Covering Katrina: navigating New Orleans in the days after the storm

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: Consider This from NPR

Episode: Covering Katrina: navigating New Orleans in the days after the storm
Date: August 30, 2025
Host: Scott Detrow
Guest: Greg Allen, NPR Correspondent

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. Host Scott Detrow speaks with NPR correspondent Greg Allen, who was on the ground covering the events in 2005. Together, they reflect on the immediate aftermath, the evolving understanding of the disaster, the governmental failures, and the enduring impact on the city—especially marginalized communities. The episode explores how the story unfolded for reporters and what’s changed (and what hasn’t) after two decades.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Initial Reporting and Underestimation

• Initial Perceptions (03:21–03:38): After Katrina made landfall, many—including journalists—initially believed New Orleans had "dodged a bullet" due to a perceived lack of extreme flooding.
  • Archive Reporting: “A survey downtown shows nearly every building sustained damage from Katrina’s winds. Despite that, the good news is that the extreme flooding feared from a storm surge didn’t materialize here...” — Greg Allen (03:21)
• The Reality Emerges (03:44–05:15): Overnight, it became clear that levee breaches were driving catastrophic flooding. Many reporters and residents realized the danger only the next morning.
  • Greg Allen: “We didn’t really understand at that point how bad it was because … we didn’t learn until the next morning when we woke up that there had been levy breaches.” (03:44)
  • On the ground account: Albertine Arceneaux recalls: “Last night when I went to bed, I didn’t have no water in front of my door … This morning when I woke up, my house has water in it.” (04:54)

Chaos and Desperation in the City

• Total Chaos (06:05–06:26): Greg Allen describes a city without power, with impassable roads and overwhelmed emergency services.
  • Greg Allen (Archive): “Throughout New Orleans, the scene is one of almost total chaos. There’s no power. Trees, debris and rising water make many roads impassable. Police and emergency officials are overwhelmed…” (06:05)

Systemic Failures and Inequality

• Government Response & Long-Term Lessons (07:17–08:09): Discussion of inadequate disaster response and historical implications—how FEMA’s weakened role and faulty federal designs led to catastrophic failures.
  • Greg Allen: “On the other hand, a lot of our public policy behaves like [Katrina] never happened … it was the federal government’s design of the levees that turned out to be somewhat faulty ..."
  • “You can say it was a lack of preparation. And then also the responses … the response was just not there.” (07:17)
• Racial and Economic Inequalities (06:26–07:17): Katrina exposed and worsened preexisting divides—Black neighborhoods, like the Lower Ninth Ward, disproportionately suffered both in immediate damage and in the recovery that followed.

The Lingering Impact and Uneven Recovery

• Ongoing Struggles in the Lower Ninth Ward (08:21–09:42):
  • Greg Allen: “Lower 9th Ward ... was a strong African American middle class community before Katrina [and] is [now] a quarter of the population it had back then … when I go there, I see the failures. ... They’re living in a, on a street where they used to have 20 neighbors and now they have four.”
  • He contrasts his more somber view with that of his colleague John Burnett, who praises the food and culture, acknowledging that “New Orleans has come back in so many ways. But for a lot of people, it’s just not the same city it was before Katrina.” (09:37)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Storm On Approach

  • “It is gorgeous, it’s sunny, and it is hard to believe that 12 hours from now or 24 hours from now, I mean, it will be anything but what I’ve just described. A Category 5 hurricane bears down on New Orleans.”
    — Greg Allen (00:11)

• Archival Eyewitness

  • “This morning when I woke up, my house has water in it. ... I don't know how to swim.”
    — Albertine Arceneaux (04:54)

• Reflection on Government’s Role

  • “A lot of our public policy behaves like it never happened … the federal government’s failure actually created this situation.”
    — Greg Allen (07:17)

• The Lower 9th Ward

  • “You talk to people who are trying to make a go of it and you feel for them because they’re living on a street where they used to have 20 neighbors and now they have four.”
    — Greg Allen (08:21)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–01:17: Setting up the scale and anticipation of Katrina
• 03:21–03:38: Archival reporting, initial sense of relief
• 03:44–05:15: The realization of flooding and human stories
• 06:05–06:26: Chaotic conditions across New Orleans
• 07:17–08:09: Federal failures and implications
• 08:21–09:42: The Lower Ninth Ward's continuing struggles

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Tone & Language

The conversation is direct and reflective—Allen provides visceral, on-the-ground recollections layered with years of perspective. The episode balances empathetic storytelling (such as Albertine Arceneaux’s firsthand account) with critical analysis of policy failures and systemic inequity. Detrow guides the discussion with sensitivity and an acute understanding of the broader national context.

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Conclusion

This commemorative episode provides an unflinching look at the chaos, governmental shortcomings, and deeply unequal aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Through Greg Allen’s memories and reporting, listeners are reminded not just of the immediate devastation but of the ways in which the storm permanently reshaped New Orleans—particularly for its Black and working-class residents. Katrina’s legacy, as the episode underscores, endures in the city’s culture, scars, and in the nation’s collective memory.

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Transcript

[Scott Detrow]

20 years ago this week, NPR reported on one of the most catastrophic natural disasters in American history.

[Greg Allen]

It is gorgeous, it's sunny, and it is hard to believe that 12 hours from now or 24 hours from now, I mean, it will be anything but what I've just Described. A Category 5 hurricane bears down on New Orleans.

[NPR Announcer]

It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.

[Scott Detrow]

Hurricane Katrina. As the storm approached, Gulf coast communities prepared for the worst.

[Greg Allen]

I was based in Kansas City for NPR at that time and got the call from one of our managing editors. You know, can you go? And it was clear to all of us that this was the big one.

[Scott Detrow]

Correspondent Greg Allen was in New Orleans for npr. He had reported on storms before, but this one was clearly different.

[Greg Allen]

I'd never covered a hurricane where there had been that much anticipation and, you know, dreadful beforehand.

[Scott Detrow]

Katrina was shaping up to be a monster of a storm, and many worried about the scale of the destruction. In New Orleans, a city that on average sits several feet below sea level.

[Greg Allen]

The belief was that the entire city was likely to flood. You know, there'd been a number of stories about how vulnerable New Orleans was to flooding from a big hurricane like this.

[Scott Detrow]

Consider this. Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans 20 years ago, and in some ways the city has never fully recovered. NPR's Greg Allen reflects on covering the catastrophe. From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow.

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[Scott Detrow]

It's consider this from NPR 20 years ago, NPR correspondent Greg Allen was on the ground in New Orleans reporting on Hurricane Katrina. For this week's Reporter's Notebook, I asked Greg about what it was like in New Orleans in those days after the storm. And we started our conversation with by returning to the archives. In this segment from August 29, 2005, you will hear Greg reporting on how at first people seem to think New Orleans had caught a break.

[Greg Allen (Archive Reporting)]

A survey downtown shows nearly every building sustained damage from Katrina's winds. Despite that, the good news is that the extreme flooding feared from a storm surge didn't materialize here. Just before she hit land, Katrina turned slightly east, a factor that may have eased the damage to the city.

[Scott Detrow]

The storm hits and people think New.

[Scott Detrow (Interviewer)]

Orleans dodged a bullet. Take me through what happened next from, from your memory, from your point of view.

[Greg Allen]

Right. I mean, a lot. It's, it's really not, of course, not our finest moment because what happens is that the storm had veered toward Mississippi and actually did terrible damage in Mississippi, a 38 foot storm surge there. We knew that, that Louisiana did not get that large storm surge. So because of that, you have this sense, oh, we've dodged a bullet. So we didn't really understand at that point how bad it was because it, we didn't learn until the next morning when we woke up that there had been levy breaches. And I think, I think some people knew, I mean, people were being rescued from rooftops on that first day as it hit. And we weren't aware of that, though.

[Scott Detrow (Interviewer)]

The reason we played that, though, is because that was by and large the initial view of a lot of people covering. And right. That wasn't, that wasn't unique to us. It was just a sense. And it's also, it's just hard as we talk about in the middle of stories like this, it's hard to get a full sense of the scope of things. But, but you're reporting more information's coming in and it is clear that there is catastrophic flooding, that levees have broken. I want to play something from your reporting on August 30th. This wasn't all Things Considered.

[Greg Allen (Archive Reporting)]

Albertine Arceneaux lives in the B.W. cooper Housing Project, an aging complex of two story brick buildings. She was one of many out this morning surveying the rising flood waters.

[Albertine Arceneaux]

Last night when I went to bed, I didn't have no water in front of my door.

[Greg Allen]

We didn't have no water out here.

[Albertine Arceneaux]

This morning when I woke up, my house has water in it. I'm in the next block, the 3600 block. I have water.

[Greg Allen]

What floor are you on?

[Albertine Arceneaux]

I'm on the first. My apartment is like, it's the first and second. I'll have to spend the night on the second floor. If I stay the night, I don't know how to swim.

[Greg Allen]

That was the day after the storm. We were able to go out and as soon as we went out, we could kind of see, see that the water was coming in. And I was there with the producer Mathoni Maturi, who you could hear there. And we parked our car. We were talking some of these folks at this public housing complex. And then we, I looked over and our car, which would been on dry pavement, suddenly was in a puddle. Water was coming in. And so we realized that we only had a limited amount of time before we had to actually move because our car could be flooded itself. And that's when you started to get a sense people were realizing the water was coming in and we didn't know how high it was going to get and how much in danger we might be.

[Scott Detrow (Interviewer)]

And I feel like we're kind of tracking the progress of the story through clips of your reporting. I want to play something from this moment you're describing where you talk about what you're seeing as total chaos in New Orleans.

[Greg Allen (Archive Reporting)]

Throughout New Orleans, the scene is one of almost total chaos. There's no power. Trees, debris and rising water make many roads impassable. Police and emergency officials are overwhelmed on Earhart Boulevard, not far from the Superdome. A man lay on the side of the road today dead, his body covered by plastic sheeting. Residents said police said they'd handle it later.

[Scott Detrow (Interviewer)]

Katrina was a story that was about so many things. It was about the widespread devastation of American city. It was this very clear look at income inequality in the country and racial inequality, the way that black neighborhoods sustained so much more damage than white neighborhoods in New Orleans. But it was also a story about widespread distrust of government. And I feel like Katrina was one of those first moments where it was clear the government was not able to get the job done right. You saw George W. Bush's administration really crater and never recover after this. You saw so many other things, just the FEMA's failure to be helpful, the chaos that you saw. I'm wondering what you make of government's role in this and what the legacy is so many years later from what you saw on that initial trip and in follow up reporting.

[Greg Allen]

Well, you know, of course the biggest surprise is how, you know, these kind of things happen like Katrina and you, and you wonder if people really remembered, I think the popular consciousness people do remember. But on the other hand, a lot of our public policy behaves like it never happened. You know, I mean, what happened with, with Katrina? As you well know, this was a time when the George W. Bush administration had looked to downgrade the role of fema and they said much the same thing we're hearing now about that it's really up to states to do this, to respond to, to disasters. And to a certain extent it was the federal government's design of the levees that turned out to be somewhat faulty and that led these levy failures which, which led to the, to the flooding. So the federal government's failure actually created this situation. And so you can say it was a lack of preparation. And then also the responses as we've discussed, the response was, was just not there.

[Scott Detrow (Interviewer)]

Katrina is the story of what happened that week and it's the story of the long, slow rebuilding process. Is there one story reporting trip that, that that is most mem. About the rebuilding?

[Greg Allen]

Well, you know, the problem is as a reporter is that sometimes you, you go to places where the, the need is greatest. There's a story to tell. So I've spent a lot of time in Lower Ninth Ward over the last 20 years. I've got gone there for several stories and you know, in some ways it's not indicative of New Orleans as a whole because Lower 9th Ward is a special case. It was always, I mean it was a strong African American middle class community before Katrina is never come back. It's like a, a quarter of the population it had back then. But that's, those are the stories that stick with you because you, because I remember what it was like before. And then you go there and it's just after 20 years you think it might never come back. And so you know, you talk to people who are trying to make a go of it and you feel for them because they're living in a, on a street where they used to have 20 neighbors and now they have four. You know, and there used to be a bar down the corner, a church down the corner, a school down this other corner. And none of those things are there even now because the population is not there to sustain. And so I, I, when I go there I see the, the failures. I've talked to my colleague John Burnett, who, who covered at the same time and he's much more positive I am, he spends more time going back there and, and he says the food's great, the culture is great. And I, I think he's right. New Orleans has come back in so many ways. But unfortunately, there, for a lot of people, it's just, it's just not the same cities it was before Katrina.

[Scott Detrow (Interviewer)]

And here's Greg Allen, who covered Hurricane Katrina 20 years ago. Thank you for talking to us about what you remember from that really terrible week.

[Greg Allen]

You're welcome.

[Scott Detrow]

This episode was Produced by Kai McNamee. It was edited by Adam Raney. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. It's considered this from npr. I'm Scott Detrow.

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