Anderson Cooper reflects on the people he interviewed and the tragedy he witnessed almost 10 years ago when Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast. CNN Special Report - Katrina: The Storm That Never Stopped. August 27, 2015.
I lived in slidell during katrina,lost my house, moved my family to baton rouge and Shreveport, then came home myself and rebuilt first my house, my mother's house, my mother and father in laws house and hundreds of others as I had my own contracting company at the time. But the scars from that storm run deep, my in laws died just a couple years after, my marriage didn't withstand the stress either and I often look back on these videos and openly cry. The rebuilding effort was great, but the long lasting scars will never heal for me or many others that lived through Katrina
You can't compare the 2 I was there for New York. It was a location of a couple building, Katrina took out cities. Imagine where you live now and you WHOLE city destroyed.
4 Given I can very easily compare the two. First and foremost, Hurricane Katrina did not destroy the entire city of New Orleans. It only destroyed some black neighborhoods and communities. Rebuilding those black neighborhoods in New Orleans wouldn't have even cost 1/3 of the amount it took to clean up the wreckage in New York.
Dear fool, for one 80% of New Orleans was damaged. New York 2 buildings destroyed a few others damaged. New York was about 10billion on damages cost to rebuild $3 billion. Katrina damage $125 billion most of it New Orleans no estimate on how much to rebuild. Now please tell me again how does 2 blocks compare to a city of 80% damaged. Please do the math. The cost to rebuild will cost way more than $3 billion. Now we know the truth why they aren't looking to invest the money to rebuild and even if they did there wouldn't be black people in the neighborhoods anymore. I watched another update documentary and they doubled the rent in those same areas. Places that use to go for $500 now going for $900 knowing people couldn't afford it.
The way the US handle this still upsets me...Even our enemy at the time Cuba was ready to send help but couldn't due to permission not approved by the US
Britney Houston-Escajeda so many countries sent money food water medical supplies and even volunteers and many sat and rotted away bc the USA government said it wasn’t to standards the FDA and the government could have saved those people the prideful senators and representatives and president wouldn’t take help they let people die. They had plenty of resources to help the New Orleans people they didn’t. I hope God has no mercy on their souls.
Racheal Silburn yeah that reaction of her was genuine and I felt it too, couldn’t hold back the tears ,I sincerely hope that man had at least some moments of peace having gone thru that awful traumatic experience before he passed away😔😢.
As a European, I cannot understand having 51 countries in one union, and one is hit so badly. Nobody helps for days ? Is it that most of the population is black ?
TheErminK honestly much simpler said then done we waited for a way to get food water and help to them but it's hard to give help to a group of people when their voice is saying "Nope we got it"(F.E.M.A + the Blonco lady,) Can't give you a hand if you slap it away
All Out Studio It wasn't any one issue, it was a multifaceted clusterfuck of bureaucratic incompetence. I was a SAR volunteer for Katrina, and we arrived the day after it hit. The personnel and supplies were there, the problem is nobody could figure out who was in charge. It was ridiculous NIMS 101 level bullshit. The notifications were botched because Katrina kind of came out of nowhere. Usually once a hurricane makes landfall then that's the end of it, so it was a shock to see it start gaining strength again after hitting Florida. I lived in a couple hours inland in one of the Gulf Coast states, and I remember being surprised about the whole thing. We also got hit pretty hard despite how far up the coast we were so it siphoned off emergency services. Part of the problem was that Governor Blanco kept hemming and hawing over whether to let the federal government take charge of relief efforts. There's also an attitude on the Gulf Coast of riding out storms, and to be fair it had turned out fine with other strong storms. So Nagin was hesitant to order anything because there had never been a mandatory evacuation before. Another problem was there wasn't much info about what was happening in the 9th Ward and Lakeview because the media and local government officials were all holed up in high rise buildings in another part of the city. So at first the news was really optimistic about the storm damage, and it wasn't until later in the day that people realized there were levee failures. There were also a crazy amount of rumors about what exactly was happening in the city after the hurricane left. So for a while we thought we were getting credible reports about large scale violence in the city. That's a major issue for SAR groups (including the one I was with) because most of them have a lot of rules about if and how you can operate when you're at risk of violence. The President and FEMA should have monitored the situation more closely, but I do think they were ignorant instead of malicious. Once everyone figured out what was going on they'd already lost critical response time. Then it became a pissing contest between Nagin, Blanco, Brown, and the President. While all that was going on different groups were getting different orders from different people so there was no coordination in the initial response. Again, NIMS 101 crap. Ultimately this all falls back to the gross negligence of the US Army Corps of Engineers. If the levees had been build properly then we would have forgotten about Katrina within a week.
I see your point, the governor was highly incompetent as well as the leadership and President Bush. Hurricane Harvey was completely different. On the other hand I remember the mayor begging for help but help was very slow.
Shelton was such a true source for the feelings of New Orleans. History recorded at the time. I listened on the radio people about to die in their attics. Don't ever let this happen to another American citizen in again. Don't let ability to pay dictate whether an American lives or die again.
+Jolie Harris It was really hard for me to conceptualize this on an emotional level when it was happening until I thought in terms of how I was caught in an area but managed to evacuate as a hurricane approached ( crazy surfers started hitting the beaches when everyone else was leaving). However I managed to get out. Truth is America craps on its poor people no matter what color, creed or national origin. That is the reality. It even craps on its middle class nowadays (statistics support that the middle class is shrinking and losing quality of life while wealthy corporate and professional Amerika gets wealthier and wealthier). Events like Katrina's impact on New Orleans was no fluke. Take a poverty-stricken area like much of New Orleans and mix in a natural disaster and voila, you have a human tragedy on a scale typically unimaginable in this nation.
I'm Australian and had young children at the time of katrina and i was angry and upset that the US government seemed to do nothing to help. I wanted to fly from Australia to go and get food and water etc to all the people in new Orleans.
Mel_brazilian Cox exactly. Because of femas "regulations" people with boats and vehicles able to make it through high water who wanted to come in and save lives were turned away..its ABSOLUTELY ludicrous and infuriating to think about..
I remember at the time in Australia many of us wanted to send money or aid to people in America who were suffering from Hurricane Katrina's impact. I don't know why but the USA government turned it down and we are their ally.
These stories are so tragic. I went to New Orleans recently and was told stories about how it still hasn't recovered / been rebuilt in some areas. This world is disgusting. Some of you don't deserve to even be alive, but good people get taken out because they don't have the means to come out on top after something like this. Bless them
When there's a hurricane you're not going to find so much as a shoebox for rent for several hundred miles because of evacuees trying to leave, and emergency services trying to arrive.
a street name flood??? 9:40 waw.... rest in peace Hardy i hope you have found your wife so you can both watch your kid and grand-kid grow Up .... hope Everyone who died in or after the storm are now in peace...👼👼👼👼👼👼👼👼
Fun fact: Charity Hospital was NOT destroyed, only the basement flooded, but Louisiana wouldn’t reopen it so that FEMA would give them the insurance money instead. It’s one thing to be completely inept in a time of disaster, but to make DELIBERATE decisions that cost lives is disgusting.
Very sad! I still can't believe this happened here in the US. This is something you see in other parts of the world not here. Thank you Anderson Cooper for sharing this & for your empathy and compassion! I have seen other reporters report on this but you showed what others didn't, you cared for these people. My condolences to everyone that lost loved ones in this tragedy! I hope we have learned something from this & it never happens again.
I know this may be a dumb question and maybe it just went over my head...I know people were warned about the hurricane but no one was expecting the town to massively flood the way it did; up to the rooves of businesses and homes at that. Everything in the homes were destroyed due to water damage right? So, how was it that people were able to write huge SOS markings on the roofs of there homes or make huge help signs on poster boards and stuff? Not trying to be shady or anything because my heart goes out to each and every hurricane Katrina victim. Peoples lives were forever changed due to that situation.
Racheal Silburn You think it was some conspiracy or something and they had a secret stash of posterboard? Spray paint will be fine if it’s flooded, if they spent a day up on their roof someone will think of things to do, that could be trying to get down to where they have spray paint or maybe they thought ahead and grabbed it while they were heading to the roof. I highly doubt they used poster board though, that was some piece of building material of some sort which probably shouldn’t be hard to find.
Great documentary. I have watched a lot of Katrina documentaries but this tugged at the heart strings for me. Every story was heart breaking and unless you are ice cold you had to feel something for these folks. Ya know, we all have to have each other's backs. In these situations of crisis and devastation we are all we have. I hope it does not take a global disaster for us all to realize were just people. R.I.P. to all the Katrina victims and may God be with their loved ones. Peace and blessings to each and every one of you out there.
Katrina was so Devastating on so many levels I remember when I first saw New Orleans after katrina I was shocked like the rest of the world but what bothered me even more was the lack of help so after every thing calmed down I signed up with Habatat for Humanity and went to the lower 9th ward to rebuild I think the 1 thing that I noticed right away was the writing on the houses like after search n rescue went in2 the house they would write on the wall what they found and seeing that on all the houes was very creepy but even more disturbing was the lack of help no one was their it was like we were all alone their we could see all the damage from the hurricane abandonded cars garbidge all over the place but their was no people living their I am telling u we were by ourselves n their were only 10 people in my group we stayed for 6 months we rebuilt like 75 homes n we ran out of material n when we asked for more they told us to go home thier was no more help n I am telling u it was horrible cause their were so many houes left that needed help but we couldnt do ne thing about it crazy just crazy
I'm from PA and I remember watching this horrible event on the news channels, I said many many prayers for those people. My heart ached for the elderly, the babies, the young children who couldn't possibly understand what was going on, HOWEVER, what infuriated me was to see the opportunistic people stealing from the stores and businesses. Now let me be clear, if they were stealing for survival...food, clothes, water I can 100% understand that what I'm talking about is those helping themselves to TVs, electronics, gaming systems etc. It happens frequently and its disgusting, sorry it's my humble opinion. It's about survival PRIORITIES, how are those electronics going to help you when you dont even have a home????
I have zero sympathy for people who are always wanting a hand out, instead of going to shool to get a good job to help themselves. I did it!!!!...as a single mother while I worked nights! If there's a will, there's a way! A strong, fully abled, young man should be able to afford gas for his car! There's no excuse for that.
New Orleans needs another hurricane. It was so nasty and disgusting and dangerous. It needs a another washout. The city and the nuts in it need to go away.
