Surviving Hurricane Katrina: Citizens of the Lower Ninth Ward
Imagine this. You’ve been told a major hurricane is going to hit your
city. The mayor has ordered everyone to evacuate. But you can’t. You
have no car. Who needs one? You live in the city. And you have no extra
money. You can barely pay the rent each month. How can you leave?
There are no trains or busses running. Your friends either don’t have cars or
their cars are full. You have no way out. On August 29, 2005, Hurricane
Katrina and the flooding that followed devastated the city of New Orleans.
People knew this category 3 storm was coming. May Ray Nagin announced
mandatory evacuations for all neighborhoods. And yet many residents of
the Lower Ninth Ward, the lowest part of the city and most vulnerable to the
hurricane, remained in their homes. In 1965, Hurricane Betsy swept through
New Orleans and devastated the Lower Ninth Ward. Knowing that history
why did residents of the Lower Ninth Ward remain in their homes after the
evacuation was announced? They stayed because they didn’t have the
resources – the transportation, money or community support or connections –
to leave. They were forced to ride out the storm and the flood that followed.