Twenty years ago, Sherry Grace, a resident of New Orleans, Louisiana, recalled thinking it was just a typical Florida storm.
In 2005, a tropical storm made landfall in southeastern Florida. The storm passed through the Everglades and continued to strengthen in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Less than a week later, Hurricane Katrina escalated into a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane. To this day, it is still considered one of the most severe natural disasters to hit the Gulf Coast region.
This hurricane resulted in nearly 1,400 deaths, countless homes and businesses destroyed, and some areas and industries still not fully recovered.
Some of the people who experienced this disaster back then shared their stories with the Epoch Times.
On August 27, 2005, the National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane warning for the Louisiana coast for the first time.
Grace, along with her husband and two children, decided to board up their house in Mid-City, New Orleans, pack important documents and items, shut off utilities, and evacuate.
“We told our kids, ‘Take one last look at our house, because we’re not sure if we’ll come back there, or if they’ll see the same home when they return,'” she said.
The next day, Hurricane Katrina strengthened into a powerful hurricane, with sustained winds reaching 165 miles per hour. The National Hurricane Center warned that storm surges could reach 28 feet, enough to breach some levees.
On the beaches of Gulfport, Mississippi, Richard Valdez was moving his business equipment as the storm approached. A friend warned him that offshore buoys were showing waves over 20 feet, indicating the severity of Hurricane Katrina could be worse than Hurricane Camille in 1969.
Later that day, he evacuated his home at his wife’s urging.
Further west, in Waverly, Mississippi, Todd Terrell, the founder of the non-profit organization United Cajun Navy dedicated to disaster relief, was looking for opportunities to evacuate his fishing camp.
“You have to remember, a lot of fishermen and other personnel waited until the last minute,” he told the Epoch Times. “There are fishing nets in the water, that’s your livelihood. There are shrimp boats in the water, that’s your livelihood. A lot of fishermen, they waited until the last moment because you never know if the storm will change course.”
Some chose to stay behind.
The National Institutes of Health recently estimated that 150,000 to 200,000 people in New Orleans chose not to evacuate.
“We heard older people say, ‘We’re so lucky we got out,'” Terrell said. “The last to come out said they had never seen the water that high.”
On the morning of August 29, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeastern Louisiana. Hours before, the hurricane had already ravaged the coast, bringing catastrophic storm surges and spawning dozens of tornadoes.
According to the National Hurricane Center, the hurricane continued throughout the morning, and by the afternoon, Hurricane Katrina had weakened to a tropical storm.
On August 30, Hurricane Katrina remained a tropical depression, crossing the border into Tennessee.
Valdez and his family drove back to Gulfport. He was employed by the city and the Harrison County Sheriff’s Office, while his wife was a court clerk with emergency management credentials.
With these credentials, they were able to return to town. However, he had to sneak his son JR and his mother through a checkpoint.
JR told the Epoch Times, “My parents put our belongings in the backseat of the car and told us to lie down and not move.”
“There were fallen trees all over Highway 49, and we had to be very careful driving to avoid damaging the vehicle. When we finally arrived in Gulfport, it took a long time to get back to my parents’ house due to road damage.”
Valdez’s house was still standing with enough distance from the water level. However, other houses were not so lucky.
“My aunt’s house was blown over by a tornado,” Valdez said. “My mom lost her home. Many of my cousins also lost their homes. Most people I knew at the beach lost their homes.”
Grace and her husband initially evacuated to Shreveport, Louisiana, and upon seeing the news, they decided to drive to Topeka, Kansas, to her mother’s home.
As they headed north, more news reports came through the radio.
“Just ordinary people calling the radio station spontaneously, telling what was happening,” she said. “‘That’s where I’m standing right now, I’m standing on Carrollton Avenue in Orleans Avenue, which is a cross street very close to our house. The water is rising, something is happening.'”
“So we knew something was happening. But we didn’t really realize specifically what happened. We didn’t realize the levees had already been breached or broken.”
After reaching New Orleans, Terrell found an abundance of water everywhere, with depths of up to four to five feet in some places, making it impossible for his truck to pass.
“We followed the routes of the National Guard and the military to eventually make it there,” he said. “From that point on, there were a few volunteers.”
“About a hundred people came in boats from the Lafayette area,” he said. “I’ll never forget that scene. I’ve never experienced seeing people so happy in my life. Harry Lee, who was the sheriff at the time, representing almost everyone, said, ‘We need you. We need help.'”
The actions of these core volunteers laid the foundation for the United Cajun Navy that formed later.
“We began to receive all the reports and various pieces of information, and at that moment, we really broke down,” Grace said. “I really broke down, tears were streaming down my face.”
“My sister, I remember her coming to my house on Tuesday, she said, ‘Pull yourself together. We need to get your kids to school here.’ So we got this arranged together, and a few days later, I sent both kids to a school in Topeka, Kansas.”
Sam and his sister Shaina spent the remainder of the fall semester there.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that “due to Hurricane Katrina, about 1.5 million people aged 16 and older left their residences in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.”
A survey conducted from October 2005 to October 2006 showed that 64.9% of the evacuees returned to their original homes, and 72.5% returned to their respective counties.
However, this number did not include people under 16 at that time, like Sam and Shaina, indicating that the total displaced population was even larger.
On August 31, 2005, Valdez’s home was secured, and he began assisting others in clearing their city.
“The entire town was unbelievably destroyed,” he said. “Everything you can imagine, everything from your childhood memories, your most familiar landmarks on the coast, the original two neighborhoods are gone.”
Gulfport and the Mississippi Gulf Coast region directly felt the impact of Hurricane Katrina, with storm surges over 24 feet washing away all historic landmarks and commercial buildings along the coastline, leaving only a few slabs.
“After Hurricane Katrina, debris and trash piled up on the beach, you would see things floating there, like house roofs, car tops, and so on. The cleanup took a long time,” he said.
It took nearly a year for the entire beach to have power restored.
Post-disaster looting remained a concern. Reports of finding bodies of missing residents began to surface. The town also had to deal with the sickening foul odors.
“At that time, we had a big chicken port here,” Valdez explained. “They used to have chicken orders to send to Russia. Dead chickens were everywhere, the smell was unbelievably foul.”
Upon returning to the Crescent City, Terrell and his volunteer team conducted rescue operations for several days.
He provided his seafood company’s refrigerated transport trailer to the National Guard for storing the bodies recovered.
Terrell described the initial days in New Orleans as “post-apocalyptic,” recalling days without food and water, nights filled with gunfire and screams, where they sorted through the injured as best as they could, and had to navigate airboats over bodies floating on the water.
With the eastern part of New Orleans “severely demolished,” the focus of rescue efforts shifted to helping people in the west and advising them to stay away from the Superdome.
Days later, he set out westward into Mississippi, with the National Guard following with fuel and supplies. But he found the surviving camps from hurricanes like Camille and other major storms were destroyed.
Terrell said that after running on adrenaline for over two weeks, he finally could take a break, but he eventually broke down as he realized one thing.
“I thought, ‘I don’t know what to do,'” he said. “I mean, we’re assisting others but we need help ourselves.”
“The camp was gone. The land was gone. The business was gone. It’s not like we have to clean it up. It’s gone. There are no buildings, no floors. It’s really gone.
“So at that time, you just have to help those who are in better shape than us. That’s all we could do.”
Throughout the recovery process, residents emphasized the importance of community belonging and knowing their neighbors, crucial for survival and recovery after Hurricane Katrina.
“You could see along the coastline, people helping each other, everyone leaving their homes to assist neighbors,” Valdez said.
“We moved fallen branches blocking driveways. Rebuilding the coast took some time, but now the coastal reconstruction is progressing smoothly.”
Grace and her family were grateful for the support of their friends in Kansas, including providing Sam with free football gear. In December 2005, as they returned to New Orleans, this sense of community belonging drove their community’s rebuilding.
It was estimated that 71.5% of homes in Orleans Parish were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina, with neighboring St. Bernard Parish and Plaquemines Parish also seeing 80% of housing damaged.
Since Grace’s house suffered minimal damage, the upstairs tenant still lived there.
“Everyone had someone living with them,” Grace said. “Once they could go home, they became friends.”
Sam pointed out that his father was a Navy colonel and Chief Information Officer of the Navy Medical Department at the time. Although recalled to report to duty stationed in Washington, D.C., he was able to return home before Hurricane Katrina hit to help evacuate evacuees, and was easily reachable.
While helping people in the community who had no one else during rescue efforts, Terrell realized the importance of community belonging.
He urged people to care for neighbors, family, and friends regardless of whether a hurricane struck, ensuring everyone’s safety.
Twenty years later, many parts of the region have not fully recovered.
The breach in the levees in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans Parish has still not been rebuilt.
The foundations of buildings along the Mississippi Gulf Coast remain exposed, and Terrell’s seafood industry, previously his livelihood, has yet to recover.
Former wholesale customers opted for cheaper imported products.
Despite this, those who shared their stories with the Epoch Times quickly pointed out signs of recovery emerging.
The annual Mardi Gras took place as scheduled in February 2006.
The beaches of Mississippi reopened that summer, and the professional football team, the New Orleans Saints, held their first home game after the disaster at the Superdome on September 25, 2006.
On August 18, 2025, Amtrak resumed passenger train service, reconnecting Mobile, Alabama, with New Orleans, Louisiana, for the first time since Hurricane Katrina and serving as a model for sustained economic recovery twenty years later.
So, when did the interviewees first realize that everything would eventually be okay?
For Valdez, he saw the beach reopen, and the annual deep-sea fishing contest in Mississippi continued in 2006 and officially returned to Gulfport in July 2010.
For Terrell, it was when the Saints won their first home game at the Superdome and defeated the Atlanta Falcons.
For Grace and her family, that moment came in early 2010 when within a few weeks, the Saints won the Super Bowl, and the annual Mardi Gras celebrations were held.
“We were walking in the French Quarter, you could just lift your feet as if someone was carrying you,” Sam said. “I think that was the moment… the moment I felt the city finally regained its vibrancy.”