead, heat's imprint is seen in empty streets, work slowdowns, cognitive decline, and hospital bills. When autumn arrives and temperatures relent, heat leaves no discernable trace.
The Earth is getting hotter. In many places on the planet, summer is already two to three weeks longer than in the 1950s. By the end of the century, the warm season in the United States could last six months, and extreme temperatures could force us to spend much of it indoors. Supercharged heat waves will settle over cities for weeks at a time and cause many people to die. Others will suffer heart attacks, kidney disease, and brain damage. What we now call winter will be a brief, two-month interregnum that feels more like spring.
Reducing society's consumption of fossil fuels is necessary for preventing worse-yet climate change. But even if every single power source becomes a renewable one and we stop emitting carbon, the planet's surface won't start cooling. The temperature will continue to rise for a few years before gradually leveling off. It will take 'many, many centuries,' NASA estimates, to end the global-greenhouse effect. It is a sobering truth that cutting emissions isn't enough. We also need to figure out how to live on a new Earth.
What if the key to that life is older than civilization itself? We need to manage heat to live. And we have an effective and democratic way of doing it: shade.
[Read: Shade will make or break American cities]
Shade makes long waits for the bus more comfortable. Shade helps keep farmworkers safe when they harvest fruits and vegetables under an unforgiving sun. And shade cools urban environments, improving residents' chance of surviving blazing summers.
'We all know that cities are cooler when we have shade, but we're not really planning for it,' V. Kelly Turner, an urban-planning and geography professor at UCLA, said on CNN. 'In the future, that's something that cities are going to need to do, is intentionally think about: What does shade infrastructure look like?'
Turner believes that shade could be America's next long-term investment in public health. What safe drinking water and clean air were to the 20th century, shade could be to the climate-changed 21st. Scientific models bear her out. If we can get emissions under control and put the planet on a path to moderate warming, then by 2050, getting out of the sun could be the difference between unsafe heat and a livable environment.
One obvious way the planet can get more shade is more trees. We evolved in forests, and some of our oldest myths and stories unfold under their canopies. Hippocrates taught medicine under a plane tree, and Ovid found bittersweet beauty in a laurel's leaves. The Mesopotamian goddess Inanna slept under a miraculous poplar whose shadow never moved, and Buddha found enlightenment by meditating under a ficus tree. Christian and Muslim heavens alike are cooled by trees' perpetual shade.
Tree shade is where public space was born and civic identities are forged. In hot climates, people naturally prefer to confer, conduct commerce, and gossip out of the sun's permanent glare. They spend far more time in shady parks or temple courtyards than in sunny ones. They linger and relax, and that engenders more interactions, and possibly even stimulates social cohesion. It's true in arid cities, humid regions, and even temperate zones with short summers. People want to be in shade. They muse longer, pray more peacefully, and find strength to walk farther.
[Read: How climate change is killing cities]
Perhaps because we've become so adept at cooling inside spaces with air conditioning, we've forgotten the importance of cooling outside spaces, too. There is no technology that cools the outdoors as effectively as a tree. These communal parasols are also misting machines that dissipate heat. It's hard to feel that effect under one or two of them, but get enough trees together and an urban summer can be as fresh as a rural spring, a feat with major implications for energy use and public health.
Where tree-planting isn't viable, cities must invest in other types of public infrastructure that cast shade. Throughout Los Angeles, on streets that are too cramped and paved over to support green canopies, the preferred protections aren't arboreal but artificial, such as the pop-up tents of taqueros and the cheerful rainbow umbrellas of fruit vendors. In Phoenix, a desert city that struggles to nourish an urban forest, common tools include sidewalk screens, frilly metal filters, and soaring photovoltaic canopies. These interventions are more effective than many might expect. Ariane Middel, an Arizona State University urban-climate researcher who runs the school's Sensable Heatscapes and Digital Environments (SHaDE) Lab, surveyed students and staff as they strolled through the shadows that solar panels cast on a Tempe campus thoroughfare. More than any change in ambient temperature, humidity, or wind, the mere presence of shade was the only significant predictor of outdoor comfort.
Shade's effectiveness is a function of physics. It depends on the material properties of the sun-blocking objects that cast it—how they reflect, absorb, and transmit different wavelengths of energy in sunlight. It depends on the intensity of that light and the extent of the shade thrown. (A telephone pole that casts a perfect shadow on your body does nothing to stop the solar heating of the surfaces around you.) And it depends on the biology of the person who receives it. Middel has come as close as anyone to adding up all these factors. She praises humble umbrellas and plastic sails, because their shade feels like taking 30 degrees off the afternoon sun, which is about as good as shade cast by a tree. Ultimately, she finds that a city itself can offer the most relief in the shadows of arcaded sidewalks and looming skyscrapers.
The Greek philosopher Onesicritus taught that shade stunts growth, a belief that presaged a modern fixation on the healthiness of sunlight. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, doctors and public-health advocates feared that darkness itself caused the poor health of urban slum-dwellers. It was a vector of disease, where contagions bred and spread, and the murkiness also encouraged licentiousness and other urban vices. Some literally believed sunlight was the best disinfectant. Solar codes were written into urban plans, and new materials and technologies allowed architects to design brighter buildings flooded with natural light.
[Read: America's climate boomtowns are waiting]
Now we're beginning to see how a solar fetish may be maladaptive. In New York, a recent summer saw a throng of neighborhood activists protest the construction of a 16-story office tower, with signs to Save Our Light. They did this while huddling in the shadow of another building.
As intense heat bears down, we have to see shade as a basic human right. We have forgotten that shade is a natural resource. We don't grasp its importance, and we don't appreciate its promise for a better future. Loggers and farmers cut down forests, forcing animals to flee and land to turn fallow. Engineers ignore time-honored methods of keeping out heat, locking us into mechanical cooling systems that fail during blackouts. And urban planners denude shady parks and pave neighborhoods with heat-sucking roads, only to drive us mad with the infernal conditions. But shade is a path to a better future—if we just learn to value it again, and design for it in the places we live.
This article was adapted from Sam Bloch's new book, Shade: The Promise Of A Forgotten Natural Resource.
Article originally published at The Atlantic
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NBC News
6 hours ago
- NBC News
Tadej Pogačar shows unrivaled audacity to win his fourth Tour de France title in style
PARIS — The roads were dangerously slippery after heavy rain. A fourth Tour de France title was all but won anyway, so finishing safely in the pack would do fine for Tadej Pogačar. Especially considering Sunday's final stage had already been neutralized for safety reasons and he just had to complete the race. Surely there was no need to launch a seemingly pointless attack and risk crashing? But holding back or being cautious rarely appeals to Pogačar, the 26-year-old cycling star from Slovenia. He clinched his fourth Tour title in inimitably daring style on Sunday and further cemented his place among cycling's greats. Even though he really did not need to, and risked falling on oil slick-wet roads, Pogačar simply could not help himself. Against all logical opinion, he tried winning Sunday's 21st and final stage with trademark uphill attacks, only to fall short of the stage win itself. "In the end I found myself in the front, even though I didn't have the energy," said Pogačar, who won the Tour last year and in 2020 and 2021. "Just speechless to win the Tour de France, this one feels especially amazing," Pogačar added. "Just super proud that I can wear this yellow jersey." Two-time Tour champion Jonas Vinegaard finished the overall race 4 minutes, 24 seconds behind Pogačar in second place and Florian Lipowitz was 11 minutes adrift in third. Belgian rider Wout van Aert won the 21st and last stage, which broke with tradition and featured three climbs of Montmartre hill. Because of heavy rain and the risk of crashes, organizers had earlier neutralized the times 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the end, effectively giving Pogačar the victory — providing he crossed the finish line. He did the opposite of what almost every rider would do with victory a near certainty. As the rain teemed down, he set a tremendous pace in the Montmartre climbs as fans cheered all along the cobbled Rue Lepic, with flags and fans hanging out of windows. Only five riders were left with Pogačar on the third ascension of the 1.1-kilometer Montmartre hill. After fending off American Matteo Jorgenson, he was caught cold near the top as Van Aert launched a stunning attack to drop — yes, drop! — Pogačar, the world's best climber, on the steepest section. "Hats off to Wout, he was incredibly strong," Pogačar said. Van Aert rolled back down for a prestigious stage win on the famed Champs-Élysées. Pogačar looked weary as he crossed the line in fourth place, 19 seconds behind. 'Peace and some nice weather' But then it was time to celebrate title No. 4. Although don't expect Pogačar to make any headlines on that front. "Everyone celebrates in their own way, I just want peace and some nice weather, not like here today," Pogačar said. "Just to enjoy some quiet days at home." Only four riders have won the showcase race five times: Belgian Eddy Merckx, Spaniard Miguel Induráin and Frenchmen Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault. Pogačar won four stages this year to take his Tour tally to 21 and 30 at major races, including six at the Giro d'Italia and three at the Spanish Vuelta. The UAE Team Emirates leader praised his teammates. "I think the second week was the decisive moment," Pogačar said. "We took more advantage." Lipowitz, meanwhile, secured his first career podium at a Grand Tour, the alternative name given to the three major races. His performance, following his third-placed finish last month at the Critérium du Dauphiné, suggests the 24-year-old German rider could challenge in the near future. Breaking with tradition Traditionally, the last stage is largely processional with riders doing laps around Paris. The Tour broke with tradition after the success of the Paris Olympics road race, which also took in Montmartre, famous for its Sacré-Coeur basilica. It was the fifth straight year where Pogačar and Vingegaard finished 1-2 at the Tour. Vingegaard was second in 2021, before beating Pogačar the next two years with the Slovenian second. When Pogačar reclaimed his title last year, Vingegaard was runner-up. "We've raised the level of each other much higher and we push each other to the limit," Pogačar said. "I must say to him, big, big respect." Five major titles Pogačar has also won the Giro d'Italia, doing so last year to become the first cyclist to secure the Giro and Tour double in the same season since the late Marco Pantani in 1998. But Pogačar has not yet won the Spanish Vuelta, whereas Anquetil, Hinault and Merckx won all three major races. When Pogačar won the hilly fourth stage of this year's race, it was the 100th professional victory of his stellar career, all events combined. 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USA Today
a day ago
- USA Today
The Colorado River used to be predictable as a water supply. What happens when it's not?
As Colorado River states race to finish a deal, water users face a resource altered by drought and climate change. CEDAREDGE, CO — Grand Mesa's hulking south flank appeared green and brown through the windshield as a crew of state water regulators rode up its dirt roads to christen a fraught 2025 irrigation season on what promised to be one of many parched Colorado River tributaries this spring. At the juncture of a flowing creek and a dry ditch, one hopped out to crank a headgate shut, forcing the water into the ditch and toward a string of valley farms for however long it might last. The mountain would have gleamed more brightly during most 20th century springs, a mound of white propping up the evergreens. In this, the latest year of a decades-long megadrought, the water commissioner needed no snow boots. It was April Fools' Day, and Mother Nature had crafted a cruel punchline for the fruit orchardists below – a groaner that this crew would have to deliver to those farmers one by one later in the spring and summer by cutting off those who don't enjoy the oldest water rights. Peach, plum and apple trees had budded out after a 79-degree warmup the previous week, demanding water that wouldn't last the growing season. The state allows diversions starting April 1, but in a better year with ample snowpack the added moisture wouldn't be needed until May. It shouldn't have been green yet where they were, motoring upward past 6,200 feet above sea level. In a normal year — the kind before this megadrought of 25 years plunged the river's big reservoirs and the states that rely on them into crisis and conflict — they wouldn't need to act so soon. There still might have been 4 feet of snow on and below the giant forested mesa looming over western Colorado's arid lands, so much that no one along the North Fork of the Gunnison River would need to push water onto their fruit orchards yet. 'In a normal year, we wouldn't even be able to drive up here' yet, Gunnison Basin District Engineer Bob Hurford said from the back seat. But 'normal' years aren't the norm anymore — here or anywhere in the 250,000-square-mile drainage that supplies the 1,450-mile Colorado River. A river that has long been overallocated and draining its massive reservoirs is now nearly tapped out, soon potentially unable to keep flowing past the giant American dams that water and power much of the Southwest. Already, its last drops sink into Mexican sand before reaching the sea. 'Today we stand on the brink of system failure,' the state of Colorado's river commissioner, Becky Mitchell, said during a late-June meeting with colleagues from the Rocky Mountain states that make up the Upper Colorado River Commission. Such a collapse has grown larger on the horizon for most of this decade as reservoir replenishment has failed to keep up with downstream demands. 'A world unlike anything we know' A new reckoning is at hand. The Trump administration has put the states on the clock to reach a consensus deal by the end of this year to share the shrinking river equitably — the only way they can control their own fates. 'If you can't get there,' Assistant Interior Secretary Scott Cameron warned in one of several recent appearances before state negotiators, '(Interior) Secretary Burgum is prepared to exercise his authority as water master and make decisions himself.' Cameron also urged the states to work with the 30 Native American tribes living across the watershed, both to ensure that they have adequate water and to partner with the tribes who have secured substantial water settlements to store more water in the reservoirs. Arizona, for example, has leaned heavily on deals with the Gila River Indian Community to save water. Loralei Cloud, a Southern Ute tribal member and Colorado Water Conservation Board member, said it's time for every tribe to have both a direct say in how the river is managed and to secure its fair share. If the states can't reach a deal, she told a crowd at the University of Colorado Law School in June, they should get out of the way. 'If our state representatives are going to sit silent,' she said at the annual Getches-Wilkinson Center's Conference on the Colorado River, 'then we have 30 tribal nations that are ready to take over and make a decision and save our river. We've been doing it from time immemorial.' Federal officials have a trust responsibility to secure water for tribes, which the Bureau of Reclamation will need to account for in any interstate deal. The tribes with secure rights will likely also commit more water to the system in exchange for money or infrastructure help. For instance, an attorney for the Navajo Nation told conference attendees that the tribe is considering conserving water that previously flowed to a now-decommissioned coal-fired power plant. In future years, the tribe wants to use its rights to fill a planned pipeline to reservation communities, but the water saved until then could stay in the river to boost reservoir storage. The river's two largest dammed reservoirs — also the two largest in the nation — are each around one-third of capacity, a quarter-century after being essentially full. The mostly dry winters since 2000 have plunged storage pools behind Hoover and Glen Canyon dams to the point where the U.S. government is temporarily paying millions of dollars to Arizona and California irrigators who agree to grow less to keep from draining them. This year's liquid reinforcements, mostly from melting snow that reaches Lake Powell between April and July, were on track to provide less than half of the average over the last 30 years, according to the National Weather Service's Colorado Basin River Forecast Center June estimate. A river that the interstate negotiators of a century ago thought would routinely provide more than 15 million acre-feet a year has already declined to less than 13 million on average since 2000, in a fast-growing region. An acre-foot equals roughly 326,000 gallons and is enough to support several households for a year, though farms use the bulk of the Colorado's water. Colorado State University climate researcher Brad Udall warned that the river may provide only 10 million acre-feet if current global warming trends continue through the century — a sharp new reduction in an already diminished and overused source on which 40 million people rely. 'That's a world unlike anything we currently know,' Udall said. Total failure would mean Lakes Powell and Mead decline below where intakes for hydroelectric turbines or bypass tubes can pass water through the dams — a condition known as dead pool. It would restrict Grand Canyon to the relative trickle out of small tributaries below Glen Canyon Dam, and would desiccate the sprawling and lucrative vegetable and forage crop empires of Arizona, California and northwestern Mexico. It would also interrupt a major part of the domestic water supply to millions of people in Arizona and Southern California. Such a doomsday is still years away, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that operates the dams. The agency's two-year projections of reservoir storage predict a most-likely scenario in which Lake Powell's waterline bumps along near its current point and a worst-case scenario in which it could drop some 80 feet, at which Glen Canyon's hydropower intakes could go dry but the bypass tubes, more than 100 feet deeper, could still release water. Trying to measure snow that isn't there A partial and painful system failure of the kind Colorado's Mitchell referenced could happen sooner if next winter is disastrously dry in the mountains, triggering a cascade of administrative decisions that could force officials to drain smaller mountain reservoirs to prop up Lake Powell. That would force significant conservation measures above the big reservoir and cause the government to consider cutting back on releases to Lake Mead, ultimately reducing that reservoir's ability to serve downstream users. Hydropower production at both dams would suffer, forcing utilities to buy more expensive power on the grid. 'We are one bad runoff year from a crisis,' Mitchell said. This is what happens when rules and adaptations don't keep up with nature. Twenty years ago, when the reservoirs were still early in their downward spirals, the seven states that share the Colorado's water agreed to a new set of shortage guidelines that Reclamation then adopted to rule the river through 2026. They called on the states below the reservoirs to reduce their consumption by varying tiers based on Lake Mead's elevation at the start of any given year. Most of the risk and eventual harm fell on Arizona because the state had been forced to accept a lesser priority than California's when it sought congressional approval to build the Central Arizona Project canal and deliver river water to Phoenix and Tucson. When those cuts proved too little, the states added a drought plan imposing new reductions, and then the former Biden administration began paying farmers to temporarily leave behind some of their entitlements. Federal officials worked out an emergency update to the guidelines with new water savings from California, Arizona and Nevada, the Lower Basin states, to keep the dams functioning through next year. The Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — those above Lake Powell — were not required to trim current uses, in part because they have yet to fully develop the half of the river's flow that the compact had arguably promised them in an age before climate change. The Reclamation Bureau now intends to adopt a new set of shortage guidelines to rule dam releases by mid-2026, the impetus for Trump officials to call on the states to devise their own plan by winter before the government imposes its own. How dust from Arizona affects Colorado snowpack Grand Mesa is a harbinger of the Colorado River's long-term decline. Atop the mountain and next to one loop of the Skyway Ski Trail, at elevation 10,600, is a continuing science experiment that suggests the West's water supply will continue to shrink. A tower with a weather vane and other instruments to gauge and transmit conditions pokes out of the snow in an opening among the evergreens. A short distance from its base is a patch that University of Utah geographers routinely ski to in winter and dig pits to study how the snow is holding up, how cold it keeps throughout the winter, and how much dust has fallen on it. The dust, mostly from northern Arizona, takes flight on windstorms in early spring and drops in layers on Rocky Mountain snowpack. As gradual melting uncovers each layer, the dust's relative darkness absorbs more solar radiation, speeding the thaw. Core samples from the mud below alpine lakes show that dust deposition has increased since modern land disturbance and grazing in the Southwest exposed more soil to the winds. 'It can accelerate snowmelt by weeks to months,' said McKenzie Skiles, who directs the university's Snow Hydrology Research-to-Operations Laboratory, or Snow HyDRO. On average, according to research published a decade ago, dust melts snow three weeks early and results in a 5% reduction in water flowing in the Colorado. The sooner the snow melts, the sooner plants green up and start using it, reducing what reaches creeks that feed the river. Add in dry soils that increasingly act as a sponge when drought years pile up, and the mountain grows ever thirstier. This exacerbates ongoing reductions in snowpack as warming air causes some of what used to fall as snow to instead fall as rain, especially lower on the mountain, Skiles said. She has studied western Colorado's snows since 2008 and sees a clear trend toward early green-ups, especially lower on the mountain — the mid-elevation areas like the one Hurford said he wouldn't be able to access to divert irrigation water in the 'normal' year. Another unfortunate trend she identified is finding liquid water when she or her graduate students dig snow pits mid-winter. 'It sort of portends of the future of warmer snowpacks,' she said. Combine that with rising heat that increases both evaporation and human demands on the water that reaches the river, and scientists predict an even more depleted waterway later this century. Throughout the Colorado headwaters, snowpack and its meltwater fluctuate yearly, sometimes wildly, with big years occasionally pulling Lake Powell back from the brink of losing its ability to produce hydropower. That happened with a big winter in 2023. But since the turn of this century it's never enough to actually refill the reservoirs, and both Powell and Mead were roughly two-thirds empty heading into spring. Hurford, the district engineer in western Colorado, has seen the signs of aridification year by year, especially in the flow gauge where his local river, the Gunnison, spills into the Colorado near Grand Junction. He has averaged those readings by decade. The 1920s: 'huge.' The 1930s: 'Dust Bowl,' a dry decade that pried millions of inland Americans from their homes and was, until now, the modern measuring stick for drought. The 1980s and 1990s: 'fantastic.' The 2023 snowpack was a godsend, he said, but it was only a Band-Aid on scars accumulated over 2020, 2021 and 2022. The last five years cumulatively were the river's driest in a century. 'Where we are in the 2020s is worse than the Dust Bowl,' Hurford said. 'We're in the bullseye' On the day that Hurford and crew officially opened irrigation season, organic fruit farmers Steve Ela and Regan Choi feared the worst. Their farm in Hotchkiss, to Grand Mesa's southeast, has experienced a string of climate calamities in recent years: water shortages, a tree-killing autumn freeze and untimely spring frosts. On that day, the latter loomed — a forecasted 21-degree night just a week after highs in the upper 70s had caused trees to flower precariously early. 'The increasing variability is the real climate story,' Choi said. 'Trees do not do well with variability,' Ela added. The couple would lose much of their plum and cherry crops that night, an increasingly common problem as warming spring days have pushed the typical flowering season up by a couple of weeks and left the blooms more exposed to frosty nights. They hoped the peach, pear and apple trees could compensate. As the drought years accumulate, though, the potential for abundant years has withered. The farmers have dramatically curtailed their plantings to make sure that whatever water reaches their farm by late summer is enough to keep the trees alive through the growing season. It leaves less for them to truck to the Colorado Front Range, where they sell most of their fruit at farmers markets. The downsizing has been a painful and ominous step for Ela, whose family has farmed in western Colorado since 1907 and who has personally worked the Hotchkiss lands as Ela Family Farms since 1990. The water rights predate the Colorado River Compact, but that may not matter if the federal government or the courts decide Colorado farmers must cut back to fulfill delivery obligations to the Southwest. Even short of that, his own state's population centers, clustered around Denver, could offer money to leave water in the river, so they can divert more from the headwaters while still sending water downstream. 'We're in the bullseye,' Ela said. 'At some point, how much do you fight it?' The couple has a blended family of grown children, none of whom fancy a farming life. When The Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network, first visited Ela's farm 10 years ago, he had invested thousands of dollars per acre in a filtration and drip irrigation system to squeeze every ounce out of his supply. He got some government assistance as part of a program to reduce salt runoff that flood irrigation pushed toward the Colorado from the region's highly saline soils. But most of the expense was on Ela. The farm's water procurement system is a portrait of the Upper Colorado River Basin's broader water struggles. Ela and Choi have rights to direct creek water that runs off of Grand Mesa in the spring, but that only lasts so long with farmers all around draining it. Then they can draw from ditch companies they've bought into, including delivery of water from small reservoirs atop the mesa. But in dry years like this, those reservoirs with more recent claims, known as junior water rights, can't fill. At some point, state officials like Hurford and his crew start cutting people off altogether according to the seniority of their claims. As drought lengthens and takes on an air of permanent aridification, farms shrink. Fruit trees can't last a season without water. As a result, Ela Family Farms has pared its orchards from 83 acres a decade ago to 60 today. Each dry year makes it harder to imagine replanting. 'We'd probably be better to go to Vegas and spend the money (gambling) there,' Ela said. 'We might have a better chance.' Dry ground soaks up runoff before it reaches the river On the evening of April 3, the Colorado River District, a state-chartered protector of water rights for 15 rural Colorado counties west of the Continental Divide, hosted a State of the River briefing in Carbondale for dozens of water users. The state of the river, to no one's surprise, was not strong. The snowpack still gleaming off nearby Mount Sopris and ranges ringing Aspen was melting ahead of schedule and likely sinking into unusually dry soils, said Caleb Foy, a deputy engineer in the state water department's local district. 'We definitely peaked early this year,' Foy told the ranchers, skiers, raft trip guides and local officials while they digested a catered buffet. The Roaring Fork, a tributary flowing through that valley toward the Colorado, had started melting its snowpack on March 23, he said, two weeks before average. Its water equivalent stood at 87% of average, but the amount reaching irrigators and then the mainstem Colorado at Glenwood Springs would likely lag. 'If you have a dry sponge and you put a bunch of water on it, it's going to soak it up,' Foy said. 'It's not going to make it to the river.' That is what happened to the entire Colorado River watershed in 2021, when a reasonably good snowpack yielded dire runoff toward the river and Lake Powell. Most of the region entered that year in severe drought, clearing space in the 'sponge.' Then precipitation built to 84% of the 30-year average, according to the Upper Colorado River Commission's annual report. The resulting runoff only yielded 32% of average, by far the worst drought year since 2002. The Colorado River District represents about a twelfth of the state's population spread across a quarter of the state's land. It seeks to protect their access to water for communities and the dominant industries of agriculture, recreation and oil energy. The area's prodigious snow produces nearly two-thirds of the Colorado's flow on average. The district's only substantial metro area, at Grand Junction, has about 150,000 people, a political force that pales against Denver and the Front Range within the state, and against Los Angeles, Phoenix and others in the national debate. District General Manager Andy Mueller told The Republic that he understands the argument that providing water to those cities generates the bulk of the West's economy, and that some believe it means drying farms to do so will prove a 'higher and better use.' But dewatering places like western Colorado will harm the entire region, he argued, by killing off wildlife habitats and late-summer flows that irrigation creates by spreading water on the land to seep back toward the river. And drying farms means killing a culture while increasing food imports. 'We all need to figure out ways to conserve water,' Mueller said. 'But I think that what is important, and what my agency is responsible for, is defending the values of having a local and regional food supply within the Colorado River Basin. It is recognizing that there's an inherent value in all of these small, thriving communities.' Squeezing every drop, sometimes with weed whackers While the State of the River's official topic was the year's local outlook, the specter of the greater river's collapse hung over every presentation that evening. After Foy, Colorado River District spokesman Matt Aboussie stepped onstage to describe the stakes for western Coloradans. District lands – from the headwaters at Rocky Mountain National Park to the Utah line, from Steamboat Springs ski slopes in the northwest to Grand Mesa and the Gunnison River canals in the south – gather and melt roughly two-thirds of the water that swells the Colorado River, he said. Garfield County, where they stood that night, has warmed on average 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895. Each degree squeezes between 3% and 5% from the streamflow, scientists say, so he pegged the annual loss so far at around 15%. Farmers already strained by local flow restrictions now face the prospect of new diversions to urban Colorado, or pressure to shunt water to users downstream and out of state. 'We can't have a scenario where the Western Slope becomes a sacrifice zone,' Aboussie said. Rancher Bill Fales listened attentively to some of the evening's presentations. He had long shared these fears, having lived through the area's warming and drying decades. But he left early when he got a call alerting him to an ailing cow on his ranch. The next morning, Fales joined a neighbor's ranch manager to inspect a small ditch that they share to deliver water from a nearby creek. Red willow stems poked out of a dusting of snow in the knee-deep ditch, and they would need to collaborate to clear that brush so the water would flow efficiently to their hayfields before the creek dried up. 'I don't think this water's going to last too long,' Fales said. A creek that once lasted until May now typically runs out in mid-April. On a mountain pass to the south, his best gauge of the near future, the government was reporting 62% of normal snow water content and dropping. 'We should be gaining, building snowpack right now, not losing it.' It wouldn't mean the end of his irrigation season, as he also has rights to Crystal River water, which he expected would see him through early August — weeks less than when he started ranching, but enough for him to put up hay for his herd. Fales suggested that the neighbor have his crew work through the ditch with weed whackers. Then Fales and an intern assigned to his ranch by a sustainable farming nonprofit would return to clean out the debris with clippers and a pitchfork. With that plan of attack settled, he drove off with the intern to drop hay from his truck in a field while his bulls followed in anticipation, then back to his house to wrangle the sick cow for treatment. He suspected it had ingested a piece of barbed wire, and he needed to feed it a magnet that would lodge in its second stomach and keep the wire from tumbling through its digestive tract. Ranchers feel vulnerable as states negotiate Fales has ranched at Carbondale since 1973, when he began working for his future wife Marj Perry's father on Cold Mountain Ranch. Perry was born on the ranch, which has been in her family for a century in which first the pressures of real estate development in a resort-dominated valley and now the thirst of farms and cities far beyond it have tested its viability. Her family started farming there two years after the states ratified the Colorado River Compact, but the water rights attached to the land are even older. With too much demand for what the Colorado and its tributaries can supply, Perry said, something has to give. She's not confident that either in-state or interstate negotiations will protect the water coursing through gated pipes to flood her family's hayfields. 'It's going to go to people,' she predicted, 'not alfalfa.' Never mind that she considers that crop drought-tolerant and well-adapted to Colorado, only requiring that they plow and replant once a decade. Never mind that her husband and some scientists argue that flood irrigation is the best bet here because most of the water can seep back to the river. She believes they're at risk in whatever deal the seven states reach. Fales said if either the state of Colorado or the federal government came calling for the senior water rights that he and his neighbors own, they would provoke 'a horrendous fight.' If the drought got bad enough, though, he could see losing that fight. 'If I think I'm going to be out here with my shovel irrigating my alfalfa and people in Denver turn on their tap to brush their teeth and nothing comes out,' he said, 'I don't think that situation will last very long.' Even before any such fight, things are getting tough. Despite Cold Mountain Ranch's rights on paper, it essentially ran out of water in 2018, something he had once laughed off when a visitor asked what he would do in that event. That year the Crystal River dropped to 1 cubic foot per second – dry for practical purposes – and the ranch made only 12 of the large round bales that see his cattle through winter. A rebound the following year produced 180 bales. During the bad years he must sell more cattle to keep from buying hay, which rises in price with the scarcity. Whatever the states and the feds work out, Fales said, he hopes it causes residents and farms throughout the West to live with the water that's available year-to-year instead of continuing to drain what's left in reservoir storage. That's how his family and neighbors do it, as they have no reservoirs above them except what the snow itself stores. 'We're forced to live with what nature gives us in snowfall, in snowpack,' he said. 'And in bad years, we don't have as much water as we'd like. And it seems like everyone in the basin needs to accept the fact that some years there's more water than others.' With that notion, he effectively stated the rift between the states. What happens when the numbers no longer add up? The 1922 compact split the seven water-sharing states into two administrative zones: the Upper Basin of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and a sliver of rural northeastern Arizona, and the Lower Basin of California, Nevada and most of Arizona. The dividing line is at Lees Ferry, a river access point in northern Arizona some 15 miles downstream from Glen Canyon Dam. The compact theoretically split the river in two, awarding half to each basin, with later actions requiring each to give a small share to provide a supply for Mexican farmers. The Lower Basin, led by booming Southern California and a sprawling farm network, was quick to develop its half, for a time even exceeding its 7.5 million-acre-foot share. That was possible because the slower-developing Upper Basin never built out its share, even today. The Southwest has since weaned itself of its excesses, and then some. Arizona has lost more than 500,000 acre-feet a year in mandatory cuts to the Central Arizona Project since 2022, and various agreements with the basin's water users have left water behind either permanently or for later use. To stabilize Lake Mead until the new shortage guidelines are settled and adopted next year, the Biden administration in May 2024 adopted emergency rules taking some 3 million acre-feet from the Lower Basin states over three years, with more than 2 million of sacrifice compensated by the federal government. Arizona officials say their state alone has left some 5 million acre-feet in the reservoir over the last decade — a volume that, if every day's demand were equal, previously would have seen the state through all of one year and almost to Halloween of the next. The Upper Basin has capacity to take about 5.2 million acre-feet a year, but it reports on average using about 1.2 million less than that because streams dry up and farmers are cut off. 'That's the stark reality of what we're doing in the upper division states,' Mitchell said at an Upper Colorado River Commission meeting. 'It's incredibly sad when you see it on the ground.' For that reason, she and others in the Upper Basin have argued that their states cannot be expected to make up for climate change by cutting back from current uses. This stance threw the discussions into impasse last winter, when Lower Basin officials said they're already cutting back by millions of acre-feet from existing uses and will need Upper Basin help during dry years. The Lower Basin negotiators offered to take the first 1.5 million acre-feet of cuts in the new scheme to be adopted next year, but said they would need to split any deeper cuts with the Upper Basin. Mitchell insisted that the Upper Basin will conserve water, but that Colorado farmers already have taken their hit from climate change and cannot be forced to take more. 'The upper division states use 3 to 4 million acre-feet less than our apportionment every year,' she said. 'This is real water. And the shortages have impacts. It's caused pain in our communities that is unseen, unheard, uncompensated. 'Ranchers are selling off prized cattle to make ends meet. They're buying hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of hay to survive the winter. Farmers are firing people when nothing is growing, and they're selling off land because they can't keep it profitable.' Disputes over the compact could land states in court Lower Basin negotiators say those yearly cuts — the kinds that Colorado farmers must take when paltry stream flows are diverted to neighbors with better rights—wouldn't save the river. Painful as they are locally, Arizona Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke said, those curtailments don't put more water in Lake Powell and then Lake Mead to shore up future flows. Instead, one farmer with a junior right lets water pass to another farmer with a senior right who then grabs it before it hits the state line. 'So it's not an equivalent to the cuts we're taking below Lake Mead, where we have a user who has the water available to them and they're taking a cut and the water is staying in Lake Mead,' he said. 'Those are not the same things.' As talks stalled, the Lower Basin started to wave the 1922 compact language at the Upper Basin. The compact's enforcement mechanism lay in the words 'the States of the Upper Division will not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry to be depleted below an aggregate of 75,000,000 acre-feet for any period of ten consecutive years.' In other words, the Upper Basin could not cause the Lower Basin to receive less than its 7.5 million acre-foot annual share on average. The Upper Basin responded that it wasn't its water users that might cause such a depletion in the next few years, but rather climate change itself. Arizona girded for legal battle, with Buschatzke requesting and getting a legislative allocation for litigation. Mitchell publicly alluded to Arizona's risk if it goes to court, because the state's significant use of Colorado tributary water from the Gila River Basin has never been counted against its compact allocation. Part of the watershed, the Salt and Verde rivers, supplies a substantial portion of the Phoenix area's supply. Both sides repeatedly said they wanted to avoid a court battle that could take years or decades and yield an unpredictable judgment. To break the deadlock, Buschatzke and his counterparts in California and Nevada suggested an idea they're calling the supply-driven plan. The two basins would agree to split the water roughly based on a three-year average of actual flows off the mountains. This would depart from the current method of mandating cuts on the Lower Basin according to how low Lake Mead gets. Each basin would get an agreed percentage — 'not 50/50', Buschatzke said, but a split reflecting that most demand is in the Southwest – and then each basin would have to learn to live with whatever the river gives. It likely would mean that the Lower Basin would get less than the 7.5 million acre-feet that the compact allows it. It likely also would mean that the Upper Basin would get less than what it currently uses in the driest years. They could choose to alleviate that by conserving water during the wet years to create a downstream delivery pool in Lake Powell. 'We're trying to cut a deal,' Buschatzke said. 'We're trying to check the box (saying) if there is a smaller river, we'll have to live with it.' Upper Basin negotiators confirmed in June that they are reviewing the proposal, but they were far from signing off. Any consensus deal will have to set aside either basin's legal theory, Mitchell said. In effect, the Upper Basin would turn a blind eye to the Lower Basin's extra use of tributary water, and the Lower Basin would ignore what it considers a delivery obligation from upstream. 'We do not have a delivery obligation under the terms of the compact, and will not agree to impose one on ourselves through agreement now,' Mitchell said. That's not how Arizona's Buschatzke saw it. 'It locks in a system in which they have a delivery obligation to us and they have to figure out a way to achieve that,' he said in an interview. The states say they have broken the impasse and are talking regularly, but they remain far from a deal. Another reservoir? Conservation advocates say 'no' Meanwhile, the Upper Basin is building capacity to store and use more of the Colorado. In a pine-ringed canyon southwest of Boulder, neighbors and environmentalists are in a race against construction cranes and cement mixers that they say are attempting to buy Denver's future at the expense of the river. There, at Gross Reservoir, Denver Water is raising an existing concrete dam by 121 feet, a height that could add 77,000 acre-feet of capacity to what the state's urban Front Range currently pulls away from the Colorado through Rocky Mountain tunnels. It's a project decades in the making, meant to secure the growing region's future. But it's under fire and at risk because it's unclear whether the river will legally be able to give more once it's completed. Save the Colorado and a local cadre calling itself The Environmental Group this spring succeeded in getting a judge to stay Denver Water's ability to draw the water it would need to fill the expanded reservoir. Construction nonetheless continued when some of the opponents visited with The Republic on a bluff overlooking the dam. Having removed some of the original dam's fortification in preparation of expansion, the water utility convinced the same judge that it must proceed with construction to prevent dam failure and flooding. In effect, lead plaintiff Save the Colorado is siding with Arizona, California and Nevada in seeking to keep as much water flowing downstream for as far as possible – not diverting more to Colorado's Great Plains metropolis. Ideally, group executive director Gary Wockner said, the water that Denver wants to pump into this reservoir would instead flow all the way to the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. Short of that, he said, it should at least grace Grand Canyon and then flow through Hoover Dam before the river's biggest user, the Imperial Irrigation District, nabs it in Southern California. The point is to keep as much of the river healthy and flowing as possible, he said, and to deal with Denver's thirst by conserving and reducing outdoor uses as the city grows more dense. 'Not everybody in Colorado thinks the water should be diverted in Colorado,' Wockner said. 'These projects increase risk on the Colorado River, and political tension.' A Denver Water spokesman said in an email that the agency expects per-capita water use to decline in the future, continuing a trend already underway there and in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and most cities that use Colorado River water. Still, the state's Colorado Water Plan envisions a metro Denver that needs at least 134,000 acre-feet more water in 2050 than it did 10 years ago, and possibly as much as 280,000 acre-feet. The South Platte Basin, in which Denver sits, is expected to grow in population by between 42% and 70% in that time. 'For further context,' the spokesman wrote, 'note that Denver Water serves one-quarter of Colorado's population using less than 2% of the water used in the state.' Monument to climate change denial? This is but one of numerous in-state struggles to keep water from the Colorado flowing downstream to the west instead of under the mountains to the east. The Colorado River District, for example, is hoping to swing a deal that could keep the Denver area from pulling more water out. The district is spearheading an effort to buy water rights that have powered a hydroelectric plant near Glenwood Springs since 1902. 'It is senior to every single trans-mountain diversion and every single West Slope water project,' Mueller said. To gain those rights from the power company and ensure that the water keeps flowing downhill, his district has pledged $20 million from its property tax collections toward a $99 million purchase price from Xcel Energy. The state would match that and communities would kick in nearly $17 million more. For the remainder, the parties are seeking a federal grant. A group of the Front Range's urban water providers has objected. Although they have said they support the district's ability to keep water moving downstream, they dispute its calculation of how much water the plant has used in the past and is therefore entitled to in the future. The state's water board agreed to conduct a hearing in the fall. The plant operates without storing water behind a dam, instead moving river water through a 13-foot-wide tunnel in the canyon wall and dropping into turbines that return the water to the river 2.4 miles downstream. Sometimes in late summer it's the only flow left to water the rafts and kayaks that help float Glenwood's recreation economy, the only clean water available to downstream communities. But the plant is old, and is occasionally shut down by rockfall or fire debris. If Xcel were to stop operating the plant, the water could be available for the taking by users up and down the river (or over the mountains). Mueller's district hopes to convert that water for the benefit of the river, which is known as an in-stream flow right. 'We're not doing this project in order for us to be able to consume more water. We're doing this to keep the water in the system,' he said, 'and make sure it remains there even as the climate dries.' Denver Water declined The Republic's request for a Gross Reservoir site visit and interview, but provided a link to its statements on the legal case. In one, it said it is appealing the judge's stay because it endangers a safe water supply for 1.5 million residents, and because it had spent $30 million to permit the project and completed 60% of it before being stopped. 'We view this decision as a radical remedy that should raise alarm bells with the public, not only because of its impacts to water security in an era of longer, deeper droughts, catastrophic wildfire and extreme weather,' the utility's statement said, 'but because it serves as an egregious example of how difficult it has become to build critical infrastructure in the face of relentless litigation and a broken permitting process.' To the opponents, what seems radical is trying to pull more water from a river that has no more to give. Denver Water's rights on this reservoir are dated well after the Colorado River Compact, a point that those who sued to block it say could render the whole project worthless if states downstream of Colorado go to court to demand their shares under that compact. 'There isn't going to be enough water to fill this reservoir,' neighbor Bev Kurtz said. 'It'll be the largest monument in history to the denial of climate change.' On this point Udall, the CSU scientist who is among the most vocal about the Colorado's hastening collapse, said he has what he calls 'really mixed feelings' about the wisdom of expanding and filling Gross Reservoir. It's a dilemma that goes back decades for him, to a time before the crisis, when he was more focused on saving a different river. In the late 20th century Udall worked as a consultant who advised Denver Water to drop plans for its then-proposed Two Forks Dam on the South Platte and instead consider moving more Colorado River water to Gross. Nebraska was at legal and political war with Colorado at the time to block Two Forks from depleting the Platte, which flows eastward across most of the Cornhusker State's length and supports irrigation, drinking water and hordes of Central Flyway migratory birds from swans and ducks to endangered whooping cranes, and a half-a-million-strong Sandhill crane rumpus. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ultimately sided with Nebraska and rejected Two Forks during President George H.W. Bush's administration. Denver cast its eyes to the west. 'That's huge,' Udall said of protecting the Platte, which he called 'an unbelievable system.' Now that Denver is ready to tap the Colorado as a replacement, he sighed, 'we have the threat of decreased flows.' Still, Udall believes that if Denver Water wins its appeal and completes Gross Reservoir expansion, it may be able to fill it during the region's wetter years. The headwaters from which Denver pumps just west of the Continental Divide are faring better with snowfall than are tributaries farther south, such as the San Juan River. In general, though, Udall concurs with critics of schemes to take and store more of the Colorado to expand consumption. 'It's idiotic to build any reservoirs to increase use, based on what we know about flows,' he said. Brandon Loomis covers environmental and climate issues for The Arizona Republic and part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at Environmental coverage on and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
National Geographic
3 days ago
- National Geographic
20 years after Katrina, New Orleanians are redefining 'home'
After one of the deadliest hurricanes in American history, many New Orleans residents faced a mountain of obstacles to rebuild. These are their stories. Shelton Alexander is one of hundred of thousands of New Orleans residents who survived the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Photograph by National Geographic On August 28, 2005, the eve of Hurricane Katrina's landfall, Shelton Alexander stood outside his home in St. Bernard Parish, a neighborhood in New Orleans, as a storm warning echoed from a nearby radio. Katrina was gaining strength by the hour. At that point, the poet and former Marine made sure his mother evacuated. But for himself, staying felt like the only option—a mix of necessity, responsibility, and quiet defiance in the face of a storm he knew would be unlike anything he'd seen before. More than 50 levees failed before the storm subsided, leading to major flooding across the city. Many New Orleans residents were left stranded after Hurricane Katrina hit. Photograph by Wickes Helmboldt Nearly 1,900 people died as a result of Hurricane Katrina. More than 650,000 were displaced. And while some neighborhoods have rebuilt, others remain vacant of the lives that once lived there. (Here's what made Hurricane Katrina one of the worst storms in U.S. history.) Before that fateful storm, the city's population stood at about 484,000. By July 2006, that number dropped to just over 230,000. Today, New Orleans has a population of about 351,399 that is steadily decreasing each year. The number of Black Americans residing in New Orleans has also declined from 67 percent in 2000 to 56 percent in 2024. Ahead of the 20-year anniversary of the storm, Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time, National Geographic's five-part documentary series streaming on Disney+ starting July 28, offers an intimate look at Hurricane Katrina through the eyes of those who lived it. Below are two stories of the many, many survivors. Lithuania's timeless city Residents neglected by their own city As Katrina loomed off the Gulf Coast, Alexander made plans to evacuate temporarily to Baton Rouge. But when he realized he didn't have enough gas, he rerouted to the Superdome—a shelter of last resort—navigating three feet of floodwater along the way. Alexander's truck was the only reason he was able to evacuate his home in time. Photograph by Shelton Shakespear Alexander 'I was grabbing a crucifix, praying, 'Lord, please let me get through it,'' he says. Along the way, he picked up 19 people who were also looking for shelter. What he found at the Superdome was not relief, but neglect. 'The National Guard was there, but nobody really was in charge,' says Alexander. 'There were so many breakdowns of communication—it was chaos.' (Read a detailed timeline of how the storm developed.) Alexander brought with him a video camera—something he often used to capture his poems, stories, and thoughts. In the middle of that darkened dome, his footage became something else entirely: evidence. 'Without that video proof, a lot of people wouldn't have believed my story,' he says. Members of the National Guard distribute water to New Orleans residents following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. There was no coordination of food, water, or medical aid, and no official word on what came next. Just tempers rising and the Louisiana summer heat pressing in from all sides. 'It was unbearable,' says Lynette Boutte, a resident of the Tremé neighborhood. She recalls how a group of men left the Superdome, discovered water trucks parked beneath a nearby bridge, and began distributing bottles to the crowd. 'When they started distributing, the only thing they said was, 'Drink it—don't waste it, because we don't know how long it'll last or when we'll get out.'' The fight to return home When the waters receded a month later, a second crisis began. Recovery money flowed into New Orleans, but much of it bypassed the people who needed it most. Road Home, a federal relief program run by the Louisiana Recovery Authority, cheated people in poor neighborhoods while giving more to those in wealthy areas. 'It was November 2005 when I came back to the city,' Boutte, who went to Florida shortly after the storm hit to stay with a friend, says. 'I didn't get help from the state or the federal government. I became aggressive in my pursuit, because I realized, if you don't take care of yourself, nobody else will.' Boutte's roots can be traced back to the 1800s in Tremé, one of the oldest Black neighborhoods in the United States. 'My parents built our family home in 1960, just before Hurricane Betsy,' she says. 'That house is still there. My niece lives in it now—we sold it to her mother. My grandmother was born two doors away in 1903. Her siblings, too.' Tremé resident and hairdresser Lynette Boutte survived the devastation of Hurricane Katrina through chest-deep waters and the scorching concrete of the Claiborne Bridge. She's now an advocate for the restoration of the culture and heritage of New Orleans Photograph by National Geographic (Top) (Left) and Photograph by National Geographic (Bottom) (Right) When Boutte, a hairdresser, was ready to open her own beauty salon in 1995, she searched for a place close to her roots. She found a building just around the corner from her family's place that had once been a ballroom turned grocery store, then a beauty salon in the 1950s. In the back, a small residence—added in the 1920s after the neighborhood's first major flood—became her home. Before Katrina, Boutte remembers a neighborhood full of community spirit. Walking from her mother's house, it was customary to stop and greet neighbors along the way, something she says has since faded. She also notes that the neighborhood no longer hosts community events. In the aftermath of the hurricane, Boutte feels that city leaders prioritized tourism over the needs of residents. Instead of rebuilding for the community, she believes they used the disaster as an opportunity to push gentrification and reshape New Orleans for outsiders, essentially eliminating the neighborhood's character. 'They've torn down these beautiful, old houses that lined Esplanade,' she says of a major neighborhood street. 'Now, everything is gawky—they lost all their historic value.' For Alexander, returning wasn't immediate. Not long after the storm hit, he headed west to California, where he found work alongside his father, a master carpenter. Many New Orleans residents quickly found that rebuilding was out of reach—contractors overcharged or abandoned jobs, local labor was sidelined, and those without resources or connections were priced out of their own recovery. 'Me and my dad came back from California to help," Alexander says. "But they didn't want local people doing the work. We were living in FEMA trailers, watching guys from out of state getting paid $35, $40 an hour just to sit in trucks. Locals like me—people who wanted to rebuild—could've used those jobs to invest in properties in our neighborhoods.' Abandoned cars and homes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Photograph by Michael S. Lewis/Nat Geo Image Collection People walking flooded New Orleans streets after Hurricane Katrina. Photograph by Michael S. Lewis/Nat Geo Image Collection Alexander watched the New Orleans he once knew and loved turn into a different place entirely. 'When I was growing up, neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward and Seventh Ward were mostly African American,' says Alexander. 'They were in locations close to hospitals and what people needed. After Katrina, they tore down the projects and replaced them with mixed-income housing. Most of the people who lived there before weren't allowed back in.' Boutte also watched homes disappear—not because they were damaged beyond repair, but because the people who owned them couldn't afford to fight for them. Like her neighbors, she is still approached by people offering to buy out her property for a higher price. 'Like I told them, they can't get it from me,' she says. The city that pulls you back For years, it felt Alexander's mother, who passed away shortly after he returned from California, was still tethering him to New Orleans. But in 2019, he felt like he had accomplished all he came back to the city to do—from renovating the trailer his late mother bought to hosting open mic nights in the city. It was his mother's voice in his head that pushed him to make his move to Texas. 'As I was in reflection and prayer, I heard my mom say 'You did all you can do, so it's time to move on. You could always come back home, you know, but don't sit here and be mourning for me.'" Although Alexander left Louisiana for Texas, the city continues to leave its mark on him. 'I came for Good Friday this year,' he says. 'I was supposed to stay two weeks. I stayed six. That's the hold the city has on you.' The trauma of Katrina still echoes through the streets of New Orleans, but so does the strength of its people—through Second Line Sundays, in the smell of red beans on Mondays, in the generations of families still rooted in place. 'I think in the next year, we're going to see another influx of people that left that's going to be coming back after realizing there is no place like New Orleans,' Boutte says. Nearly 20 years later, New Orleans is still healing, and its people are still returning. 'My mom used to say New Orleans is a boomerang,' Boutte says. 'You come here, and trust me, you're coming back.' National Geographic's five-part documentary series, "Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time," is streaming on Disney+ starting July 28.
