Grist, September 2024
In the spring of 2005, Daniel Aldrich, a researcher, was finishing his doctorate in Japanese energy politics at Harvard University. That summer, he moved to Louisiana with his wife and two young children, renting a house in New Orleans to begin his first-ever job in academia at Tulane University. The campus was abuzz in late August as students moved into their dormitories and teachers prepared for the first day of classes. The last Monday of that month was supposed to be Aldrich’s first day of teaching. He never made it to campus. Twelve feet of water had turned his house, eight blocks from Lake Pontchartrain, into a swamp, destroying everything he owned, including his car, and sending his life in a totally new direction.
Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana as a Category 4 storm the morning of August 29, 2005, leading to more than 1,500 deaths in three Southern states and causing $300 billion in damages. In New Orleans, poor city planning and lack of flood resilience made a bad situation worse. Some 80 percent of the city was underwater 48 hours after Katrina hit. It would take many months for the people who evacuated to come back. A portion of the population never returned, and the city still bears the scars of Katrina’s impact, and the recovery process — botched by bad politics, racism, and lack of foresight — that followed.
