ApexNews
Return to Main
Book

Katrina: A History, 1915–2015

2020

Purchase on Amazon

Synopsis

Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans on August 29, 2005, but the decisions that caused the disaster extend across the twentieth century. After the city weathered a major hurricane in 1915, its Sewerage and Water Board believed that developers could safely build housing away from the high ground near the Mississippi. And so New Orleans grew in lowlands that relied on significant government subsidies to stay dry. When the flawed levee system surrounding the city and its suburbs failed, these were the neighborhoods that were devastated. The homes that flooded belonged to Louisianans black and white, rich and poor. Katrina’s flood washed over the twentieth-century city.

The flood line tells one important story about Katrina, but it is not the only story that matters. Andy Horowitz investigates the response to the flood, when policymakers reapportioned the challenges the water posed, making it easier for white New Orleanians to return home than it was for African Americans. And he explores how the profits and liabilities created by Louisiana’s oil industry have been distributed unevenly among the state’s citizens for a century, prompting both dreams of abundance―and a catastrophic land loss crisis that continues today.

Laying bare the relationship between structural inequality and physical infrastructure―a relationship that has shaped all American cities―Katrina offers a chilling glimpse of the future disasters we are already creating.

Suggested Reading

Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina's monstrous winds and surging water overwhelmed the protective levees around low-lying New Orleans, Louisiana. Eighty percent of the city flooded, in some places under twenty feet of water. Property damages across the Gulf Coast topped $100 billion. One thousand...

Purchase on Amazon View Details

Shots on the Bridge: Police Violence and Cover-Up in the Wake of Katrina

On September 4, 2005, six days after Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in New Orleans, two groups of people intersected on the Danziger Bridge, a low-rising expanse over the Industrial Canal. One was the police who had stayed behind as Katrina roared near, desperate to maintain control as their city spun...

View Details

Latest News

May 5th, 2026

New Orleans past 'point of no return,' residents warned to start relocating

August 24th, 2025

It was the costliest hurricane in U.S. history: Have we forgotten Katrina's lessons?

We use cookies to improve your experience on our website. By continuing to browse, you accept our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.