20 Years After Katrina, New Orleans Still Faces Racism and Climate Injustice

Independent journalist Jordan Flaherty was in New Orleans in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina first hit, and both supported and reported on relief efforts in the aftermath of the storm. Flaherty explains how Katrina’s devastation to the city’s infrastructure accelerated the existing dispossession of its primarily Black residents, how corruption and mismanagement in the years following the storm diverted aid, and how racist media narratives contribute to the ongoing criminalization of Black New Orleanians. “It’s devastating,” says Flaherty, warning that the aftermath of Katrina is not only reverberating, but amplifying, today. “The support for the oil and gas industry, the heightened climate change, hurricanes getting bigger, hurricanes getting stronger, less land to protect us in the city, less infrastructure to support us, less of a social safety net … less ways to afford to live in the city, in this country.”