Hurricane Katrina: Crash Course Black American History #49
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- Опубликовано: 18 окт 2022
- In this episode, Clint Smith details his experience as a teenager in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina made landfall in 2005. The widespread devastation of Hurricane Katrina was a result of faulty levees and a fumbled response by FEMA, and it hit Black residents the hardest. Today, we'll take a closer look at the structural racism that made this disaster so catastrophic.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! bookshop.org/books/how-the-wo...
VIDEO SOURCES
Modern Racism and Modern Discrimination: The Effects of Race, Racial Attitudes, and Context on Simulated Hiring Decisions - John B. McConahay
www.nationalgeographic.org/en...
www.newyorker.com/books/under...
neworleanshistorical.org/item...
Jed Horne, Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City (New York: Random House, 2006).
D’Ann R. Penner and Keith C. Ferdinand, Overcoming Katrina: African American Voices from the Crescent City and Beyond (London, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Jeremy Levitt and Matthew Whitaker, Hurricane Katrina: America's Unnatural Disaster (Lincoln, N.E.: University of Nebraska Press, 2009).
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NB...
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I appreciate Clint sharing the personal side of this event. We need to be repeatedly reminded that in moments of history there are everyday lives being impacted.
It's a reminder that the past is never really past.
Can see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice how personal it is to him.
I live in Houston. I remember when everyone was arriving after the disaster in the SuperDome. People had this blank look on their faces like they had seen the depths of Hell in person. I hugged, cried, listened to and talked to people who needed it most, but I still feel like it wasn't enough. I volunteered every day that there were people at the George R. Brown Convention Center. I almost emptied my closet, drawers and bank accounts buying clothes, toys, diapers and other baby needs, specific foods for certain people I'd formed a relationship with, every time I went up there. It's a humbling feeling to see an infant with nothing on but a diaper that's been emptied out and rung dry. And that's all the mama could do because she ran outta supplies while waiting on the overpass for a bus for 4 days. It was heartbreaking listening to the stories of death, loss and destruction of their beloved home.
I knoe I made a difference in the lives of two special little girls. They took a liking to me as they saw me every day. They began to come ask what they could do to help me. I asked their mom if they could hand out food with me one day and she agreed. I'd developed a relationship with her as well. And they were the best at making people smile when they were still facing starting over again. Welp, those little girls are little ladies now. One is 21 and the other 19. They became my nieces, and their mom is my sister. She list her whole family because the water came into the house so fast and her parents, brother and sister hadn't made it out in time. So my family adopted her. She's just as much a Robinson as I am. She's amazing, and I'm sonproud of how she handled everything that happened to her. She stayed in Houston, and bought a house 2 blocks from mine. I see her every day. And my girls are both in college doing great! I hate it took a disaster of such magnitude for her to come into our lives, because she's been such a blessing to us. But if that's what God had planned, I'm so thankful that a little girl pulled my shirt one day and asked for an apple because she doesn't like oranges.
Thank you for what you did! The world is still in good hands because people like you exist.
This made me cry thank you for sharing
Cried while reading your testimony. God bless you🙏🏾~Elizabeth Robinson, Chicago, IL
I grew up in Houston, I remember the huge amount of Katrina refugees that suddenly enrolled in my highschool. I made a a lot of new friends and I remember them telling me how they left everything. I couldn't wrap my head around it.
I was five when Katrina hit and I remember watching coverage about it on the news, tracking its path, and how harsh the coverage could be towards those who couldn't leave. There was this idea that they were stubborn and refusing to leave instead of not being able to due to their circumstances.
Most people in New Orleans didn't even own a car. And ones who did didn't have alot of gas and hotel money.
It was an excellent prelude to how the corporate media would describe later climate change refugees.
The mayor of New Orleans allowed the buses that were to remove people from the area to remain in a parking lot that flooded.
The privileged always find ways to blame those lacking *ability* to handle bad situations. In the broadest sense of the term, it's a form of ableism (if you stretch the word's definition).
I was born in 2004 in the western US. I knew hurricane Katrina was bad, but I never learned precisely how devastating it was. This video was heartwrenching and informative. Thank you.
I also evacuated and lost my home during hurricane Katrina. It was terrible. But what is sad is that because I lived in uptown/lake vista, I was able to recover.
Neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward were annihilated physically and economically by the hurricane. It’s a tragedy that those areas still haven’t fully recovered.
Thank you for covering Katrina, people need to be more aware of its effects and the horrid response by the government.
Same. I’m from Slidell, we evacuated and luckily were able to move to the lower flood risk side of town when we lost our house to flooding. I was 9 when the storm hit and I am learning so much more about the failed pre-planning and response now that I am an adult. The scars of Katrina are still so fresh in New Orleans, even now, and our leaders still don’t seem to care about the most at-risk communities.
If it's any consolation. New Orleans will always exist as long as the mouth of the Mississippi into the Gulf is a vector for international trade.
@@kickingviolets Did the airport need an update? Yes. But every time I walk through the new one (I'm usually able to go home about twice a year), I can't help but think of how the money could've been better spent. We should've invested in better disaster resources (like for when the city was without power for a full month in 2021) and continuing to rebuild and support the lower-income communities. There's a lot of medicine that requires storage in a fridge/freezer that people literally can't live without, and as far as I can tell the city doesn't have a way to get out the generators needed for those residents. Again, a lot of white people who live uptown were able to get out either before or after the storm, and a lot of poorer people on the predominantly Black parts of the city died without.
Honestly people shouldn’t even be building communities there
@@luisandrade2254 it’s not about what should be built there. Those communities had been there for generations and it wasn’t like the government was gonna help em move somewhere else
NOLA native here. Chiming in to say that hurricane Katrina is still a touchy subject for my family. Both my grandmothers' homes were completely destroyed in the storm. They couldn't get any help from ANYBODY. FEMA nor Habitats for Humanity. However, several people attempted to buy their property in attempts to gentrify the area. It was honestly disgusting.
My community on the coast of Mississippi was decimated by the hurricane (bridge destroyed, houses gone, businesses gutted, etc.) We still see the effects of it today.
With more effects to come thanks to climate change.
My mother's people are from NOLA and I myself practically grew up there. My father spent the last 30 years of his life in Baton Rouge. I volunteered for an organization in Houston when evacuees came. This was such an impactful storm on so many levels and our inadequate and uncaring government didn't help when it was really needed. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Katrina was devastating for many of her children. ❤
This crash course series have been so enlightening and educational. You express these tough but true matters with such poise, class and conviction. Thank you crash course for doing this series and thank you Dr.Clint for leading this much needed series.
As I sit in my home in New Orleans and watch this video, I can't stop crying. Thanks for sharing this with such a personal touch.
New Orleans was also my hometown, and it's hard to describe just how deeply its history and culture impact all of us who grew up there. I was thirteen when it hit (one week and two days into eighth grade) and it's just impossible to describe how devastating it was to watch the response from my Cajun grandma's living room (in Lafayette, LA). My family actually came out okay -our house only had roof damage and my parents' jobs were still there, but both of my best friends lost everything and ended up moving. And, of course, as a white kid attending a mostly white, privileged private school, I only knew one family that didn't evacuate.** A couple of points I want to add:
1) I really don't see how Nagin was supposed to get the city out sooner. Thursday evening there was a news blip of a tropical storm in south Florida. Friday was a normal day. Saturday morning we closed our house's shutters and started packing.
2) Nagin was relatively light-skinned and had been elected by the more affluent white communities. The poorer communities had been represented by a darker-skinned man in that election. Seeing how the news covered that race was my first time witnessing colorism in "real life."
3) The storm technically didn't directly hit New Orleans. The eye passed over the Mississippi coast. Like Clint said, fully man-made disaster.
4a) The story goes that in 1965, with Hurricane Betsy, the levees protecting the 9th Ward were destroyed for the sake of preventing the French Quarter from flooding. Nothing would shock me less than to get confirmation of that.
4b) Ruby Bridges' home was flooded that year. She lost everything, including letters she saved from people she inspired around the country.
5) We KNEW that the city would face "The Big One" one day. I grew up hearing about it. A team of scientists put together a presentation in 2003 for the Bush White House begging for more funding to make sure the city was protected. They said that no one in the room, least of all the president, really paid attention while they were talking.
So yeah, this video was extremely difficult to watch, but extremely important.
**They stayed because their grandfather was recovering from an injury at Baptist (Memorial) Hospital when it hit, and they wanted to be able to make sure he was okay, and felt more comfortable staying somewhere with generators and food. He was more or less fine, but if anyone wants to know how that plan worked out for them, there's a crushing fictionalized series on Apple+ about what it was like at that hospital the five days after the storm.
Thank you for sharing your story.
This is probably the best summation of the effects of Katrina. I lived in New Orleans a decade before. To borrow a concept from the Neville Bros. Once the swamp water gets in your veins, it never leaves.
I worked at Charity Hospital. So I met and took care of the people of New Orleans. After Katrina, it was almost impossible to explain to those who didn't know, how devastating the hurricane was. They couldn't understand why people just didn't leave.
Again, thank you for such a good Crash Course and sharing your experience as a native of New Orleans.
I could tell stories, both heartwarming and heartbreaking, of those days when Katrina hit; the evacuation, the aftermath, the return, and eventual exodus from New Orleans. It provided me a wider perspective on my situation and that of others in my community. And nearly 20 years after, I see the New Orleans I grew up in less and less with every visit. It's less the City that Care Forgot and much more a forgotten city. I hope there's a Renaissance, but I feel it will never be the same again.
I call it New New Orleans! It feels like I'm visiting the grave of a relative and not like the city I grew up in.
It will not be the same. Especially since these storms are only to continue as the years go on.
I was 18 and in the Coast Guard when Katrina happened. I remember having such pride in what our branch of the military was doing, while the others were off fighting unnecessary wars. I remember sleepless nights on end doing what I could to make sure the mission got done, while knowing that it was the failings of our government that caused this unnecessary crisis to begin with.
I’m from New Orleans and am a Katrina survivor.
Did not know about the cops on bridges. I live in Toronto and I was doing a week-long workshop when Katrina happened. We were pretty isolated but I remember the fourth day in just feeling this overwhelming heaviness and sadness and grief and not knowing why until I saw the newspaper headlines. I would hope that we have learned from what happened but mixed reports coming out of Florida after the hurricane Ivan show again the disproportionate effect of people not having the means to evacuate.
This is heartbreaking. I'm so sorry to everyone who was impacted.
Just wanted to say to anyone listening thank you so much for this series. Not only has it helped with my A Levels (UK SATs) I’ve also learnt so much about my family’s history. I live in the UK but I have family in the US and this has made me feel closer to them through learning their history. Thank you so much xx
The story of the formaldehyde shelters don't stop with Katrina. When the story broke, the government put formaldehyde danger stickers on them and called it a day. Years later, oil was discovered in northwestern North Dakota, and a housing crisis occurred trying to support all of the new workers in such a rural area. The stickers were removed and they were sold to unknowing people. They are still common in the region today.
It takes so much strength to share a personal story such as this one. 💜
Opening segment was powerful, God! Ashe king. Keep these treasures going!✌🏿🙏🏾👊🏿
Just finished watching the entire clip. Thank you for this information!✌🏿
I cried this whole episode as it hits personally as well. When hurricane María hit Puerto Rico it was pretty much the same story as Katrina and New Orleans; and you have on top Trump throwing paper towel at the people. Now Fiona hit both the Caribbean AND Florida and look at the very different conditions between PR and FL in the aftermath.
Never in my life had I wanted to spit on someone as bad as when I saw trump chucking paper towels at people. Puerto Rico suffered so much. So much devastation.
The mayor of San Juan allowed food that had been sent to Puerto Rico to rot on the docks.
One of my high school teachers lost his mom during this disaster. Learning more about the obstacles many faced to evacuating, I think I better understand why so many don't end up fleeing from major storms like these, and come to suffer like his mother may have (I don't know/remember anything else about how my teacher lost his mom).
I will note something that doesn't sound right, as an environmental studies major learning more about anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change: from what I've been told, storm *formation* rates have *not* increased, but storm *intensity* has.
I was a 24 year old EMT in metro Atlanta when Katrina hit. Planes of evacuees would make their way to Dobbins air reserve base where we had a triage area set up. I worked with dozens of other crews from multiple agencies over a 72hr shift. During which time we would post up in a civic center parking lot a couple of miles away and wait for a plane to show up before putting together a task force of several ambulances to drive out to the triage area at the runway. We would load up with as many patients as possible and then try to find a place to take them.
Sometimes I would start driving loaded before I fully knew where I was going, and get a destination en route.
On day one I was transporting downtown/midtown. By hr 72 I was going 50+mi outside the city in some cases.
We had no idea of anyone’s medical history or sometimes basic info, some patients were completely non responsive with just an MCI tag for I.d.
Many of the patients I transported were rescued from nursing homes that had been abandoned for several days in malarial and sewage contaminated flood waters. We were in full head to foot PPE including face shields and masks for the entirely of transport.
I remember one load of 4 patients, 3 adults and 1 infant. My partner standing in the back while I drove vaguely into the city awaiting a destination. Found out later the adults in that load were TB positive. Another load of 2 critical patients would be dead hours after we delivered them to the hospital (though I don’t remember if we found out from what).
During those days I never got rotated out to the station to shower or sleep. I stayed in my boots and caught what sleep I could in the back of the truck between planes (in a parking lot in late summer in Georgia, which wasn’t much sleep). After 3 days I was rotated out and an office worker gave me a ride a few miles down the road where I met with my cousin. He was getting married the following day and I was the best man. The effects of sleep deprivation hit me at the rehearsal dinner like a ton of bricks. It was a fun wedding.
Thank you for sharing your experience! I had heard stories about what Dobbins AFB was doing to help with the patients from NOLA hospitals & nursing homes/facilities. But I appreciate this personal perspective!!
There is so much here that I had no idea about. Thank you so much.
Clint, man, this was a deep episode. Even while you were giving this lesson I felt the impact it left on you. There was a lot that I didn’t know happened during and after Katrina. When will this madness stop?
Did the flag say “mission accomplished “?
It did that. A tongue and cheek ply on when George bush said that the war in Iraq was won
The madness will stop when the world isn't deliberately being destroyed to make a handful of already wealthy ghouls slightly richer.
the horrific images of that day are still burned in my mind. thank you for the in-depth analysis.
I had no idea people were turned away on the bridges. Wow.
Katrina was the state declaring that the government will not help those who aren't already well off.
They will leave the poor and marginalized to die at the alter of capitalism.
That’s all that capitalism does
I was a part of the army Katrina relief operation. It was a mixed bag problem, slow response mixed with 90% of police abandoning the city along with most of the city government turned a bad situation into a terrible one.
Here's some white American history: I was 14 when it hit, I was going to West Jeff in Marrero. My family and I stayed because my grandmother refused to leave her pets. Our house flew apart while we were in it. Government didn't help us, we actually didn't want the government's help because we're independent people who don't blame others for our problems. So who helped us? We did. Black people, white people, and hell, even some Chinese people, all came from down the street and helped us. We all came together and fed each other, helped each other and plan what to do. Insurance and FEMA screwed us over, not because of the color of our skin. None of that matters. We took care of ourselves and for that I'm proud.
Great course, and clearly personal to Clint. I can remember the news during this. There was all this concern about looting, riots, and crime. I specifically remember a rumor about a helicopter being shot at. We should have been hearing about the concern and rescue efforts for fellow Americans. I ponder what some of those Coast Guard rescuers would have said to the police blocking people from fleeing. Spend hours pulling people from the water, to hear that the police were restraining people from self rescuing.
This channel has educated me so much on black history. This channel is essential to all that is open to learning about black history so we can continue to make history!!! Thank you Crash Course!!!!
Clint Smith: You were looking forward to senior year, and I was looking forward to freshman year (tulane). We both evacuated to Houston, both via contraflow traffic. Feels like yesterday.
Thank you for this well done video.
This seems like yesterday. I had just had my third son and watched this everyday on TV. It still heartbreaking to watch. I was 26 then. My son is now 17.
I remember some of our parishes schools drivers, I lived in Richland Parish at the time, got to together to help the folks down in New Orleans to get them out, but when they got down there the busses were told to turn around. Remembering that will always be a hurt and sad memory for me.
37yr old East Texan here.
That event was catastrophic and my heart still goes out to Louisiana, some parts of the New Orleans area never recovered and likely never will.
I didn't know you were born in New Orleans! See now you feel like family. I was born and raised as well...I was in middle school when Katrina happened. Changed everything...I also lived in New Orleans East. I recognize the church photo you shared and I went to a Catholic school not far from there at the time.
The storm hit 3 days before my 11th birthday. My family was beyond shocked. We couldn’t believe what we were witnessing. Our people suffered so much. And seeing bush fly over completely not giving a damn made my blood boil. He literally did not care
I would like to share this video on social media, please.
I will forever remember Hurricane Katrina and all the people who were affected by this tragedy.😢
In years hearing about the first hand stories and how preventable it should have been. Great lesson as alway.
It was a month after Katrina before our Northshore schools reopened. We had such an influx of Katrina Babies, that even some storage closets were turned into classrooms. Many blamed the victims for not evacuating, when so many just did not have a way to get out or a place to go. Everything was made worse when the emergency funding stopped paying for shelter housing. Many of our Katrina Babies lived most of the school year in the neighboring church's gym and class rooms. Even before Katrina our school population generally averaged 90% poverty or near-poverty level black students, but those refugees had it so much worse.
OMG! I remember civilians being rescued from rooftops BUT the news channels NEVER-that I ever saw-showed people on bridges being sent back from safety to danger! New Orleans has a long tainted history of its law enforcement agencies filled with racism and corruption and violence. But, all we ‘saw’ was a community working together. Thanks Clint for sharing your painful story and setting the record straight and clearing up misconceptions.
I was there in New Orleans The Amtrak trains were giving FREE rides out of town Every bus that could be brought down town was and offered as a free ride and The Governor and the Mayor we given pre Disaster okays to fund any and all evacuation by the Federal GOV. And the Mayor DECLINED IT!!!!! Over 230 busses were left unfilled Downtown.
I have many friends from the New Orleans area - the stories they told about Katrina will never leave me. So much could’ve been prevented
It's crazy hearing something I lived thru be described in the context of history. I was just a preteen in Houston in 2005, and when Katrina hit, my mom went out of her way to house 3 or so families as best she could during, in our home, while the rest of us temporarily moved in with my grandma. They stayed with us until they managed to get back on their feet after having lost quite literally everything, and altho my memory is foggy, I'm fairly certain they spent a year or two with us.
I was vaguely aware of most of what the video went over, and remember some of the harrowing stories the families had shared with us. Still, at the time, I was admittedly an edgy brat more miffed about the sudden lack of free space, so some of the nuances definitely didn't register back then.
I didn’t even know that violence occurred against people evacuating Katrina! The issues have deniability from racism but have no excuse from being heartless and disastrous. We need to teach this in schools.
I don't know why, but there was a flip in my stomach and heart. Like it had been crushed or dropped. Even though I had knew most of these things from watching over 3+ documentaries over an hour long, this had a different feeling. Out of all the documentaries in the world, this hit me. Maybe it was because of the personal feeling to it. I wasn't born in 2005. I took an interest to New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina since my ma comes from Kenner, Louisiana, and it's pretty close to New Orleans, I believe. Along with the fact that my auntie lives in New Orleans and I loved it there, although I never really looked around because I was hopping around to my relatives' houses, visiting them. Even though my ma was born in Kenner, she visited New Orleans during her childhood and young adult years, until she had to evacuate to Jacksonville, Florida with relatives. She told me she used to play around and on the leeves with her friends, oblivious to what would happen in the up and coming years. This video made me mad and sad. The fact that they were left there stranded while the government was blind. New Orleans will never be the same again due to this mostly man-made disaster. If the government listened, New Orleans wouldn't have been so badly damaged and gentrified faster than it already was! And then after enduring this terrible disaster, people got unstable and toxic trailers after months of begging for shelter. This video made me weak in the knees. No documentary could make my stomach drop and my heart hurt like that. I appreciate this video, as it gives me more info. Thank you, Clint.
I felt your emotion on this segment. I'm sorry for your misfortunes. Thanks for this segment. To know that there was more than a hurricane that contributed to their tragedies
I'm glad you and your family were safe Clint.
I volunteered in animal rescue and disaster relief in California back then, with Best Friends Animal Society, and it was just amazing at what I saw in the Jefferson Parish. I had returned a few months later to help with rehab and reunification of the animals that were rescued from homes. It was often times the only memory left behind that folks who had to evacuate could recover. So many times the animals would hear a familiar voice before we did and would go ecstatic in anticipation.
It was also disheartening to hear of all the other animals that were not able to be reunited with their original families because the foster families didn't want to return them. A lot of racist blame and ignorance about the evacuated families. I am not surprised at there being cops on the Crescent City bridge.
I always enjoy Clint's videos. I felt the emotion in this one. 🙏🏾
I remember watching this catastrophe on tv as a kid. No words, and learning more about the systemic issues and how most of these people have been displaced smh and they done gentrified parts of the city, it’s really the story of black America, Nola gone always have a special place in my heart
So many years later, and still much of the area is still not fully restored. The federal rebuilding efforts sort of dried up after the tourist-frequented areas were rebuilt, and many displaced never returned because there wasn't a place to return to. They just couldn't afford it on their own. (This is my perspective as a then Dallasite who was at the time in San Marcos, TX at the Job Corps campus there. We were one of the sites the Job Corps students in New Orleans were evac'd to. Even before the refugees arrived, there were a good number of us with ties to the area. We did what we could to take them in.)
Let's all appreciate the creators for this such a good work.
I remember hearing about Katrina when I was small, but I never realized how truly devastating and tragic it was
My family is from New Orleans since the beginning and one of my best friends lived in the lower ninth. Before I got married we went back home from Houston. It wasn't fun, hurricane gentrification has killed New Orleans.
I was 23, I had planned to go to my first Mardi Gras the following February before Katrina hit. For all the news I consumed, i never formed a picture like Clint described. Heard the stadium wasn't a good place to be and FEMA bungled, but 20 feet of water and sewage and cops on bridges and thousands dead by drowning... until now these were simply not part of my conceptualization.
Thank you, Clint, for shining a light on the history they still don't teach. Yall help me be a little less blind to my biases. I've lost my home, I know how hard that is, I'd have given 17 year old you a firm shoulder squeeze of fellowship.
I really hope there's more videos added to this series that are modern (like post 2000).
Clint is an American treasure!
I remember following this closely on the news when it was happening but this is the first time hearing that people were turned away when they tried to evacuate to the suburbs. So sad!
Here in the Philippines, about of 2-3 Katrinas enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility... Mostly because of our geological location
I remember seeing that on the news when I was a teen, mind blowing to see 😢
My aunt went to Xavier and had to evacuate when I was little. It was very scary
I remember watching the news coverage of Hurricane Katrina, I was so appalled by the pathetic response of our government. I didn’t know about the police shooting at civilians trying to flee.
I hope they were punished!
They probably weren’t
It’s crazy to me that this is history now. I lived near Houston and the city felt like it was in chaos as we tried to prepare for thousands of people to flee New Orleans and seek shelter in our cities. So many people lost everything and stayed in the Houston area to start over. And then we got hit by Harvey, it feels like yesterday that it happened but it’s been five years. My family decided not to evacuate and I spent my time driving through town trying to take care of animals who were left behind. And so many elderly people couldn’t evacuate so we helped them prepare their homes and visited them as the few people left watched the water rise.
Greetings from Paraguay 🇵🇾🇵🇾🇵🇾!!!
Hola amigo! Greetings from New York ^^
Thank you for sharing this history with your perspective mixed in. History isn’t far behind us, especially this
I grew up in the Faubourg Marigny and I've never gone back since Katrina
Love from Chattanooga 💙💙💙
I remember when Hurricane Katrina hit. I was 5, so some things aren't as clear as others, but I remember leaving with my entire family. And I mean multiple cars with one as the leader to drive us from New Orleans all the way to Houston, because some of us didn't know how to get there. I remember it was a long ride. I know the ride when it's not completely overtaken by traffic is around 9 hours, but this was much longer, maybe 12 to 14, but I'm not completely sure. All I remember was that the long was super long. We got there, and for us kids, which is like two of us because other than my sister who was 2 years older than me, they were pretty much adults, we were just sort of chilling. I mean, you can feel the tension, but this is example of "kids will be kids," because we didn't know what was going on. I remember seeing everything on TV, but I thought it was like... Just something from the past, something that didn't happen in my hometown, but at the same time, I don't know because I remember my cousin asking me what I wanted to post on the news website and me saying "I hope my house didn't get flooded," so I dunno.
We found out that we weren't gonna be able to go home for a while, so my mom enrolled me and my sister in school. I'm thinking about it now, and it kinda makes sense. Here me out: this was supposed to be my first year of school, and my sister has autism and ID, so if likely felt like a necessity, but well.... Despite her warnings that my sister is a runner, they managed to lose my sister. Needless to say, that was my first and last day at that school. So fast-forward, stuff happens. This is stuff I don't remember, but my mom said one of my uncles decided to stay and after the storm hit came here covered in the water. Also my other cousins were still in Louisiana, but they ended up leaving because one of them almost got bit by a snake... Dunno what happened afterwards.
So we were in Houston, and we get another Hurricane Warning, which was Hurricane Rita. Why God decided we deserved to suffer further is beyond my understanding, but yeah... The uncle who I said was there was absolutely distressed. We all were. But we packed up and we evacuated. Again. Some of you will never understand what it's like to have to leave somewhere twice for your own safety, and I pray to God you never do, because somehow this was worse. We were just trying to get from Houston to Dallas, and I would say that that took us maybe 16 or 18 hours. We left early that morning and we didn't make it to my other auntie's house until later that night. It took us longer to get from Houston to Dallas than it took us to get from New Orleans to Houston.
We were there for a little while longer and then we went home. There wasn't as much traffic when we came home. I would say it was August... Idk 26th maybe when we left, and I know it was October when we came back. I think it was early October, because I think we were home when we found out one of my cousins passed away.
I would say a few days later I went to school, and all the kids turned to look at me, and the teacher asked me where I had been.
My grandmother (r.i.p.) lost her house. Like her whole house and everything in it. Our house lost some of the roof and had a blue tarp, alongside leaking that would last for years. We lost someone and that shook the entire family even to this day. It was a mess.
Then, as the nail in the coffin, just to make sure that this would follow me and define me for the rest of my life, I got a speech disorder due to the trauma that I spent my entire school life trying to... Well not fix, more like cover. It's likely also where my anxiety originated from, because I had been anxious ever since.
I'm sorry I wrote a lot just now. It's just that I was cleaning the kitchen and Crash Course popped up and I decided I wanted to listen to something and then Katrina popped up.
Thank you for sharing your experience. It wasn't overly long because it showed what it was like for someone so young to go through multiple tragedies as a direct result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I'm so sorry for the losses your family & friends sustained. 🙏🏼💔
Thank you for sharing this
We had to read City of Refuge by Tom Piazza for our freshman year of college. It showed both the perspectives of a white family and a black family during Katrina and the fallout afterward.
When it happen I was living in Dallas, and we went a donated a ton of stuff like diapers at the Dallas stadium. It was just as packed as Saints stadium.
Was in New Orleans is past year saw the famous boat that was on top of the roof that was on a magazine cover. it's still in that person's backyard. Sad😭🤦🏿♂️
I started my teaching career in Atlanta in 2005. I remember having transplant families in my first grade classroom and that got me really interested in trauma-based instruction. It also made me pivot and take a gap year and go clean up NOLA in 2006. Thank you Hank for creating crash course. I'm pivoting now from education and will try to go rogue. I'm sure I'm going to use this in my practice. Found you from nerdfighter/vlogbrothers channel. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing.
I took a trip to New Orleans in 2019 for the New Orleans Bowl and as we were coming into the city and passing through New Orleans East it was horrifying to see what had happened to those people and how is has been 17 years and they still have tarps over their roofs to cover the holes in them from the hurricane. I am a white man from Alabama and have a very conservative background and it was harrowing to know how those people had been treated when everything they had was destroyed. Thank you for telling us about this and bring this to light, Clint.
We continue to say that N.O. will never be the same...but it's America that will never be the same. Cultural diversification is important for human survival.
I grew up in north Louisiana, about 250 from New Orleans. It was a combination of government failures at multiple levels, plus racism on the part of people paranoid about the crime bogeyman (treating fleeing families the same as criminals, that's how paranoid the police can get). Add classism too, as wealth quickly translates into power. If NOLA were a high-wealth city, Bush wouldn't have wasted a second cutting through the red tape to getting aid to people. Add to that the "low taxes" and "cost cutting" mantra of government since the Reagan Era, which deprived money for schools and health care every bit as much as for hurricane protection. That finally proved to me just how out of touch Bush & Co are, that plus beholden to the "low taxes and small budget government" agenda.
Really hope they'll devote an entire episode to housing discrimination, something Clint briefly touched on here.
Thanks for this personal account Clint, this has definitely been one of the best ever Crash Course series, I'd love to see you do more on RUclips when this is over.
Please make a crash course series on mentalism.
I recommend the Spike Lee films that he does on the oil spill and Katrina. When the Levies Broke, & , If God Is Willing and The Creek Don't Rise.
As someone who has been affected by hurricanes and tropical storms my entire life, who has lost so much due to disasters both natural and man made, I can't imagine having to deal with all of that with the filter of racism overlaid as well. I remember being around 9 or 10 when Katrina hit, having evacuated myself. It's heartbreaking enough to lose your home and everything that made it up without also having to fight against systemic oppression. Tropical Storm Imelda uprooted my entire life 2 weeks before we were supposed to leave and the scars left by that event are still there today. Thank you for informing us on this topic and as a Gulf Coast native, I'm so sorry your community has suffered so much more on top of an already life changing and soul crushing circumstance.
Great information
Thanks for what you've said, I can feel your feelings when you mention it.
It's things like this that I get mad at people complaining about taxes being too high. If so many wealthy people didn't dodge taxes, there'd be more money to maintain things like levees & other infrastructure. Tragedy could've been mitigated here, but people who already have everything got greedy.
I love this channel.
An excellent video on an important moment in recent history. Thanks for the clarity, Clint & Crash Course crew.
Treme on HBO. Amazing tv series. Katrina was a man made catastrophe of epic proportions.
such a vital series, thank you
I remember when FEMA sent a bunch of trailers, about 20,000, to the airport in Hope, AR to be sent to people in New Orleans who lost their homes to Katrina. They stayed there for like 6 years.
Thanks for sharing this. I learned a lot and I was 25 in 2005.
I grew up in Charlotte County Florida and the year before Katrina our town was leveled by hurricane Charlie we basically begged for the hurricane to hit anywhere else. I had just started second grade when Katrina was a thing and I remember feeling so much guilt for wishing other people would be affected by the hurricane and I remember thinking it was crazy that nobody was doing anything to help people.
Like I as a second grader living in temporary housing well most of the schools in our county had just started breaking ground on rebuilding was more aware and empathetic to the needs of New Orleans than the people in power seemed to be
Not to mention it took probably five or six years but after hurricane Charlie our city had so much new growth while not pricing out the residents of the city that by high school a lot of the people my age started referring to it at the best worst thing to ever happen to Charlotte county.
Excellent Video.
I can’t imagine how you felt about you losing everything
Thank you for this lesson.
I was a young kid when this happened. These specific details are news to me.
Thank you for sharing your story ❤️