I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005

I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005 weaves a fictional story about Barry Tucker and his family’s survival with the real-life impacts of Hurricane Katrina. Although the book is a work of fiction, author Lauren Tarshis creates a realistic portrayal of Hurricane Katrina’s impacts, specifically the impact of this natural disaster on the New Orleans community. The novel explores how community members banded together to support one another during and after the storm, and ultimately how the government’s inaction exacerbated the impacts of the hurricane.

Natural disasters have far-reaching impacts on affected communities. Hurricane Katrina is no exception. Displacement was a major impact of Hurricane Katrina on the New Orleans area: “80 percent of the city was covered with water filled with toxic chemicals and waste. The city’s 440,000 residents were scattered all around the country” (98). However, author Lauren Tarshis makes a point in her afterword, “After the Storm: Questions about Katrina,” that the impact of natural disasters on communities is often not unilateral, with inequitable access to recovery efforts and resources.

Tarshis questions how much government inaction worsened the impact of the hurricane, as it was slow to send aid to New Orleans residents, and the obvious warning signs that had been ignored by those in charge: “For many years before Hurricane Katrina, experts had warned that levees in New Orleans were not strong enough to withstand a powerful hurricane” (97). Tarshis alludes to the role that bias played in this slow action or unwillingness to address the faulty levee system, since the levee systems surrounded mostly low-income neighborhoods with the majority of residents being people of color.

As a result of this inaction, the impacts of the storm were worse than perhaps they could have been. For example, Tarshis points out that while many residents have since returned to New Orleans, “In some of the poorest and hardest-hit neighborhoods, recovery has been painfully slow. [...] Much of the Lower Nine is still abandoned. Only 19 percent of that neighborhood’s residents have returned” (99). Barry acknowledges the reputation of The Lower Ninth Ward in the text: “There were better neighborhoods in New Orleans, [but] Barry couldn’t walk half a block without someone shouting hello from a porch [...] The Lower Nine was home. And that was that” (13). Tarshis made a conscious choice to set her characters’ home in The Lower Ninth Ward, home to many people who were never able to return.

To contrast the government’s inaction, Tarshis illustrates how communities respond to the impacts of natural disasters: an upswell of community care efforts. In the text, the members of the New Orleans community work together to support one another during and after the storm, mirroring the real-life efforts of New Orleans citizens’ actions while government entities like FEMA failed in many ways to support its citizens. Nell in her small rescue boat is one clear example of this sense of community care: “Thousands of people were rescued from their rooftops and attics, often by volunteers like Nell” (97). In the text, Nell tells Barry that she has already rescued more than 30 people, while Barry is disappointed to see the lack of coordinated and organized rescue efforts:

Even from far away, Barry could see that there were no tents. No flashing lights or police cars or fire engines or ambulances. Other boats—little boats, like Nell’s—pulled up the bridge, let people off, and then headed back out into the water (81).

These small independent rescue efforts contrast with more organized recovery and rescue efforts, like those at the Superdome, which were plagued with issues, leaving nearly 50,000 people stranded in the heat, with not enough food and water, for five days before adequate help arrived. The Tucker family, instead of going to the Superdome, go to Dave’s club, Lightning’s, where they can receive food, water, and shelter before evacuating New Orleans.

While the impacts of Hurricane Katrina on the New Orleans community will leave an impression on the city and its residents, Tarshis concludes her text on a hopeful and positive note: “Barry knew they would go back to New Orleans, where they belonged. When would that be? When would their city be healed? [...] He already knew the answer. One day. One day” (96). Indeed, New Orleans has largely returned to its former glory as “[s]eventy-five percent of residents have returned. To many visitors, the city seems as vibrant as it always was” (98-99). Still, the lessons from the storm and its faulty recovery response offer lasting lessons about equitable access to resources, storm preparedness, and the strength of communities to withstand the impacts of natural disasters.