As we approach 20 years since Katrina, a reminder that it wasn't just New Orleans

Landmass

One could make a case that Houston got it much worse.

100%
I live in The Pass. 20 years after Katrina there are still beach front lots & acreage available.

Growth is exploding, our community is full of transplants from the NE. Not many from CA, yet.

While you're correct, on a superficial level, the problem we deal with is - the disaster on the Mississippi Coast was largely one of nature and, self-correcting. (What I mean by this is that the storm surge came in and then the storm surge went out.)

What happened in New Orleans was largely man-made and self-inflicted. My bonafides on that are:

1. I was in the Lower Ninth Ward when the storm came through,

2. I was at the Superdome from Monday evening through Labor Day after the storm passed, and

3. I participated in the relief efforts, in an active way, through December 31st, 2005

I want to wait until the anniversary and do a mini "AMA", but I can clarify things for you if you'd like.

(ETA: Another major difference was just the scope of the damage to New Orleans infrastructure, coupled with population density and other demographic factors combined to make New Orleans a much bigger humanitarian issue than experienced by the Mississippi Gulf Coast, who, admittedly, got the stronger edge of the storm - the eye passed directly over me, so I kind of have the big picture comfortably in mind.)

People forget it made landfall first in South Florida. Then we got hit worse by Hurricane Wilma 2 months later.

I road Katrina out in Waveland, live in BSL now. I seem to remember able bodied folks in NOLA waiting for a government hand out, instead of helping themselves and neighbors.
That was not the case for the most part in the Bay/Waveland area.

Unbelievable wall of water. Washed away entire parts of Cat and Ship Islands.

The coastal part along the highway looked like Hiroshima. We had property, and a boat in the PC harbor. All gone. Camille did the same thing.

Had the flood walls not failed, Katrina would have been a MS hurricane. Remember initially there was no flooding in NO just a lot of blown out windows. It was a day or so later the walls failed.

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I road Katrina out in Waveland, live in BSL now. I seem to remember able bodied folks in NOLA waiting for a government hand out, instead of helping themselves and neighbors. That was not the case for the most part in the Bay/Waveland area.

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Yea man we all just sat around waiting for the government. Nvm that we weren’t even allowed into our city for weeks after.


This attitude is probably the thing that pisses me off more than any about Katrina. Were there people in New Orleans sitting around waiting for the govt? Sure. But this idea that people in New Orleans weren’t tough enough to pick themselves up is comical.

The western side of the eyewall did a good job on my house in Slidell. Winds tore off most of the roof and much of the siding.

The 20something foot storm surge went up a canal from the lake and over the levee around my subdivision and filled it up like a bathtub. The ground was saturated for 3 days. Pine trees fell. Back yard fence fell.

I got 40 1/2 inches of water over the slab inside for the 3 days.

Took a year to restore the house. I sold it a year to the day following Katrina landfall, for about a 50% profit over what I paid 3 1/2 years earlier.