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Today marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005. The catastrophic storm, which made landfall as a Category 3, was one of the deadliest natural disasters in U.S. history, causing an estimated 1,833 deaths and $161 billion in property damage.
In honor of the anniversary, it seems everyone is reflecting on that difficult time in our nation’s history.
While Spike Lee’s Netflix documentary “Come Hell and High Water” highlights the lingering damage, like homes sinking into the sea in Alabama, top minds in both meteorology and hurricane relief are using this moment to remind those in power of the need for a stable disaster management system.
Because there is no denying that hurricanes and other natural disasters have changed the housing market; and with relief systems seemingly under threat, the question becomes this: Are we prepared for the next Katrina?
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Remembering why Katrina was so devastating
Dan DePodwin, AccuWeather vice president of forecasting operations, explains that while the storm itself was damaging, much of New Orleans’ devastation specifically resulted from the failure of over 50 levees around the city, which reportedly malfunctioned due to “flaws in design, construction and maintenance,” according to The New York Times.
“Because of the failures of the levees, about 80% of New Orleans was underwater, in some cases, for weeks,” DePodwin says.
Shortcomings of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) were also blamed for unnecessary damage. FEMA is tasked with responding to disasters that overwhelm the capabilities of local and state governments, but due to reported flaws in federal disaster response and preparedness, it took days for federal help to arrive in New Orleans as the local government struggled to help people evacuate.
Sadly, in years since, government reports have found that much of the deaths and destruction could have been avoided.
Evolving coastal protections offer hope for safer cities ahead
Since Katrina, there have been many changes, at local and national levels, to improve the safety of people and infrastructure in hurricane-prone areas.
Bolstering FEMA
In 2006, Congress passed the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, which increased FEMA’s budget and authority so it could respond to disasters faster.
DePodwin explains that FEMA wasn’t a cabinet level position before Katrina, but it became a distinct agency within the Department of Homeland Security, to give the agency “more of a voice” at the national level.
However, the Trump administration is now reversing some of these reforms in an effort to limit national spending. In August, nearly 200 current and former FEMA employees warned that the administration has undercut the agency’s readiness to respond to large-scale disasters like Katrina.
Still, the administration maintains that the changes made after Katrina were necessary—and now change is needed again.
“It is not surprising that some of the same bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency are now objecting to reform,” wrote Daniel Llargués, FEMA’s acting press secretary, in a statement to NPR. “Change is always hard. It is especially for those invested in the status quo. But our obligation is to survivors, not to protecting broken systems.”
Hurricane predictions have become more accurate
DePodwin says that the forecast for hurricanes have become “significantly more accurate” since Katrina, providing much more warning for those in affected areas.
He says that, back in 2005, hurricanes were generally tracked three to five days in the future.
“Now we produce a seven day track into the future, so we’re providing more notice to people,” he says, adding that these advancements give people more time to prepare and evacuate, saving lives.
Levee system improvements
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers invested $14.4 billion to rebuild and expand almost 200 miles of New Orleans levees. DePodwin calls this project a big investment and a “significant change in protection to the New Orleans area.”
However, these levees might not be enough to protect from the next big storm.
According to a 2023 study, sea levels around the city are rising by about 10 millimeters each year, and at the same time, New Orleans itself is sinking. According to the Louisiana Illuminator, some sections of the levee system are settling about 2 inches each year, faster than projected by the U.S. Army Corps when the system was constructed. Because of this, the new levee system becomes less effective each year.
Increased building standards
Since Katrina, building codes along the Gulf Coast were revised to include stricter requirements for wind-resistant construction, floodplain management, and other improved safety standards.
The disaster also inspired increased safety precautions across the country. Jacob Naig, a real estate investor in Des Moines, IA, says builders and homeowners have taken note from recent storms, even in a land-locked state.
“Here in Iowa, far from either coast, we took lessons learned from Katrina to ensure our floodplain management policies work along the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers,” he says.
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Major hurricanes since Katrina show the ongoing challenges
These protections have been critical, given that since Katrina, there has been an influx of storm activity.
In fact, DePodwin points out that there were other Category 5 hurricanes in 2005, though none quite as devastating.
“Hurricane Rita made landfall just a few weeks after Katrina, little bit farther west in Louisiana, that devastated parts of the central Louisiana coast,” he says. “And then Hurricane Wilma also later on in 2005 made landfall in Florida, Southwest Florida. It also had significant impacts there.”
Rita caused approximately 120 deaths and $18.5 billion in damages. Wilma caused 87 deaths and left nearly $30 billion in damages.
We’ve also had large hurricanes make landfall in more recent years, such as Hurricane Michael in 2018, a Category 5 which hit the Florida Panhandle. It caused 16 deaths and about $25 billion in damages.
And just last year we saw Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 hurricane that caused $78.7 billion in damages and was responsible for at least 176 direct deaths in the United States. It was the deadliest hurricane in the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
It was followed by Hurricane Milton, another Category 5, which made landfall just south of Tampa and caused 15 direct deaths and caused $34.3 billion in damages.
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The biggest problem plaguing hurricane areas: insurance
Naig explains that insurance hikes related to natural disasters have become a big problem in the housing market today.
“Premiums are rising to the point that homeownership becomes unaffordable, and insurers are even withdrawing from whole states,” he explains.
“Federal and state programs expanded after Katrina, but as the role of FEMA has evolved, so have gaps,” Naig adds. “And I’ve seen similar parallels in Iowa, where high flood insurance costs discourage potential buyers from neighborhoods that should otherwise be prime.”
He continues: “The lesson, in stark terms, is that insurance can be the silent hand deciding whether communities will recover or languish.”
How Katrina has affected people in all hurricane-prone areas
Adam Hamilton, CEO of REI Hub, a software company for short-term rental owners, says that the housing markets in hurricane-affected have struggled.
“People are hesitant to move to these areas, even after homes have been rebuilt,” Hamilton explains, noting that people are nervous about buying in costal areas, even if that particular city hasn’t experienced a disaster yet. “People are wary because they’ve seen the impact of devastating storms like Katrina.”
DePodwin points out that some people harbor more risk than others. He says location of your home, insurance, and building standards are all big factors when it comes to storm risk. But it’s also important to not forget about a person’s health and socioeconomic standing.
Katrina damaged 134,000 of the homes New Orleans—approximately 70% of all homes in the city—displacing hundreds of thousands of people. But there were housing issues even before the hurricane. The 2000 Census reported that, in the city, two-thirds of extremely low-income households had residents paying more than 30% of their income toward housing. Less than half of New Orleans households owned their homes, compared with two-thirds of households across the country, according to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.
“Those who live in poverty, who have poor health, those are the folks who are impacted the most, and carry most of the burden from these types of disasters,” says DePodwin. “They have less means to recover, and that really lengthens the recovery process. We’ve seen that in New Orleans, the recovery process is really, in places, still ongoing today, 20 years later.”