DISASTERSTwo Decades Later, the Experience of Katrina Continues to Shape How the Nation Prepares for and Responds to Disasters
Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath exposed profound gaps in multiple systems, including flood protection, emergency response, health care, and housing. It marked a turning point in the way we understand the impacts of natural disasters.
It has been 20 years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, submerged a major American city, killed nearly 1,400 people, and displaced 1 million more. Two decades is a long enough period for an event to fade from memory, and for those of us who remember how the flooding transfixed a nation, it is startling to realize that for many younger Americans, Katrina is now primarily an event from the history books. But for Gulf residents no matter their age, the experience of Katrina remains fresh, even if all its lasting impacts are not obvious to the naked eye.
The hurricane and its aftermath exposed profound gaps in multiple systems, including flood protection, emergency response, health care, and housing. It marked a turning point in the way we understand the impacts of natural disasters, the catastrophic flooding of a major American city driving home how severe the risks from extreme weather can be as well as the dangers of complacency and failing to adequately prepare. And it showed the unacceptable risks faced by the most vulnerable among us.
Rethinking Disaster Preparation and Response
The decades since Katrina have reinforced the need to move away from a backward-looking “disaster” mindset and to engage in proactive efforts to shore up the key components that support the ability of communities to absorb, recover from, and adapt to adverse events and disasters. In some cases, this requires rethinking how to live with coastal realities. In Louisiana, the experience of Katrina (and Hurricane Rita) led to the creation of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority charged with developing and implementing a comprehensive coastal Master Plan. Among other things, the Master Plan uses science-based approaches to work with natural processes and ecosystems to enhance the coastal environment and increase protection from damaging storms. “Nature-based solutions” like these expand the toolkit for protecting communities, while providing multiple additional benefits, often at lower costs.
