Eighteen years ago right here on DU we were watching Hurricane Katrina

[malaise]

as it approached those states in the Gulf of Mexico and devastated NOLA

Hurricane Katrina was a devastating Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that resulted in 1,836 fatalities and caused damage estimated between $97.4 billion to $145.5 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding areas.

[Drum]

1. The immediate aftermath of Katrina, the chaos and lack of info,

are what led me to discover DU…and I’ve never looked back.

Love you all

[malaise]

4. I joined the year before just before the presidential elections

Found DU on Salon and never looked back

[Roy Rolling]

31. Chaos

I lived through Katrina, lost friends and neighbors. The darkness and quiet at night afterwards was what I remember. And then the sounds of helicopters flying overhead all day long.

Thank you world for your support. Having that help made Katrina a little better.

Now we’re ready to pass that along to every new disaster and victim. I don’t forget. 😎

[malaise]

37. Gilbert was my big one

And that was tame compared with Katrina. It made me appreciate simple things including cool water and a cold beer- a shower and food in the fridge. And of course wonderful friends and neighbors.

[SouthernDem4ever]

16. Brownie was doing a heckofa job

Ooops, missed it in Post 5 sorry to be repetitious.

[blm]

2. The horrors seemed endless.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

3. wow... 18 years!

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

5. That Brownie;

he was doin' a heck of a job!

[malaise]

6. My favorite post- Katrina moment

[NYC Liberal]

60. Same. I'm pretty sure that guy came and posted on DU

after that. I can’t remember his username though.

[malaise]

62. Yes he did

He was a medical doctor

[roscoeroscoe]

7. I was watching that mess and tragedy from Iraq

There we were watching on the TVs in the dining facility in Tikrit Iraq. Some of us with family there.

That was a dark time.

[mopinko]

8. just bumped into this the other day-

starts out w katrina. just a couple minutes.
the rest is infuriating, too.

[malaise]

11. I bought Spike Lee's DVDs for the documentary When the Levees Broke

That hurricane was a heartbreaker - a horrific natural disaster made worse by a disaster of an administration.

[roscoeroscoe]

9. I was watching that mess and tragedy from Iraq

There we were watching on the TVs in the dining facility in Tikrit Iraq. Some of us with family there.

That was a dark time.

[malaise]

12. Must have been seriously painful

One of my nephews was also in Iraq then

[Glorfindel]

10. I lived in south Mississippi at that time.

I was home in north Georgia visiting relatives for my birthday and Labor Day when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. I couldn't contact anyone in south MS for about three weeks. Finally got through and found out that everyone I knew was OK and my home and car were still there. Caught a plane from Atlanta to Houston and from Houston to Jackson, MS. A cousin of my employer picked me up in Jackson and took me home to Wiggins, MS. A very worrisome and heartbreaking time. I never want to live through anything like that again.

[malaise]

13. The worst part is being unable to contact family

Of course the devastation and dislocation is always unbearable

[highplainsdem]

14. I remember. I'd joined DU just a few weeks before you did in

October 2004.

So many lives lost tragically, so damn much damage, and such a botched response from the Bush administration.

Thank God Biden is in the White House now.

But dammit, DeSantis in Florida...

[malaise]

18. He'll get what's coming his way one of these days

[hunter]

15. My kids ended up thinking I was prescient.

We were visiting New Orleans and the surrounding areas the month before. I told them these places wouldn't be here for long.

In my head I was thinking "in their lifetimes."

One of the hotels we stayed at was obliterated by Katrina, the entire roof torn away and the lower floor flooded.

So was an entire community.

Sometimes they write about it.

[malaise]

17. You were

Damn we've lived through so many f them

[oldsoftie]

20. I thought the same thing when I was there in '98

When I saw waterways were actually HIGHER than the road I was driving on, I asked the guy driving us "How long before all this just collapses?" He said "Oh, we have pumps"

[LeftInTX]

61. Hubby used to say, "Never live in New Orleans. "

"All it takes is one nasty storm and it will be under water"

[cannabis_flower]

19. This song by Chris Chandler and D.R Rowe always brings tears to my eyes

?si=bEZzNV-5W5JSC-Hz

[malaise]

23. Too sad

[azureblue]

21. Bush Caused the flooding of New Orleans

February 2001
Bush’s first budget proposed more than half a billion dollars worth of cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers for the 2002 fiscal year. Bush proposed half of what his own officials said was necessary for the critical Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project (SELA)—a project started after a 1995 rainstorm flooded 25,000 homes and caused a half billion dollars in damage.

Bush did this to offset the tax break he gave to the top 1% of rich Americans. The first major economic initiative pursued by the president was a massive tax cut for the rich, enacted in June of 2001. Bush signed his massive $1.3 trillion income tax cut into law-a tax cut that severely depleted the government of revenues it needed to address critical priorities.

February 2002
Bush provided just $5 million for maintaining and upgrading critical hurricane protection levees in New Orleans—one fifth of what government experts and Republican elected officials in Louisiana told the administration was needed. Bush knew SELA needed $80 million to keep working, but the he only proposed providing a quarter of that.

During 2002, contractors working to raise the St. Charles Parish hurricane protection levee north of Airline Hwy had to use their own funds because Congress and the President provided only $2,000,000 for the entire Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity project, which includes all the hurricane protection levees in St. Charles, Jefferson, Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes.

February 2004
The SELA project sought $100 million to repair the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain levees, but Bush offered only $16.5 million. The Army Corps of Engineers asked for $27 million to pay for hurricane protection upgrades around Lake Pontchartrain—but the White House cut that to $3.9 million. Gaps in levees around Lake Pontchartrain & the Industrial Canal, which were supposed to be filled by 2004, were not filled because of budget shortfalls. Repair work on the levees, including the ones that failed, was stopped due to lack of funds.

[peppertree]

25. +1

History can be very eloquent - and you certainly were too.

Thank you for that essential recap.

[malaise]

35. Correct

So true

[AverageOldGuy]

22. We were in the midst of it

In January 2005, Sweet Thing and I moved from East Tennessee to the Mississippi Gulf Coast -- to the village of Bay St. Louis MS. We bought two lots and were building two houses, one for ourselves, one for my parents (she had lost her parents several years before).

We had the foundation in on one lot and the lumber for framing the house had been delivered. The other house had not yet been started. We were living in a small apartment about 100 yards from the beach with most of our belongings in a storage building in Pass Christian MS, about ten minutes away; the rest of our belongings were in storage in Tennessee.

Katrina came in Sunday night; Sunday morning we gathered up my elderly aunt and uncle (he was dying on stomach cancer); their daughter (my cousin), her dog and her 75-year-old boyfriend. We fled to central MS where Sweet Thing's cousin had a hunting camp in the midst of a pine forest.

We have a lot of Katrina stories but the bottom line is: Everything in storage was lost; the apartment was flooded up about 30 inches off the floor, we salvaged some furniture; all the lumber was gone, washed out into the Gulf. For miles and miles, nothing was standing -- not a house, not a tree, the storm surge took it all, left only foundations where houses had been.

[malaise]

36. Damn

That must have been horrific :ni:

[intheflow]

40. Bay St. Louis was ground zero for Katrina.

Everyone only remembers NOLA, but those of us who worked long-term recovery in MS know MS experienced a natural disaster while NOLA had a civil engineering failure.

[txwhitedove]

24. Katrina smashed and flooded Mississippi south coast. Wiped a gouge out of

main road along the beach in Bay St Louis, and flooded up past I-10. I was living there and went to ride out hurricane at my daughter's house just up a dirt road from the beach and the bridge to Pass Christian. We couldn't go anywhere cause there had already been several tropical storms that season to flee from but end up stuck in traffic, with two kids, two dogs, and no money. It was surreal, loud, horrible. Got scary before the eye hit us when the Gulfport news heads broke away, we were suddenly watching news from Baton Rouge. That went on for 20-30 minutes. When Gulfport station came back on, news people looked blank with eyes popping out. Much more to this story, but hey it was a genuine Amen moment when I walked back to my house with my little dog and sucked under my arm so she didn't get into downed power lines.

I hope the best for all in the path of a hurricane.

PS, Malaise, thanks for noting it was a Cat 5, because many tried to downgrade that monster afterward.

[AllaN01Bear]

26. i discovered du quite by accident and been here ever since the year 2000 al gore gaffe.

i had the handle allan01 untill the great hack of 2016 and we had to change our handles . i changed my handle to allan01bear and been there ever since. i had a friend who was in new oreleans when that storm hit and lost everything. the authorities asked if he wanted a one way ticket out and he jumped . he thinks he may have ptsd from that event. hated when the elected officials , the police bailed and left people stranded at the super dome . gah.this is one of the storms that the rs denied happening along w superstorm sandy.

[dawn5651]

27. i was watching cnn..one of the news readers..i believe it was cooper...said and i repeat

white folks look for food while black folks loot....that was the most disgusting comment that i ever heard about any natural disaster...nola was a mess..i was there about 4 years after katrina i took a lot of pictures...it is a film i have never developed and never will. the level of devastation was almost unimagineable and i have zero wish to revisit those pictures.

[carpetbagger]

28. CNN had just finished watching me.

I left the Crawford protests the night before it hit, camped in the ditch right in front of where Ed Lavandera's truck was. But hadn't heard one word about the hurricane from Friday night until I left Sunday night.

[justgamma]

32. I just remember

them holding up 2 newspapers with pictures and captions showing that. White folks scavenging for food and black folks looting.

[malaise]

38. I remember comments like those

But I also remembered when they separated our men from our women

[Warpy]

29. This one seems to be following the track of Hurricane Michael

which was predicted to be a Cat. 3 or so but now is generally agreed to have been a Cat. 5 when it struck the Florida panhandle.

Looks like this one is following the same route, only the Gulf is even hotter now than it was in 2018.

[Martin Eden]

30. Heckuva Job Brownie

GW Bush was all over it.

[justgamma]

33. I remember being glued to the tv

watching the devastation while Shrub was prancing around on stage pretending to play a guitar at Sen. McCain's birthday bash.

[Whatthe_Firetruck]

34. I first lurked here when...

... The highway overpass blogger was doing his thing.

https://mountainx.com/news/community-news/activist_arrested_after_displaying_impeach_bush_cheney_sign_on_overpass/

I didn't make an account and start commenting until 2015.

[malaise]

39. Good to see you posting

That’s eight years

[vercetti2021]

41. I remember that very well

During the time we were transitioning away from cable to satellite TV and antenna TV still had the Weather Channel at the time. So I was glued to that coverage back when I watched Big Brother live streams on the computer at the same time. I was 15 at the time

[malaise]

42. Wow

You were still in school 😀😀

[vercetti2021]

43. Yep

9th grade. Back then I still had a desire to be a meteorologist so any weather event I was watching it quite a bit.

[malaise]

44. LOL

So how did that desire turn out?
Good to see young folks here.

[vercetti2021]

45. As you expect

Night manager of a coffee shop with a GED (yeah I didn't finish HS)

[malaise]

46. If I could start my life again

I’d own a restaurant. My folks insisted on books and a profession, but my first love was cooking, baking or looking after dogs.
Then a family friend hit my puppy and he died so there went any dreams of becoming a vet.

[vercetti2021]

58. Yeah

I'd love to own my own coffee shop myself. Just make it a safe space for people. My mom wanted to be a vet, but felt she couldn't handle all the pets passing

[electric_blue68]

47. Hearing, and seeing all the news about it was awful!

[Nictuku]

48. I was here!

I was just a newbie. I had discovered DU shortly after Bush's election in 2004, and I remember how upset I was over the government reaction to Katrina.

[malaise]

50. Weren't we all

[Recycle_Guru]

49. that was when the scales came off of many people's eyes re: Bush

Bush and lackeys were saying everything is fine in New Orleans while we say cameras showing something far worse. Suddenly, many started saying, "Are they lying about how Iraq is going too?

[malaise]

53. Iraq did it for me

[Recycle_Guru]

54. him running did it for me; first time I ever voted was 2000

was so upset--remember watching stupid Enron commercials about nothing in 99 and 2000 and them seeing Bush was being backed by them.

Was a Clinton supporter in 90's but didn't vote until Bush v Gore.

[malaise]

55. He was owned by the plutocrats

A genuine dumbfuck and a war criminal to boot. 😀😉

[MorbidButterflyTat]

51. Ugly racist comments

And Barbara Bush saying poor (Black) folks stuck in the Houston Astrodome were, "underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."


https://mediaproxy.snopes.com/width/1200/

[malaise]

52. Horrible racists

It was the lead up to Slobby’s America.
There were many racists in the media as well

[Hekate]

56. I remember it well. DUers reported in real time & it was maddening. My VFP friends were planning

…a trip cross country to DC for the protests, and detoured to Covington (?) to set up a kitchen for evacuees. Our chapter donated everything we could from our treasury and from our personal wallets.

I will never forget.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

57. Caught a piece of a tv documentary just a few nights ago...

It showed the U.S. Coast Guard and their long, heroic efforts to save people.

There were lots of heroes in the aftermath, in spite of Brownie's and Duhbyuh's incompetence.

[LeftInTX]

59. I watched it on TV. In the morning everything looked OK.

I then drove from San Antonio to Kerrville to visit my son. (60 miles north)


On the way home, I kept looking east and looking for storm clouds. I didn't see any.


NO is about 500 miles away.

But we sure got them from Gilbert!


I think I heard something about a barge and some street flooding, but I had to get over to Kerrville. Came home, turned on the TV and OMG.

[msfiddlestix]

63. can't believe it's been 18 years already. wow. n/t

[malaise]

64. Same here

Time does fly 😀

[msfiddlestix]

65. under dumbya's reign of terror

who could have imagined at the time, our country could be headed by anything worse than merely stupid and corrupt?

who could have imagined at the time, we'd end up with the likes of the psycho in chief who is still menacing our nation today?

[malaise]

66. That's the absolute truth

Who could imagine anyone worse - dumb, incompetent, corrupt, cruel and insane