Hurricane Katrina: 20 Years Later

Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast with catastrophic storm surge and flooding, New Orleans marked the storm’s anniversary with solemn memorials, uplifting music, and a parade that honored the dead, the displaced, and the determined survivors who endured and rebuilt.

Dignitaries and longtime residents gathered under gray skies at the memorial to Katrina’s victims in a New Orleans cemetery where dozens who perished in the storm but were never identified or claimed are interred.

“We do everything to keep the memory of these people alive,” said Orrin Duncan, who worked for the coroner when Katrina hit. He comes to the memorial every year, opening the cemetery gate and making sure the grass is cut.

A Category 3 hurricane when it made landfall in Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2005, Katrina inflicted staggering destruction. The storm killed nearly 1,400 people across five states and racked up an estimated $200 billion in damage, flattening homes on the coast and sending ruinous flooding into low-lying neighborhoods.

Two decades later, it remains the costliest U.S. hurricane on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The failure of the federal levee system inundated about 80% of the city in floodwaters that took weeks to drain. Thousands of people clung to rooftops to survive or waited for evacuation in the sweltering, underprovisioned Superdome stadium.

Remembering the Victims

In New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, a predominantly Black community devastated by flooding when parts of the protective levee collapsed, hundreds watched as an ensemble of white-clad children atop the levee wall sang a song of the sorrow and survival.

“We are the children of the ones who did not die,” they sang. “We are the children of the people who could fly. And we are the children of the ones who persevered.”

New Orleans ‘Better and Stronger’ After Katrina

At the cemetery memorial, revered jazz clarinetist Michael White played “When the Saints Go Marching In” as a procession carried several wreaths to lay beside mausoleums of the storm victims. Mayor LaToya Cantrell recalled the city’s sacrifices and projected optimism for its future.

“New Orleans is still here; New Orleans still stands,” Cantrell said. “New Orleans came back better and stronger than ever before.”

Gary Wainwright pauses at tombs for unidentified victims during a wreath laying event to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, at the Hurricane Katrina Memorial in Charity Hospital Cemetery in New Orleans, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Katrina’s Impact Still Felt

In Mississippi, where hundreds perished as Katrina’s storm surge demolished homes overlooking the Gulf, residents and officials gathered to mark the anniversary in Gulfport.