Twenty years after Katrina, experts warn disaster readiness lags in the US.
By Joseph Stepansky
Washington, DC – Twenty years ago, the floodwalls protecting the city of New Orleans crumbled when Hurricane Katrina made landfall, killing almost 1,500 people.
Scenes of desperation were broadcast worldwide on August 29, 2005, from across the southern United States city of about 500,000 people, particularly from its inundated and predominantly Black Ninth Ward.
The storm, which targeted Gulf Coast states and killed more than 1,800 people in total, was the third deadliest hurricane on the US mainland since 1900. It quickly became a mass displacement event often compared to the Great Plains exodus during the 1930s Dust Bowl.
