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New Orleans still reeling 10 years after Katrina

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (2nd L) and other officials bow their heads in prayer during an event to remember the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina at the New Orleans Katrina Memorial on August 29, 2015. (AFP photo)

New Orleans, Louisiana, is still beset with many problems 10 years after Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the city, killing almost 2,000 people.

A weak economy and low-paid jobs in the city whose population is predominantly African American are symptomatic of the fact that the area has not bounced back even after a decade.

Many black residents still struggle and the neighborhood still has some of the lowest rates of people who returned after the storm.

“I think a lot of people have been kind of hunkering down and feeling ambivalent at best,” said Justin Wolfe, a history professor at Tulane University there. “It feels like we’re this spectacle, and yet in all that spectacle, the horror of so much of what happened, the tribulation but also how many people ended up on the wrong side of that story, that gets lost.”

New Orleans residents walk through chest deep floodwater after Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Louisiana coast on Monday, Aug. 29, 2005.

Protecting the city against the next Katrina still remains a challenge. Officials wonder whether to spend the $50 billion it will take to restore South Louisiana’s wetlands and improve New Orleans’ flood-protection infrastructure.

On Saturday, ceremonies were held across the city to mark the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, with state and local officials gathering in New Orleans and paying tribute to the victims of the disaster.

"Though they are unnamed, they are not unclaimed because we claim them," said Mayor Landrieu, who led a tribute to the 83 unidentified victims whose bodies lie in mausoleums at the city's Hurricane Katrina Memorial.

As the most expensive natural disaster, Katrina displaced one million people and caused severe destruction along the Gulf coast.

 


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