OTD in History… August 23, 2005, Hurricane Katrina Forms
By Bonnie K. Goodman, BA, MLIS
On August 23, 2005, a storm was born in the Bahamas that would come to define the twenty-first-century American experience of disaster. At noon, the National Hurricane Center classified it as Tropical Depression Twelve. A swirl of clouds, a routine advisory—yet it marked the beginning of Hurricane Katrina, the storm that would kill over a thousand, displace a million, and leave scars—physical, political, and moral that remain visible two decades later.
Historian Andy Horowitz has written, “Katrina did not just appear out of nowhere. It was the convergence of natural forces and human vulnerability that produced catastrophe.” That convergence began quietly on this day, unnoticed by most Americans.
A Storm’s Humble Beginnings
Katrina began as a tropical wave crossing the Atlantic that merged with the remnants of Tropical Depression Ten. On August 24, the system strengthened and earned a name: Katrina. Within 24 hours, it struck South Florida as a Category 1 hurricane, leaving 14 dead and half a million without power. Floridians saw Katrina as a nuisance, not a cataclysm.
However, once it moved into the Gulf of Mexico, Katrina found waters unusually warm. “The Gulf was a hurricane incubator,” explained meteorologist Kerry Emanuel. “Climate, geography, and chance combined in a dangerous synergy.” The storm rapidly grew to Category 5 strength with winds topping 170 mph.
The March toward the Gulf Coast
- August 26: The National Hurricane Center warned New Orleans was in the storm’s path. Officials used apocalyptic language: “Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks.”
- August 27: Evacuations began. Mayor Ray Nagin told reporters, “We’re facing the storm most of us have feared.” Yet tens of thousands had no cars or money to flee.
- August 28: Katrina reached peak intensity offshore. Nagin issued the first-ever mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, but it came too late for many. Last-resort shelters, such as the Superdome, started to fill up.
A resident of the Lower Ninth Ward, Herbert Freeman, told the New York Times, “They say get out, but where are we going to go? We ain’t got no car. We ain’t got no money. All we can do is pray.”
August 29: Levees Breached, City Drowned
Katrina made landfall at Buras, Louisiana, on August 29 as a Category 3 hurricane. Winds tore off roofs and toppled trees. But the greater catastrophe unfolded as the levees broke. More than 50 breaches in New Orleans’ flood defenses allowed Lake Pontchartrain to pour into the city.
Eighty percent of New Orleans went underwater. Entire neighborhoods vanished beneath brown, toxic water. Survivors climbed to rooftops, waving for help that did not arrive. CNN broadcast live from the Convention Center, showing thousands stranded without food or water. Journalist Anderson Cooper, visibly shaken, told viewers, “These are American citizens abandoned on American soil.”
At the Superdome, conditions deteriorated into chaos. One evacuee described it as “hell on earth — no food, no water, people screaming, sick people dying in their chairs.”
The Human Toll
Katrina killed an estimated 1,200–1,400 people. Most drowned. The elderly were especially vulnerable. In St. Rita’s Nursing Home, 35 residents were abandoned and drowned in their beds.
The displacement was staggering. Over 1 million people fled, creating the largest internal migration since the Dust Bowl. Families scattered to Houston, Atlanta, and even as far as Chicago. Many never returned.
The storm was especially brutal to the poor and African American communities. A later report by the Congressional Research Service noted, “Race and class were central to both vulnerability and recovery. The poor were less likely to evacuate, more likely to lose homes, and slower to receive assistance.”
The Political Fallout
The Bush administration faced harsh criticism for its response. President George W. Bush surveyed the damage from Air Force One, later admitting it was a mistake: “I should have landed.” His remark to FEMA director Michael Brown—“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”—became shorthand for governmental failure.
Mayor Nagin erupted in frustration in a radio interview: “Get off your asses and let’s do something… Don’t tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They’re not here. It’s too doggone late. Now get off your asses and fix this. Let’s do something and let’s fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.”
Historian Douglas Brinkley concluded in The Great Deluge: “Katrina was less a natural disaster than a social and political one. Nature provided the spark, but human failure provided the fuel.”
Voices of Survival
Survivors’ testimonies etched Katrina into memory:
- “We were on the roof for three days. I wrote ‘HELP’ in big white letters. No one came.” — New Orleans resident, quoted in The Times-Picayune.
- “They told us to go to the Convention Center, but when we got there, there was nothing. Just nothing.” — Katrina survivor, CBS News.
- “I saw people dying right in front of me. Not from the storm, but from waiting.” — Resident of the Superdome, Houston Chronicle.
These voices remind us that August 23 was not only about meteorology — it was the opening act of a human disaster.
Remembering August 23
Most anniversaries mark August 29, the day of landfall. But historians must look further back. August 23 was the genesis, the day the storm began to spin. From this unremarkable depression came the tragedy that revealed America’s divisions: rich and poor, Black and white, protected and abandoned.
Horowitz writes, “Katrina is not the story of a single day, but of a century of decisions that shaped how people lived and how they died.” The storm was nature’s work; the disaster was America’s.
Remembering August 23 reminds us that catastrophes rarely begin with cataclysm. They begin with ordinary warnings we do not heed. The storm that formed on this day grew into a mirror, forcing the nation to see itself—not only drowned in water, but in inequality, in neglect, and in promises unkept.
Sources
- Andy Horowitz, Katrina: A History, 1915–2015. Harvard University Press, 2020.
- Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. HarperCollins, 2006.
- National Hurricane Center, Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Katrina, 23–30 August 2005.
- Kerry Emanuel, “Hurricanes and Global Warming.” Nature, 2005.
- Eric Klinenberg, commentary on disasters and inequality.
- Mayor Ray Nagin, WWL-AM radio interview, September 1, 2005.
- Survivor testimonies reported in The Times-Picayune, CNN, CBS News, and Houston Chronicle, 2005.
Bonnie K. Goodman, BA, MLIS, is a historian, librarian, journalist, and artist. She is the author of “On This Day in History…: Significant Events in the American Year,” and “A Constant Battle: McGill University’s Complicated History of Antisemitism and Now anti-Zionism.” She has a BA in History and Art History and a Masters in Library and Information Studies from McGill University. She has done graduate work in Jewish history at Concordia University as part of the MA in Judaic Studies and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as part of their MA in Jewish Education. She contributed to the “History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–2008,” edited by Gil Troy, Arthur M. Schlesinger, and Fred L. Israel (2012). She is the former Features Editor at the History News Network and reporter at Examiner.com, where she covered politics, universities, religion, and news. Her scholarly articles can be found on Academia.edu.
