Too Soon? Hell, No! New Hurricane Katrina Documentary Forces A Reckoning

Last Updated on: 28th July 2025, 10:36 am

In one of those curious coincidences of timing, the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is upon us scant weeks after a devastating flash flood swept through central Texas leaving at least 160 bodies in its path. Katrina was an early warning of more frequent powerful storms and lethal floods in a warming climate. Twenty years later, the one-two punch of complacency and resource insufficiency persists, but filmmaker Ryan Coogler is among those determined to reignite the memory of Katrina, its lessons, and its survivors.

Hurricane Katrina: It’s Not The Wind, It’s The Water

Coogler — best known today for the hit movie Sinners — joined his production company Proximity Media with Lightbox to collaborate on a new five-part documentary about the disaster and its aftermath. Titled, Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time, the series premiered in full July 27 on National Geographic with streaming to follow on Disney+ and Hulu today.

With director Traci A. Curry at the helm, the documentary unearths lost stories of survival, selflessness, and community, honing them into a suffering-sharpened scalpel that digs deeper into the more well known tales of across-the-board failures in planning, policy, and public education.

Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana as a Category 3 hurricane. At first the word of the day was relief, because forecasters initially tracked the storm as a far more powerful Category 5 event. However, the worst was yet to come. When the body count concluded, more than 1,800 people were dead, but not because of wind-related injuries. Flooding was the proximate cause, spooling out from the storm’s landfall on August 29 into August 30, when floodwaters breached a key levee and surged into New Orleans like a stopped-up bathtub.

Thousands of residents thought they were in the clear after landfall passed, but they were suddenly trapped when the levees were breached. Many drowned in their homes or succumbed to the stress of waiting on rooftops for rescue, exposed to the elements. The flooding had transformed a normal storm recovery period into a days-long struggle to stay alive.

Breaking Down Disaster, Story By Story

Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time reclaims powerful stories of survival and mutual aid from the media-driven narrative of looting and chaos that followed the flooding. The first-hand accounts continue throughout the series against the backdrop of a disaster response system in crisis:

Episode 1. The Coming Storm: As a Category 5 storm barrels towards Louisiana, a delayed evacuation gets under way but many are left behind, trapped.

Episode 2. Worst Case Scenario: After Hurricane Katrina sweeps through New Orleans, the levees are breached.

Episode 3. A Desperate Place: On Day Three of the flooding, thousands remain trapped and rescue operations are under way 24/7.

Episode 4. Shoot to Kill: Day after day, residents struggle to save themselves and each other as evacuation efforts continue to stall. With thousands still stranded at home, at the Superdome and the convention center, and along the interstate, violence erupts and militias add to the chaos.

Episode 5. Wake Up Call: Residents are finally able to make their way out of the city en mass. “As they navigate the uncertainty of how and when they might restore their lives, a plan for a new New Orleans takes shape. The future of the devastated city hangs in the balance as its residents struggle to return, rebuild and restart their lives even 20 years later,” National Geographic recounts.

Focus On Response

Of course, nothing can stop a hurricane or any other storm. Storms happen all the time, and even with today’s weather forecasting and tracking technology, the unexpected can happen. Last September, for example, Hurricane Helene caused 108 deaths, but nowhere near any coast. The storm hit the western mountains of North Carolina near the Tennessee border, dumping 12-20″ of rain in a matter of hours. The ground was already softened by a previous rainfall and more than 100 people died in the resulting floods.

Still, one key lesson of Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time is the responsibility of public officials, from the local level on up to the White House, to respond quickly to the worst case scenario that nature — or humans — can devise. Hurricane Katrina followed just a few years after the World Trade Center attack of September 11, 2001. In combination, those two events helped to spur renewed attention on federal involvement in as well as interstate emergency response and mutual aid.

Coordinating emergency response has become more complex year by year as the impacts of climate change add a new element of unpredictability and ferociousness to weather events, demanding even more public resources and more attention at a national level. Although this year’s abrupt shift in federal policy threatens to stall those efforts if not reverse them, perhaps Coogler and his partners can help jolt the US electorate into nudging their elected officials back on track.

Focus On The Future

The city-country divide has persisted throughout modern human history and Hurricane Katrina was an urban disaster, which may help explain why the Katrina wake-up call faded off the boards of national policy makers. The more recent lethal flooding events in the countryside of North Carolina and Texas could help jolt the nation back into consciousness, though that remains to be seen.

Still, the need for a coordinated public response is growing with each degree of climate warming. Flash floods are already described as the “number one storm-related killer in the United States” by the National Weather Service. While severe storms like Hurricane Katrina can kill many people in their homes or other shelters, NWS notes that traveling during flash flood conditions is an ongoing hazard.

“Too often, people decide against finding a detour and attempt to pass over a flooded roadway because they believe they can safely make it,” NWS explains, pointing out that drivers can easily lose control of their cars in just 6 inches of water, and be swept away entirely in as little as 18 inches. According to NWS, on average almost half of flash flood deaths involve vehicles.

The 30-year average for flash flood deaths in the US stands at about 127 per year. Those numbers are all but certain to climb as flooding events increase and the temperature of the Earth continues to rise. Climate professionals advise that a timely and solid regimen of energy decarbonization and responsive infrastructure will keep the worst case scenario at bay. If public policy fails to make that pivot, we are all Katrina now.

Photo (cropped): “Hurricane Katrina survivors arrive at the Houston Astrodome Red Cross Shelter after being evacuated from New Orleans. Thousands of survivors are at the Astrodome after the Superdome became unsafe following the levee breaks in New Orleans. Credit: FEMA photo/Andrea Booher).