NEW ORLEANS – On Aug. 26, Greater New Orleans, Inc. (GNO, Inc.) hosted “20 Years After Katrina: Action in the Face of Adversity,” a symposium that brought together civic leaders and community advocates to examine how recovery efforts after the 2005 storm laid the foundation for lasting progress.
Held at the Port of New Orleans, the event opened with remarks from GNO, Inc. President and CEO Michael Hecht, who said memories of the storm remain “very raw” and emphasized that the symposium was intended to be both “instructive and inspirational.”
Government Responds
The first panel, “Public Entities: Government Responds,” was moderated by Kim Boyle, Partner at Phelps Dunbar and recently named Chair-Elect of GNO, Inc.’s Board of Directors Executive Committee. Boyle reminded the audience of the scale of the catastrophe: over one million homes destroyed, 1.2 million people displaced, and tens of thousands of jobs and businesses lost.
“We were called refugees in the national media,” she said. “Refugees in our own city.” She noted that President George W. Bush acknowledged that New Orleans has some of the nation’s most beautiful places, but that it also suffers from deep, persistent poverty and racial inequity that cut people off from opportunity.
Boyle emphasized the question of government’s obligation to help citizens in need. “Many of the people who stayed, the boots on the ground, were people who worked for the city. They feel we haven’t thanked them. Political party affiliation does not count. Everyone had to pull together.”
Gary LaGrange, former President and CEO of the Port of New Orleans, recalled the tense lead-up to landfall. “New Orleans had a preparation plan but not a recovery plan,” he said. After the destruction, Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, called him and asked what he needed. “What he really wanted to know was how soon we could reopen the port.”
Tim Coulon, who chaired the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District, recalled the Dome’s central role in the city’s resilience. “The Superdome had been used twice before during emergencies,” he said. It had served as a public shelter during Hurricane Georges in 1998 and again during Hurricane Ivan in 2004, each time for less than two days. “After Katrina we rebuilt the Dome. Gov. Blanco gets the courage award for remaining non-partisan. The Saints returning was a symbol of the city,” he added, noting that $185 million was spent on the project.
Alden McDonald, then President and CEO of Liberty Bank & Trust Company, described how the disaster nearly wiped out his institution. “We lost the entire bank. The infrastructure was completely gone,” he said. “First thing we had to do was rig up the internet to receive clearance from the federal reserve. Next, we operated out of Baton Rouge—we wrote down on pieces of paper how much money we were giving people and we didn’t dare tell them we didn’t have computer running.” Despite the challenges, he said, “We had to be part of the rebuilding and decision-making process.”
Doris Voitier, Superintendent of the St. Bernard Parish School District, recalled how every school in the parish was destroyed but despite the enormous challenges, she reopened the first school within 11 weeks. She also detailed the harrowing days inside Chalmette High School, which became a shelter for around 1,500 people. “After the levee broke, I saw a wall of water approaching tossing cars like toys,” she said. “We carried people upstairs. We ran out of water and food. Not a single building was left untouched.”
Andy Kopplin, who served as Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s chief of staff and later became founding executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, said the first days were chaotic. “There are people swimming in for help. The roof was ripped off the Superdome. As the Governor's chief of staff, I was playing triage,” he said. State officials and community leaders created the LRA from scratch to coordinate recovery, which Kopplin said was necessary because “the federal government and FEMA were not on task.”
He also provided a breakdown of how roughly $68 billion in federal recovery funding was ultimately spent: $15 billion for levee reconstruction, $13.5 billion for the National Flood Insurance Program, $9.8 billion for roads, drainage and other infrastructure, $9.7 billion for the Road Home program, $7 billion in SBA loans, $4.3 billion for education facilities, $3.2 billion in Community Development Block Grants for infrastructure, $2.8 billion for healthcare facilities, $1 billion for public safety, $800 million for public transit, $500 million for housing, and another $500 million for other needs. The Road Home program, he noted, was the single largest housing recovery program in American history, with 130,000 applicants and an average award of $69,437.
Kopplin is now the President and CEO of the Greater New Orleans Foundation.
Walter Leger Jr., a member of both the LRA and the St. Bernard Citizen’s Recovery Committee, criticized early congressional resistance. He recalled then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert suggesting federal money should only go to areas outside flood zones. “So they were not really planning to cover the cost of recovery,” Leger said, stressing that billions in federal funds for levees and community development ultimately came only after fierce advocacy. “Part of the reason we lost our homes was because the federal government failed to maintain the levees. We did our part because we are Americans.”
Funding, Redlining, and Inequity
Panelists also addressed the unequal distribution of recovery funds. McDonald noted that pre-storm property values in neighborhoods like the Ninth Ward— around $70,000 on average—were far less than the $150,000 needed to rebuild. “The formula for the distribution of funds needed to be changed,” he said.
Leger added that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) later adjusted the formula to allow additional funding for homeowners. Kopplin described the underlying problem: “We had baked-in inequity. It was called redlining. It meant, for example, that there was an inability for black homeowners to build in white neighborhoods. Later, additional compensation grant funds allowed low-income homeowners to get more and while this helped address the issue, it didn’t solve it.”
Lessons for the Future
Asked what advice they would give for future disasters, Voitier was direct: “When there’s a disaster, you have to move forward. You can’t stop and wait for others to come fix things.” Kopplin agreed, citing Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré’s decision to “self-deploy.”
Leger offered a final piece of advice: “Don’t worry about politics. Do what’s right and let the chips fall where they may.”
Community Response
The second panel, “Private Citizens and Organizations: The Community Comes Together,” highlighted grassroots action. Bishop Tom Watson of Watson Memorial Teaching Ministries said, “We don’t lack resources. We lack togetherness. This was a moment of togetherness.”
Anne Milling recounted how she and others founded Women of the Storm to push Washington to act. “Only 25 House of Reps came to see the devastation and only 8-9 Senators. So we chartered a plane and went to Congress,” she said. “Within 29 days we created Women of the Storm, a diverse group of 140 women. The global press were all in town to cover the State of the Union address being held the next day so we received a huge amount of coverage.”
Jay Lapeyre of the Business Council of New Orleans echoed the importance of rebuilding New Orleans in the face of opposition to fully funding it. Quoting an observer, he said: “Without New Orleans we’re Mississippi with bad beaches.”
Closing Reflections
The symposium closed with a keynote by Colette Hirstius, President of Shell USA, and remarks from Hecht, who called the day an opportunity “to reflect on the extraordinary efforts that shaped New Orleans, to honor those who led recovery efforts, and to chart a course for the next 20 years of growth.”
