As survivors and experts reflect on the storm 20 years on, fear is growing that the US is just as unprepared to take on extreme weather amid cuts to Fema
Darren McKinney grew up in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward. When Hurricane Katrina struck 20 years ago this week, he watched his neighborhood wash away. From his second floor apartment, he saw flood waters rise up to his window.
“I had no food at all, no water, no electricity,” he recounted one rainy day this month, while taking a break from his job leading home restoration in the neighborhood as field operations director of the non-profit lowernine.org.
After being trapped inside for four days, city officials rescued McKinney in a boat and dropped him off on a nearby bridge. He was told a military truck would bring him to an emergency shelter in the city’s superdome, but a vehicle never arrived because the shelter reached capacity. He was forced to walk to an evacuation point downtown.
“You had to fend for yourself,” he said. “There just wasn’t enough shelter, wasn’t enough support.”
