The Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans experienced calamitous flooding from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The storm surge came from the east via flooded Saint Bernard Parish and from the west through two large breaches in the Industrial Canal flood protection system, creating violent currents that smashed homes and tore them from their foundations. At that time the storm became the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. At least 1,836 people lost their lives in Hurricane Katrina and many more thousands were rendered homeless.
A Texas resident commiserated with one of the Hurricane evacuees temporarily housed in a local church:
“That must have been the most terrible thing that ever happened to you. You lost your home. You lost your clothes and all of possessions. You have no money. You can’t get in touch with your relatives. Your friends have been displaced. What a tragedy. How will you ever recover?”
The evacuee replied:
Surely that storm was a terrible thing. I was scared and pretty well knew for certain I was going to die. Then a boat came and they took us to the Superdome, and it was like the devil himself had come down and was torturing us. We were all crowded together and squashed-up. People were yelling and crying. It was hot and dirty. And we all got thirsty and hungry. It smelled bad and it seemed there was no hope for any of us. But somehow, we got rescued and took care of. And now here I am in this nice church. We have food. And water. And air conditioning. And good people are helping us and looking after us.
Yes, that Hurricane was a horrible thing and I never want to go through nothing like that again. But, you know, that Hurricane—no matter all the bad things that happened—was the best thing that ever happened to me and I am thankful for it.
I’m not discounting the bad things that happened to so many people and all the dead people and people who never will find their families, but for me that hurricane was good. If it hadn’t been for Katrina, I would have been trapped in the lower ninth ward for life. Before the hurricane, I had nowhere to go. I had no idea how to go. I had no money to go. I was just there and that was my life. But the big wind came and blew me to a better way of looking at things. And now I have a new life, a new start on life. I’ve got possibilities. Yes, thank God for Hurricane Katrina. I’ve got hope.