Texas quick to help Katrina victims
Even 10 years later, there are two common narratives about Hurricane Katrina. One focuses on the destruction that almost wiped out one of the country’s most beloved cities: New Orleans. The other narrative is about the horrifying conditions endured by New Orleans’ poorest and most vulnerable residents for days as a result of the ineptitude of local, state and federal governments.
Not as often recounted, however, are the ways Louisiana’s neighbor, Texas, rallied to help those displaced by the deadly storm.
Katrina was “the single most catastrophic natural disaster in U.S. history,” according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It wreaked havoc in all five coastal states along the Gulf and killed 1,833 people – with 238 and 1,577 deaths in Mississippi and Louisiana, respectively. The majority of Louisiana’s deaths were reported in New Orleans.
It was the magnitude of Katrina — a Category 3 hurricane that made landfall in the Mississippi-Louisiana border — that weakened and overtopped New Orleans’ levee defense system, causing more than 80 percent of the city to flood.
For years before Katrina hit, engineers and emergency planners warned that the city’s fragile levee system would not shield New Orleans in the event of a hurricane the scale of Katrina. The warnings came again in the days leading up to the storm. To be adequately prepared, it would require the city, state and federal agencies to work together. A proper plan would include enough transportation to evacuate residents who had no vehicles, as well as provide temporary shelter — including food, water and basic necessities — and a plan to sustain law and order for those who remained. Any such preparations did not materialize in time for Katrina.
On Aug. 28, then-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation and then designated the city’s convention center and the Louisiana Superdome football stadium – which would be severely damaged in the storm — as temporary shelters. However, the city failed to plan for enough food, water and buses to help transport as many as 100,000 people. The next day, the main levee broke and the city began to flood.
Help took days to arrive for those stranded atop their homes, in the streets and in the city’s shelters as federal and state agencies wrestled with legalities and logistics. As a result, desperation and fear led to looting and violence.
The images of the human tragedy caused by the hurricane are unforget- table: weak elderly patients carried to safety on makeshift cots, fatigued families walking in waist-deep water to drier ground, and mothers cradling their children in a sea of chaos and rubble. Tears streaming down the faces of men, women and children.
In a matter of hours, the vibrant city known for its music, food and zest for life resembled a war zone.
Many Texans, including then-Gov. Rick Perry, who watched the aftermath unfold, felt compelled to help.
Perry asked Texas leaders to open facilities, including the Astrodome in Houston and Toney Burger Center in Austin, as shelter for thousands of hurricane victims.
“We are all in this together, “Perry said at the time. “We will continue to do what it takes, from offering assistance to offering prayers, to get through this together, as one American family.” It was one of Perry’s finer moment.
The people of Texas did more than provide the basics; they went the extra mile.
In Austin, under the direction of then-Mayor Will Wynn, thousands of evacuees were provided with clothes, food and bedding at the Austin Convention Center. The Palmer Events Center was hastily converted into a medical facility that also offered victims a place to sleep, shower and begin a process of relocation. Nonprofits jumped in to help provide housing, social and medical services. And thousands of Central Texans donated time and money to help evacuees who fled to this region and to help those who stayed behind in New Orleans.
Texas schools opened their doors to more than 21,000 school-age evacuees from Gulf Coast states ravaged by the hurricane. The day the Austin Convention Center shelter opened, representatives from the Austin school district were on site to help families begin the enrollment process for students. Many students came from poor-performing schools in Louisiana, making it challenging for their teachers in Texas to help them “catch up.”
Embracing victims of Hurricane Katrina was easy for Texans. Generosity and compassion is what we do best in times of tragedy.
New Orleans and other Gulf Coast areas damaged by the hurricane continue on their road to rebuild. Redesigned levees and flood walls are more resilient against storms and low-category hurricanes. Better coordinated disaster response plans have been developed. Still, there are no guarantees for the Gulf Coast, part of Hurricane Alley. Though Texans wouldn’t hesitate to step up again, we hope to never face another Katrina again.