20 Years of Hurricane Katrina
- Angie Santiago
- Aug 29
- 2 min read
The first time I went to New Orleans was not for celebration, but in response to the devastation following the levee failures after Hurricane Katrina. I still remember the moment I received the call to deploy—I was sitting in a restaurant in Savannah, GA, on my way to Florida for my sister’s 40th birthday party.
I deployed as part of a response team based out of South Carolina’s Emergency Operations Center. Our mission was to rebuild a road to secure a federal building, and my role was to coordinate personnel across multiple state and federal agencies. When I returned, our HHS team worked to identify and address the health and social needs of more than 9,000 evacuees relocated to North and South Carolina.
As someone who had served for a decade in the long-term recovery from Hurricane Andrew (1992–2002), I knew disaster response well. But Katrina revealed an entirely different level of dysfunction. Our mission required self-sufficiency, so we brought our own supplies, fuel, and mobile quarters. Shockingly, we found ourselves having to protect those resources not from frightened or desperate locals, but from other deployed federal agencies attempting to commandeer them.
Hurricane Andrew launched my healthcare emergency management career; Hurricane Katrina ignited my anger. I began questioning how far we had drifted from FEMA’s original mission—and what role I could play in changing it. After the creation of the Department of Homeland Security post-9/11, I watched FEMA’s disaster and flood management focus erode even further. Program managers like me were required to take terrorism and bomb training. The “See Something, Say Something” campaign felt offensive and misaligned with our mission. I refused to use my position as an instrument of discrimination or oppression against people of color, the disabled, the elderly, inmates, LGBTQIA communities, or non-citizens.
The toll was heavy. Many of our team members suffered PTSD, and we lost several colleagues to environmentally related illnesses. For a while, we would gather each August to talk through our experiences, but with today’s cascading disasters and dwindling resources, even those moments of healing have become rare.
I’ve since returned to New Orleans many times—sometimes for work, sometimes to honor the lives changed or lost, and sometimes to mark major moments like the opening of the Hurricane Katrina Museum at The Presbytère in Jackson Square. I don’t like dwelling on how we, as a nation, failed Black communities in New Orleans before and after Katrina—but on this anniversary, reflection feels like an obligation.
This year, my family and I will participate in a ritual of remembrance: carrying the grief of Hurricane Katrina, honoring the spirits of those we lost, and recommitting ourselves to the work of resilience and justice.
Please consider a donation to Common Ground Relief founded by Malik Rahim. https://www.commongroundrelief.org/blank-2
Excellent reporting by Amy Goodman from Democracy Now.
Remembering Hurricane Katrina, 20 Years After Storm Killed 1,800 in New Orleans:
New Orleans Is Unprepared for Another Katrina, Warns Community Activist Malik Rahim:
20 Years After Katrina, New Orleans Still Faces Racism and Climate Injustice: