Hurricane Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29, 2005. It remains one of the largest and deadliest natural disasters to hit the United States. Twenty years later, Pulitzer Prize winner Trymaine Lee continues to report on the lasting effects of the storm with his new documentary, Hope in High Water: A People’s Recovery Twenty Years After Hurricane Katrina.
Once a New Orleans resident and local reporter, Lee was in the thick of the storm. As the streets filled with water, he reported. As thousands of people were herded into the convention center and Superdome, he reported. Lee continues to tell the story of the people of the Gulf Coast 20 years later. Lee spoke withBLACK ENTERPRISEabout Hope in High Water, his forthcoming book, and the resilience of people.
BE: You first reported on Hurricane Katrina as part of the Times-Picayune newsroom. Two decades later, what struck you most when you returned to New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast?
How much progress remained? There are so many spaces in this city that have yet to be filled 20 years later. Folks are still grappling to put the pieces of their lives back together again.
What stuck with me in an even deeper way is the resolve of people, despite losing everything. Folks are finding ways to step up for their community. They find ways to heal themselves.
BE: The documentary focuses on health, education, food access, and environmental survival. Why were these particular areas chosen to frame the story of recovery?
I think in this film, we go from birth, maternal health care, and then move through how we experience life after we’re born — through education, through policing, through the carceral system. What it means to have access to food security. And then what it means to fight and preserve land from industry and erosion, but also for the next generation, because we are deeply tied to the land. With our bare hands, our blood, our sweat, we are part of this.
So, in telling the bigger story of how Black folks, Black New Orleanians, experience all these things, it made sense to travel through those circles with people who are doing amazing, important work to help heal their communities.
BE: Which do you believe is the most immediate issue?
I really think that food security is probably one of the most pressing issues in this country, and it’s an obscenity that we have hungry children in America.
Source: 20-Years After Hurricane Katrina, Trymaine Lee Highlights ‘Hope In High Water’
Recent Comments